Almost everybody feels frustration over the alleged erosion of moral values and ethics from society - particularly the younger generation. Is there any basis for this almost universal condemnation of the young?
While travelling in public buses, one often comes across interesting experiences - a young man vacating his seat for an elderly person or a young woman, herself standing as reserved seats for women were full, asking a young man to vacate his seat for an old person. Countless examples of members of the younger generation showing respect to their seniors still abound in our society. So all is not lost as yet.
Morals grow at home or in the educational institutions where children study. It is erroneous for the elders to think that children will learn ethics automatically. It's not. They learn from their surroundings. They become used to the environs they grow up in. Every child has his or her own personality always shaped by parents or teachers.
It is indeed a shame when guardians are caught red-handed by invigilators in exam halls while they were supplying notes to their wards. Although such cases are rare, it is very hard for one to believe that parents help their kids to learn unfair means.
What's about corrupting the environ in our educational institutions? Young students find their teachers more busy with private coaching than teaching in the classrooms. They are supplied with notes which are photocopied in hundreds for distribution among them. Is the syllabus confined to only a few questions that might come in an exam? Why not study all the chapters of books prescribed for certain classes?
The examples of munificence or high ideals of morality of great personalities in this part of the world are rarely found in the present-day textbooks. Haji Muhammad Mohsin is no longer remembered for his benevolence. The students, instead, learn at home and educational institutions, what unfair means they should adopt to build houses or buy cars in their later lives.
An aged newspaper editor in his retired life was once found running from pillar to post for medical treatment of his sister who was in her death bed. His two nephews lived in the US and Australia. Asked, he said: "Both of my nephews abroad shower praise on me for taking care of their mother at home. 'Go ahead, go ahead' is what I hear whenever they phone me to know the state of their mother's health." Sons of his sister, studying in the two foreign countries, did never show their grave concern nor did they intend to return for a short time to be by the side of their dying mother. And she died, unwept.
That the society is sinking in terms of values is partially true. If not, how could we see growth of 'Old Home' right in Bangladesh, where sons and daughters used to cling to the laps of their parents till they breathed their last?
Now, it is for the social scientists to find out what has really gone wrong. They are to prescribe measures for the remedy of lapses in ethics and morality one sees now in the Bangladesh society. There is still time for a return of ethics that the people of the East used to hold high.
arjayster@gmail.com
Not all is lost
Rahman Jahangir | Published: March 19, 2015 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2026 06:01:00
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