Discipline, discipline, discipline

Thursday, January 10, 2008
As human beings, we are distinguishably superior to the rest of the animal kingdom by virtue of our unequivocal sense of civilisation. And this we owe to a set of conceived rules that shape our way of life, and of relating with our perceived inferior species.

But do we know that this civilisation we keep chanting about is a progeny of a combination of key attributes - the twin virtues of discipline and honesty? A society totally devoid of discipline is clearly starving for want of virtue, and it is bound to wreck apart.

Just as President Yahya Jammeh said, when he met with members of the Pakistan Military Team, ‘discipline is key to a professional army’ in the life and security of a nation.

An indisciplined army lacks a sense of focus as it is out of touch with the set of rules that governs its society, which serve as standards within which limit the society is gauged. An indisciplined army is one that is corrupted both morally and professionally, and when this happens, you get situations etreminiscn of what wrecked the hopes of millions of people in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Rwanda etc, etc.. To put it simply, an indisciplined army has in its guards the most vulnerable of societies.

When the ordinary people themselves are indisciplined, the society is poised to descend down the drain. A typical example is what currently prevails in Kenya, where the people suddenly assumed the status of the inhabitants of the jungle, all in the name of satisfying some insatiable greed for a rather indisciplined bunch of leaders.

Friends and neighbours become foes, and mete out the most painful of atrocities on one another. Religious indiscipline, on the other hand, underpins all extreme forms of ungodly defiance - leading to moral decay. God save us! All kinds of interpretation of divine laws crop up, giving rise to the most unthinkable forms of cultism. Again Kenya, Nigeria and the many religiously destabilised middle eastern nations are a suitable example for this.

A society wanting in sexual discipline invokes a promiscuous atmosphere with all forms of lethal diseases like HIV/AIDS. Also indiscipline at school serves as a poison for a whole generation of young people, who are preoccupied with issues that contribute to their enslavement. Such societies are built on shaky foundations. It is just a matter of time before everything crumbles. Therefore, we second the President’s sentiment and say that “discipline is the key”.





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Author: DO