Our sliding moral decay

NATIONAL BANKRUPTCY: What has happened to our country? In looking at recent events across the country, I am seeing nothing but a moral decay amongst our people.

I could extend this to a large portion of the rest of the world, but frankly I don’t care about them right now. I know it seems like heresy to say that, but it’s true. I feel that the problems plaguing our nation are much more important than trying to compare or contrast the attitudes of other countries.

I am concerned with the attitudes of Sri Lankans these days. Today our attention is focused on all of the wrong things, and we’re forgetting to pay attention to the issues that truly affect our lives.

This decay in Sri Lankan society where nobody wants to fix the problems that they face directly because they believe there’s always something bigger and more dramatic that needs their attention.

In turn, families suffer, communities suffer and finally the Nation suffers. People are quickly losing respect and regard for one another, because they are constantly being force-fed the idea that everybody is corrupt; that the human race is bad in some way.

How can we possibly hope to deal with our country’s needs when we not only don’t get along, but are being told that we shouldn’t get along because our opinions on life polarise us from one another?

The average Sri Lankan today is woefully ignorant about so many things. I recently read an interesting book by William Guy Carr, titled, “Pawns in the Game.” Here is a quote from the book:

“According to Lenin, the best revolutionary is a youth devoid of morals. His word being law in Communist organisations, all members worked secretly to make young people of both sexes anti-social and immoral.

Children up to teen-age were taught to rebel against the discipline of the home. Parents were represented to their children as old-fashioned. Parental authority was scoffed at.

The argument was that parents have lied to their children since they were old enough to listen, regarding Santa Claus and where babies come from. The child was encouraged to educate the parents in regard to modern and progressive ideas. They were warned that, for their own good, they must refuse to be dominated or disciplined by their parents”.

Even decades after the revolution, we still have plenty of such youth amongst us. It seems to me Lenin was successful in his indoctrination. The difference is, today, it is no more in the name of revolution, but in the guise of globalisation.

What we miserably failed to understand all this time was that there is a direct correlation between a child’s loyalty and respect towards his or her parents, and that child’s moral character development. For this failure, we are paying a big price today.

For example, few people realise the important part of the images of deaths and destruction play in the young minds. The sight of seeing men killed in battle, or being dragged from their homes and slaughtered by the “bad” men are common scenes.

That is just one illustration of how the general public, and particularly the youth, have been systematically hardened to accept the sight of violence and bloody death as normal.

If we talk about our children, TV is the biggest corruptor of their minds. For example, cartoons are one of the most deceitful tools.

They have traditionally been considered appropriate for children; thus, many parents today don’t see the harm in certain cartoons. There is much aggression, sexuality and subversive messages in today’s cartoons.

Even look at the movies shown on TVs today. Most of them show two and half hours of films in which the criminals and bad men and women do everything that is forbidden by our laws and moral code and devote 10 minutes during which the law catches up with them, or they die because of their sins.

Hindi films are the biggest culprit of this “crime.” It’s no coincidence that mothers are being forced into the workplace, while their kids are being brainwashed by television at home. Lenin still lives! We have been baited into a trap, by our own complacency and willing ignorance of the truth. We are headed for imminent national bankruptcy.

There are lessons to be learned here, and we Sri Lankans need to start focusing our energy and our attention where it belongs instead of using it to fight against our own selves.

We have so much to gain by returning to our own communities and working on improving our own lives, starting with our families and communities. But we have even more to lose if we continue on this path of moral decay and self-hatred. Let us think about it, at least now.