Sunday, May 25, 2008

HONESTY PAYS BUT NOT ENOUGH?

MUHAMMAD MAHTAB BASHIR
ISLAMABAD
mahtabbashir@yahoo.com


Honesty may or may not be the best policy in a corrupt society but there’s no doubt that it is the basis of a virtuous life. Honesty means truthfulness in thought, speech and action. Unfortunately, today’s life of materialism is full of unscrupulous people with dodgy thoughts. It is of their opinion that the most important thing in life is to succeed by hooks or by crooks. They never expostulate by using unfair means if these prove out to be fruitful in fulfilling their aims and ambitions. Thus one can safely say that dishonesty and deceit appear very successful for these people at least for some time.

Of course, nothing is more difficult in this world than to be an honest person in a dishonest society. It puts you in a number of further troubles. By using fair and honest means, one can not always get a fair advantage, e-g a student utilizes days and nights in his studies to obtain handsome marks but still he falls short to enter the premises of a medical, engineering or any other institute he strived hard for.

One has got the capability, efficacy, competency and skills yet he is non-entity in the eyes of persons who has all the clouts. People pay no heed to the potential of youth who is almost pleading for due reward. His competency overshadows by the prowess of bribery and subornment.

Thus all the talent and proficiency goes straight into a bin. Bravely speaking, in our land of pure, nothing is pure. Every individual suffers at least once in his life-time with such pathetic state of affairs, depending on his status quo or personal contacts in concerned organizations.

You may not be able to become a rich overnight by honest means, while others accumulates wealth by duplicity, deceit and using their duel standard of betrayal. Yet there’s no doubt that dishonesty is a perilous evil that destroys the best virtues and inner-conscience of an individual as well as of the society. A dishonest man can be a successful in this world but he would not be a success story in second world.

It is appropriate in saying that all the evils of the society are the outcome of dishonesty. The people who gain power through dishonest or unfair means rule over the rest of the people by terror. Therefore, “the rule of terror” and insincere persons devise the whole society corrupt. The luckless and ill-fortunate poor mass of the country has limited options to survive thus they accept the brutal rules and atrocious policies reluctantly considering as their fate. Some calls it an error to destiny.

The insincere and dishonest ruler can not be trusted in a long run. For this deceitful person nothing is sacred and he is above all laws as he can play with the constitution of the country. If he can swindle an individual, he can easily betray his nation for a higher price.

In a nutshell, a crooked man can not be a friend of any but is a fair weather’s friend of many. He not only plays with the innocent lives and wills of his kids but destroying their moral values too.

Corruption and dishonesty will corrode our economy and coming generation, if not prevented. One can foil this social illness by adopting the Islamic injunctions. This can easily be thwarted, if one condemns the acts of notorious persons individually before going for publicly. When you are observing the institution of fasting with strict guidelines of Islamic teachings, you avoid eating in front of others because eating edibles might be condemned at a large scale and you may feel mortified. Corruption can be cured applying the same methodology by condemning the corrupt person instantly. Another way out is of performing the social boycott of the same false person putting him in isolation, it may work slowly but surely.

There’s so much good in the worst of us
And so much bad in the best of us
That ill-behooves any of us
To find faults with the rest of us.

Thomas Jefferson says, “Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.” But in this land of pure, mainstream of people often skip the first chapter.

The author is a freelance columnist from Islamabad
MUHAMMAD MAHTAB BASHIR
House # 2026, Street # 32,
I-10/2, ISLAMABAD.
Cell: 0300 52 56 875
mahtabbashir@gmail.com
Lalarukh from Islamabad Emails':
Sat, Jun 7, 2008 at 1:55 PM
beyond my understanding.

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