By Betty Sisay Hishe
bettyhishe18@gmail.com
People have many reasons to associate and weigh things to the level of their exposure and experience. Exposure and experience are the driving factors to change the level of understanding of individuals. The more we strive to know, the simpler we grow up. Despite that we all have personalized opinion on similar facts, there are also well examined parts of life that receive general consensus.
I was smiling alone when I listened to a story told by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed on TV. It was about the response of a man who loves to drink, to the story of a dying worm in alcohol. The experiment of the doctor who was putting the same worm in water and in alcohol consecutively was I believe to educate his audience by using scare tactic. He showed them the worm emerging out of the glass of water comfortably swimming and later swiftly dying when immersed in to a glass of an alcohol tincture. Many might have brought the context to their habitual action of drinking and felt bad when they watched a worm shrinking in alcohol. It is an automatic response of the common person to experience a chilling fear. However, it was a good news in the eye of the man who drinks fire alcohol (አረቄ = homemade distilled alcohol in Ethiopia) every day. He believed that he was not wasting his money by drinking አረቄ every day. He felt good by thinking about the usefulness of Alcohol to kill the imaginary worms in his stomach…etc. It is how we look at things that gives a shape to an object or to the nature of facts.
It is hard to generalize on such vast philosophical assessment, but there could be a consensus that the above stated factors have great significance in molding our thoughts and possibly our future.
I was born in Ethiopia and raised in Canada. In Ethiopia, when I was a child, my parents used to like someone who says good things about me. As a baby or a small child, being kissed on the chicks by a stranger was also part of the acceptable (tolerable) practices in the nation. Such a beautiful culture of trust and living together could lead someone to imprisonment in North America. I heard about a man from Ethiopia who immigrated to Canada and became subject of police investigation, for holding a running child in a public park and for just kissing her on her chicks. He was expecting appreciation and warm greetings from the mother of the child, but she had to call 911 and put him under legal scrutiny. I believe that the Canadian police force is one of the most refined agencies in the world, for handling cases with care and courtesy, not only to be just and fair, but also to prevent the fragility of societal attitude. The erroneous Ethiopian man must have been relieved from serious charges, after careful listening to his version of the story, by the police officers. They did not want to rush the man to jail. They allowed him to explain about the situation. He was provided with translation service. He narrated all what he did and told them about the culture and normalcy of such an act in his native land, Ethiopia.
This is simple example to show how things are normal somewhere and could lead us to serious punishment including death on the other side of the planet. Idea is also like that. Some people teach us to believe that there is no right and wrong, except the social accord to classify things in either of the two extremes. The variance between thoughts and perceptions should have served the society by encouraging us to debate and know more. Nonetheless, in reality differences of ideas are the leading causes of conflicts and disconnect, in almost all kinds of people. We seem like we are losing tolerance to listen to a different idea. Dogmatism is growing bigger and bigger, to the level of not allowing the liberty of others to live, when they hold different view. Inflexible people live like the normal floras of the intestine, until they hold or accumulate power. As soon as they get the power they need, it takes them short time to become perilous and annihilative.
Sometimes, I imagine that we human beings have taken the wrong path, to examine and understand things. I have a justifiable reason to believe so. According to some scriptures, in ancient times, people were living in a less civilized atmosphere and still they were capable of writing so many philosophical thoughts that are used as corner stones to the ideas of our era. Most of the philosophies and ideologies that we rely on today were created either in the ancient or during the medieval age. We have been taught that through time man transforms towards the level of complex organism with higher knowledge and consciousness. Though, it is hard to set a benchmark, assuming the nature and degree of our communication today, we did not grow in favor of scientific predictions/expectations.
Many people contemplate that communication is part of the routine social interaction with less significance. It reminds me about a man who was offended by his nephew’s choice of study. His nephew graduated with MA degree in communication. The man was probably thinking about some kind of telephone conversation or telemarketing when hearing the term communication. He blamed his nephew by saying “you spend two years of your life abroad to study communication? That is so stupid idea.” His nephew had no choice but to smile, instead of wasting his time to educate the ignorant uncle about communication. In reality, communication is all about us. It is the A and Z of life. Of course, we have grown well in other fields, like physics and most sciences but, we look like we are compensating the vital part of a society to accustom ourselves to technology. I may not formulate a theory to defend my saying, but it is obvious that there is no researched reason to abandon the good values of life to become “modern” and “survivor” in the fast changing world.
There are so many good social values that are vanishing from our faces, hastily. I believe the gap in communication is accelerating the unwanted change. People are losing their interest to help and support elders and others, those who are in need. Young kids are becoming reluctant to let a frail and old people sit first on buses and some public places. Despite the efforts to disseminate propaganda with an intention to re-instill the good values, the stereotype in relation to disability, gender, sexual orientation, color, social status, religion, ethnic origin etc. is worsening from year to year. What I can say to wrap the explanation is either the teacher has failed to teach the upcoming generation or the generation resisted against the teachings, for un-communicated reasons. That is what we can say, as generation continues to ignore values of its predecessors. It is easy to see huge gap of mutual understanding between parents and their children, in this days.
I remember one writer who said “don’t solve a problem, but look for opportunity” (may not be quoted accurately). In this case, I don’t want to look like a pessimist, but, I still want to choose the second phrase, which is to look for an opportunity. I don’t see a green light if I want to say something in relation to diverting the current essence by 180 degree. I agree in using different tool or approach to solve an existing problem. The issue here is if one strategy was tested and failed, it is unlikely to succeed if we attempt to solve it using the already failed, defective tool. In some cases the tools applied are subject to change when the numerical value of the problem was variable or different from the original value. To set a simple example, we can see on how to solve the shortage or absence of potable water in the city of Addis Ababa. With my limited capacity, I did some kind of research to understand how the city was providing its residents with near to sufficient amount of water. I heard that it was okay to drink tab water in Addis, some time ago. Currently, it could be hazardous to drink tab water, unfiltered or as is. I also educate myself that the two major dams working as providers of water to the city were good, when the residents of the city were under one million. Currently, it does not require us to call vital statistics office to actualize the surge in population by about four or more times. This simple numerical comparison tells us that the dams used by the few residents of this city are not capable of providing sufficient water to millions of old and new residents. In solving the shortage or absence of potable water in Addis, it is obvious that we have to look for new sources on top of what we have to address the demand of today. If the policy makers still want to wander around the incapable dams the result is predictable, which is failure. If those dams with the same structure and defect are going to continue as major sources of our water, we can not expect improvement.
Likewise to the developed world, our country must work seriously in using education to shape the future of the upcoming generations. Moral values are just made and accepted practices of any given society. The old ones were typically grounded on spiritual teachings. Those powerful educational tools are still in use, but not with full strength as before. There is no any natural benchmark to measure values or to examine and label them with right and wrong. Value is unique to a given society and most of the societies may have some in common. The character that grows to become common for the majority should be checked if it is not of erroneous nature. In developing world, the good common values of a given society get eroded by some faulty political philosophy and the society begins to create a mass that depends only on resistance and riots to solve problems. I always get touched by the saying of my favorite psychologist Abraham Maslow. He said the following to define riot.
“Rioting is a childish way of trying to be a man, but it takes time to rise out of the hell of hatred and frustration and accept that to be a man you don’t have to riot”
I believe this quotation can say many things and my intention is to pass a message of designing a strategy to build a society that stands firm for its rights, without looking for a crowd to ignite clash and riot to raise a legitimate question. We need a society that presents itself dignified and brave to raise any question without fear and with out the need for crowd. Doing so gives a society security and long lasting freedom. I am not blaming the organized demonstrations that have brought change to our society. I am trying to convey a message to build a society by strengthening what we are proud of, by dumping the unwanted social behaviors and to learn new ideas from those who have succeeded.
When I try to show the distinction between the developed and developing world, I don’t mean to categorize them as good and bad respectively. The developed ones also have their own concerns. The developed world have by all means enabled its citizens to get fair education. Educated society is less manipulated than the uneducated. Education helps us to ask for proof or some kind of manifestation to accept things. There are so many wise and farsighted members of the uneducated society, but the majority is susceptible to manipulation. The developed world was not capable of reversing or rewinding the past. In most cases, yesterday serves for the causes of its own, when perceived in its vast sense. Today is the son of yesterday and the father of tomorrow. The tendency to remember yesterday is healthy by its own way, but living in yesterday or holding the mentality of yesterday is indefensible and morbid. Such gloomy view cannot be ignored when it becomes endemic routine of a society. As a progressive generation it is wise to learn the danger of passiveness in such huge national, possibly continental and global task. For any generation, living physically in today and emotionally in yesterday is eminent threat for the future of the given society and even a nation itself.
I saw some people feeling sad for not serving their country, when they were expected. Grief should not be used to rectify the guilt of not serving a nation, but to heal from the former damages or misses. Sympathy may lead to the invention of new ideas or to borrow examined strategies to help a society. The type of sympathy paid to a country during a national crises, standing on the side like a bystander is way different kind of failure. A good citizen does not have to hold an office to wish the best and to serve her country. It is all about unconditional love to your own society that leads to courageousness, to say “I am here to help” or “I am here to report for duty”. I believe there are few citizens with such values but we, the majority are deficient of such great human principles. The greatness of voluntarism and defending others should be displayed on our day to day life. I know the bravery of Ethiopians, when “enemy” is seen in their land, but this amazing value needs to be seen everywhere and every day. It is priceless to express defending others. You defend them gallantly, when they needed peace and what are you going to do when they need food, social service, health, education, progress and success. If we defend our land with high degree of bravery, what is holding us from labeling backwardness as enemy and declaring war against it, to remove it from this beautiful land. How on earth is believable to say that a country with millions of heroes and heroines who willingly pay their lives for liberty lack people who volunteer their time and skill to eradicate poverty and its accessories. It is huge paradox to find millions who want to die for their nation being incapable of feeding themselves. I am not directly criticizing my brave sisters and brothers. I am trying to show the difference between dying for a cause and living for a cause. I believe those who live for a cause are more privileged than those who die for it.
In terms of evaluating the level of our limited interaction and tolerance to deal with different views, still I see a twilight of hope that may be widened through continuous endeavor.
In this real world, the writer of this article has a personal opinion that the gap and the classification in the emergence of change in society is of great distinction. It could be enormous in its nature to try to examine all aspects of life that human being involves in the process of evolution, but it is possible to pick certain common factors and have a say on them.
Our planet which was believed to be created five thousand years ago in the eye of believers and millions of years ago according to people who depend on Radiocarbon dating, does not in reality show maturity in terms of shaping our intelligence, corresponding to its age. If in fact our ancestor Adam was created at that time and if he was the first human to walk on our planet, I don’t see much difference between him and us in terms of obedience and communication values.
The first and foremost issue is that residents of this world do not display the quality of aging, in terms of building consciousness. I believe, in evolution time is the sole track towards refinement of life. Based on the scriptures that narrate about the ideal first human who was made of earth, was almost the same like us, in look and in perception. The naïve-ness or disobedience of Adam seems to live for five plus thousand years without showing significant transformation. Considering the reason that led him to his death, people should have understood the meaning of the message and should have changed through time, but some of us are even stupid than Adam himself. Adam breached the simple command of God. How many of us do we obey to the rules of our governance? How many of us do care to breach the commandments and other regulations? After five thousand years of human evolution, we look like we are stagnated at Adams age. Perhaps, mortality was not inherited from Adam. The awareness of the unschooled Adam who failed to obey the rules of the heavens and that led him to mortality seems like the same after about hundred plus generations. Sometimes, I say “Does evolution need huge portion of time, bigger than our documentation capability?” If we can’t see any change in five thousand years, evolution is boloney. Why should I worry about it, when I know that human did not evolve in five thousand years? At the same time, I also doubt the capability of the scriptures to change the ratio.
Shall we try to examine the reason for such incidence? For now it sounds challenging to do so, due to lack of dominant mutual judgment in the collective social attitude.
Sometimes, circumventing the narratives of the Holy Scriptures look apt to have a say in the process of assessing shared perceptions. The Darwinians have better explanation on how we evolved from a single celled creature to where we are now, though there are still difficulties to follow such a concept, smoothly.
Due to my inquisitive nature as a rookie writer, I just chose to examine the gap between our speech which is considered as a replication of our belief and what we actually do, even in the presence of such thoughts in place. It bothers me to see people with great thoughts failing to become what they affirmed officially. Sometimes it is common to see, people who preach justice failing to comply with the law, those who should stand high for their advocacy for great social values becoming the violators of their own principles etc.
Since I came back to Ethiopia, I got the chance to interact with people of different backgrounds, using the advantage of the indispensable quality in the culture of Ethiopians. That gave me a high degree of hope and happiness, as a human being to unleash my wild dreams of becoming a writer. I like to examine than to judge, though, I am not immuned from judging and of course from being judged by others.
Honestly, I love the friendly approach of all Ethiopians, despite the inflated ego with some people who believe they are educated. I also saw the tribe centered pride and confinement not to learn about others. It is normal in other societies too. It is common for the city boy to think that he knows more than the rural boy. It is not a surprising matter to hear a New Yorker bragging about himself and putting herself on different level. What differs with ours is that educated people play the opposite character. In civilized countries, the most educated people are the simplest ones. Education makes people more modest and down to earth. Education in my opinion is a means of finding the gate to the infinite universe of knowledge and for talented people it helps them to trigger imagination through inspiration. However, some educated Ethiopians that I approached appeared like they are stacked up with false self-importance and gravitated at the gate, to remain with self-appointed entitlement.
No matter how right or wrong it is, the only consented stream which was hoped to change the quality of life is education. Despite, the general consensus, no one examines the authenticity of the way education is delivered to people of today. We live in the world that literally works on comparison than on setting goals. Comparison in research may have great importance, but in defensive reporting comparison is used to hide truth. For example: When the number of criminally gunned down people in New York City or Toronto or anywhere is reported on TV, I observe a very tricky reporting strategy. If the number of people violently killed this year were fewer than that of last year, the report gets tuned up to show the decline in crime rate, in the city. If the number of killed people is way bigger than last year’s statistics, the tone of the news goes to comparing how many people were killed in Chicago or somewhere else, in the given year, if the number in Chicago was high. It shows that we are adjusting ourselves to accept the wrong position of comparison, than setting a goal and working hard to hit the target.
In the same way, education was established long time ago. The way of delivery, the approach and the general direction of education did not significantly change. I have questions about the amount of time needed to learn, the years we spend in schools, the time we spend to deal with education and the possible output of such lengthy process. I question the importance of spending twelve years to know something that does not in reality worth. It looks like a waste of time for one human being to go to school for 12 years and still need more years to do something as a professional. If twelve years cannot guarantee someone to hold a job that needs light skill, why is this much huge time spent? I am not proposing a new time frame, but I am asking, if this was actually enquired by people who have expertise in the field. Except the very common subjects at elementary level, are we supposed to learn on the same text books, with people who have different gifts? Why a born artist or a creative person should get forced to learn and spend time on irrelevant subjects? ….so many authentic questions.
At one time, we had English class and a crazy (in a good way) friend said “Why should I spend one hour every day from my life to learn my mother tongue? Why don’t they teach us something that we don’t know? etc.”. It sounds abnormal, but it makes sense, for me. She was not opposing to know the grammar and usage of the language. It is because she knows that no one follows the rules and it does not make significant difference in the process of learning to know the grammar and usage of the language, in detail. In different occasions, it was proven that students who struggled with English language were seen to stand smarter than the native speakers. So who is in charge of setting the standards of education? That is why different People have different opinion on how education should be delivered. Some say that, the current system is boring and time consuming and some may agree that the education world is on the right path.
When I was in high school, I saw some young kids being prosecuted and sent to jail and rehab centers under a law that was written by others and never being explained to them in their life time. Those kids were born with an empty and formatted brain, which is potentially vulnerable to write any idea in favor of their future or against their life. No one cares about teaching those misfortunate kids and the system uses its cruel jaws to grind them in to useless creatures. The principles of law says that it “corrects” errors and shapes people to become good citizens, sometimes after punishment. In reality, those innocent kids were not told the right and the wrong, with its awards and consequences. When prosecuted or put under scrutiny for an error they were not made aware, they automatically put the crown of a victim, who continues to live a miserable life. The other consequences of being labeled as a criminal also leaves them alienated from society which is a contributing factor to drown them in the pond of crime. That is how the system we depend on now is leaving innocent people behind.
I see huge gap in the education system of the world, for not caring about teaching children Law starting from grade zero. In our everyday life, we rely on law, but we raise children ignorant to such important subject matter in their life. There is written law which is legislated by a legislature or authorized religious or some kind of social institution. The other is social norm that governs the un-imposed but valued rules of life. Starting from being dressed up properly to driving, interaction, financial exchange, sales, purchase, etc. are all practiced under different forms of law. Knowledge of law has undisputable universal importance.
Mainly, those partly unfortunate kids of the 21st century are left to deal with games and shows of violent nature, without a counter remedy to the dangers of time. Parents look like they are relieved from sharing their precious time with their loved children, by handing them over tablets and gadgets of “entertainment” most filled with uncensored games. Due to the aggressive marketing power of such industries, even schools are highly infiltrated and influenced by those dangerously designed tools of demolition of societal values. So, who is going to save the victimized generation from being shaped in a wrong way? Such an industry has obviously made few citizens of the world billionaires and allowed them to live decent life, but the majority is losing its future in to a very ambiguous situation. Governments as key role players in shaping generations have obligation to stand hostile against those challenges and to face them bravely to reverse the crises, by putting LAW as a primary and mandatory course in the curriculum of all schools, at all levels from grade zero (Junior Kindergarten) to university.
I hope our prime minister and the members of the legislature get time to read my article and get inspired by my article to realize the launching of a research on the importance of my idea of making LAW a part of the Ethiopian educational curriculum.
There are some good in principle but fruitless in reality courses administered in schools, like music. As time has evolved above their importance, they have no significance in the life of the children, due to other external factors and it is even better to repeal such unproductive subjects and put Law as a mandatory course. It will definitely be implemented by many countries, when the right time comes, but I feel great if Ethiopia could take the lead to put LAW as a mandatory subject at all levels of schoolings. It does not mean that grade one students are going to study the constitution or the penal code, but they can definitely learn the importance of respect, dignity, equality, sharing, loving, nonviolence, not bullying etc. That is where LAW begins. The law of walking, talking, interaction, listening, tolerance etc could be taught to children by designing different formats. I believe placing such curriculum will also play huge role in transforming the country from dictatorial into a democratic state. With its ups and downs, the country needs to implant democracy and nurture it by educating its citizens. Raising a generation that knows its rights and obligations guarantees a country to have a rule of law, in the future.
At this age, deficiency of common understanding and compromised collective consciousness is ripping apart societies. There is an extreme bias and lack of interest to listen to different opinion. There is low tolerance to host different views, which plays a key role in disintegration of a nation. I still insist on the government to save the approaching generation by infusing law and moral education to the system. Sometimes, things that are based on universal truth do not need social accord to get implemented. Society does not always necessarily create a fertile ground for a positive change. Such society may become available after the new generation passes through the new era of understanding the law. For now it is fair sometimes to not depend on social accord only.
Religions may also play important role in shaping the moral values of a given society, but they are deficient to some extent, because of their discriminatory nature and their “buy mine only” policy. Citizens must have the right to those benefits, without being associated to a certain social group. Free consciousness cannot be obtained by being part of any biased category and the innocent kids must have the right for knowing the righteous path of life without being forced or being annexed to a certain social cluster. The reason for such argument is that majority members of the generation are declining morally and socially, even in the presence of such services in abundance. Though it is not my intention to comment on those organizations, I believe that most of them have been derailed from their original path, due to the mix-up of principles and the needs of flesh.
It could be due to the nature of genetics and the betterment of biological factors, this generation is unlikely to believe stories that have no tangible manifestation. It was easy to tell stories to our ancestors and to make it their belief, but now children like to question theories than to swallow unexamined facts. My comment has nothing to do with religion, but it is an existing fact, and we have to face it accordingly.
I feel privileged for living in the Ethiopian society. I don’t have to work hard or set a strategy to talk to people. People have no problem to interact and to share their opinion. Like many other people of the third world countries, they like to chat. In Canada, the country where I was raised, people are reserved and extremely careful not to hurt the feelings of others. The caution they put to keep their dignity and their privacy intact seems passed its limit to the level of being afraid to live like a community, which I believe is not noble. Human beings are social animals and to the best of my knowledge and perception, living together is the defining factor of being human.
Some people argue that living apart from each other and being independent from each other is a sign of societal advancement. With my naive understanding of life, I conquer this saying as living in such a lifestyle changes human being in to a state of an animal that lives solely for food. We human beings are not all about food, as it was satirically said on an animated movie named as “over the hedge”
The purpose of a vehicle is way beyond burning fuel. Burning fuel is not the motto of a vehicle. It is to serve the purpose that was intended to and the fuel is always an input to achieve the greatest goal of its very existence. Likewise, human beings feel full and complete when they serve a purpose. Other than that, I don’t see any valid reason to live for the needs of the flesh only. Considering the mortality of human beings, serving a cause takes the highest place.
In advanced societies, though people are sinking in to a new life style putting “me” at the front, there are still selfless individuals who are serving the human society, in many aspects. When the system gets tighter than before, I am afraid that people may begin to live like autonomous mobile machine that does not care about others. Even in the presence of such gap, people in such society are relatively law abiding citizens and they have clear understanding about their role and their limit in the life of others. Though governments of the civilized states need to set a new curriculum that teaches law to all citizens, still they are doing well by approaching it using different strategies. They have found many ways to let their people know about the dignity of others. They are trying to avoid bias and misjudgment through continuous debate and litigations too.
Such culture is not common in developing countries. One huge factor is lack of sufficient education and information. Education is not a complete tool to explore knowledge but it is a good means to question and to counter-check facts. With the current expansion of social media and relative change on the access to those technologies, people are living uncertain future that can randomly change overnight. The short term exposure to social media is becoming the fifth state to shape the future of our society. Besides to its benefits, social media is playing significant role in causing public unrest and social crises, which could sadly lead a nation in to an irreversible failure. Social media should not be allowed to freely use the innocence and ignorance of citizens to cause societal division. All aware citizens have moral obligation to encounter such a crises by proposing remedies and by contributing what they can do to help.
I was told by my parents that, Ethiopia is the First Nation in the world to grant asylum on religious grounds by accepting the followers of the prophet who were persecuted by enemies for accepting Islam as their religion. I was told that the public has tolerance to different views and faiths. Still those great Ethiopian values are widely reflected, but, when it comes to a mob and collective behavior, those qualities seem to disappear, instantly.
In some places there are generalizations on the views of people. There are scary conclusions that are becoming permanent stereotypes of some social groups. Recently, there are attempts by the government to address and tackle them, but still the government needs to jointly work with concerned citizens to solve the matter with a clear legal and philosophical approach.
“Bulls do not grow their horns overnight”. In a time and situation where an essence takes upper hand biases grow step by step and they become norms, if they don’t face challenge, during the process. Everything begins at a rudimentary level, to the extent even victims do not emphasize it as an encounter that needs to be addressed. That’s why many countries want to say “no room to tolerate abuse”, “no excuse for abuse” etc.
There should be an institutionalized approach to tackle such occurrences and the stakeholders need to work together to make the society the owner of such weapons of prevention.
Stay Blessed
Betty Sisay Hishe
bettyhishe18@gmail.com
Editor’s Note : Views and opinion reflected in the article reflects the writer’s. Should you wish to publish article on www.borkena.com , please send submissions to info@borkena.com
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