By M. Bakri Musa
Chapter 10: Freedom, Justice, as good as a Law
No chairman is undiluted enough to be entrusted with a autocracy as good as grace of others.
Mahmoud Mohamed Taha (1909-1985)
Sudanese Reformist, executed by his country's troops rulers.
I was visiting Malaysia after being away for most years. It was right after a race riot of 1969. The streets were still deserted, as good as you was pushing with my father when you came upon a stop pointer during an intersection. you duly stopped, looked around, as good as anticipating no oncoming traffic, proceeded.
My father asked since you stopped, as good as you responded which there was a stop sign. Startled by a astonishing question, you looked behind to find him in a pensive mood, his face tilted, as good as his eyes looking far in to a distance. After a prolonged pause, he matter-of-factly murmured, "That is since a West is so advanced. People there conform a law even when no a single is watching!"
Intuitively he had resolved which since my stopping during a stop pointer was so natural, it contingency have been conditioned by my years of vital abroad. He remembered usually as good well my pushing day to day during home a decade earlier!
While you was study abroad, my father always speedy me to venture over a campus as good as be concerned in as good as mindful of a village during large. Canada, he wisely observed, contingency be really advanced to be able to suggest scholarships to foreigners, as good as he suggested me to use a event to learn everything about a country, as good as not only come home with a degree. Thus my summers were outlayed operative during such places as a dairy farm as good as a summer resort, operative as good as interacting with typical Canadians. you would write home frequently about my observations.
I described how efficien! t a mode rn dairy farms were, as good as of cows with humongous udders pouring out literally gallons of divert daily. Once you associated how a rancher had unhesitatingly rejected a bucket of fresh milk, as he did not know whether it had been contaminated. That potentially spoilt milk, he noted, would be churned with others, as good as thousands of customers would be sick. Besides, a repute of his outfit could not be compromised or busted for a consequence of a couple of dollars value of milk.
On an additional occasion, after a train trip, you wrote of my wonderment during Canadian train drivers; how veteran as good as proud they were about their jobs. Indeed they were ready to go similar to pilots, with their crisp light blue long-sleeved shirts neatly tucked inside their dark blue pants, finish with a crawl tie as good as a captain's cap. That train motorist had taken us by a neighborhood where he lived as good as proudly showed us, a tourists, his home. It was a neat, medium track one-story dwelling in a purify pleasant suburb. you could not help though review him with his Malaysian counterparts who for a most part had their shirts drifting loosely untucked, with untied boots or slippers, as good as in all looking disheveled.
Through such unchanging commentaries my father knew firsthand about life in Canada. He had a right sense which a West was indeed advanced as good as wondered since or how it got which way while countries similar to Malaysia were still struggling.
My father was upon to something profound when he celebrated which obeying a law when no a single is watching is a pass ingredient to a West's success. To most observers, a apply oneself for a order of law is a exigency for progress. A modern multitude is ruled by law, as good as not by men. Progress cannot take place when there is callous negligence for a law.
This apply oneself for a law contingency be shown not usually by typical adults though additionally some-more importantly, a leaders. For when leaders abuse thei! r privil eges as good as flout a law, then there is small goal for a country. This abuse can come in most forms, from outright negligence of a law to some-more pointed forms as in selective charge as good as uneven applications of a law. When leaders as good as a chosen do not apply oneself a law, it sends a transparent summary to a rank as well as file to do likewise.
Similarly all laws contingency be respected, even a clearly teenager ones. The ? la mode American political scientist James Q. Wilson initial made a astute regard which when you omit violations of teenager laws, this would later inspire a crack of some-more critical ones. Law enforcement agencies have been right away informed with a "broken window syndrome," which is, when you omit teenager vandalisms similar to damaged windows, you inspire others to commit even greater crimes, until a total bureau building is completely wrecked or burnt down by arson. New York police successfully marked down a rate of vital crimes by initial enormous down upon such clearly harmless ones as loitering, jay walking, as good as littering. When typical adults see which such teenager laws have been being particularly enforced, they righteously pretence which alternative some-more critical infractions would additionally be energetically pursued.
Going behind to my father, you should have since him an update upon my pushing day to day right away which you have lived in California for a while. Californians have been among a worst drivers. They consider a stop pointer usually a suggestion; as good as a yellow trade light a vigilance to step upon a gas!
Apart from apply oneself for a law, an additional underline of a West is a reward it places upon particular as good as personal liberty. Americans do not conclude this leisure as it is taken for granted. They have been sensitized usually when which leisure is threatened or breached. Notice a stream conflict over a president's offer to detain intensity terrorists without due process in response to a 9/11 t! ragedies . Americans become really much aware of their cherished leisure when they have been abroad.
Once upon a moody to Malaysia you came upon an essay in a informal publication which was supportive of Malaysia though contained a little amiable though valid criticisms of a leadership. you associated which essay to my Malaysian friend, as good as he as good was interested to review it. you rushed to a nearest bookstore to get a copy of a magazine. (Having been away from Malaysia for a prolonged time you have not developed a habit of swiping a airline's copy!) Imagine my horror when you could not find a article; a pages had been neatly excised! Some bureaucrats in a censors' bureau had a insolence to confirm what you can as good as cannot read. How insulting! you felt violated.
This blatant negligence for a rights as good as grace of a particular is pervasive in a Third World. These bad societies fail to conclude which in a last research it is people who outcome changes, as good as thus progress. Western societies have been some-more on-going since they place a reward upon a individual. Eastern societies in all submerge a particular to a needs of a larger society. They stress society's goals as good as stability over which of a individual, as encapsulated by a Japanese saying: a nail which sticks out gets hammered. At least which is a viewed wisdom.
I plea that. Consider what a Sudanese reformist Ustaz Mahmoud Taha wrote in 1963, "Every particular is, authentically, an finish in himself. He is not equates to to any alternative end. He even if he is an imbecile is a "God" in a making as good as contingency be since a full event to develop as such. Liberty is a exigency need. Man contingency be giveaway from all dehumanizing influences poverty, ignorance, as good as fear."
Fifteen years earlier, a United Nations, regulating far reduction superb prose, pronounced radically a same thing in a Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In a preamble a request reaffirms a fundamental grace as ! good as a next to as good as inalienable rights of all humans as a substructure of freedom, justice, as good as peace. The document's initial essay could easily have been taken from a Koran when it declares which all tellurian beings have been innate free, with next to grace as good as rights, as good as have been endowed with reason as good as conscience.
Many outward a West would plea a universality of this UN Declaration, generally a statement reaffirming a supremacy of a individual. But as a Islamic scholar a late Fazlur Rahman wrote, "Whether ultimately it is a particular which is poignant as good as multitude merely a necessary instrument for his origination or clamp versa is academic, for particular as good as multitude crop up to be correlates. There is no such thing as a societiless individual."
Next: Society as good as Individuals
This entrance was posted upon Monday, twenty-six September 2011, 11:28 am as good as is filed underneath Bakri Musa, globalisation. You can follow any responses to this entrance by RSS 2.0.
Lim Kit Siang
No comments:
Post a Comment