Contributory to What?
“Person X is standing at a bushalt when he observes a man repeatedly slapping a woman who appears to be his wife/girlfriend. Person X does not take any action and remains a bystander. Was Person X’s action violent or not?”
At a recent workshop one of the activities that the participants were asked to do was to “Vote by Foot” on a variety of issues such as the one above. (For those unfamiliar with this we started out in the middle of the room (0) with the wall to our left being a -10 and the wall to our right + 10. The activity asked us to vote based on how we felt about the issue.)
As I found myself leaning against the wall (much to my surprise) in the firm belief that Person X’s action’s were violent I noticed that the number of people who saw things in the same light was surprisingly few and surprisingly mostly male. But that’s for another time
It also got me thinking about how exactly people in general here tend to see any type of violence or crime. The general rule goes basically if it doesn’t affect me, it’s not harmful to anyone. General rule mind you not in every single instance.
This to me, highlights the fact that we have become a greatly apathetic society. The over-saturation of violence that Sri Lanka has come to be so accustomed to as a result of the conflict has desensitized us and we are mostly unaware of it.
So the crime rate rises, the Police love the new traffic laws, and we wonder why Sri Lanka doesn’t progress from it’s current proximity to Banana Republic. It is interesting that while doctors willing to diagnose this cure are a cent a dozen those actively willing to participate in making a change are; in view of the enormity of the task, almost negligible in comparison. So the cycle continues.
The inherent lack in all of us, myself most definitely included is that we fail to see acts of omission as being contributory to the common problem. And it is probably the little things that slowly slowly add up. It’s the milk packet that just missed the bin and the silence when a conductor goes nuts in the bus.
We let these things slowly accumulate till it either effects us or we don’t care anymore. This in none so apparent in terms of the violence prevalent in Sri Lankan society. We seem to be brought up on the Bismarckian precepts of blood and iron and this has eaten in to our outlook on violence in general. True we are the war generation – we grew up with it, we dealt with it and we experienced it (some more directly than most). And unsurprisingly things no longer affect us anymore.
I maybe stating the obvious here but this desensitization has led to a blinkered view of contributory violence/crime/corruption/bribery/theft/prostitution/et all. The question for those who do not think agree is to attempt to remember the last time you stood up for someone who you didn’t know just because it was morally correct to do so.
The more we ignore this issue the more we accept anything that comes our way. So we vote commonly accepted ganglords in to parliament, pay off a cop here and there to escape the paperwork and ignore the obvious symptoms of a decaying society.
Please allow me to be clear. I am not saying that there is such a thing as a perfect society. An examination of the issue at hand though seems to suggest that Sri Lanka in itself maybe quite far away from that particular ideal. So at what cost to ourselves do we turn a blind eye to the abductions taking place?
For how long will we allow violence to permeate our society. Again as I have done earlier I do not wish to merely rant and rave and leave without providing answers. My first suggestion is that we sit back and take a good look at the extent to which we have become desensitized. From this understanding it would be possible to move to greater attempts at rectifying this rot that seems to be taking root in Sri Lanka. As i said before let there be change in the world and let that change begin with me.
The choices as i see it are rather straightforward. Either to let it be, let it be, let it be and allow violence to grow in to a proportion that will definitely have to be dealt with and will be impossible to ignore. Or to take a stance against it now. To say no to verbal abuse. Try not swearing for a day. Tell off a cranky bus conductor. Pay the whole fine. Cast a thinking vote. Make a change.
To be or not to be that is always the question.
