Cherry-picked insularity

Videos and pictures showing Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte leaving the prime minister office on bicycle after serving the country for fourteen years, and UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak apologising to the nation following his party’s worst general election defeat in its parliamentary history without making any claims of rigging went viral with captions stating comparisons between the European leaders and our unscrupulous politicians.

Such comparisons are sufficient to adorn the media’s dashboard because whenever someone tries to practise the values of developed nations in some lower demography, parochial culture and civilisation are cited to discourage the person or to declare his ventures contextually impractical.

An administrator of a public school was reprimanded and threatened with departmental inquiry when he tried to use the Japanese model of school education. In Japan, students are trained to keep their classrooms and schools neat and tidy. They themselves mop the floor and dust off the furniture.

The administrator, having scant human and material resources for cleaning the whole premises of his school, reserved the last period of the last working day of school and allowed teachers to depute students for this purpose. The teachers used this opportunity as a differential to break the routine of students who were habitual late-comers and absentees as they would be charged with the duty of cleaning the classroom.

Apparently, it seemed a two-way good move to work within resources. But the devotees of status quo — the people at the helm of departmental affairs — didn’t grant permission for such adventurism, rather warned the administrator that as he hadn’t been employed by the Japanese state, he must follow local regulations.

Whether the students can be assigned such activities is a moot point. However, what is contextually debated here is our cherry-picked insularity to positive values which must be adopted irrespective of their clime and culture for the welfare of human beings.

A Deputy District Education Officer of a district to enhance the pedagogical sensitivity and experience and utilise the summer vacation time constructively prescribed for teachers some movies e.g. Black, Taaray Zameen Par, Debaters based purely on educational themes. As was expected, he was suspended by the local administration for violating the code of conduct.

There was nothing objectionable with the movies theme-wise. The progressive move had to be withdrawn because the movies belonged to rival countries and cultures. Moreover, the move was not palatable to our puritan taste that ostracises all entertainment.

Book reading has already lost its attraction among schoolteachers. How can they be expected to read books on education and pedagogy? In such a barren intellectual landscape, if someone tries some easier and more appealing modes of dissemination of knowledge, he is certainly praiseworthy. Moreover, the intention behind suggesting movies was constructive and professional. Should the movies for educational purposes not be treated as audio-visual aids considered by educationists an ineluctable part of an effective pedagogy?

The vacuum always attracts the surrounding forces to fill it. Though many Muslim countries like Iran and Iraq have made educational movies, screen edutainment is tabooed in our climes. The consequent lack of our indigenous content of edutainment leaves us with no option but to select popular Hollywood or Bollywood movies. To localise knowledge goes against the dynamic spirit of Islamic culture that declares knowledge a lost asset of a Muslim who must reclaim it wherever it is found.

Also, the dynamism of Islamic culture enjoins upon its adherents to live in complete harmony with the contemporary times lest they be transformed into fossils. If modern and non-indigenous means of transport and communication can be adopted as per facilitation and requirement, why are the system and values that produce them not adopted?