‘Certainly, better amongst you is the one, who has the best of Ikhlaq’
The essence of a valid Hadith which we all may have heard, read, taught, or understood at some point in our lives. Recently when it embraced my pensive thoughts against our prevalent socio-political environment filled with profanity, particularly surrounding political communications, my rather extensive scholarly and hermeneutical research led me to infer that Prophet (PBUH) recognised and envisaged it to be the fair yet highest civil standard of one’s morality and ethics. Specifically, when profanity applied to political communication, although its contravention is certainly both immoral and unethical, it could however amount to constitutional breach too per infamous article 62 of the Constitution. Currently, it may sound like a wishful and idiosyncratic notion, until it gets to the Apex Court particularly when read and construed with the rules of progressive legal interpretation to reflect the prevalent social change and ethical demeanours in order to keep nurturing the legal “tree of life”.
Let’s put this ethical and pensive prolix aside for a moment and reflect on our current socio-political communications, particularly of our politicians; who we (people) elect to be our representatives in the Parliament. Thus, every politician becomes the agent of its constituents with constitutionally charged ostensible authority given to them by its constituents. One of the core duties of their job as representative is to voice our concerns using effective communication skills and strategies as adept and charismatic leaders. It stems from that they have a positive constitutional duty to represent us in a best possible ‘professional’ manner – no doubt sense of duty has a higher threshold than of a mere expectation to perform in a constitutional setting.
It therefore becomes pertinent for constituents to analyse what their constitutionally employed agents have been up to. We can prima facie argue and to some extent affirm as well that most of them have failed us miserably on numerous occasions of national and constituency interests. The pattern of sheer incompetence and negligence does not end with the core duties but have been awfully prevalent in their political communications too, which is nothing short of profanity, slander, and derogatory remarks both at national and regional levels. What surprising the most is that such profane behaviour is shamefully targeting no one but their own colleagues – parliamentarians including their families, state officials and institutions. It is equally acceptable that once someone subscribe to a public life, although their right to privacy and personal life is somewhat compromised, however sanctity of their home, personal relationships and domestic nuances are left untainted both professionally and morally. Such triage is not only evading their very own personal liberties and rights but doesn’t befit our Islamic mores either.
You may be wondering why we should be worrying about such nonsensical and derogatory behaviour of any politician(s) who are generally renowned for playing dirty games with their political adversaries and to some extent public at large since its plain politics “per se” and playing by the ordinary rules is not a trait of this dynamic game. We are innocently mistaken in such naïve belief because we are the biggest stakeholders of this (democracy) game for various valid as well catalyst reasons.
For instance, we switch their roles from an individual into a politician by vesting our ostensible authority and trust with them through elections. Secondly and pressingly important for our analysis here is that their profanity is not limited to themselves or their peers but have now entered our own homes and lives through our unlimited access to mass media platforms. Hence, we are not only the stakeholders but have now become accessories to this derogatory process as well since we are playing a very active as well as catalyst role by validating and promoting this whole profane process both at individual and community levels.
Against the backdrop of the anecdotal onset, I would now like to pose another question pertaining to our moral and ethical values – i.e., why our politicians have started championing profanity which is even putting neo-liberal politicians (who started it in the first place) to shame as well with their sheer level and degree of engagement. Several psychological and sociological studies have denoted that profanity is perceived untrustworthy, incompetent, and Irrational. Why then people, particular politicians employ profanity during public speaking. It is analytically argued that people curse and use foul language because it helps them express their feelings, aggression, urge, and dominance in particular social settings. Against the backdrop of our own cultural setting, we can evidently agree that we are an emotionally charged society, who believes in loud socio-political expressions and being inherently a patriarchal society, dominance has become a part of our epigenetics.
Profanity, thus when used in these special social settings, becomes rather a rhetoric tool used by the source to intensify the political discourse by adding a little informal and nowadays derogatory flair to establish or reinforce social connections. Profanity, in this targeted communication stream, allows its user to connect with like-minded people by nurturing emotional and dominant discourse already prevalent in the society. Hence, the strategic use of this profane language does not remain with its users or confined to its targeted audience, rather it becomes part of the wider communal setting where it was deployed and could be consumed and/or further employed by the other members of the society. Onus then shifts to the community whether to reject it outright being immoral and unethically or to embrace it as a windfall of the prevalent social practices. It is saddened and heartbreaking to denote here that we have in fact started championing it. The rationale is simple, precedents are set at the top and followed below. Thus, if political leaders are doing something unreservedly and without repercussion, we see no harm in following suit.
During my own yearlong observations into the use of profane language, I have struggled to find a few instances where the top leadership of such political parties have denounced the strategic use of profanity – not to my surprise or yours, rather it has been defended by their peers and political adversaries in equally despicable manner.
Another pertinent reason for strategic use of unparliamentary and profane language has been denoted by Professor Phillip Sergeants as,
“with the politics, of course, it’s always important to look beyond the words themselves to see how language is being used to create a particular affect which is usually aimed at distraction. It is well established political strategy to deflect and divert attention away from the active point one’s making or expected to make.”
Accordingly, we may wonder, what particular affect our politicians may have in mind or inherently trying to achieve by championing profanity in their political communications. Are they employing this crude language and derogatory remarks to achieve pro-attitudinal response from their voters or deflecting us from core issues which are root cause for many of our socio-economic problems. It is evident from the last general elections and recent by-elections that both sides of the politics not only championed profanity to attract voters but successfully employed it to deflect us from issue-based politics to one revolving around personal lives of our top political leaderships and their familial affairs.
During my own yearlong observations into the use of profane language, I have struggled to find a few instances where the top leadership of such political parties have denounced the strategic use of profanity – not to my surprise or yours, rather it has been defended by their peers and political adversaries in equally despicable manner. Mind you, they are our representatives with our constitutionally charged ostensible authority, have they been fulfilling the very purpose for which they were elected. Let’s leave the question of their professionalism aside for a moment and revert back to the civil standard envisaged by our beloved Prophet (PBUH) to be a mere human being, let alone a leader of a community. Do we truly believe that majority of our recent politicians have the best of the “Ikhlaq” or even seen practicing it both professionally and publicly.
Don’t we know better or should at least strive to know better. I believe, we have lost the plot pertaining to our ethical and cultural aura, which became the core ideology of our existence as a nation in the first place. How low, we as a society have to go to realise our political causes or to make a point at the expense of our scared civil and moral values, which for now may seem unethical but may soon be read and construed by the Supreme Court against the prevalent socio-political setting as a constitutional breach pursuant to infamous article 62 of the Constitution. Beside the role of Apex Court, the moment for us to take charge is now or profanity would make us a socially and culturally doomed nation with a radically different socio-political equity to pass-on inter-generationally. We should not let us submerge in this strategic triage that is challenging us to the core whilst leaving us both morally and ethically wrecked.
