Respect is something that all of us expect from others. But when it comes to others do we have the same feeling? The answer in most cases is NO.
So why is it that we feel slighted when people do no respect us, but we fail to see that point when dealings with others? In a restaurant most patrons show little or no respect to waiters, but expect waiters to be servile to the extent of licking their soles.
The reason according to me is Ego and the belief that I am special. What we fail to realize that the other person is also thinking on the same lines. Where and how does that leave us as a society? Lonely, rude, and violent, I say.
Mahatma Gandhi had said that you can judge a person’s character by the way he treats people who are lower down the economic ladder than him. If we use that yardstick to map peoples’ characters in our country, I assure you that we as a nation will be found woefully wanting.
Our problem is that most respect only wealth and success. And given the fact that people in a country are never going to be equally wealthy and/or successful, we are individually never going to respect each other.
As we do not respect each other, we do not respect and cherish our country. As a result, we see no wrong in fighting with each other, destroying one other’s homes, damaging public infrastructure, and behaving in a manner that’s unbecoming of civilized societies.
That brings me to another issue. Are we a society civilized? To answer that question, let us look at the meaning of “civilized”.
In the verb form, civilize means “to bring out of a savage, uneducated, or rude state; make civil; elevate in social and private life; enlighten; refine.”
In the adjective form civilize means: a) having an advanced or humane culture, society, etc; b) polite; well-bred; refined; c) of or pertaining to civilized people; c) easy to manage or control; well organized or ordered.
Now do we as a society behave in any of the manner that the definitions of civilized denote. I would say NO. You as a reader are free to form your own opinions. That according to me is respecting your freedom to decide.
In short, how great we as a people or as a country are should be determined by how well we treat one another and not by our ability to fight, accumulate wealth, build nuclear arsenals, increase the size of our armed forces, and treat fellow beings as inferior to us.
We always crib that the West does not treat us with the respect that we deserve. My question is why anyone should treat us with respect when we do not accord the same treatment to our fellow countrymen? The day we start respecting our fellow citizens is the day the world will start respecting us. It’s for us to decide if we give respect and gain respect or keep treating people with disdain and continue to be paid back in the same coin.
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