The Respect Ruler: Early Warning System?

 

J. Roughan

18 May 2010

Honiara     

An early lesson Solomon Islanders taught me many years ago was about the importance of showing proper respect. Of course the customs and traditions of my own people also put great weight on the need to show respect for the other. From my earliest days, then, even as a child, I was taught to say thank you, please, pardon me, etc.etc. Not to do so, failure to say thank you when given something, for instance, showed a serious lack of respect.  

 

In other words, courtesy, good manners and hence, respect were shown to others--those older than myself, my playmates, in fact all other people --were respected both in my verbal as well as my outward behavior. Not to do so was considered a social 'sin' and in some cases, simply rude and not to be tolerated. 

 

However, in a Solomons context respect for the other, as I continue to learn, covers much more than mere public courtesy and certain social expressions. Respect means something deeper and more profound than saying some proper words and showing certain gestures.  Respect for the other, his culture, relatives, history, was something that went deeper and had much more profound meaning than the mere saying "Sorry!" when another was hurt by words or a "Thank you!" for the unexpected gift. 

 

Respect goes to the heart of how we publicly accept the other. Mere words, no matter how well said, hardly touch the core meaning of respect in the local context.  It's made up of our whole approach to the other and our very life style which speaks much to our understanding of what we mean by showing  respect to another.

 

But these words are not being written here to present a lesson on courtesy, public conduct and respect but something much more important. It's about our up coming national elections which will be upon us by the end of July or there about. Are we ready for them or not?  Our 2006 election went off well, no violence and the nation conducted a 'free, fair and valid' election. But right after a calm, correct election came the 18/19 April 2006 Chinatown Burn Down, when a riotous mob burnt Honiara's Chinatown to the ground. 

 

What special things has the nation done in the past four years so that such trouble won't befall us once again. If I could only point to a government sponsored Youth Employment Bill which had been created to produce thousands of jobs yearly, I would sleep a great deal more peacefully. But since 2006, I can't pin point one government initiative that would make this up coming election period a safe and secure one. Just the opposite!

 

Over the past few months,  I have been using my own Respect Ruler to gauge how well or how poorly our young people have been acting in public space to conduct themselves. I have a feeling that our next riot will come from our young people who have been so pushed to society's sidelines. Most of them are desperately looking for work, even low paid jobs, but in our present economic slowdown, even such jobs are few and far between. As in the 1989 Riot, bored and discouraged youth are prime candidates to seek trouble. As one youth I interviewed back in 1989, said when asked why he had joined in the riot, "Nothing to lose and a good chance to pick something up worth while!" 

 

Little things like poor public actions at Honiara's Main Market, stoning cars driving along the road at night, verbal abuse in Honiara's streets, jumping bank lines to get first, car/bus/taxi driver conduct along Honiara's roads, blocking back roads to force drivers to pay a 'road tax',   etc. have been chosen for my Respect Ruler. All these actions are socially negative, cause unneeded publicly distress and are far from friendly.

 

These actions and others like them, I find, are on the rise and are making an appearance on my Respect Ruler.  Are these actions fair examples showing that youth and the not too young are leaning towards trouble come election day? Perhaps there are more important early warning signals of trouble to come but I'm sure our authorities should be sensitive to them and preparing themselves if and when serious  trouble raises its ugly head.