Need for a pedagogy of good citizenship

Rev. Fr. Augustine Fernando (Diocese of Badulla)-Monday, August 13, 2018

 

Citizens of modern states need to learn to be adult, mature and responsible citizens that they may exercise the rights of citizenship in an honest and righteous manner in solidarity with other citizens. That means all citizens should acquire the relevant knowledge required to be good and acceptable citizens and imbibe such qualities as civic sense, sharing of community burdens and become truthful, just, fair, honest and considerate of the human dignity and equality of others and be submissive to the law of the State.

The vast majority of citizens of modern states have learnt to be democratic and law-abiding. It is always the comparative microscopic minority that causes confusion. They too need to be rehabilitated and reformed for society to thrive and for all to enjoy peace.

While all citizens are equal before the law, there is also a hierarchy and distinction of citizenship depending on the functions that devolve on various citizens and the areas and degrees of responsibility each citizen has as an individual, a member of a distinct community or as a member of an agency of the state.

Equality before the law does not make everyone equally intelligent, equally capable, gifted, talented, hardworking and productive, equally outgoing and service oriented and concerned about the well-being of others. Nevertheless, the structures of civilized society promote the contribution of the hands and minds and spirit of all to be responsible for one another. As all such responsibilities are services directed towards other citizens who are affected and benefit by the particular services rendered, it is necessary to value the importance of the services depending on nature and the circumstances of the services.

All good citizens live the whole of their lives protective of the common good and for the well-being of others. Flawed characters enter politics and even honoured professions on the pretext of service and exploit the community selfishly, sometimes to a very excessive degree. They denigrate human dignity.

Only good citizens qualified and capable of holding office should present themselves, be called upon or be nominated by political parties to be candidates for elections. When the electing citizens observe that the candidates presented to them are not at all suitable, it shows that those presenting themselves or the party leaders nominating them are failing to prove that those nominated are good citizens of integrity; it also shows that they do not have persons of quality.

This has led to the people distrusting the governments. From a corrupt political culture, only corrupt individuals will emerge. Dirty politicians cannot be made clean with the dirty water coming from a putrid political watercourse. However, the corrupt gang that wins praise the ‘wisdom and maturity’ of the electorate.

From the evidence that transpires to the citizens, elected representatives and the high positioned administrators in State agencies very selfishly in an indiscreet and foolish manner disburse billions of rupees belonging to the State as if they had the power to do so. If it was their money, they wouldn’t part with 0.0001% of the money they so disburse. These are individuals hardened in their anti-social behaviour; they cannot be reformed and should be judged and stripped of citizenship rights if found guilty of serious misdemeanours.

UNPROVED PEOPLES’ REPRESENTATIVES

The person leading the State, the Head of State (nowadays) elected for a period of time and considered the first citizen, has his/her function and duty to be concerned about the security, human dignity, rights, honour and general well-being of all the citizens and extend to them all just and equal treatment so that all will have a sense of belonging to the same State. It is in this very area that most of the heads of State have failed.

If he or she has a family, that family is considered the ‘first family’, a designation of honour that also confers certain definite liberties and privileges to facilitate the services that family may be called upon to render to other citizens and to the national community.

Assisting the head of State and the ministers are the citizens who exercise numerous functions on behalf of the State in the legislative, executive and judicial spheres enjoying certain liberties, privileges and honours that facilitate the responsibilities they are called upon to shoulder. Those who assist in all state agencies should be citizens of good standing usually selected not en masse or on political partisanship as is done usually in Sri Lanka, but purely on qualifications and merit carefully considering the nature of responsibilities that are to be vested in them. It is due to the selection of unsuitable individuals with rough edges that those in the summits of power face great embarrassment.

TO ATTEND TO ALL CITIZENS

The citizens each time they vote delegate to all national representatives the same assignment, to attend to the needs of all citizens. In Sri Lanka these representatives not only too often forget this obligation, they neglect to attend parliament to participate in important deliberations; while they are paid for their representing the people, now they have got used to being paid for attending each session; their concerns become partisan and limited to their race, caste, clan and political tribe.

There are also those who arrogate to themselves powers that have not been given to them; ministers have no power to pressurize bank managers to give them loans without collateral security; nor have the power to tell them to write off loans obtained by their numerous catchers; nowadays it seems quite common for power holders to engage in various types of financial jugglery and dubious business transactions; they presume to usurp power undemocratically in many and varied ways and become bad citizens, thus disqualifying themselves from being peoples’ representatives.

While some citizens are careless about exercising their franchise and abstain from voting due to their lacking civic conscience, some other citizens by their vote favour, not those who are concerned about the common good but those who are partial towards their factions.

Leaders and citizens need to be led away from a narrow understanding to a deeper one of good citizenship which does not eliminate the democratic and rightful attention that needs to be paid to distinct sections of the one nation. A particular attention to a weaker section or part of the nation does not detract attention from the greater whole.

Many modern states have citizens among the rulers and the ruled who have a good standard of citizenship and a conscientious awareness of the basic laws that govern them and they all abide by the duty of upholding the law while attending to their varied duties in state agencies or elsewhere. They consider upholding the law is more than gaining of silver and gold.

In Sri Lanka, respect for the established law and order is not at a high level. There is inordinate delay not only in enacting just and fair laws due to the lethargy of legislators, there is also delay in implementing them and meting out justice to the aggrieved.

If the law is in any way flawed, there is a procedure through which it should be rectified. But no one is above the law. And no lawbreaker should be given leeway to oppress law abiding citizens. And when anyone is punished for breaking the law, he cannot claim immunity from punishment due to a political party affiliation or a particular recognition by a sectarian group of people. Uncouth and foul-mouthed individuals who flout the law should not be allowed to get away with impunity; their unacceptable behaviour could become a precedent, to the detriment of society, permitting like-minded others to behave anti-socially in a similar manner.

In the context of today, Sri Lankan citizens have no other option than completely uprooting the existing rotten political culture and discarding it. Lest the same old rotten elements come back to power in a new guise, the intelligentsia needs to bear the burden of reasoning with and educating all the citizens toward a revitalized and heightened civic sense and persuading them to reform themselves first and then to transcend clannish and narrow tribal and caste tendencies and move towards greater social responsibility in view of the greater good of the future generations.