Change can only happen by the people

Driving to work this morning, I started thinking about the relationship between driving and mentality. It took me almost 2 hours today to get from Ampang to Shah Alam. Every route that I wanted to take was chocker block and so finally I succumbed and crawled with the traffic. It transpired that there were a few accidents causing some of the traffic jam. It is no secret that drivers in Malaysia drive erratically. To me, it is a reflection of immaturity in thought. For example, what would motivate a driver to speed, cutting up other cars just to hit a red light? Why would one tail-gate when there's a massive truck right at the front of the car that you are tail-gating?


So, it is about mentality and culture. Every society has its own culture and the people living in that society share certain thoughts and feelings that are common to them. For example, in Britain where I lived for the past 17 years, the drivers share a common thought such as 'giving way'. When you indicate to maneuver, the other driver will give way because that is the right thing to do. To them, that is how a civilised person should behave and it is expected of everyone. There is no need for the government to introduce that idea in the school curriculum or to put sloganistic posters on billboards. Rather, it is the culture of the people. The people drive in a certain way because they believe that is the right way to behave. 


It is like the recent Egyptian revolution. After the revolution and the toppling of Husni Mubarak, the people came out and cleaned their streets, they had civilians managing traffic and in Libya, it was reported that in Benghazi when protesters took control of the streets, people started driving more responsibly. We can learn a lot from the revolution in the Middle East and one of the things for us to understand is that government do not change the people, it is the people that can make the change.

Governments can only 'wave a stick' such as giving fines, punishment, imprisonment or in some places through torture. Yet, they still fail to change the culture and mentality of people. They may make them obey the law but the ideas of people are not changed and from what we have witnessed in Libya, even the threat of bombing and mass execution have failed to convince people.

People change when they want to change and it is the people who make the change. the best society is the one that can regulate itself and there is no better society than the time of the Prophet Muhammad (saw) and the time of the sahabah in Madinah. The people of Madinah regulated themselves through taqwa (the fear of Allah). Hence, they do not commit zina because of their awareness of Allah. They do not steal, drink alcohol, harass women because they knew that was wrong. The function of the Islamic state was not to punish and to dictate people but the function of the state was to facilitate the people in fulfilling their obligations and avoiding the haraam.

For example, the state has a duty to collect and distribute the zakat. Hence, it makes it easy for people to fulfil their fardh by collecting zakat. It also makes it easy for people to fulfil their fardh by distributing the zakat. The state has a function to find all those who are eligible to receive zakat and to ensure that they receive their due. Islam's punishment for certain crimes are severe but the state's function is not to spy on people trying to 'catch' people in the act rather, its function is to make it easy for those who want to repent to receive the punishment in this life because to be punished in this life is an expiation for the punishment in the hereafter. This is why throughout the implementation of hudood under the Islamic state for over 1000 years, there were only 300 recorded cases of thieves having their hands chopped off. We know this statistic is true because the Islamic state was one of the first nations to keep an accurate record of all court cases. We also know the story of the women who came to see the Prophet (saw) asking to be punished because she had committed adultery.


A society that is elevated in its thinking especially by the Islamic ideas will be able to produce a productive self regulated society. This was evident during the time of the Prophet Muhammad (saw) when he was the head of state in Madinah and the khalifs that came after him. Whenever the Khilafah conquered a land, it elevated the people and turned the city into a place of knowledge and worship such as Baghdad in Iraq at the time of the Abbasid, Istanbul (Constantinople) in Turkey at the time of Uthmaniyah and Granada in Spain. Driving in Malaysia is only an example of a reflection of the people's mentality and culture. The people need to realise that change must come from themselves and the people who have realised must try to convince others.