Credit: Muhammad Shabbir
(Be the change that you want to see in this World)
As if from ever, we have managed to admit, even perpetually criticize, the hollow moralities that we possess as a society, yet never quite admitting the existence of the same in ourselves as individuals. Unfortunately I realized this not by mere observation but by the bitter truth hitting really hard in my face.
That eventful afternoon, I was sitting with my friend in a restaurant discussing, well not heroic or honorable topics, but the simple miseries we faced, and those too more like platitudes of lack of so
me comforts rather than dearth of some basic necessities. Little did we know that just a few moments later we would be facing a pair of gunmen bent on relieving us of whatever monetarily valuable possessions we happened to have. Yet there we were offering anything and everything that we could to save our lives. The process of being robbed was not as shocking as it was strange. They were committing the act as if they were selling some product which we weren't expected to live without. As I offered my mobile, I took up the courage to ask for the SIM, a plea which was politely rejected. Yes politely. In fact the whole deed was done without a single word of rudeness from either side, we of course not at all being in a position to express ourselves. They on their part intended not to ruin their sadistic fulfillment by spitting out abuses.
After being looted we both were filled with anger. I was angry at almost every fabric that made up our society. The police, the onlookers of the event, the government and of course the thugs. I had a sudden sympathy with the thousands who got robbed of their belongings this way. I thought of the poor people who lost their entire days, weeks or even months earnings in a single moment. But then the realization struck. I wasn't concerned with justice. It was all a collection of feelings of revenge and its side affects that I felt. The real grief I felt was for my own loss. I had known people who had been robbed and I had been sorry for them but I had never really felt this way.
Then I realized that we all use the universal moral virtues of prudence, justice, temperance, fortitude, faith, hope & charity not as the codes governing our lives but rather as tools of personal well being. As pathetic as it may seem, me generalizing the newly founded vice in myself over to my whole society, the fact remains that it is all true. And I am not even talking about the general hypocrisies found at the higher level like politicians, themselves former Justice Department abusers, coming to the rescue of the Judiciary or the people burning mobile connections as a protest against the Denmark cartoon scandal and buy-backing the same connections when offered a better package or the general welcome given by the people to all the military dictators to power and the disgraceful removal of the same in the name of democracy.
It is the definition of a vice that one cannot tolerate it when one is at its receiving end. We don't really care about people dying from hunger or we wouldn't be wasting food in our wedding ceremonies. We don't see it as a vice because we don't suffer from hunger. We loathe the racial discrimination that we face in foreign countries yet we racially profile other people of our own country. We don't realize that we are harsh with our juniors until our Boss scolds us. We look for short cuts, we bribe our way, we use friends' and family's influence, we lie through our teeth, we plead and we threaten because it is much easier way to get things done. And then suddenly we talk about the evils of bribery, nepotism and social manipulations just because some other person beat us in the game.
This hypocrisy doesn't just somehow magically appear up there but has roots in our very homes when a father says to his son suspecting him to be lying "Solemnly declare my child that all of your life you'll say the truth, the complete truth, nothing but the truth so help you God" and the next moment asks him to lie to the unwanted visitor "Tell him I am not home". We have a gross talent of criticizing other people for the same inadequacies and flaws that corrupt our own characters. We believe that every thing, as morally wrong as it may be, is doable if we can just find enough of other people as examples for justification. It is not uncommon for us to hear the phrase "So what, everyone does it".
No. Everyone doesn't. All it requires is an opening of the eyes. People with enough strength of character and firm moral principles don't. All we need is a firm belief in the general principles of good regardless of other people's belief in it. We need to act justly, truthfully and courageously without trying to count the benefits we can achieve from it. Any society which adheres to such principles never faces the fear of destruction or extinction. It is an Islamic teaching that faithless (nonreligious) societies can survive but hypocritical and unjust ones cannot. So let us try to shun the moral hollowness that we posses and adhere to the principles of human virtues for the survival of our society and its honor.
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