Our moral values

There was a time when a house in a locality was pointed out with a lot of admiration and envy for having a son who had got his bachelor's degree. That was a time when honesty and humility was respected and practiced. Today a house is pointed out with a lot of endorsement for a son who is a powerful "mastaan", and who has easy access to the secretariat or to the ministers. Such is the level of our moral value these days.

The other day a reporter asked ex-President Ershad his views on being termed a "Bishawa Behaya". Many applauded the guts of this young reporter forgetting that the reporter was crossing the thin line of etiquette and decency of journalism. They almost forgot the disrespect that has gradually developed in the young minds for elders. This was being telecast to millions inside and outside the country. It would have been a different case if the reporter had asked a movie star or a businessmen; the reporter was talking to none other than the ex-president of this country, who we may or may not like, ruled this nation of ours as our president for nearly a decade.

The question is not Ershad, or why he did not have the spine to ask the reporter to rephrase the question like many other world leaders do, what matters was the insubordination and the disrespect shown which is now too often seen in the relationship between teacher-student, father-son, traffic police and traffic rule breakers, employer- employee, you name it, in every aspect of our lives.

The electronic media, especially the TV channels have become powerful during the recent times and seems to have taken the role of national motivators. Our moral values can be brought up to its glorious levels of the past through the media simply by the manner they present their shows. I am sure I vent the common feelings of many of your readers when I plead to the media to be a little more careful in publishing gruesome pictures of mutilated bodies due to injury. Similarly, the need to raise the moral values is required to be hammered repeatedly by the media so that it is driven home in every aspect of our daily life. Let us join hands to rebuild our long lost moral values inch by inch from scratch which is very much needed at this point of time.