Monday, July 25, 2016

Bragging rights and wrongs

I often come across conversations where Scandinavian countries get invoked for their high and cleaner standards of living. For example, Norway has become the first nation to ban deforestation. And Sweden regularly imports waste from other countries because it's dependent on renewable sources of energy more than the non-renewable ones. Similar tales of legendary achievements are regaled for Denmark, Iceland and Finland. One can argue that they are secluded geographically and that might have played a huge part in their emergence as the most sorted nations on the planet. Some may even surmise that the world as we know today bears the stains of World War II and the Scandinavian nations were mostly untouched by them. (Which would be categorically false given an island as remote as Iceland lost more soldiers in WW2 than the USA did.) Some may point out that religion as a notion is weak in these nations and hence they could focus on human development more compared to their pious European neighbours. Some may surmise that they are tiny little pieces of land with minuscule population and hence can keep their shit together. Well, there could be many explanations why Scandinavia is so damn impressive but the one reason that i feel is worth emulating is their adherence to modesty. For some reason, bragging is not a popular pastime in these countries. In fact, those who gloat are either looked down upon or completely ignored. I wonder if it's remotely possible for us to give humbleness a chance, especially in an era where showing off is next only to breathing. Speaking of which, Zakir Naik is a unique specimen in this particular regard. On one hand, he calls himself a student of comparative religion while on another, he just finds caveats from holy scriptures to asserts Islam's superiority. Going by his track record, he's the poster child for words-trump-actions thanks to his mockery but at the same time, he has all the rights under the sky to practise his freedom of speech. The only problem is he lacks humility. Something Scandinavians seem to have in abundance. 

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