Vazirsingh’s Weblog

Time and again, I see loyalty being rated as a top pre-requisite in the list of desirable qualities.This is true for friendship,relationship and even in the work environment.

Loyalty is listed as the top reason for engendering trust. Any show of disloyalty is seen as a personal attack, even a stab in the back. “Et Tu Brute”

Loyalty to an individual demands that we suspend judgment on his/her acts and  are  unequivocally  receptive to all  their actions.  Or  even if  we are not receptive, we  would  not  voice  opposition  as it would  be seen  as a  disloyal act.

This loyalty may require you to overlook your bigger role towards society or organization.So is loyalty to an individual a higher desirable quality than the bigger entity?

I guess relationships demand this kind of suspension of judgment, if the original fervour has to be retained. Or put in another fashion, the attachment of a relationship overrides judgment. The heart wins over the head.

It starts with the backyard you live in,loyalty to the state you belong to, or the country or the language, or the caste, or the religion. Same suspension of judgment are programmed from early age. Loyalty to your kind of people.

So when “Neeraj” espoused the cause of humanity over the divisions of state, or religion, it was a radical idea. It challenged loyalty as a concept. With his poetry, patriotism, religious identity, caste,language etc. were subject to new evaluation.His hindi poetry was part of our curriculum in the 6th standard when I was growing up.He had a profound effect on me.

And suspending judgment is never going to be a wise thing as then evolution,change, growth,improvement would also be not possible.

So I would rather have critical people in my company, who could challenge my actions,beliefs and thoughts. For me the traditional definition of loyalty would mean surrendering the power of reasoning in a way. It would probably assuage the ego, but stunt thought and growth. No one can afford to be right all the time, as mistakes are  the tools  necessary  for  learning.

But then this is my view.

All of us are influenced by our society. As children we are born with very little powers of discrimination. Generally the bolder babies travel happily from shoulder to shoulder while some babies would limit their travel to recognized faces. But ask a baby its colour or religion, and it is blissfully uncluttered with these considerations.

In the process of growing up, parents,teachers and peers pass on quite a few of their ideas and thus influence the children. They develop the child’s power of judgment and make them ready to be citizens of the world. In this process quite a few of the ready made algorithms  or shortcuts get taught consciously or  unknowingly.  We teach children that a dog could bite, so be careful. We teach them that  doves and deer are gentle and so on and so forth, without the child having to go through the act of self-discovery.

In the process of growing up if there is a clash between what a child learns from his nearest and then what he learns from society, a clash can result. This can lead to rebellion or produce complexes in the child.

Importantly there are some basic fundamentals which are absorbed in such a way that they become part of the person. The person with this latent quality may not really be aware of this development.

Prejudice. It is defined as an act of pre-judgment. It is the act of assuming or classifying something  or someone without knowing the entire facts. It is in fact a shortcut applied by the person on the basis of his understanding of race,religion,language,culture,country,intelligence,beauty, gender etc. The list goes on.

Closer home, you can hear statements like “Bhaiyya”, “Ghaati”, “Madrasi” ” Papad” the list is endless. These pejorative terms are used to paint an entire segment of society. Then the entire segment is given attributes.

Recently in  Bahrain, there were some high profile crimes committed by Bangladeshis. This resulted in the government banning the entire community. For all young and impressionable minds the image of the Bangladeshis has been imprinted emphatically. It will not be a great wonder if they grow up with this fixed prejudice. It is like the Puerto Ricans, infamous the world over while experienced only the US.

What is the outcome of prejudice?

I can best relate to the book “To kill a mockingword”. Harper Lee won a pulitzer for this work. This novel describes how a black handicapped man is charged with rape of a white minor girl, leading to his unfair conviction by the jury. The defense advocate proves it beyond doubt that the act was not possible physically. The jury decides otherwise. This book was made into a movie starring Gregory Peck. Since it was at a time when segregation was still fresh in black minds, it was a very evocative and emotional piece of literature.

In deed in our daily lives, we face and commit prejudices on a daily basis. I worked with an extremely talented and intelligent gent who prided himself with the ability to make decisions based on his observation powers. So within a few minutes into a conversation with a stranger, this gent would have strong opinions on the stranger’s character.Indeed his geography and history. He would be able to rationalize the most trivial things and  present them as facts. While strangely  the truth is that even after spending lifetimes together, partners make mistakes about each other.

It is of little consequence if your grocer or milkman is prejudiced. But what happens if you feel its presence in family or workplace?

When presented with such prejudiced and judgmental behavior, people tend to either spend their energies in trying to prove the fallacies of the assumptions, or sometimes they are trapped by self-doubt.This could result in introspection and possibly loss of confidence or mental balance.

Early in life I learnt that it is futile to try and correct a prejudice. Prejudice is a blind spot, and a prejudiced person never realizes this fact. So the more you correct him, the more it seems like a challenge for him.

I believe that it is best for everyone to be true to themselves. Those who love you and care for you, will accept you with warts and all. They will overlook your flaws if any. The rest don’t amount to much anyway.

By the same coin, you will have to learn to live with the flaws in the others if you care for them. “Forgive them for their sins” from the bible resonates with this message.

Forgive people their prejudices, and be open to own up your own prejudices.Amen.