Economic Crisis: A New Social Regulation?

Jim Wallis in his blog God's Politics posted an interesting piece:

Every morning when I wake up in Davos, I turn on my television to CNN in my hotel room. And every morning, there is the same reporter interviewing a bundled-up CEO with the snowy “magic mountain” of Davos in the background. The question is always the same: “When will this crisis be over?” They actually have a “white board” where they make the CEO mark his answer: 2009…2010…2011…later.

But it’s the wrong question. Of course it’s a question we all want to know the answer to, but there is a much more important one. We should be asking, “How will this crisis change us?” How will it change the way we think, act, and decide things —how we live, and how we do business? Yes, this is a structural crisis, and one that clearly calls for new social regulation. But it is also a spiritual crisis, and one that calls for new self-regulation. We seem to have lost some things and forgotten some things — such as our values.

We have trusted in “the invisible hand” to make everything turn out all right, believing that it wasn’t necessary for us to bring virtue to bear on our decisions. But things haven’t turned out all right and the invisible hand has let go of some things, such as “the common good.” The common good hasn’t been very common in our economic decision-making for some time now. And things have spun out of control. Gandhi’s seven deadly social sins seem an accurate diagnosis for some of the causes of this crisis: “politics without principle, wealth without work, commerce without morality, pleasure without conscience, education without character, science without humanity, and worship without sacrifice.”

If we learn nothing from this crisis, all the pain and suffering it is causing will be in vain. But we can learn new habits of the heart, perhaps that suffering can even turn out to be redemptive. If we can regain a moral compass and find new metrics by which to evaluate our success, this crisis could become our opportunity to change.

(See: http://blog.sojo.net/2009/01/30/davos-how-will-this-crisis-change-us/)

I pondered what, and how may a new social regulation, moral compass and new metrics by which to live and evaluate our success, take shape and effect.

What came to mind was Professor Gatze Lettinga, who chose not to patent his invention so that his water treatment technology can be universally available.

That's Prof Lettinga.
But what about me?
I ask myself.

'Eidul Fitr Prayer, Reunion and Good Life

We (my wife, children and I) performed our 'Eid prayer at Toa Payoh Stadium. It has become a family tradition passed down from my parents for us to pray in an open ground for 'Eid - a sunnah of the Prophet (saw). This is the first 'Eid without my father, and I felt his absence both in my heart and at the field during the prayer. My parents and I would wait for each other - my siblings and their family to arrive before we walked together into the stadium, over the years. This morning, it was just me, my wife and our children. Perhaps my mother could not bear the grief to be at the stadium without my father, and my sisters obliged her and prayed at Darul Ghufran.



Alhamdulillah, I am glad we were at the stadium, despite not having my parents and siblings with us. We met old friends and almost like a reunion, we were (re)acquainted with the children of our friends, and acknowledged how time had passed not to mention how much we have aged - many were babies when we last saw them, and now in their teens and even taller than their parents. It wasn't just a gathering for congregational prayer but a celebration of friendship over decades and generations - friends of my parents, our (me and my wife) friends and our children's friends too. It was a community, albeit one that meets twice a year for the two 'Eid prayers. Not strangers who stood in rows for prayers but not knowing anything about each another.

The 'Eid sermon was simple yet inspiring. Titled Hayaatan Tayibah, it expounded the meaning of the verse in Surah Al-Nahl: "Whosoever acts righteously - whether a man or woman - and embraces belief, We will surely grant him a good life; and will surely grant such persons their reward according to the best of their deeds." (Q 16:97)

Like the icing on the cake, the sermon outlined four types of people:

Wealthy and generous (kaya harta dan kaya hati)
Poor but generous (miskin harta tetapi kaya hati)
Wealthy but miserly (kaya harta tetapi miskin hati)
Poor and miserly (miskin harta dan miskin hati)

An interesting permutation - which one of the above types will be able to do good and gain a good life?

Generosity is a virtue.
The hand at the top is better than the one below.
Let's give so that we will be able to give more, and much more.