TO quote one person I’ve had the dubious honour of hearing speak, we now live in a world of “simultaneity”. If you don’t know, this means that the global situation we find ourselves in is one of everything, everywhere, all at once. It’s a jumbled-up jungle out there with so much going on that we don’t know where to look, what to think, and what to do.
How then do people keep standing upright in the face of all this misery? How do we cope?
My guess is we cope by sticking to the core values we have inside us, values that give us our moral standing. Often this comes from the faiths we follow and more universal ethics. For instance, even people with no religion know that stealing or beating up people are bad things to do.
Whatever ethics and values you hold, however, must be consistent. Otherwise, if they waver in the wind, if you are one thing to one set of people and something else to another set, then those values are not worth anything.
This is particularly important in leaders whom we follow. They must show ethical behaviour and not steal their people’s money, for instance. But equally importantly, they must be consistent in the ethics they display. To quote a Forbes magazine article on leadership ethics every leader should live by in 2024, the first trait they must have is consistency.
“Consistency is a key trait in ethical leaders, especially as it relates to communication. Be consistent and transparent with everyone when relaying information. One discrepancy, and you could be counted out as not being trustworthy, and your followers won’t know what to expect from you next. Consis-tency builds trust over time, as people gauge your character by repetitive actions.”
When our leaders are not consistent, then we find it difficult to trust them. If they campaign on certain promises and then don’t fulfil them, at least without any clear explanation, then we start having doubts about them. If they say one thing and then do quite the opposite, we are bound to lose faith in them.
We face many ethical dilemmas every day. Many issues force us to make choices that challenge our comforts. Do we keep buying cheap fashionable clothes knowing that, one, they are likely made in the worst sweatshops in poor countries, and, two, they are causing huge piles of unwanted clothes being dumped in the Atacama Desert in Chile? Do we spend our lunchtimes eating fast food when we know they’ll cause us health issues in the future? Do we throw away plastic bags and bottles willy-nilly knowing that they’ll choke our rivers?
Some issues may happen far away from us but in this world made small by social media, they still come to us on our phones and TV screens every day. The best example that is roiling the world now is of course the genocide in Gaza, as well as those happening in the Congo, Sudan, and Myanmar. We cannot escape the horror even if we’re witnessing them from the comfort of our airconditioned rooms. It’s been over eight months, it is relentless and there seems to be no end in sight.
Most of us feel upset, angry and helpless. But because our ethical concerns and empathy with other human beings guide us, we do what we can, even if it’s just to pray for peace or to donate a small amount to help those suffering under constant bombardment. We know that we would want the same support from others if we were in the same situation. In our small ways, we try not to abandon anyone we have always tried to give hope to.
This is why it is puzzling when our leaders don’t do the same. It is one thing to complain about how the Myanmar government treats their Rohingya ethnic groups but then to discriminate against the same group when they land on our shores? Or to make strong statements in support of Gaza and Palestine and then ignore calls to boycott, divest, and sanction any entity that has interests in Israel? This only creates confusion among those of us who believe in certain ethics.
The explanations for the continued dealings with dubious companies are shallow from every angle, including the business one (those guys aren’t particularly good at running airports). But more than that, should we fall into the same basket as some of the countries neighbouring Palestine who make pronouncements about ceasefires on the one hand, and then secretly continue commercial trade with the aggressor? No wonder Israel remains so arrogant; they know they can get away with it.
The prominent Indian jurist, economist, social reformer and politician BR Ambedkar (1891-1956) once said, “History shows that where ethics and economics come into conflict, victory is always with economics. Vested interests have never been known to have willingly divested themselves unless there was sufficient force to compel them.”
Guess history continues to repeat itself.
Marina Mahathir is conflicted about many things but not about the genocide. The views expressed here are solely the writer’s own.
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