There is more to it than meets the eye
In a rural environment like a
village, unlike in an urban setting, the elements that form the web have
been clearer and somewhat better defined. Within the context of our
ancient heritage, they were broadly identified to be the Wewai, Dagabai,
Gamai, Pansalai (Source of water, built-heritage defining our ways of
the past, people as a community and the spiritual centre). In today’s
context, with a self-centered brand of ‘more is better’ and ‘make money
before all else’ type commercialization acting as predominant agents of
change, these institutions rarely exist in states of functional
equilibrium as they did in the past
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It is amazing how what happens around us is woven like a web.
Everything connects with the other, like a functional ecosystem. It’s a
social web, much like the web of life that defines the interactions of
humans with nature and its related dynamics.
Social webs
Right levels of food and nutrition for healthy growth. File
photo |
Here everyone has a role to play. Everyone’s bit counts. This is
true, regardless of it being for the good of the society and communities
around, as much as it is, when what it yields is bad and ugly. It’s all
interwoven, interconnected and interdependent.
Within these social webs there are spiders weaving their own webs
too. In these cases the concept of entropy, much like in physical and
natural systems must prevail if communities, societies and as its
summation; the nation, is to develop in a sound and harmonious way.
State of disequilibrium
In a rural environment like a village, unlike in an urban setting,
the elements that form the web have been clearer and somewhat better
defined.
Within the context of our ancient heritage, they were broadly
identified to be the Wewai, Dagabai, Gamai, Pansalai source of water,
built-heritage defining our ways of the past, people as a community and
the spiritual centre).
In today’s context, with a self-centered brand of ‘more is better’
and ‘make money before all else’ type commercialization acting as
predominant agents of change, these institutions rarely exist in states
of functional equilibrium as they did in the past.
In most instances, the school sits disconnected from the spiritual
centre.
Both political and moral authority stands above society and the
communities that created it. Maintenance of law and order remain
under-defined, often left to the state of the will, integrity and
determination to act, of the incumbent persons in charge. Deep
indebtedness, excessive use of toxic substances for seeking escape,
taking on easy ways-out and the inability to breakaway from such cycles
of poverty, often are manifestations of this state of disequilibrium.
Right fundamentals
You may wonder why I have taken on an exposition of fundamentals or
the ‘back to basics’ of sociology here. It is in fact my preamble to let
you in, on my understanding of how the systems work in a rural village
in the Deep South of Sri Lanka, where we now live in retirement.
During the Sinhala and Hindu New Year season, a teacher from a nearby
junior school came to visit us with her family. On our casual inquiry as
to how things were at her school, she related a sad tale of how, about
one third of the school’s student population came to school without a
square meal. She also related instances of children subject to such
neglect who faint during school sessions. We must not get her wrong, the
school is a beneficiary of the Grades 1-5 free meal program provided by
the government, but the ones’ affected here are mostly in Grades 6-11,
where such facility is unavailable.
Seeking easy riches
This, by no means is a poverty stricken village. Most of the village
folk are farmers, fishermen or extract seashells from the resource rich
topsoil of the area. On a cursory look, one sees no reason whatsoever,
for people of this village to be sending their children to school
without access to a reasonable meal.
It is a village visibly green with rich vegetation, most of which was
rebuilt in the aftermath of the tsunami of 2004, where new adobes in a
new model village, tools for fishing; boats and nets and cash
compensation were received through caring donors and the State, for them
to rebuild their lives. Most villagers were cash rich and found an even
easier way to riches, through investing in an informal high interest
yielding money-lending system that was operated by a person who was
popularly known as ‘Daduwam Mudalali’.
Web of life |
* Defines
interactions of humans with nature
* Everyone has a role to play in society
* Elements better defined in rural environment
* Village needs need to be understood before development
|
Whatever riches they had were turned into cash and deposited, to make
a fast buck. This operation after running well for a few years crashed
and in an instant, majority of villagers lost their ‘unreal’ interest
incomes and incomes from other thriving businesses built around this
activity. Attempts at recovering from that shock, has indeed contributed
to some of the negatives we witness, manifest in over-indulgence in
alcohol, betting on horses, domestic conflict and violence leading to
neglect of children.
Focus on nutrition
According to several caring teachers of the school’s health
committee, this is a social phenomenon that needs urgent attention. They
are of the view that the only way up for these children in social
mobility will be achievement in education and/or skills development. The
success of that will depend, not merely on attempts made by teachers at
school, but on the stability and caring in their home environments, the
resultant state of mind and of course on the right levels of food and
nutrition they get.
No cures for all
The lesson to be learnt by this situation is a realization that the
‘village’ we seek to develop, needs to be looked beyond the
infrastructure to be provided and the production centers each of them
can potentially become.
The complex play of the social webs of each of our villages needs to
be understood well, before seeking ways to develop them. The ground
reality is that no ‘single’ recipe or a ‘cure for all’ type solution is
available.
With the proposed ‘Janasabha’ system in the offing, our academics,
researchers, bankers, members of business chambers, protectors of law
and order; all will do well soon, to step down from macro domains to the
micro, to support and assist our villagers carve out a bright future for
them and their children. |