Neighbors, teachers and even fathers rape young girls, doctors fleece patients, politicians and government officials misuse power to enrich themselves, police protect those who fill their pockets, businessmen cheat state coffers, and journalists thrive in this vitiated climate.
Of course, not all are bad, but the few who are, it seems, have managed to sideline and dominate the morally upright.[break]
By and large, all of us are full of flaws, and the moral pressure acts as an unseen fetter that restrains our fallacious instincts from jeopardizing social harmony.
A simple experience last year gave me some hope of how folks like you and I can put moral pressure on errant people, and through its consistent and widespread use bring back our society from the path down a slippery slope of moral degradation.
A few days ahead of the last Dashain, people were queuing up in front of a government trailer loaded with subsidized rations, waiting for their turn. But the policeman who was standing on the trailer to keep the crowd under control was taking money from the sides and giving away stuffs to those who thought “only foolish stand on queues.”
Bijay Gajmer/The Week File Photo
So just to remind the officer-on-duty why he was there, I lined up at the end, and just as the guy who was breaching the line handed money to the policeman again, I approached him and said, “What’s going on? Aren’t you doing exactly the thing you’re supposed to stop? There are people waiting in line for more than half an hour while you’re letting some people get away with goods without them having to stay in line.”
The policeman timidly replied, “He’s our staff.”
I said, “Well, if he’s your staff, have the goods delivered at his home. Isn’t this trailer meant for common folks?”
As he tried to brush me off by saying something I don’t clearly remember, the other people in the queue began making noises. The smart guy who didn’t stand in queue backed off and the police grudgingly desisted from misusing his authority after that.
It was a simple change that took place in a very small setting. But I see no reason why it can’t be replicated to larger and more important settings like, let’s say, a government department or even a Ministry.
I could take on the policeman because I was on the right side of the law. And that’s what civil obedience is all about: empowering ourselves by remaining lawful and morally straight.
Last year, after the new government took over, there were accusations that some of the new ministers openly demanded huge bribes from government officials and secretaries if they wanted to get transferred to or continue in lucrative postings.
The ministers could do so because the way our system works, it’s easy to assume that those who are in plum postings themselves might have used connections or bribes to be there in the first place. If every official in a government department is morally upright, would even a minister dare run roughshod over them?
People who break rules draw strength from other people’s moral weaknesses because the one who loses moral ground also loses the ability to question.
Nobody likes to be seen as immoral at a place where morality rules and nothing works like moral pressure. The ultimate goal of civil obedience should be to have more people on the side that respects the law and abides by written as well as unwritten civil and moral codes.
While there will always be some exceptions, when it comes to obeying rules, nine out of ten people do what others do. For example, I’ve found that if you stop your motorbike when traffic signal goes red just when you’re about to cross it, nine out of ten times those behind you are likely to hit the brakes. By the same token, most people are likely to drive on if you did so.
This fight can be won only if those who want a fair and just society take a vow never to breach civil and moral codes, pushing the violators into a minority and slowly and gradually into insignificance.
The writer is a copy editor at Republica.
amendrapokharel@gmail.com
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