Children
Question:-
A recent survey by the United
Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF)shows that out of he
12 Western countries, the USA
and Britain
have the worst record for the welfare of children. They have a greater proportion
of ill-treated, neglected, abused, deprived, unhappy, neurotic children than
elsewhere. There is among them much delinquency, violence, vandalism,
anti-social, aggressive and destructive behaviour, indiscriminate sexual
activity, child pregnancy, abortion, alcoholism and drug taking. Some political
leaders think that the cause is child poverty and want to encourage mothers to
go out to work. Others think that the cause is absent fathers and want to force
fathers to take responsibility for their children. What is the answer from the
Islamic point of view?
Answer:-
These are symptoms of
purposelessness and low respect for life. I am not surprised. Those are two
countries that have also proved to be paranoid and aggressive on the world
stage. How people treat their children tells us also about them as everyone in
a nation affects others and the children become the leaders later, tolerated if
not always supported by others.
We see that Western Politics is
about getting on the band wagon and gimmicks. When the problem is not correctly
identified then the solutions will be ineffective and even counter-productive.
Islam does have a theoretical
solution, but unfortunately the will and ability to implement these is lacking
quite apart from the fact that there is and would be opposition from a more
powerful majority and that general ignorance and lack of comprehension about
the significance of teachings and about causes and solutions also exist.
The causes for this situation are
probably as follows:-
(1) Poverty is a cause but is
relative to the wealth of the country. The differences in wealth is far too
great and results from the Capitalist system which divides people into owners,
managers and workers and rewards the relatively owners and managers to an extent
far beyond their needs at the expense of others.
(2) Materialism - The general
attitude is that material wealth is more important than social or psychological
values and should be pursued to the detriment of these. It is unlikely that in
present economic conditions that are based on the desire to increase monetary
profit, and therefore, on mental conditioning through advertisement and other
psychological and social techniques that this can change.
(3) Owing partly to differences in
wealth and materialism and the fact that there is greater mechanisation,
organisation and education, women have entered into the industrial system
abandoning domestic duties. In fact mechanisation has made domestic work easier
and made housewives relatively redundant. The increase in the industrial work
force has also depressed wages, thereby causing the poverty that necessitates
that women should go out earn money. As both parents go out to work and the
children have been taken over by the educational system, there is much less
contact between parents and children and they are left to their own devices and
generally lead their own separate unguided lives. A widening generation gap has
arisen.
(4) As a
result of the entry of women into the Industrial system and the consequent abandonment,
neglect and devaluation of the home, there has been an erosion of the natural
sexual differences and their mutual roles with respect to each other and in
relation to the children, and. indeed, even an understanding of these
differences and roles. Women have acquired economic as well as political power
and there has been a loss of the natural balance between the sexes. Women have
become financially independent of men both because of their careers that occupy
their interest and ambition, and because the State finances unmarried mothers,
thereby encouraging that state. Men on the other hand remain dependent on women
but have lost their advantages as well as their role as bread winners. Apart
from removing role models for children of either sex, the decline of the
influence of the father, which combined authority with love
has caused a loss of discipline and self-discipline.
(5) The breakdown of families.
This is partly due to the above three causes and also increasing Government
Legislation that has continued to interfere in family life, between the spouses
and between parents and children, eroding mutual rights and personal
responsibilities. As the State has taken over control of children and
women rather than families,
there is loss of respect between spouses and between parents and children. The
Law disallows parents from disciplining children. In particular men have little
rights over children or wives who in effect can do anything with impunity.
(6) Sexual morality has declined,
owing to erosion of religion and its values and techniques, and there is
indiscriminate mixing of the sexes in the work place and elsewhere. Mutual ties
between spouses have weakened and pleasure has become more important. There are
more arguments and conflicts between spouses. Divorce is easily sought and
granted. This also reflects in the relation between parents and children.
Husbands and wives can offer less to each other.
(7) The Educational system
concentrates on teaching intellectual and physical skills and ignores the
emotional development of the child. It has ceased to teach morality and
religion and provides no examples as to how to deal with life and control
psychological impulses. Though most of life is spent in families, the
educational system provides no training or guidance for marriage, family living
or parenting.
(8) The
nature and mentality of people is formed by their Culture. This refers to their
Arts, literature, media of communication and dissemination of ideas and values,
modes of behaviour and organisation, institutions, clubs, sport and games, the
contents of newspapers and magazines, and programs on television, cinema, video
systems and computers. These have sprung up in a haphazard, uncontrolled
manner. The deliberate educational system which ought to refer to the whole of
the cultural and social system, in fact plays only a small part of this. Though
there are certainly features that are sophisticated and environmentally,
physically, morally, mentally and spiritually beneficial, these tend to be in
the minority, being obscured and overwhelmed by fantasy and what is trivial,
crude, violent, destructive, depraved, harmful and degenerative. Popular dramas
such those known as “Soap Operas” tend to make heroes and role
models out of people of low moral values and perverts and encourage
self-centredness, greed, lust, vanity, and psychopathic behaviour.
(9) Not much provision is made to
occupy the young outside school hours. They tend to form gangs that, having no
higher goals or values or facilities where their energy can be channelled
usefully, tend to engage through boredom and frustration in frivolous and
destructive activities. The majority have no ambitions apart from what they
suppose is enjoying themselves but generally consists
of escapism into fantasy or oblivion.
(10) Young people can earn a lot
of money without having responsibilities. They have become independent of the
more mature and experienced adults and the senior generation has
lost its role as honoured guides and educators. There is a worship of youth,
physical prowess and beauty and a decline in respect for experience, expertise,
patience and wisdom. The young have acquired cultural and commercial power.
They have their own Heroes, generally of low moral quality and much of industry
is targeted at them. This includes sport, games, fashions, alcohol, drugs,
magazines, music, videos, clubs etc. These tend to emphasise and stimulate the
lower uncontrolled impulses of sensuality and violence that waste psychological
energy and often do harm to the individual and others. As these absorb
resources and labour other more important things have become more expensive.
(11) The Philosophy of
Individualism has been advanced as the highest virtue by various leaders and
regimes at the expense of Social Responsibility and Universalism. Though it
produces self-reliance, it also produces self-centredness, selfishness and
conflicts. It emphasis competition against co-operation and
unity. These cause stress and disease - Psychological, moral, social,
psychosomatic, physical, organic as well as
infectious, by debilitating the immune system. The notion of Democracy produces
the impression that each person is as good as any other and that all opinions
no matter how ridiculous have equal value. This erodes respect for effort and
achievement, creates cynicism and destroys the notion of Objectivity. The
result tends to be a struggle for dominance through subterfuge, intrigue and
deception.
(12) The Political and Economic
systems provide very little opportunity for individual initiative or enterprise
or indeed any control over their own lives and generally trap them in a
"rat race" created by officialdom or the system from which some wish
to resign.
(13) The
pace of life has increased owing to mechanisation and because time is money.
Peoples have less time to concentrate attention and absorb and process their
experiences. They tend to skip superficially from one thing to another.
Quantity tends to replace quality and there is less coordination between
different things. This tends to produce disintegration of life,
compartmentalisation, increasing confusion and loss of understanding between
people. The awareness of the underlying unity of things is lost.
(14)
Faulty diet and, exercises. These have come to notice recently, but are
themselves the result of the way the society and the families function. People
rely on “take away” and “junk foods” from “Fast
Food” centres that have arisen in great numbers instead of cooking fresh
foods at home and eating together as families. Even when food is cooked at
home, the raw material comes from Supermarkets that sell things that have been
grown in an unnatural ways, adulterated with various chemicals, processed to
alter their constitution, tinned, and sold for their profitability and looks
rather than their nutritional value.
(15) In
so far as all aspects of man, motor, emotional, intellectual and spiritual,
conscious, subconscious and unconscious, physical, social and psychological are
inter-connected, any particular malfunction may well be a symptom of a faulty
uncoordinated whole Way of Life.
There
may well be other causes:-
(16)
Environmental pollution caused by man. Harmful waste material gets into the
food chain.
(17) Of
a historical nature - i.e. the gun culture in the USA that is a continuation of the
frontier condition.
(18) A
side effect of a Natural Law - i.e. The increase in order in some directions, technology
or organisation, may cause increased disorder in other respects, or some other
unknown geophysical factor.
It is not difficult to see that
when the causes of the problem are identified then the solution can also be
seen, though the implementation that requires details and much effort presents
difficult problems of its own.
The
educational system cannot confine itself to creating cogs in the industrial machine
or even only to develop intellectual and physical skills, or to produce good
citizens, but must concern itself with the techniques of life (psychological,
social and physical as well as environmental) and developing human
potentialities. An important part of education must be guidance about inter-sexual
and parent-child relationships, the conduct of married life and the development
of parenting skills. As the welfare and happiness of both men and women and the
balanced development of the next generation is connected with a stable and
loving family it is important that the emphasis of attention and efforts should
shift from material wealth to social welfare and psychological development.
Obviously, a change in the educational system is required, but also in the cultural,
social and economic system. And these have to be co-ordinated. This will
require a change also in the political system. But all this will be resisted by
those who have self-centred ambitions, pursue and acquire the power and wealth,
and real solutions will be condemned as old fashioned.
However, no real solutions can
discerned except an Islamic one, though clearly the new conditions of life that
science, organisation, technology, and the mixing and interaction of peoples
owing to the development of transport, communication
and trade have brought about have to be taken into consideration in applying
the principles intelligently.
Further information and
recommendations can be found in "The Alternative Way" Book 7.
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Contents