“You are not human!” The man yelled at me.
I confronted him for jumping the queue at a supermarket. He said he was only going to pay for one bottle of water so it was ok to jump the queue, that it was for his son who was really thirsty. I was trying to tell him to “go ahead, let your son drink the water, then go on the queue and pay for it.” He wouldn’t have any of it. He yelled at me: “You are not human! My son is very thirsty and you still want us to fall in line!”
It reminded me of a couple of other incidences. One was when I was interviewing a prospective PA. The question was: “What, to you, are the main problems of society today?”
“There are too many poor people.”
That’s a good start, I thought.
“They steal and commit all sorts of crimes. That’s the problem. They do this because they are poor.”
I was dumbfounded. I wasn’t expecting to be in an argument with an applicant that afternoon.
Trying to remain calm, I blurted out: “There are rich people who also steal.”
“Oh… you’re right,” she replied, shrinking back to her seat.
“But you’re right,” I said, more calmly this time. “Poverty is a problem. So is criminality. Why, do you think is there poverty? What does it mean to be poor?”
The candidate remained silent. I wasn’t sure why. Was it upon realizing the mistake? Or was it the tone of my voice? The candidate did not make PA. But I made sure that I cited some facts and stats that dispel the notion that criminals are only the poor people. We only need to look at government to see very rich people engaging in day-time robbery after all.
The other time was when I was watching the news on the aftermath of the Fukushima earthquake, when there was a nuclear reactor leak after the earthquake and the tsunami that hit the Eastern coast of Japan in 2011.
The news was about how survivors were queuing when aid finally reached them – how calm and dignified the people were after going through that ordeal (18,500 people died in the earthquake and tsunami) and while in the midst of a nuclear disaster. Footage in the news showed neighbors looking after each other, making sure the elderly, the children, and the pregnant women get the food and the blankets first. This stoicism was clearly a contrast to the chaos, and sometimes violence, we see in calamities and relief operations.
That chaos that goes on in one’s mind – the feeling of helplessness and hopelessness, fear and panic – is often what’s behind poor thinking and actions. How often do we feel that the world has to stop because we are grieving or because something bad has happened to us? How often do we feel that the world owes us because we have fallen victim to an injustice or to a disaster and that we are somehow entitled to dispense with justice or the law at least once when we get the chance?
It is one thing to be poor and it is another to think like one. We see this everyday. Motorbike riders counter-flowing, people jumping queues and finding any excuse not to wait for their turn – from something as lame as “I just have one quick question,” to as dramatic as “It is an emergency.” Sometimes, they say: “You are not human! My son is very thirsty and you want us to fall in line.” In the end, they just wanted to get ahead of others – get away with actions that are unfair or simply nonsensical. They think that there is always an exemption to the rule or that there are exceptions and they are entitled to one because of their personal circumstance – imagining this to be unique and as something that was imposed on them.
More than economic poverty, this must be the most difficult to overcome. The state of mind of being poor. This is the mind set that makes us ignore traffic rules, imagining we are being rebellious that way, when in fact, it was just more convenient for us to counter-flow rather than go the distance for a proper u-turn. But rebellion is never about convenience. In fact, it may very well be the exact opposite.
This is the same thinking that make people clamber over fences along freeways to cross to the other side rather than use the bridge 500 meters or a kilometer away. The same thinking that makes us jump queues, give or accept bribes, or say things like: “That’s how I am,” to explain bad behavior that either we are well aware of, or others have pointed out. We love saying, “I’m weird that way,” or “Born this way,” or “Woke up like this.” Sometimes we even say that this is “being human.” It is as if we are saying that this world was not designed for us. Sometimes we imagine that our identity lies nowhere else but only with having not to comply.
These are no different to the sense of privilege and entitlement among many of the rich and powerful. Corruption is driven by our obsession with having more wealth, power, and entitlements than others. It is about inequality and elitism. This is a form of poor thinking borne out of a sense of alienation but that we so often mistake for identity.
So how do we promote creativity and hard work? The message we get everyday is about me, and myself, and I. The state is alienating in its designs and messages – that this road is for cars, or more specifically, for people with cars.
How do we turn this back? How can a state show its citizens that it cares? In infrastructure design? Values in their messaging? In The Netherlands, the PM goes to work on a bike and has beer outside the parliament on Friday afternoons, after work, and have a chat with people. The country is obsessed with bicycles and bicycle lanes, improving safety of their “main” mode of transport, reflecting what, to the Dutch, is important.
In New Zealand, PM Jacinda Ardern brought her baby to work and breastfed her. She talks about happiness and contentment as measures of development, beyond GDP. Yet one will not catch her pretending to dole out charity, unapologetic for her will and decisiveness.
Leadership is crucial – to validate and reiterate values, demonstrate them in practice, shun elitism and inequality, show sincerity, respect for people and design systems that should work for people, with compassion and empathy. Good leaders can lead a down-to-earth lifestyle and at the same time have the intellectual capacity that exudes wit and wisdom, commanding a delicate balance of seeming opposites – of difficult, important choices.
We can choose to be not poor. We can lead that way.
