WHAT eats up the vitality of a nation? Mendacity — deceit, dishonesty, and lying — are the vilest of sins. A respectable nation is built on respectable people, and respectability starts with oneself, which translates into respect for others. It is expressed through manners, sobriety, and other experiential and observed learnings. But respectability demands that we stand solemnly and strongly on truth — we passionately seek out truth, support truth, and nothing but the truth. Individual, familial, social, and political inculcation of truth is the avenue for developing a socially and nationally expressed and exhibited environment of respectability. But does our everyday individual pursuit help us to create such an environment? A pithy saying goes like this: when one reaches the limit of one’s mental capacity, s/he starts using slanderous and filthy verbosity to win a debate. Is it not a daily incident happening in the streets of this capital city of our loved nation?Ìý
The culture of manners and respectability starts at home, honed through institutional education. Paving this through legal sanctions has an effect, but only trifling at best. Our experience, however, teaches us that a conducive and supportive political environment is perhaps the most influential factor for creating a society where even dissenting voices are respected. Democracy stands on the pivot of respect for the opinions of an adversary. True respect is exhibited when we give an appreciative and patient ear to a speaker; when we show our keen interest to understand someone who is speaking against us—what s/he is saying and why s/he is saying what s/he is saying. If this culture accrues in a nation, then this becomes a moral platform for creating a respectable society, which leads to the development of a respectable nation. True, it is society that builds its political atmosphere. The king represents its subjects, and the king comes from a background that is inherited by the people. The political forces hence have to create an environment where the society morphs into a decent, truth-loving, respectable society. How can we expect respect from other nations when we even do not respect our own selves when our manners are so uncouth that it draws wrath and loath from our own people in our own society?
Respectability requires that our attitude and thoughts, expressed through our behaviours and practices, are positively controlled, measured, and calculated; that our utterances are not flippant, frivolous, or shallow; that we think before we ink; we use our brain before using our tongue, so that we do not hurt or insult innocent and respectable people inadvertently — when we do not actually intend to bring them down. People have to learn when there is an urge to speak, the manner and language of speaking, and when and how to deliver a message loudly and clearly. A few people, even in very important, decisive, and powerful positions, do not know what words should be used in communication with different types and levels of people in varying settings in an apropos manner. This is one reason we fail to attract attention and importance to what we have to say from our audience, including a wider global audience on national and global matters confidently, boldly, and courageously. I would, at this point, like to draw the attention of the respectable readers to an erstwhile foreign minister of ours who was a global embarrassment for this nation for his buffoonery. Diplomats are supposed to be tight-lipped, clever, more observant than gibberish, and tricky and intelligent with words. We may reflect on the British diplomacy, which used to be believed to practice a tenet once, which they might be following nevertheless still now, and that is that a diplomat would phrase his message in such a manner that when compelled s/he may give just an opposite interpretation to what s/he said earlier. One may say, ‘But this is not honorable.’ To this, we may say that protecting the stake of one’s own country is not dishonorable. We may wonder how many of our diplomats are of this kind. Some of them very obviously were picked up to represent Bangladesh not based on their diplomatic skill but for their political connections. How can we expect them to bring laurel and respect for the country? I have come across a few of the ambassadors of Bangladesh who were not in a position to do us proud because they did not possess that caliber. India, when selecting their diplomats for the Middle East, for example, ensures that they have the skill of communicating in Arabic. While working in the South East Regional Office of the World Health Organisation, I found to my utter disappointment that during the commemoration of important national days of Bangladesh, our diplomatic guests from other countries would be left to talk among themselves and none from the Bangladesh embassy, except the ambassador himself, would be communicating with them. So, I had to, to keep them in good humour, take up the role of one of the hosts. This role I had to play on two or three occasions about a decade ago. To ensure respectability to Bangladesh, we need to position self-respecting and knowledgeable diplomats abroad who may talk on almost any international and cultural issues and events and who respect their own nationals in foreign lands irrespective of their positions.
The words and phrases of a message should vary according to given conditions, which for example may be: who is the message intended for, i.e., what is the receiver’s social position, sex, and background (skill, official position, experience, family status, education, etc.); what are/would be the atmosphere or events happening when the message is being/would be delivered; what is the content of the message and its implication; words and phrases that would suit the contents of the message; what should be the body language during delivering the message and what should be the tone if it is a verbal language, etc.
We understand that knowledge and respectability are associated. Respectability, we know, hinges on honesty. Honesty is an inherent quality of a person, which may not be associated with his/her knowledge or even literacy or economy. But an honest person who is knowledgeable gets immediate attention and draws respect upfront. Honesty needs tests to prove itself, which ostensibly is time-consuming. Honesty engenders respect, but knowledge, in addition, is an influencer. To be heard, one has to be knowledgeable. But for sustaining respect, one has to be honest. Honesty and knowledge impart courage to the people to stand tall and straight.
Knowledge will be sustainably respected and abided by if the knowledgeable person is honest and seldom is attracted to mundane and trifling wants. However, a knowledgeable person may face lifting eyebrows, and an honest person may raise irks of the people who feel uncomfortable for understandable reasons in the company of a knowledgeable or an honest person. By and large, however, honesty is the best and most respectable and personally satisfying policy to guide a person’s life.
The changed situation that we stand on, as of now, is a gift, given to us by our brave hearts, who sacrificed their lives to cherish our dreams, leaving their own dreams unfulfilled at a tender age. They left us tasks and opportunities to change the rotten social, political, and economic environment that we were suffocating from. The first and foremost among which will be creating an environment where inculcation of respectability — individual, social, and national — will be prioritised and implemented through our education system, social contract for justifiable interactions, and political farsightedness. Only such an environment will ensure a sustainable national milieu of respectability to each other politically and socially, which will liberate us from the morass that we are and were in so far. We need to appreciate further that a mutually respectable social and political culture will have some other benefits, an important one of which will be refraining from creating unnecessary and illogical problems and hurdles for others, thereby resulting in peace and the creation of a caring atmosphere all around for all of us.Ìý
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AM Zakir Hussain is a former director, Primary Health Care and Disease Control, former director of IEDCR, DGHS, former regional adviser of SEARO, WHO and former staff consultant, Asian Development Bank, Bangladesh.