The Most Important Part of a Change is a Change in Perception

Guest Post by Ayesha Mirza

Any change to come at this point has to be sustained

We will win one day, one battle, but not the war against this system, if such a war indeed exists. The monsters we face today are those of our own making, whether through direct contribution or simple indifference, our actions have contributed to pushing this country into the position it is now.

Somewhere along the way we forgot that we are this nation. Now as we sit on the sidelines and criticise perhaps we no longer recognise how those raised fingers point back at ourselves. As the super-structure acts to preserve its own interests it does nothing more than replicate our own actions.

The problems of this nation are more deep-routed than simple corruption and mindless, self-interested pursuit for power. The cancer runs deeper, as a disease in society that feeds upon its moral fabric, a parasitic fiend that feeds upon the humanity of this nation. 

But my purpose here is to assert more than just rhetoric. It is to identify a key failure of our social structure. Where people are driven to vile acts in seeking out their eventual aims they lack the basic self-respect and dignity which inherent in any human being would render even the smallest degree of corruption morally abhorrent. Where honour and dignity fail to be standards of judgement for a society, the nation in itself, being structured by the later, is doomed to failure.

We as a society gain our self-respect by stamping down upon that of others, perpetually and consistently, whether we choose to recognise it or not. Our self esteems stems not from how much we value ourselves but how highly we value ourselves in regard to the rest. The constant need for ending up on the upper-hand of the comparison is insatiable. It begins from the classification we learn at home with the treatment domestic labour receives, in account of it being the socially acceptable, “proper way” of doing things. It extends, as we progress in life, to larger issues such as religious segregation and social classification. 

The only thing achieved by this disunity and disharmony in society which invariably impedes its progress. I for one am at failure to perceive what benefit is achieved by segregation other than to fuel and empty sense of self which is as superficial as the premise it is based upon.

The danger of this practice is again not limited to merely discrimination, but extends to loss of dignity and honour. Those that we put down, generation after generation, fall prey to the perception that they will be held accountable to lesser standards of moral judgement on account of their social classification. Those who find themselves on the top of this false food-chain see themselves as exempt from all standards of morality. The resulting consequence is society whose very character becomes chaotic, hence losing the entire point of civilization.

This social structure is undeniably anarchic and unsustainable and this is only one face of it. It is then to be expected that our society, our nation, now hungers for change. But are we, as a people, truly prepared for that change if it is to come from within ourselves? There are many difficult questions we must be prepared to ask ourselves, but the way forward is only through recognition of social and individual responsibility, and recognition of that fact that the nation will only change once that change comes from its composite elements, the people that form this nation.