Monday | 13 January 2025 | Reg No- 06
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Monday | 13 January 2025 | Epaper

Disobedience: A chronic social problem

Published : Sunday, 10 March, 2019 at 12:00 AM  Count : 247
Mahbubar Rahman
If we look longer back and browse the history of human race, we can trace elements of disobedience in the characteristic features of humans ever since the race was created. God created Adam and Eve in the heaven out of His great love and compassion and granted them with the comforts in the Garden of Eden for eternal time subject to one condition that they would not eat the fruits of a forbidden tree. Provoked and lured by Satan who had appeared in disguise with a shape of snake and peacock, Adam and Eve forgot the cautionary note of the God and ate the forbidden fruits, thus creating a milestone of disobedience of the ordain of the Lord. God was much perturbed and angered at Adam and Eve's such disobedience and ostracised them from the elusive Garden of Eden to the earth of dust.

In his epic poem Paradise Lost, the English poet John Milton (1608-1674) wrote:

"Of men's first disobedience and the fruit of the forbidden tree,
Whose mortal taste brought death into the world, all our own,
With loss of Eden,
Till one greater man restore us,
And regain the blissful seat.
...
The world was all before them,
Where to choose their place of rest and providence their guide:
They hand in hand with wandering steps and slow
Through Eden took their solitaire."

Elements of disobedience is perhaps deeply rooted and ingrained either consciously or sub-consciously in human psyche and genetic code of human race. Walking over the long high-way of civilization for ages, humans have now reached a point which we call it a civilized world with civilized code of conduct of life. Animal instincts and impulses originally dyed-in-the-wool in human psyche are now to some extent overshadowed by the rare quality of rationality and reasoning that humans are endowed with. It is the humans' reasoning and rationality which can tame and chain the beast of animal that lies dormant in humans' system and on occasions raise its head to strike the core values of civilization at the force and speed sometime even surpassing the brutality of beasts and demons.

Etymologically, disobedience has some synonyms like wayward, badly behaved, rebellious, defiant, recalcitrant etc. It is an antonym to obedience which we often refer to amenable, respectful, law abiding, well disciplined, docile etc. Obedience in deed makes a civilized world where certain norms and disciplines of life always matters as important criteria of civilization. It is no denying a fact that humans love Freedom, freedom of will, freedom of expression.

Obedience to law and order, obedience to discipline of life; obedience to parents and elders does not in any conflict and make a cross-sword position with freedom and freedom of will. A defiant and wayward man is neither a free man nor a disciplined man remaining committed to his conscious. He or she is just hung in limbo with chains and shackles round over his neck and head of all the vices.

 A civilized or a free world never gives free license to anyone to be wayward and disobedient in the name of freedom. It is true that man is born free but he is not allowed to go scot-free and be disobedient to norms and standards of a civilized way of life. In spite of the fact that modern world is governed by certain code of conduct, code of ethics and discipline and law and order which warrants every citizen to be obedient and law abiding, yet, some segment of people including a segment of young generation demonstrate wanton disobedience to law and order and even to their parents who try to up-bring them with the best they can by shedding their sweets and toils.

It is obvious that the defiant and disobedient posterity do not make good citizens and always remain susceptible to the deterrence of law and order whose hands are obviously very long to reach the neck of disobedient and law breaking citizens.

Unfettered and unwavering obedience and submission to parents, elders and the teachers was the beauty of the bygone days particularly in this part of the world which made the flow of life easy and smooth with feelings of complacence. It has been observed with great concern that these days, particularly a section of the young generation, being brought up in affluent society, wantonly mingle the symptom of disobedience with smartness. They utterly fail to conceive and understand that the smartness is brewed from the faculty of the brain, not from the flexes of muscle power and foul mouth of disobedience.

It gives immense pain to reason how well educated and vibrant young men coming from affluent families are transformed to be disobedient to their parents and disrespectful to their families and the society at large, indulge in the vile acts of militancy and kill the innocent people in blatant defiance of law and order of the country with fake indoctrinated cause and eventually lost their lives in the shootout with the fake hope and illusion of walking instantly the doors of heaven.

 Doors of heaven is only open to those man who can assert their will-power imbued with moral values of life and dedicate themselves in the service of mankind. In this respect poet Allama Muhammad Iqbal wrote, "Khudi ko kar baland itna/ keh her takdeer say pehley/ khuda bandey say khud pooche/ Bata, 'Teri reza kya hai?" (Endow your will with such power/ that at every turn of fate it so be/That God Himself asks for His slave/ 'what is it that pleases thee?'Translation: Khuswant Singh).

It cannot be conceived even in the wildest imagination as to under what a great shock and awe, the parents of those fallen militants, disdain to receive the death bodies of their posterity who were reared, nourished and nurtured under the shadow of unmitigated love and affection over the ages. I feel pity for those unfortunate parents whose posterity, having been utterly disobedient and disrespectful to their parents and the society, fell prey to those fiends and ghouls; staying behind the curtain, trading in precious human lives; abusing and distorting the good name of our great religion Islam.
 
With profound hatred, I feel also pity for these young militants who were supposedly caught under the spell of blood thirsty demons and monsters who promise heavens to those vacuous young militants in exchange of murderous activities through spilling bloods of the innocent people. These inane and fatuous young militants do not know that the heaven is not a very far-way object achievable only by killing people, rather it lies very close to them under the feet of their parents as our Prophet Mohammad (Pbuh) emphasized.

Bliss of heaven is achievable only through the service of parents, elders and all mankind at large. Posterity who stays obedient and respectful to their parents, elders, teachers and venerated persons can shape their lives decently and achieve the bliss of heaven even in their life time in this beautiful world, light of which was shown to them by none other than their parents. Posterity in misdemeanour and disrespectful to their parents and elders ought to get back the equal harsh treatment with compound interest in the days waiting for them in future when their parents will not stay alive to take care of them and, to their utter misfortunes, there will be nothing left for them other them heaving long sighs with sinking in the morass of repentance and remorse for the rest of life.

It has been observed, of late, with considerable trepidation that some social thinkers and academies appear in the TV. talk show with arguments defending even wayward youths for their all misdeeds that shakes the core values of the society that we live in; with the generalized logic that elders and guardians are responsible for inducing youths walking the path of misdeeds and disobedience in the society.

Such arguments of granting wholesale impunity to a segment of wayward and disobedient youths for creating social unrest do not absolutely stand the test of hard gaze and logic as because of the fact that all youths coming of age that we call it 'adult age' are of their own to choose either the wrong way of life or walking the right path with adequate decency, law abiding spirit that the society demands from them.

Elders and guardian can only play a catalytic role in showing the path of enlightenment to the youth by upbringing them with right education, ethics and values of life until the youths reaching certain age level after gaining required inertia to moving forward further and further in the journey of life with freedom of will; as to which path of life they should choose to make them first of all a good human being and then good citizen of the country they belong to.

Elders' and youngsters' role stand supportive to each other in making a good human being. Elders' role is to give and youths' role is to take all the best things to shape an ideal life in the given society. If the youths are not receptive to mould their lives with gifts that they receive from their parents and elders and walk the blind alley of regression with all indecency and disobedience, then for their wrong doings elders and guardians are not responsible. Elders and guardians can be held responsible only when they fail to upbringing their progeny with civilized norms of life through proper education.

In many cases it is observed with great concern that despite guardians and elders, leaving no stones unturned, to given their best to their posterity, the youths often turn absolutely blind eye to receive the gifts of life from their elders and eventually go wayward with all symptoms of disobedience and defiance for no valid reason, thereby throwing all the best efforts of their elders into the trash hold of the society.
 
It is, therefore, necessary to ask our respected social thinkers to come up equally with their valuable advice for the youths to apply good sense of getting rid of maze of disobedience, defiance, indecency that they are caught in, while walking the long trail of life; without holding the elders and guardians responsible for the wrong doing of their young posterity which can only make the fabrics of the society torn into pieces and shattered beyond repair.

It is true, undoubtedly, that youths are the power houses where all sorts of energies, stamina good sense of understanding, intellect etc. are inexhaustibly treasured. It matters only when these kinds of energies, intellect blended with fuels of youth are used for right causes and purposes.
In pre-liberation Bangladesh in 1960s, youths having taken a queue from the Language Movement of 1952, rose to the occasions and stood the test of time in demonstrating their energy and vigour in all national crises.  From early 1960s and till the end of that decade, students came out in their full vigour and combustion and took the lead in all the movements of just causes eventually spearheading the freedom of Bangladesh after a War of Liberation.

That era still remain as the glorious era for Bangladesh whose youths took leading role in shaping independent Bangladesh under the charismatic leadership of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. Side by side if you compare the role of youths in post liberation Bangladesh, except the role played in 1991 in doing away an autocratic rule, most of all other movements painted only a dismal picture of partisan jingoism which failed to bring any tangible outcome for the benefit of the people and the country. What we saw in Anti Quota Movement in 1918 was nothing but resorting to vandalism and flexing muscles in the name of just causes.

One cannot just forget about a grim scenario portrayed in that movement where a youth carrying a festoon on his chest reading Aami Razakar (I am Razakar) towards his loathsome display insulting the freedom fighters and their progeny in the soil of Bangladesh which emerged at the cost of 3 million martyrs including thousand of freedom fighters who laid down their lives in the battle field in 1971.

Youths in agitation in the street these days on different issues often fall victim of political parties who, with different sinister motives, do not hesitate to drape the innocent school students with tailored school uniforms and bag packs to harvest the fruits of their vicious motives. Youths of these days unfortunately fail to carry the legacy of the students of bygone days of 1960s and instead often act as 'guinea pig' in the hands of political bigots hideously steering the youths' agitation seating in the back seats with ulterior motives of grabbing the State power from the back door, of which innocent students and youths remain totally unaware of; and eventually get attuned to, and indulge in insidious and blatant disobedience & mannerism syndrome in their day to day life.

Tendency of defiance and disobedience among the youngsters seemingly growing in festering pace in the society for multifarious reasons including huge lapses in proper parenting, proper family and institutional education, persistent social unrest, influence of drugs moral turpitude and aberration from ideology, ethics and true religious teachings. Elders are often seen shockingly attacked with the volleys of harsh words, elbowed out and trampled over in the public places by the brutal strength of a section of youths. A due respect to the elders and seniors is a far cry and is seldom seen these days in public domain.

Disobedience in different faces of modernity and mock-up smartness can foster nothing but instilling chronic unhappiness and paranoid frustration that gnaws the fabrics of the society thus slowly leading to the ultimate destination of gripping unrest and instability.

In fine, in all humility, I urge upon our dear young generation to be law abiding and to show adequate obedience, respects, tolerance and compassions to their parents, teachers and elders so that they can also expect similar good gesture from their progeny and juniors at the crux of time when, having run out all the creative and combustible fuels of the youth, they turn elders and walk the twilight of life to stand face to face with the reality and strange destiny of life that no one can shun. Disobedience is like a cancer in the human behavioural pattern which needs amputation for both prevention and cure toward guaranteeing a healthy and respectful society that we all cherish and wish to live in. God help us.

The writer is a former civil servant




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