Challenging injustices

Our society is often labelled emotional and volatile. But those traits are more like a double-edged sword and do indeed have their benefits in disguise which sometimes go unrecognised.

An interesting case in point occurred during last year’s Eidul Azha when a leading apparel manufacturer denied the annual Eid bonus to its employees, citing difficulty in textile exports amid competition in the international market. This resulted in a violent reaction from the employees who set fire to the expensive cars of their upper-level executives.

Perceived injustices in societies have long existed, ever popular in debate among academics and equally unpopular in acknowledgement by elites. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels famously mentioned in The Communist Manifesto, “the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle.” Graeber, in his book Debt: The First 5000 Years, commented how in the eastern Himalayas, “when a poor man had to borrow money for his daughter’s marriage, the security would be the bride herself. She would be expected to report to the lender’s household after her wedding night…working off her father’s debt” (Graeber, 2011).

Social injustice or perceived social injustice is a global phenomenon. Take the example of the US, where pharmaceutical companies can jack up the price of life-saving drugs by 500% and that is considered perfectly legal in a capitalist society. It is easy to see how perceived injustices are viewed differently in different cultures and the actions taken against them depend on said cultures.

In a capitalist society where private property is inviolable, such an act of setting fire to the cars of upper-level executives would be viewed as barbaric and criminal. It would inevitably result in action against the arsonists at the ignorance of the perspective of those criminalised who view their actions as justified.

In such a society, while there may be ease in interpreting the law and implementing it, injustices would still exist, only to be legalised as in the case of Mylan, the pharmaceutical company that owns Epipen. The company decided to increase its price to over 500% in a decade. The drug costs around $30 to produce and is sold for over $600 to the American public. The decision caused outcry among the doctors and general public, Senate hearings were constituted however the fact remained that it was a perfectly legal action.

Or, in the case of movements such as Occupy Wall Street or Black Lives Matter where the most heard contention was that these movements were not being conducted in an “acceptable” manner. What exactly is an “acceptable” manner of protest? One that causes the least discomfort to the elites? One where they don’t have to be inconvenienced by the cry of the masses?

Compare that society to one closer to home, famously said to be volatile and reactive. But it might just be that volatile and reactive nature that sometimes keep some of the injustices in check regardless of whether those injustices are legal.

While our public may have to repeatedly suffer due to actions of one group or another while they react violently to their perceived injustices, sometimes such reactions are channelled in such a way that results in an informal check over excessives that some of our more privileged yet corrupt individuals try to pull over the people.

Not everyone has an equal sense of moral responsibility or equity and sometimes it needs to be taught. And while some may learn it in a relatively easy manner, others are more stubborn and need to learn it in a hard way. Sadly, power, wherever it may land, is correlated with corruption and those in power are not really that keen on learning what they might be doing wrong. Or even if they are, they are not always so willing to rectify themselves.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 28^th, 2017.

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