Developing a Psychologically Damaged Society

The issue has fully surfaced through a number of the most recent episodes indicating that the temperament in our society seems badly going lost. The quality of self-control and tolerance is missing. Disappointment, anxiety and irritation overcome and within minutes either own life is taken through suicide or someone other is deprived of his life. Consequently murders are now such a common things that we are hardly stunned to hear about them or watch immensely terrible scenes of killing. Minds are overpowered with rage and revenge and the people within no time go to the extreme of any deadly action. Consecutive incidents of murdering close relatives are happening. The esteem and sanctity of the relations, our great moral value, is culminating in many tragic incidents. Tender and gentle disposition of nature is getting spoilt.

We have a warning of our Prophet, peace be upon him, even then a great moral trait of respect for the elders is on sharp decline. The Prophet, peace be upon him, is reported to have said: “ He is not one of us who does not have mercy upon our young, nor knows honor and dignity of our elders.” (Tirmazi & Ahmed) Murder as an outrageous individual act or a heinous move of suicide bombing in public places including the mosques and shrines has become a common thing leaving no day go without it. It is as if the time prophesied by the last Messenger of Allah as a sign of the Last Day has approached nearer. Once he said: “ The Day of Judgment will not be established before the happenings of an excess of ‘Al-Harj.’ “What Al-Harj is, O Prophet of Allah?” the companions asked. The Prophet, peace be upon him, said: “Murders, murders.” (Ahmed)

In a society with many socio-economic and political bungles due to stupid and clumsy political minds and administrative hands, there are many more reasons amplifying the atrocities of this kind. Growing materialistic trends, which are sweeping through almost every class of the society, not leaving our moral and spiritual guides, the Ulama and Shayukh out of its sway, have a major role in promoting these trends. Every rich and poor is in a race for more and more worldly gains at the cost of the social and moral values. A lot of problems created by the desire of emulating the upper class and imitating them in the highly rising standards of living have become a social trend today. Complex, both, the inferiority and superiority, are psychological ailments and a major part of our society is presently suffering from either the one or the other of these two complexes.

The other day, while visiting a family I found there a very costly ‘Wedding Card’ printed on a thick imported paper, a clear manifest of an extremely imbalanced pomp and show. Out of its 28 pages (imagine a Wedding Card of 28 pages) 14 pages (one side of every sheet) of it had a detailed schedule of the rakish wedding festivities starting from July 11 and ending on 23 July, all in different luxury hotels. This lavish spending is in a society where the people are forced to lose their own lives after their patience is exhausted because of unavailability of their basic needs. Such extravagance, worst examples of callousness by wealthy class of the society, is itself an expression of superiority complex causing social perplexities and blowing the feelings of deprivation among the poor people. The feelings of disappointment either incite them stand against the system by rebellious and devastating acts of terrorism or a new dimension of ‘terrorism’, putting their children for sale or disconnecting the chain of their lives with the poison, a knife or a bullet, of course, a new shape of terrorism.

Now there exists no middle class. It has either rose up to join with or has been gulped down by the rich. Missing of the middle class has made gap between the poor and the rich more conspicuous. For the children of Elite class, including corrupt politicians, bureaucrats, retired or in service high ranked armed forces officers, feudal lords, industrialists, high business community, there are the education institutions with excessive facilities while the poor has to either send their children to work in auto workshops, restaurants or the places of child labour or, in case they want them get some education, traditional religious schools, mostly without basic facilities, a suffocating atmosphere causing both physical and psychological sickness are the place for them.

Western fashions, modern lifestyles, palace like houses, fleets of high-priced cars, dinning in posh areas’ expensive restaurants has become the cultural trait of the rich and neo-rich class. Eyeing this all the feelings of getting stripped of their resources of living by the rich class a strong wave of hatred rises high in the poor. Their psychological sufferings grow more and more. The hardships of life create some pleas and pretexts to go to any extreme and falling easy prey to any disastrous plan of the enemies of the country and the Muslim Ummah. The poor mostly keep stuck to the religion and being in the Elite class is identical to antithesis of religiosity. The poor have their roots in the soil of the country while the loyalties of upper class are thought to be with their western masters. Attributing the present row of the terrorism only to the religion is a half-truth and negligence of many other factors is becoming the root of the problem. Was this all happening before the 9/11 incident and our unconditional readiness to be front row ally in so-called War On Terror? Why not to consider it the result of an enormous political and military misstep causing long lasting and very arduous social, psychological and economic problems?