Loosing Our Sense of Values [Archives:2002/32/Focus]

COMMON SENSE 
By Hassan Al-Haifi
What has happened to our society? Asked Majid, the village elder, or Aqil.
His brother Saleh asked in return, What is chiseling your mind? After all, you should have more patience than anyone else in the village, since we depend on you to keep everyone stable in these hard times.
Come on Saleh, how can anyone stay stable in these terrible times, when everything seems to be going against the peoples wishes and aspirations?. Nothing seems to be working: Government is literally at a standstill, except for all the ceremonial garbage one sees in the papers and on television.
You are looking at it the wrong way Majid, Saleh said as he kicked a stone that was not really blocking his way, but simply because he wanted to prove to his brother that all obstacles can be removed easily, continuing, Yemen has never had it so good! Look at the country, it is now three times as large and there all these foreign companies working for the growth of the economy
Majid interrupted his brother, You are not going to give me all that garbage, we keep hearing again and again on the radio and television. Believe me, if the Yemeni people had known that the television and the public media were going to be used in such a wasteful manner, they would have never allowed the television station to be set up, not to mention all those extravagant public media facilities that do nothing except feed us with so much useless garbage that lacks any sense of culture or even respect for the eyes and ears that have to absorb it. Then there are the billions of Riyals that have to be churned up to keep this endless stream of garbage in the airwaves. Not only that, we even have the audacity to believe that all this senseless material will make attractive viewing material for an international audience on our satellite channel!
Majid, we have democracy, otherwise, you would not be able to say what you are saying now so freely!
Majid, was not satisfied: What do you mean by that? I say what I am saying, not because we have democracy, as you say, but because I see a lot of frustrated people, not really believing all that hogwash that is constantly rained upon them, without fulfilling any useful purpose, whatsoever. Not only that, they hear of all these great economic achievements, but see none translated on the ground, or in their standard of living, while much poverty and unemployment remain the prevailing themes of our economy today.
Saleh wanted to reassure his bother, by pointing out, Look, we have oil, which provides us with revenues to give drive to our economy.
Majid quickly had the answer, Saleh, I am afraid this oil is going to run out before the people of the country have any chance to see any real fruit harvested out of it for the general welfare of the nation. The worst thing is that the oil will run out without having been used to set up a capital base, on which the economy can depend on for any measure of sustainability, once this oil runs out! In the meantime, we see only a very few people benefiting from this vital national resource, which adds even more to our frustration. Please my brother, do not be overjoyed by the riches others enjoy, while you eat from their breadcrumbs!
Majid, look at the many schools that exist in the country. The government is paying so much attention to the development of our human resources, again Saleh shifted to another area.
Saleh, any educational system that only produces an army of unemployed discontented youth scares me a lot, especially, when the education system has not only failed to entrench any sense of values in our children, but also only produced a poorly educated output that fails to produce anything. Unemployed and looking at the disequilibrium that is developing in our social fabric, these youth will resort to such ungodly acts as murder, stealing and all the social maladies that accompany a disoriented society. I can recall when the population was all together, at one time poor, and underdeveloped, nevertheless we had social norms and values that taught us that we are all the same, so there is no reason we should resort to any of the horrific social maladies that have regrettably become the norms of life today. Thus, surprisingly, even with such state of deprivation, we lived rather satisfactorily and we even enjoyed laughter, while being content with managing to find the sustenance for our families for the day that is ahead of us, no more, no less.

——
[archive-e:32-v:2002-y:2002-d:2002-08-05-p:./2002/iss32/focus.htm]