Ethics and trade

Md. Firoj Alam:
THOUSANDS of babies in China are fighting against death. They have virtually been poisoned by toxic elements in milk -- the main baby food. We get news about adulterated food almost every day in the print and electronic media. I feel that this world is unsafe for human beings. Even innocent babies are being poisoned to death! We need to contemplate on why this is happening. What is wrong with human conscience? In this article, I will discuss the basis of ethics. The laws have proved a failure. Despite having so many laws and law enforcing agencies, courts and judicial systems every day why so many crimes are taking place? This is why nowadays the word "ethics" has come forward. People are so cunning that they can easily escape from the laws and law enforcing agencies and commit crimes. So ethics is the last straw holding what the humanity wants to survive from sinking in the deep sea of inhumanity in this present world.Ethics is self responsibility -- sprit of not doing harm for others. My intention here is to discuss a little about why we have become so unethical in this stage.The physical body of a human being is nothing but a vehicle of which the mind or emotion is the driver. The body just follows that comes to the mind. The body is even unable to differentiate between false and true, reality and imagination. A baby comes into the world in body-mind state. It remains connected to the universe -- the total existence. The baby comes into the world as a pure being. As the days pass by, the baby's mind gets separated from the body. The modern psychologist now says that human being has two parts: body and mind. In this article, I am using emotion as a synonym of mind from now. Emotion has its two aspects: fair emotion and unfair emotion. Fair emotion is just love and compassion. Primarily it is love and ultimately it reaches to the height of compassion. A true human being is just compassion. The well known compassionate figures in the world are Hazrat Mohammed (sm), Jesus, Mohavir, Nanak, Buddha, Socrates, etc. The list can be made longer but I think it is enough to understand the compassionate personalities. On the other hand, the unfair parts of the emotion basically consist of three things: anger, greed, and fear. All negative feelings like jealousy, hatred, and anxiety basically are the branches and leaves of these three. In the world we come with fair emotion and gradually we import and accumulate the unfair emotion. The unfair part becomes bigger and bigger and the fair parts get smaller and smaller, and gradually the fair emotions are knocked out by the unfair part of the emotion. Now, let us see how do we take decisions in our daily life? All the decisions we take are based on either, anger or greed or fear. We cannot take a decision based on love. How can we do that? We have eliminated that part from our heart with the socialisation process. On the other hand, the society has given a lot of nourishment for anger, greed and fear. Interesting thing is the fair and unfair emotion cannot stay together. It is like dark and light that cannot exist together.The basis of the present world economy is greed. Greed is the main capital. The trade, economy and other essential things for survival has gone to the wrong hand. For this reason we find the world is at the verge of destruction. In this stage I am quoting few verses from Kahlil Gibran that may show us how far we have gone from the ethics of trade:To you the earth yields her fruit, and you shall not want if you but know how to fill your hands.It is in exchanging the gifts of the earth that you shall find abundance and be satisfied.Yet unless the exchange be in love and kindly justice, it will but lead some to greed and others to hunger.When in the market place you toilers of the sea and fields and vineyards meet the weavers and the potters and the gatherers of spices,Invoke then the master spirit of the earth, to come into your midst and sanctify the scales and the reckoning that weighs value against value.And suffer not the barren-handed to take part in your transactions, who would sell their words for your labour.To such men you should say,"Come with us to the field, or go with our brothers to the sea and cast your net;For the land and the sea shall be bountiful to you even as to us.And if there come the singers and the dancers and the flute players, buy of their gifts also.For they too are gatherers of fruit and frankincense, and that which they bring, though fashioned of dreams, is raiment and food for your soul.And before you leave the market place, see that no one has gone his way with empty hands.For the master spirit of the earth shall not sleep peacefully upon the wind till the needs of the least of you are satisfied.[On Buying and Selling, The Prophet, Kahlil Gibran,]. Ethic will not come into being automatically. We had it at the time of our childhood. We lost it though the process of socialisation. We shall have to reclaim it. In fact it is already with us. It is existing deep within our being. We shall have to bring it out. Otherwise, we will be doing harm of other as well as of our own soul
Md. Firoj Alam is working as a Project Officer with Unicef
Published in the Daily Star On: 2008-10-12

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