REALITIES AND VALUES
Let us imagine he is a happy healthy normal child with no complications. So,
What is his concept of road safety, eating in a public place, behaving in a park or conducting himself in a government office? Does he have any dealings with industrial or commercial life?
What is life in a muhalla like? Does the state provide sewerage, potable water, domestic water, drainage in rainy seasons, medical support in epidemics, electricity, gas, roads and street lights?
If you are getting the same answers that I am, then why in heaven’s name do we expect him to have any civic sense or respect for public property – how should he know what is public good?
On the other hand, if we were to ask “what is his concept of sanitation, what facilities have been provided at home, what will he do in a public toilet? How will he treat the subject of litter in the street? Or body cleanliness?” I am sure that he would have a roster of values based on the creature comforts available to him. I AM NOT SAYING HE WILL BE TIDY OR CLEAN OR WELL MANNERED. But I am saying that while one child of the same socio-economic carder will be tidy and another will not; one will be clean and another will not, one will be well mannered and another will not; JUST LIKE CHILDREN FROM ANY SOCIO-ECONOMIC carder. Surely, you have come across rude, impolite, callous, dirty children of educated, rich and highly placed parents; and polite, clean, caring children of poor, uneducated parents. The difference is not values as such, but upbringing and material conditions in which it is provided.
Some years ago, one of my brothors was having a chat with me. Mind you, I wasn’t a child any more. If it was a decade ago, I was already retired. Anyhow, he, my mentor, was complaining of the traffic and recollecting that in our childhood the roads, though not as wide, were adequate for the number of cars. He then commented, “but then so many people were deprived of many comforts that are available to most urban people in Pakistan.
So, if you have to teach one hundred thousand people to drive out of every ten million, you would expect better results than if you had to teach road safety to two hundred thousand out of every ten million. What is interesting is that if you were teaching the rules of the road to seventy percent of the population, the remaining thirty percent would automatically learn by example, regardless of the form of government; democracy or monarchy.
Now it is time to ask: WHEN AND WHY A SOCIAL PRACTICE MUST BE ABANDONED, if at all, WHEN ninety percent of the people abide by it as a norm without enforcement?
MIND YOU! I AM NOT SAYING IT IS INCORRECT TO ENFORCE SUCH A CHANGE. What I am saying is: in such cases, we must think whether this is really what we want!
I have focused on road safety because, in the first place, it is a matter of life and death in many cases, and a daily issue; in the second place because it is an extremely sensitive issue for me and many like me who like to try and “drive by the book”; and in the third place, because it is an ideal subject to place development issues in a cultural context.
“The Book” of rules for road safety is considered sacred by many of my friends; but it isn’t a Divine revelation, nor is it derived from “natural laws” that apply irrespective of environment, society, culture or other such considerations. Not only does the side of the road you drive on, change from one “civilized country” to another, the rules of driving itself change. Thus if you were to turn your steering in the American way for a driving test in Britain, you would fail; and that is a fact. It is also a fact that penalties for errors vary as do issues of penal procedure.
However, there are some rules that are applied in most European countries and have been taken up by the developing nations as “the Bible” for the conduct of people on the road.
WHEN such procedures are standardized in England or America [depending on who is “Guru of the hour” for us at the time], they have to be enforced in Pakistan. And all us drivers, old and new, are expected to find the change natural enough to absorb without missing a step.
The point I want to emphasize is that while Western society has a TIME BASED ethic, we, in Pakistan are a NEED, CONVENIECE & COMMUNITY BASED society. That is why traffic behaves differently in our environment. Add the variety of our vehicles and see what you get?
This is a subject which you may like to revisit with me in the next blog. It is most evident on our roads and in our offices. These are places in which management and structures are firmly rooted in the modernist tradition coming from the west but where the executors of the principles are Pakistanis. As such the same official who supports an official procedure “in principle” will help you violate it in practice, especially if you have a strong communal link to exploit.
Since some of my blogs are likely to present examples of Pakistani behavior and raise questions like the one above, you might like to share with me your observation of Pakistani communities and the nature of their inter-community and intra-community relations.
What is the quality and quantity of education that our nation needs? When, and to what extent should we look for solutions to our problems and models for our progress in the experiences of others? When should we think about our particular characteristics, unique construct, special talents or conditions, and extraordinary communal fabric and formulate tailor made plans even if there is no parallel in history and the society around us? These are the things I ponder about. It is important to remember that all great changes have come about in human history when the leadership of a community or the nation itself has chosen to be innovative rather than following the beaten track, even if that track was the “most progressive” at the time.