Courage and Cowardice
On April 28, 1967 the boxer, Muhammad Ali (Clay), publically
refused to join the war in Vietnam announcing “I will not disgrace my religion,
my people or myself by becoming a tool to enslave those who are fighting for
their own justice, freedom and equality.”
Stripped of his heavyweight champion title, sentenced to five years in
prison, fined $10,000, his boxing license revoked, and banned from boxing for
three years, it was a heavy price to pay for the 25 year old, and took great
moral courage.
Courage is commonly associated with war or battle. Warrior
heroes were immortalized in Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, Firdausi’s Rustum and Sohrab, Mir Anees’s account
of the heroism at Karbala. Joan of Arc, Noor Inayat Khan, Major Aziz Bhatti, Flight
Officer Rashid Minhas, and countless others whose stories of courage have
earned them distinction.
While courage displayed by warriors is accompanied by hours
of arduous training, there are daily examples of the courage of ordinary
people: the farmer who plows his arid fields, uncertain if rains will come on
time; the fruit and vegetable sellers trundling their carts in the intense
summer heat; a surgeon who undertakes a
complex operation; or even a child walking into a classroom on the first day of
school.
Rosa Parks displayed her courage by not giving up her seat
on the bus in the segregated American South. Novelist Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
spoke out against repression in the midst of Communist rule in USSR. The poet, Habib Jalib, challenged Gen Ayub
Khan’s changes to the constitution with
his famous poem, “Dastoor”. Admiral
Ahsan resigned in protest from his position as Martial Law Administrator of
East Pakistan. More recently the Indian actor Naseeruddin Shah spoke boldly for
Muslims under threat from Hindu fundamentalism.
How do we acquire moral courage? Is it a human instinct or values
instilled in the home, community and religious beliefs? This has been a philosophical debate since the
time of Socrates. Recent scientific studies conducted at Yale and Harvard, have
concluded that humans are essentially good and our first instinct is to
cooperate, but socialization makes us fearful or indifferent. Society teaches
the majority to take the path of least resistance, rationalizing inaction in
the guise of loyalty and the greater good. Society also keeps changing its
concepts of courage and cowardice – was
Julian Assange a hero or a traitor?
Kierkegaard says moral courage is “to fear God or fear error
more than one fears men”. Malik Adnan
attempted to protect a Sri Lankan in Sialkot from a mob of hundreds. For Ayesha
Ikram, who was mauled at Minar-e- Pakistan, not one of the 400 men had the
courage to protect her. Confucius said “ to see what is right and not do it is
the worst cowardice”.
Albert Camus describes how cowardice grows: “Each decision to follow the path of least
resistance led to another. The second offence was no worse than the first, but
the one combined with the other amounted to an act of cowardice. Two acts of
cowardice added up to dishonor”. He
adds“ in a world where craftiness was always right, one had to make an effort
not to be wrong”.
How do you choose the right way instead of the easy way? Where
bravery is an instinct, a fearlessness, courage is a choice that involves
taking action in spite of fear.
Cowardice is a more complex emotion. Cowardice is considered
the worst insult for a man. Conversely, there is said to be wisdom and prudence
in picking one’s battles.
Pakistanis place high value to the words for courage - shujaat, bahaduri, himmat, hausla, delairi -
and are quick to mock cowardice or buzdili, yet in this blurring of right and
wrong that defines our times, few can summon up the moral courage to speak out in
the face of wrongdoing.
Durriya Kazi ‘
Karachi
January 3, 2022
Comments
Post a Comment