Promoting the world view that doesn’t allow the citizens including students to protest against the government policies ,question what the teachers teach us , to do critical analysis of what our religious leaders or political leaders tell or want us to follow is seriously inclining us to a slavery.
Throughout the history dissent has been very important to bringing up change in the society. The information explosion of today has made common man to believe many things that are fictious one sided planted for exploitation which spolis the intellectual atmosphere. The inclusive yet democratic dialogue between the learner and the learned in the distant past was a legacy of spiritually and intellectually awakened individuals which touched ungone dimensions of life and brought to us utopian notions about society.
Curtaining the dissent is worst human rights violation. The various dimensions of the topic can be categorized into religious dissent , political dissent and the corroding questioning culture in the student teacher relationship.Those who speak up for the betterment of society , accept the criticism and respect the opinion of others are indeed the citizens who lay the foundation of the society we intend to build, But the culture of asking questions even about small events is evanescing. These are main two reasons why this questioning culture is vanishing.
1. The learner or the listner problem: As students or learners we have no time to critically analyse the things or event so that questions may rise in our minds. We are too much addicted to socail networking sites. We are becoming dull and lazy.
2. Teacher problem: For instance if a religious scholar is giving sermon and we disagree with him. I am grown in the such a society where I am told not to utter a word. The scholar is pious. You can’t argue. Whatever he has delivered must be right. The disagreement may make me more sinner and a right material for hell fire. We cannot question about the political scenario and other most important issues which may discomfort the scholar.
Hence we are made slaves within our religious boundaries. Somehow dissent or asking-culture bothers some who want community to dummy up and let them do whatever they want, infact this is one of the reasons why people have lust for power as it provides them an opportunity to do whatever that wanted to.
We live in the society if we blindly agree with a scholar you are the best , most decent and lovable in his and his companion eyes. Once we ask him a question or show disagreement we are most arrogant. Politics is often rough and tumble exercise. Dissent and protest strech our ability to take criticism and should lead us to eximine what is that people are upset about not simply dismiss their complaints as unimportant (unknown). Also as quoted by J william Fulbright “In a democracy, dissent is an act of faith.” dissent is an indicator of healthy democracy ,it is one of the parameters of “democracy index” that UK based company economist intelligent unit(EIU) considers to measure state of democracy in 167 countries. Dissent acts as an instrument of expression if not respected often takes violent forms.
There are two dimensions to which questions are asked,one is the external world, like system, institutions, faiths and political doings and the other is asking self, which wise men believe is more important as it leads to self discovery, self improvement and enhancing ones productivity. Debating on things which we beyond our control is nothing but foolishness as if someones complains about gravity, it won’t change the nature of gravity but will make that person more obsessed with what he believed and will develop forceful attitude.As Tony Robbins says “If you want to change your life, change the questions which you ask yourself each day. ” Great men ask great questions to none but themselves. When people stop asking the establishments of their wrong doings the culture becomes authoritarian but when we stop asking oursleves of our behaviors we loose our ability to comprehend and become lazy and our productivity slopes down. As our results are the outcome of what we chose in the past, choosing involves asking questions,this makes it even more important.
The declining trend of asking questions to self can be attributed to:-
1) Excessive use of social media, it also negatively impacts one’s body image, sleep and fear of missing out( as reported by The Telegraph). It also leaves us no time to ask important questions.
2) Broken focus syndrome. Researches indicate, Every 11 mins we are interrupted and takes 25 mins to refocus our minds on the work we were doing before we were interrupted.
3) fear of standing out as conformity or herd mentality is hard to escape.
4) Ignorance, we ignore our own habits as it is uncomfortable to see bad in ourselves.
5) living without purpose in mind. Like a ship without rudder goes nowhere, same is with us without purpose we aim for nothing and thus achieve nothing.
In an event which happened during the khilafat of second khalifah Hazrat umer (may Allah be pleased with him) when he tailored his kurtah by combining his and his sons cloth. The better and longer dress of khalifah was questioned by one his follower. The khalifah was delighted that still people have guts to ask, unlike today’s era our voices are chocked in the name of religion.
If it is so important to ask questions, why don’t we ask? And don’t let others to ask? We need to nurture the culture which will carry forward the legacy which ancient intellects brought to us as it is culture which shapes most of our behaviors and we can’t afford to loose the genius of our youths which they are blessed with.
(The authors are freelancers. Their views are personal)
