Written by N. Mania
A person growing up in Greece or any other part of the western world can hardly picture him/herself as a member of the Mongol family shown in the film, “The Weeping Camel”, or living in a village in the desert like the one shown in the film, “The Jar”, or even as a member of a tribe in South India. When we have the opportunity to witness the life of such social groups, so totally different from what we know and have taken for granted, we may perhaps reconsider, reassess, question even, those principles upon which we have so far based our values and our goals.
This mental exercise will not, of course, make us actually revolt against the excesses of our world, or give up all the comforting ideas, beliefs and attitudes we have nurtured for centuries, or immediately prompt us to actively contribute to the task of making the world a better place; but, hopefully, we will feel more appreciative of the “blessings” our reality has bestowed upon us, less prone to meaningless extravagance in our way of life, more aware of human qualities our breed has forgotten, more open to other cultures, other realities, readier to accept people as equals despite differences, and more motivated to welcome any opportunity, that may chance upon us, to offer the knowledge and wisdom we have acquired through it to others.
Who could possibly be the best, most receptive “others”? Let us consider the children, who are still growing both in body and spirit, whose mind is not yet filled with trash, whose intellect has just begun to absorb knowledge and understanding of the world, whose personality and behaviour have not yet been fully conditioned by social norms, who have not yet conformed to fixed opinions and attitudes. Our children are the world’s investment for the future and we, parents and teachers, are responsible for their visions of life, their first attempts to grasp the similarities and differences amongst the various peoples on earth and their realities. We owe our youngsters a complete presentation of the world, one that would allow them to see, hear and think about other people in other parts of the world who experience life in environments totally different from our own, who face difficulties unimaginable to us, but who, however, love, hope, dream just as we do; only, the content of their dreams could never be the same as that of our dreams, because their reality is different. Can anyone of us imagine his/her child dreaming of a brand new water jar for the school because the old one is broken? Or, could a student in your school think that his/her best chances in life depend on whether he/she will always find someone to buy the rubbish he/she has collected?
Our reality is such that our children know their basic needs are taken care of and they never think about them. They are more likely, for instance, to think about the new stock of pencils and rubbers the local stationery has brought and how to convince their parents to buy them. The children of the Adivasi in India, on the other hand, may think of ways to make the one notebook and pencil they have to last them for the whole year, or at least until the next time they visit their family during a holiday. Our son or daughter might wish to skip his/her bath because he/she does not feel like it; an Adivasi child will most likely not have a bath, because it would mean going back and forth from the village well to the house five or six times to carry heavy pots full of water.
Such differences may well seem inconceivable and yet, they are there! In some cases they should sting and hurt our minds for obvious reasons. In other cases, though, they should be seen as valuable reminders of what really matters in life; lessons of humility, endurance, appreciation, struggle, persistence! Therefore, while parents and teachers, quite properly, give geographical and demographic information to youngsters as to far away lands and peoples, wouldn’t it be equally important (if not more) to allow them to see beyond the maps and the numbers?
Imagine taking a child down a road lined with closed up buildings at which you point as you explain what they are, or had been; wouldn’t it be a much greater learning experience if you opened doors and windows so as to enable the child’s eyes to see, ask and finally, understand?
N. Mania
Graduate of McGill University, Montreal, Canada
Psychology, Anthropology
