Dealing with Social Pressures

A Presentation by ABBAS HUSAIN

Director Teachers’ Development Centre

• The 21st century is a good time to be young…

• As well as a very hard time to be young.

Today the entire knowledge of the world is available at a single click…

And yet there is an enormous ignorance of the basics of good decent living.

Why is this so?

MODERNITY ITSELF MUST BE SEEN

AS A SOURCE OF THESE TENSIONS

MODERNITY• COMPLEXITY

• INTERCONNECTEDNESS

• UNCERTAINTY

• DESTRUCTIVE POWER IN THE HANDS OF AN INDIVIDUAL ON A LARGE SCALE

1. COMPLEXITY• WE ARE PARTICIPANTS TO A

LAYERED COMPLEX WORLD

• SOCIALLY• POLITICALLY • ECONOMICALLY• INTERNATIONALLY• ECOLOGICALLY

2.INTERCONNECTEDNESS

• A WIDELY CONNECTED WORLD

E.G. INTERNET

…A VIOLENT STIR SOMEWHERE ELSE…

3.UNCERTAINTY

• No more are there pockets of relative certainty

• The speed with which new jobs are being created for new niche markets is remarkable…

4. GREAT CAPACITY TO HARM

• One virus can wipe out years of data from an entire range of computers

• One person can influence thousands …for good and evil together…..

THESE ARE TO ME THE FOUR FEATURES OF MODERNITY

• And young people must do twelve things in this intense fast changing culture which is defined by Stephen Covey as

“PERMANENT WHITEWATER”

The Young Person Must:

1. Adjust to a new physical sense of self

2. Adjust to new intellectual abilities

3. Adjust to increased cognitive demands at school

4. Develop expanded verbal skills

The Young Person Must:

5. Develop a personal sense of identify

6. Establish adult vocational goals

7. Establish emotional and psychological independence from his or her parents

8. Develop stable and productive peer relationships

The Young Person Must:

9. Learn to manage her or his sexuality

10. Adopt a personal value system

11. Develop increased impulse control and behavioral maturity

12. Develop a keen interest in the spiritual resources of our own traditions

You can see that is a daunting checklist for the most balanced and normal young person…

What to speak of people like us?

This brings us to the

confrontation of modernity

with youth and I will present

it as three contradictions.

Three Contradictions

Competition and success

Brotherly love and humility

First Contradiction

Second Contradiction

Stimulation of our needs

Factual frustrations in satisfying them

Third Contradiction

Alleged freedom of the individual

All his factual limitations

The twelfth point in the checklist was awareness of spiritual traditions

And I now wish to turn to our traditional response to the four points of modernity

So here are the resources on each point

Islam offers a modality of thinking about each of the features of modernity

Against complexity it offers a metaphysics of such marvels that mankind has yet to appreciate its breadth and depth

PHYSICS AND METAPHYSICS….

For interconnectedness

It offers a picture of the human family and the worth and value of each human being as a creature of God with remarkable consistency

walaqad karramna bani Adam…

For uncertainty

It speaks of the certainty of the human experience against the drifting nature of the media images and the onslaught of novelty

And about the capacity to harm

Islam makes a democratic appeal for spirituality by inviting each person to realize the spiritual quest, and then saying:

Whoever saves a human life saves all mankind

A Recipe for Self-Management

Focus on sharing

Focus on language

Focus on time

FOCUS ON SHARING

• Young people need to understand that the most powerful influence on their lives is from other young people. So they have to take over and take charge. This is a focus on sharing.

FOCUS ON LANGUAGE

• The fluency of speech by which one is able to express the intention of the heart.

FOCUS ON TIME

• Put your time to good use, improve your skills.

The decades ahead will be extremely unforgiving of people who do not have the skills.

I would like to conclude on two powerful thoughts

Surely Allah does not change the condition of a people until they change that which is in themselves

---Surah Ra’ad, 13:11

And help you one another in in righteousness and piety, but help not one another in sin and rancour

Surah Maidah, 5:2

THANK YOU

ABBAS HUSAINDirector

Teachers’ Development Centre

129-G Block 2 PECHS Karachi 75400

http://www.tdc.edu.pkE-mail: info@tdc.edu.pk

Tel: 021-4310217/4392949