The Missing of Courtesy

                “Thank you!”, “Please”, and “May I..?” are the example of respectful words used to express gratitude and to ask for something. Good manners is reflected in my mother’s story about her childhood. One day my mother told me about it. There has been a huge difference between her hometown, Madiun, a small city in Eastern Java, and big cities like Jakarta in terms of people’s politeness in their interaction with others. In her times, people in the village where she lived were so kind, polite, respectful, cheerful, and hardworking. There were no such things as individualities. People there were always helping each other; cleaning the environment, building houses, bridges, fences, etc. They gave their warm and nice greetings when they met, they shared food to their neighbours when they had more than enough. In the big cities where I live and used to live, Bandung and Jakarta, courtesy, respectful acts, excellence of manners, good social conduct, polite behaviours, or whatever it is called, is considered missing or rarely found in the society. I identify there are at least three possible causes of this; the confusing character building in our education, the lack of religious commitment, the society or the surrounding itself.

                In the city where I grew up, Jakarta, students are obligated to study for 12 years. Unfortunately, these long term educations do not guarantee that it will generate human with good character. This is probably because not all teachers, lecturers have the same perception of good manners, respectful act, and fair play. For example, in High School, when the Final Examination is coming, the students and the school is preparing what are needed; the subject supplements, the prayers, the advices. Just before the class ended, teachers used to give us advices. One day my Bahasa Indonesia teacher told us that it is fine to give answers to another students unbeknown by the guards when the Examination was already started, saying that it was the act of “helping” and “caring”, while days before, my Biology teacher had told us that we must do the exam ourselves and do not give any answers to another students so that we do not drag them down into the “darkness”, the unconfident of doing one’s own works. In Higher Education, there is also this kind of phenomenon, not all the lecturers have agreed for what is called good manners. There are lecturers who strictly regulate students’ rule of conduct, politeness, and manners in the class, i.e. by prohibiting the use of sandals, t-shirts, being late, and so on. Meanwhile there are also others who do not, they just focus on academic materials. It causes confusion in the students’ mind that they eventually end up to behave pragmatically, taking the practical rules as normally humans would do.

                In my religion, we are advised to follow Prophet Muhammad’s way of life, called Sunnah. It includes almost everything, i.e. lowering our voices to elders, soften it to younger, obeying our parents, helping our parents, relatives and best friends, fatherless and/or motherless children, the poors, people in a journey respectively, treating women honourably, etc. There is also this typical good social conduct of Muslims, when two or more Muslims meet, we should greet by saying “salaamun ‘alaikum”, which may also act as if we pray for them, because it means “peace (of Allah) be upon you”. Isn’t it great if we apply those to our daily life? Won’t it make human more human? Unfortunately, some Muslims in big cities lack the commitment to apply their religious teachings, thus causing some discourtesy, disrespectful act.

                The lack of educational guidelines from schools and people’s lack of obedience in their religious rules contribute to the already complicated circumstances in big cities like Jakarta in which people from different cultures share their diverse practices and beliefs. The diverse practices may result in a collision manners, thus making it harder for the people to build the courtesy, because they are afraid whether their practices will suit others or they just do not care since it is not in their hometown anymore. If this process continues, there will be less and less people who are willing to guard the value and making courtesy uncontrollable in the end.

                In summary, the missing of courtesy in big cities like Jakarta may be caused by –but not limited to- three things; the confusing character building in our education, the lack of religious commitment, the society or the surrounding itself. In spite of that, I believe that there still exist education institutions which have the same visions, Muslims who put Sunnah above the whole world, and people who are willing to guard the value.

-Muhammad Yusril Yuriis