Moral_Degradation

Degradation Spoils Young Generation Posted by admin on 5/19/10 • Categorized as Cover Story I think all would consider this fact to be tenable that nowadays more youth and youngsters are involved in crime and hence an extreme phase of social illness is undeniable and inescapable. You can’t just deny this fact. It’s all in the statistics. I mean it is facts and figures that we are talking about; black and white. Nothing remains to hide and no where to run. We are in a reality to face it. Some would debate before they say it moral degradation. However, if they do so you have enough reason to ask them about what morality constitutes and how he or she would label this new unexpected development. Moreover, the increase in juvenile cases recent months is shocking and the news of students killing one another can be seen a chronic disease. Young generation with whom we are used to dream for the future of the country is having a great contribution to this new specter. From ogling, winking, passing comments in the form of sexual innuendos, to touching, groping, ‘eveteasing’, stalking, sending lewd text messages, ‘prank’ calls, display of pornography, threatening and intimidation, acid attacks, and unwanted ‘love’ proposals. Compared to back then, things do not happen like this. Is there any doubt that more youngsters nowadays are involved in social crimes and problems' The disrespectful attitude carried out by youths and students is very much common nowadays if you were to compare again to the last couple of years. I mean what is wrong with youngsters and youths nowadays' Why are they acting in such a way' There is no fear and tear to say it is kind of social moral breakdown and it is taking its shape through such abnormal and undesired manner. Government and society has nothing to do with it or unwilling to do it' May be the last one is closer to the truth than the former one. However, it is the failure of the state to ensure the moral growth of the young girls and boys. Let’s have some accounts of the developments taking place across the country. Here the accounts that the Daily Star provided, have been followed. Eve teasing has been a nice choice for the boys nowadays. The developments in the last few months have brought an unprecedented shock to the minds of the conscientious segment of society. On, the April 4, 2010, unrelenting teasing by local youths led yet a schoolgirl to kill herself at Madhya Nandipara in the Dhaka city. A young girl, Umme Kulsum Elora, of the age of 14, ended her life by swallowing pesticides in their house. A class eight student of Dakkhin Banasri Model High School, Elora had been bearing the pain of street harassment by Rezaul Karim, 19, and his friends for over a year. They would disturb her over phone as well. The girl’s parents had taken the matter up with the local leaders and Rezaul’s parents, but everything in vain. In a late night development, police arrested Rezaul on that day.In primary interrogation, he claimed he had a relationship with Elora.Elora was the youngest of three daughters and a son of Halima and Amin Mollah, an employee at the Accountant General’s Office in Segun Bagicha. She used to go to school in a van. But as teasing by Rezaul and his associates got intolerable, Halima said that, she had been taking her to school for last one and half months.On the 11th April, Rezaul and five others stopped themS on our way back from the school and asked why we complained to his parents. The mother and daughter returned home at around 12:45pm and had lunch together. ‘’Around three in the afternoon, Elora came to my room and lay down on the floor. She requested me to lie beside her’’. said Elora’s mother. As Halima got near her, she knew something terrible had happened; her little girl had taken pesticides. Elora’s sister Oni told media that, Elora could not go out of house for about a month. She started going to school again only 15 days ago after some influential locals assured the family that she would not be teased again.She said they did not seek police help or file any complaint or general diary for fear of reprisals from Rezaul and his gang. Meanwhile, Rezaul’s aunt claimed that Rejaul and Elora had a relationship. She said her nephew did never tease the girl. Rather, it was the girl’s family who would torture her for relations with Rejaul. In fact in every case we find a mutual claim that makes the case more complex and complicated. It was more peculiar that only for teasing the girl has taken pesticides. It may be the case that there are many reasons behind the fact. Such complicatedness will never end unless we bring structural change in society. The more painful matter is that ‘Rezauls’ go out of punishment or remain uncaught. On the day of Pahela Baishakh,In the capital, many incidents of harassment of women on Dhaka University campus in the late afternoon happened. As the crowd turned into a human sea in the afternoon some crazy youths harassed more than a dozen women. Witnesses said the incidents mainly occurred in Teacher-Student Centre (TSC) area after the sunset when a music concert was on at the base of Raju Memorial. Who came to save these girls had been beaten there. That indicates that the boys who harassed the women have political orientation. Babu, a master’s student of Bangla department of DU, said a group of 10-15 youths were trying to pull the saree of a woman who came with her husband and four-year-old daughter behind Milon Chattor around 7:30pm on that day.Her husband could not protect him .Later, some DU students rescued the victim. Some youths harassed girls in front of Janata Bank on TSC building premises. Some 10 to 15 youths encircled a girl near Daas Chattor. They were trying to give her forcible hugs around 8:00pm.Police informed that, they rescued 15 women and girls from TSC area fearing that they might become victim of physical harassment. At least 20 people were injured in a clash between two groups of youths over harassing girls at a fair at Hatkhola Primary School in Gopalganj, media reported. You will find some phenomena from these accounts that seem to be contradictory any way. Guardians are accusing boys for disturbing their daughter and boys are claiming they have prior relationship with those girls. By the way the girls are committing suicide for the restriction of their family. Truth may be here or somewhere else, but what is truth is that there are something diseases developing in the heart of the society. No one knows where the end of it is. Suicide is another threat stigmatizing the society. At least 10 people committed suicide in the last weeks of July and first weeks of August in Dhaka alone, according to reports published in one national daily. Among them were a domestic worker scolded by her employer, a young girl harassed by local goons, two men who had had arguments with their wives, a medical student, a university student and a journalist, both of whom had brilliant academic records and bright futures ahead of them. This year, a young man and woman who got GPA-5 in their SSC exams both killed themselves. Apparently, they were in love, and when the boy went to congratulate the girl and took sweets to her house, the girl’s parents scolded him for being involved with their daughter. He went home and took poison. The next morning, after hearing of his death, the girl hung herself. A report of International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (ICDDR,B), mortality from suicide in Bangladesh occurred at a rate of 39.6 per 100,000 population from the years 1983 to 2002 — rates substantially higher than reported elsewhere in Asia. According to the same study, suicide accounted for 42 percent of deaths among young people between the ages of 10 and 19. Eighty-nine percent of suicide-associated deaths in this age group were in females. A journalist and former student of Dhaka University, Novera Deepita, with brilliant academic records, committed suicide in March. She had been depressed for some months after a miscarriage. The acute sense of loss, combined with a history of schizophrenia as well as other physical ailments, led her to end her own life, to the shock of family members, friends and colleagues, who failed to see, behind her smiling face, the emptiness in her heart. Daily Star reported onApril 14, 2010 that, A female student of Jahangirnagar University was found dead at her rented house in Bank Colony area of Savar municipality yesterday.The victim was identified as Farha-Naz-Ruhi, 22, a 3rd year student of economics department and a resident student of Nawab Fayzunnessa Hall.The law enforcers arrested the victim’s ‘so-called’ husband Shakhawat Hossain Jimi, 25, and a master’s final year student of physics department. in this connection. Police informed that, Shakhawat and Ruhi introduced themselves as husband and wife to rent the house. But Shakhawat could not show any document of their marriage to the police.Shakhawat, son of Abdul Mannan of Madhukhola village of Dohar upazila, said following an altercation on the campus, Ruhi came home alone. But when he returned home, he found that the door was locked from inside and her body was hanging from the ceiling fan. On the thursday, April 15, 2010 ,Daily Star reports that, the body of a teenage boy was found in a lake in Botanical Garden of the capital in the morning. On information, police recovered the body, age about 14, from the lake. In another incident, Mariam Binte Hai, 27, allegedly committed suicide by hanging herself in Uttar Adabar in the capital Tuesday night.The reason behind the suicide could not be known. On March 7, a teenage girl committed suicide by taking pesticides at Shanti Nagar village in Sherpur upazila. The girl, Reshma Khatun, 18, was a student of Salpa Technical School. She had to contend with harassment every day on her way to school. Her neighbor Munaf and his friend Robin were the alleged teasers. Earlier in January, Nashfia Akand Pinky, a class nine student, took her life by hanging herself from a ceiling fan in the city’s West Agargaon area. The apparent reason was harassment by 35year-old Murad, a driver by profession. Sexual harassment has been most exciting story in schools, colleges and universities by both boys to girls and by teachers to girl students. The incidents of sexual harassment in the universities have become talks of the country for years. Very recently, it has been claimed by the victim that, a teacher,Abdullahil Kafi, in International relations department who is also an assistant proctor of Jahangirnagar University harassed a female teacher in the same department. It is said that, the accusation of sexual harassment against him is not new. He has a record of sexual harassment during his studentship in the same university. He was BCL leader and was appointed in 1998 as teacher despite strong opposition from different sides. Dhaka and Chittagong University also have the similar story of sexual harassment by teachers. Besides, drug addiction has become a normal phenomenon across the country especially among the students. From the above narratives one can easily judge the intensity and scale of the situation we are talking about. Degradation of social values is a great obstacle in the path of a nation’s advancement. Because of the degradation of social values bribery, nepotism, black-marketing, trade syndicate and other evils are increasing. As a result economic, political and social injustice is rising day by day and great frustration is noticed among the nation. Breaking in family bondage and discrimination between men and women are increasing. Besides, murder, rape, dowry, divorce, child marriage, women oppression, snatching, robbery etc have reached at a severe stage. The young generation has become value free due to lack of moral education and immoral activities are conducted to demoralise the youth. As a result the young students have become devoid of patriotism, sense of morality and responsibility and thus they are deteriorating the expected social environment. The frustrated youth are being considered as a main class of unemployed class and they are making the situation worse by spreading terrorism and drug abuse. Education begins at home as everyone would say. It is true that youths are a reckless lots- always wanting to experiment new things, taste new things. There is hot blood running in them. But even then, we can’t keep them running wild or leave them to mend their ways by themselves. They need a firm grip or hold, a brake type. And this is possible only by imbibing moral or value education- which is very much lacking in our present scenario. If we were to ask a student, what is meant by value education, we won’t get an appropriate answer. It is because they haven’t received moral or value education in a proper manner. If you are not educated well about manners at home early on when you are a child, then there are no way the school can make you a full of morality person at all. However it is the responsibility of both home and school because the children go through a long process of physical and mental as well as psychological development. One would see the matter in the modern age in the way that, both parents are working 9 to 6 and are occupied after work with work. The kids are usually left to themselves to discover the ways of the world. Parents brought children up to respect y elders, teachers, not to take drugs, and not to commit crimes. But they were also living this 24 hour working lifestyle and there were many things they didn’t have time to educate about. So, the school has to play a big role in educating the youth inculcating values and morals and standards in the youth simply because parents just don’t have the time that every child needs. Then who will over see the entire issue' It is state. In Bangladesh, government is failing to take into consideration the real needs for a sustainable society. All it is doing is just following the norms of modernity and more specifically the west. We have to receive from west but not about how to develop a good and strong character for the youths of society. From our independence we are trying to secularize the country. For this we held that removing the religious education and so to say social moral education is the best way. However, it is our construction that to get a secular country we need to remove religious education. From whom we have taken the idea of secularism they are well aware of the fact that without moral education a nation exists in ashes. US president Roosevelt once said that, ‘‘to educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society’’. In some schools, the subject moral science is there. But the way it has been taught – just as a light subject-question and answer type- the whole approach is not right. Teachers and students, both, take the subject lightly as it is not included in the board exam. But no one has considered the importance and value of this subject- how it will help a student, or an individual for that matter, in the long run. Value education will be the brake that is very much needed to control the youths or it serve as a steering wheel which will steer our youths towards a fruitful and meaningful end .It will help the youths to listen to their inner voice- the conscience. And they will hesitate and have second thoughts before committing a wrong deed, say stealing lying, cheating and such. And it will also imbibe in them values like honesty, sincerity, truthfulness, courage, proper manners and also how to control their urges, desires and whims. Moral education should be made compulsory in all schools. We can’t say that the personality of a youth or an individual is complete, just because he is well educated until and unless the knowledge of moral value is there in his education. Parents, elders and teachers should try to impart education to the youths. Organizing seminars and workshops based on moral or value educations, especially for the youths have become a must. In this regards,three points are worth consideration.Moral education, meaning religious education must be promoted from primary to higher level of education system with a simultaneous combination of sciences.Existing syllabi of different educational institutions at different levels may be reviewed and revised in the light of education based on morality and values.Religious education which teaches men and women the humanity should be encouraged for people of all religions.