REORIENTATION OF SOCIAL VALUES

By T.H Shah

Every society of the world even of antiquity has adopted some types of rules to deal with the social affairs especially those where the commonalities of interests exist and likely risks develop for clash and conflict. Social values and norms regulate human relations thus ensuring smooth run of the affairs. The whole normative structure of the society works in all corners of the society like political, economic and social etc. Socialisation is a continuous process keeps moving on uncontrollably and of course, beyond human control. It is a vehicle which transfers or becomes cause of transferring social values from generations to generations. To understand the nature of any society, the imperativeness lays in understanding the norms and values of any particular society.

Human rights and social values have deep nexus, in some cases not separable from each others. Gender relations, women rights and their equality, relationships between social classes are all determined by the types of social values the society has adopted. It can rightly be said that normative structure of society many protects or become cause of violations of human rights. History is replete with such incidents and happenings which prove this phenomenon. In ancient Arabian society, the newly born daughters were buried alive, for, to have daughter was considered to be a social evil. In medieval society of many European countries the rights of women were determined not on the basis of human being, but from the prevalent social structure and circumstances of that time. It is thanks to reformation and renaissance which altered the whole structure of the society in Europe which resultantly laid the foundation of democracy.

Though all the human rights conventions lay emphasis upon equality of human beings in all spheres of life, but numerous hurdles hinder the way to the pursuit of human equality. Even in some religions, the concept of human equality is openly denounced. Reciting and reading of holy books of any religion should not be banned for the people of its followers, but even then the followers of same religions cannot enjoy the same sacred right. For instance, in Hinduism worst type of inequality prevails in different social classes. Shudras one of the lowest class in Hindus cannot go to the temples, cannot marry Brahman girls, they are not allowed to recite the holy books of Ramayana and Mahabharata, Shudars are not allowed to sit side by side with the Brahmin. Women were treated very badly like the ceremony of Satti, under which the wife of deceased one has to burn alive on the funeral pyre.

In many Muslim communities, the social values are greatly responsible for flouting human rights openly. Women are not given participation in political process as happens in many Arab states, while the religion of Islam itself is staunch advocate of protecting women rights in all social spheres. The prophet Hazrat Muhammad (P.B.U.H) in his last sermons clearly denounced and slashed the concept of any social class in whatsoever form, but classes still exist in Muslim societies particularly when glanced upon the strong sacred status of Sadaat tribes. Sadaat tribe is considered to be the descendents of Hazrat Muhammad (P.B.U.H) and are regarded the sacred class in the Muslims. In many cases, exogamy is absolutely prohibited and thought to be an unacceptable act. In Islam, man can have four wives at the same time under some strict conditions imposed by Islam, but in many societies, having second wife in the presence of other brings social repugnance, and becomes cause of strives and conflicts in family matters, but in Arabian and Afghan society, the same practice is an acceptable social values. In similar, the concept of intermarriage among different sects of Muslim is also prohibited. Strong resistance exists for Sunni to marriage in Shia and same vice versa. In Taliban-esque version of Islam, women are not allowed to receive education while Islam itself binds every man and woman to seek knowledge. The bedrock behind all the evils is the normative structure and attempts to connect it to religious values which resultantly set the evil in.

Of the late, in international politics, the terms like terrorism, religious intolerance and extremism are mostly perceived in Islamic sense only, while there are other isms as well in which killing of human beings is regarded to get reward in divine sense. Similarly, we come across such types of news like killings and eating flesh of children in worst underdeveloped African countries, and we also hear news of slaughtering children on the altars of the temples by extremist Hindus in India etc. To communist philosophy, state is an end in itself and individual is means, therefore, state is all in all and a sort of divine institution. Incident of students killings at Tiananmen Square in China have roots in upholding communist philosophy. Suicidal attacks are ascribed to the Islam, but in fact, they have been committed by other believers as well. The motives behind not been religion but other social and political motives supported them. What been the motives behind Samson who died together with his victims as he collapsed a Philistine temple and of the Dutch Lieutenant Jan Van Speijk detonating his own ship in the harbour of Antwerp to prevent being captured by the Belgians. Describing the nature of suicidal attacks, the online wikipedia states that Modern suicide bombing as a political tool can be traced back to the assassination of Czar Alexander II of Russian in 1881. Alexander fell victim to a Nihilist plot. While driving on one of the central streets of Saint Petersburg, near the Winter Palace, he was mortally wounded by the explosion of hand-made grenades and died a few hours afterwards. The Tzar was killed by a member of Narodnaya Volya, Ignacy Hryniewiecki, who died while intentionally exploding the bomb during the attack. There is no element of religion involved behind these suicidal attacks because the mainspring has been patriotic and nationalistic sentiments the roots of which cannot be traced in religion. Patriotism and nationalism are social values having no links with religion.

The main reason for this been info-tech revolution and exchange of ideas that has brought about great shifts in normative structure of many societies. Ban on custom of satti in India, amendments in honour killings and hadood ordinance, even recognition of homosexual rights in European countries, representation of women in political bodies even in some Arabian countries, legislative mechanism for protection of genders etc. are indicative of basic shift in norms and values.

In many parts of the world particularly in underdeveloped countries, lot need to be done to reorient social values. Where people have no access to basic amenities of life, and lead life below the poverty line, are most susceptible to become pawn at the hands of hawkish elements who wrongly manipulate religious and social values for their vested interests. The recent case before us is of fanatic and obscurantist Sufi Muhammad in Swat, and Molvi Fazl-ul-Lah, who attempted to foist Taliban-esque version of Islam on the people and openly labelled the followers of other sects to the heretic, equally along with it termed the judiciary and parliament of Pakistan to be an institutions ultra vires to Islamic concepts. Reorientation of social values needs in such social milieu and onus lay on non-governmental organisations, and international development organisations to make special focus on such programs promoting civic education, policy intervention, and capacity building programs etc. It is an established facts that war of ideas is most powerful than the war of weapons. French Revolution justifies the point which been wrought by the writing of great scholars not by the sabre-rattling of the soldiers.
(The Writer is associated with Press For Peace (PFP) as Director Research. He could be reached at: tajammulhs@gmail.com )

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