Thoughts of a pessimist

One of my friends recently commented on one of my posts and asked me to come up with my own solutions for the issues that I raise in my blog. I usually don’t reply to comments but I do respond in one way or the other. My friend’s query was fair enough because at first sight it seems like full of problems but hardly any answer.

Well, the truth is, if I knew a definite answer I wouldn’t be here writing this, would I? But I’ve got my own opinions as to why we are in this whole mess and how we can get ourselves out of it. They don’t necessarily have to be solutions.

We, Sri Lankans may have learned so many things from the Western world, except for one important thing. As I have tried to point out in few of my previous posts, this crucial missing parameter is… discipline.

Whether you like it or not, we lack discipline (if not we do not have it at all) from top to bottom and all across. You don’t need to work your brain out to figure it out. Just drive for 10 minutes at a peak time in Colombo or stay 10 minutes in a queue or try to cross the street even at a pedestrian crossing at a busy time or invite someone for dinner at 7pm. Enough said.

To tell you the truth, I also had no idea about how disciplined the people are in developed countries until I first visited a northern European country a few years back. When I saw the difference I immediately felt that “what if every Sri Lankan can come and see these incredible scenes! “. Since then, I’ve tried my level best to replicate those disciplines back in Sri Lanka, specially in driving, but I always ended up being a loser.

To me, it’s lack of discipline that made this social, economic, political and judiciary turmoil we are in. My father-in-law has a very good example for this. If you are a member of a sports club and you go against the constitution of it, the club should have every right to take an action against you. At the same time, you can’t be a member of one sports club and play for a rival club. Even a kid in kindergarten would know it. But in our country’s politics, both these scenarios are invalid. Doesn’t it come down to lack (or non existence) of discipline at the end?

Similarly, why we are so messy when we drive, why we don’t have patience to stay politely in a queue to get a job done, why we don’t stop our vehicles at pedestrian crossings and why we arrive at 9.30 for a dinner we were supposed to come at 7.00 all come down to lack of discipline.

Now the problem is how can we establish discipline in our society? My understanding is it has to come from top to bottom. In our culture, we tend to follow leaders and idols. If they are disciplined, the layers underneath will be disciplined as well. Theoretically that should be the easiest way as well because top layers are low in quantity.

One would argue that discipline should come from childhood. But having seen children in our country as well as in a few ‘developed’ countries, I can clearly say that our children are much more organized, loyal, tidy, well behaved and disciplined. But when they enter the adult society, all those good attributes disappear and eventually become part and parcel of the same mess. In contrast, children of these countries who look so untidy, disorganized, undisciplined and violent become more loyal and disciplined when they enter the adult society.

This observation made me think that the problem lies in the adult society. I always believed that example had to be set from the top. The secret behind the success of these so-called developed countries is that their leaders were disciplined; they set the targets, they were true to their word and they led by example. It doesn’t mean that they were perfect. They made mistakes, they were wrong, they were stupid and they will be. But they are disciplined enough to accept their mistakes and wrongdoings. The end result is the public can trust on them.

In our case, our leaders start by misleading people, telling all sorts of lies, cheating and going against their own word. Having seen their heroics for decades we have completely lost faith on them. Because of indiscipline, senselessness and stupidity of our leadership, we as a country and a society are moving slowly towards an inevitable disaster. Being a pessimist, I feel like we are about to pass the point of no return, if not we’ve already gone past that.