Originally published in the Informanté newspaper on Thursday, 27 October, 2016.
I’ve written before about how our President, Dr Hage Geingob, has spoken of ‘building a Namibian House.’ He has stated that “Namibians want a house where everyone feels a sense of belonging, where everyone is presented with a fair opportunity to prosper in an inclusive manner and by so doing, ensure that no one feels left out.” I’ve previously covered some of the values we as Namibians need in order to build a Namibian House – honesty and loyalty. But those are not the only ones we need.
We know we have to alleviate poverty – after all, that is the ultimate goal of the Harambee Prosperity Plan – and to do that, we need to create wealth. Neo-classical economic theory posits that we’re ‘homo economicus,’ that we only know our own wishes and act rationally to maximize advantages to ourselves. Economic theory claims we are essentially selfish, but that is profoundly not true. After all, the basis for our civilization has not been everyone for her/himself, but rather one of co-operation. It is one of relationships – positive relationships. It is based on kindness.
Kindness at its core the intersection of empathy and compassion. In order to be kind, it is necessary to be able to place yourself in the position of another person, and feel the effect of their situation, or of their suffering. But empathy alone does not beget kindness – it is only when empathy is combined with compassion, the real concern and strong motivation to alleviate their suffering, that you can begin to be kind. Yes, empathy can be very distressing – feeling the suffering of others is quite an emotional experience and very uncomfortable, and our default response is often to withdraw, or even assert aggressive behaviour. That response, however, blunts the true effect of kindness. If you respond with compassion, if you are kind, and you relieve some of the suffering, empathically you yourself will also feel better – and you’ll make the world better as well.
Too often in today’s world, we see kindness as a weakness. It does, after all, require you to be vulnerable for a moment, and in a cut-throat world, vulnerability cannot be tolerated. Strangely enough, we feel outraged whenever WE are not treated with kindness… An odd occurrence, don’t you think, that we are so reticent to spread it ourselves, then blame the world when it does not show kindness to us. Kindness is, truthfully, not even a big thing to give. It can be a smile to a person having an unpleasant day, instead of another unpleasant interaction. It can be a favour done for someone without expecting anything back. Stopping to help someone when no one else seems to want to stop. Lifting someone’s spirits just because you can. A compliment.
Because kindness is not a weakness. All good leaders are kind – and that does not mean they don’t make tough decisions. Being kind does not mean not firing underperforming employees. It means you are kind when you do it, and that you were open to them that this would be the result should they not perform or fit in with the company. It means they won’t be surprised when it happens, because you always let them know where they stand. Being kind is good for business as well, since being kind to customers results in repeat customers, and that helps the bottom line.
Kindness is the basis of nearly every ethical tradition. I’m sure you’ve all heard the Golden Rule, “One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself.” It appears in human writings from the earliest times, from the Egyptian goddess Ma’at, to the writings of Confucius, to the Torah (Leviticus 19:18 - You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against your kinsfolk. Love your neighbour as yourself: I am the LORD), the New Testament (Matthew 7:12 - Do to others what you want them to do to you. This is the meaning of the law of Moses and the teaching of the prophets), in Islam’s hadith (An-Nawawi's Forty Hadith 13 - None of you truly believes until he wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself), up to modern humanism, which states that humanists “make their ethical decisions based on reason, empathy, and a concern for human beings and other sentient animals.”
Unfortunately, our innate empathy is often short-circuited by our distressing ability to decide others are members of an ‘outgroup.’ We tend to identify with a certain social group, our ‘ingroup,’ and thereby our ability to empathize with those in an ‘outgroup’ falls by the wayside, and may even morph into what the Germans term schadenfreude - pleasure derived by someone from another person's misfortune. We Namibians have had the misfortune of being split up into different ‘ingroups’ during the South African occupation of our country – but we were united in our struggle for independence, and it is that unity that has held us together since. Our constitution’s preamble specifically singles out the “right of the individual to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, regardless of race, colour, ethnic origin, sex, religion, creed or social or economic status,” and we should strive to remember that we are all Namibians – the plight of our fellow Namibians should concern all of us.
We are a young country, and a proud one. The President’s plan to alleviate poverty by building a ‘Namibian House’ is ambitious, but achievable if we can all Harambee and pull together to make it happen. To do this, we, as a country with 300 days of sunshine a year, need to store some of that sunshine in our hearts, and shine a ray onto our fellow Namibians with kindness, to light up their lives whenever they find themselves in a dark place.
No comments:
Post a Comment