THE ROLE OF THE INDIVIDUAL IN SOCIETAL DEVELOPMENT

THE ROLE OF THE INDIVIDUAL IN SOCIETAL DEVELOPMENT

'I do not write books, but I write individuals.' This particular quote from Hasan al-Banna emphasizes the importance of individuals in community development, because as we know, Hasan al-Banna, AbulA'la al-Maududi, and the scholars who were with them in the same time period, all were looking to develop the community after the shock of not having a Khalifa after more than a thousand years being led by one Khalifa or another. Even Western philosophers like Susan Neiman and Phil Zuckerman agrees that the individual is integral in any given society, without the individual, the society will cease to exist as a whole. Therefore, when the individual in the society is adequate to help in the development of the community, the community will develop. In whatever system, from Karl Marx's Communism to the more popular Capitalism, the role of the individual is ever present, and ever important, even though it is understandable to overlook the role of the individual in a communal system like Communism where the state is given emphasis. This particular reasoning that the individual is an integral part of any society is true throughout the animal kingdom, the environment, in machines and for humans as well, or if you are with Darwin in the case of humans being part of the animal kingdom, this particular reasoning still applies. We as a society must realize and recognize that there are problems with the common individual in society. Therefore, we must strive to solve the problems that are.

According to Abraham Maslow in Maslow's Hierarchy Of Needs, or better known as The Theory Of Motivation in his 1954 book, Motivation and Personality, there are five things needed to achieve'self-actualization'. Because people today have not achieved self-actualization, therefore, their contribution towards the development of society is minimal. Why do people who do not achieve self-actualization contribute so little toward society? It is because according to Maslow, humans need to at least have secure food supply, shelter, and clothes. Other than that, they also need security, what Maslow means by security is not just having a safe home and a safe neighborhood to live in, but also job security, medical insurance, financial reserves and things like that. Humans, being the social creatures that they are, also have societal needs, but fulfilling this societal need does not necessarily mean that the person will contribute to society, because according to Maslow's Hierarchy Of Needs, the societal needs of the human is more inclined towards the need for recognition, the need for friends and family, and the ability to give and receive love. Clearly, this characteristics are not the societal development characteristics that we seek, but this is more inclined towards the societal needs of one's self for the interest of oneself and not the interest of the society. According to Maslow, even if all these needs are fulfilled, it does not necessarily mean that the person will begin to contribute optimally to society, the last need before self-actualization is the esteem need. This need focuses more on the recognition and power side of the society, there are external and internal esteem needs, where the person must be able to feel okay with himself with the amount of power and recognition that he has, with this esteem need, people will start to have self-respect, the drive to achieve something that he thinks is important, he starts to give attention towards his surrounding in hope that the surrounding will give him attention too. After both sides of the coin have given attention towards each other, the person will feel that he is recognized and that he has a reputation. That will help him to achieve self-actualization, that means he will start to unlock his full potential as a human being. He will start to seek out answers for numerous questions, he will try to find the truth, he will fight for justice, he will gain wisdom, and he will find the meaning of his life. Although some people have not yet found their sense of meaning in life, Muslims will find the answer in the Quran, (Surah Az-Zariyat; 51 : 56) 'I created not mankind and jinn, but to worship (Me)'. The problem today is that even though some people know this answer, they still fail to achieve self-actualization and inherently contribute towards the societal development. This problem needs to be addressed and solved with help from all sides, if the people do not have houses to live in, the government must consider helping them a must, because they are a citizen in this country. This applies to all the needs throughout the Hierarchy Of Needs by Abraham Maslow, especially the first two needs, at least this two needs need to be satisfied to ensure the development of the society.

Some individuals in the society do not feel that they are one with the society because they think that without them, society will not be affected. This is never true because they are, like it or not, part of society, that means that whatever that they do, it will affect the society, indirectly, or directly. So, we have a pressing need to change this mindset, to make sure that everybody have a sense of belonging towards the society, because without this sense of belonging towards the society, it is impossible for the person to contribute towards society. Having a sense of belonging with the society is one of the most powerful incentive for anybody to contribute to societal development. There are a couple of ways to ensure that everybody in society have this sense of belonging. Some examples are, we must ensure that many activities conducted by society suits everybody, this ensures that everybody can feel connected to the activity, and inherently feel connected to the society. Another good solution is that members of the society must be supportive of each other, this ensures that if someone have a problem, he or she will not feel alone and that there are other people who understand and care for his or her problem, this ensures that the person feel great with being in a society like this and this will lead to the person developing a sense of belonging towards the society. There are other methods to plant and grow the sense of belonging inside the individual members of society, the idea must be discussed by the intelligentsia and implemented so that everyone can feel attached to the society, thus making them contribute towards the development of the society.

On the authority of Omar bin Al-Khattab, who said : I heard the messenger of Allah (s.a.w): "Actions are but by intention and every man shall have but that which he intended. Thus he whose migration was for Allah and His messenger, his migration was for Allah and His messenger, and he whose migration was to achieve some worldly benefit or to take some woman in marriage, his migration was for that for which he migrated." related by Bukhari and Muslim. The problem here is that although there are some people who like to contribute towards the development of society, their actions seem meaningless, it's like they did nothing because no matter what they do, it does no good toward the society as a whole. This is because their intentions are wrong, therefore whatever they do, it is useless and have no good impact towards society. Some maybe their intention is to develop the society, but they forgot god in their intention. They did not consider god's orders when developing their own community, so what happens is that they think that their community is already develop, with high ethics and all that, but in all truthfulness, the society is sick and dying because whatever the society do, the society do not consider god. Some societies think that we can and should have sex with whoever we want because it is the right of the person to do so, in this case, they did not consider what god has to say in the matter. Resulting from this is that people do not know who is his child and who is the father to the child, this is very confusing and will lead to other problems because the familial institution is no longer solid, the institution is crumbling and the product of that institution is no longer the human that is useful to the world. Therefore this particular problem needs to be addressed because sometimes we think that the person is already contributing towards the development of the society, but in truth it is a disaster disguised in the form of a blessing.

Now looking from the eyes of Hasan al-Banna, he says that the individual is important in building the ideal society. According to his 'Steps Of Work', having a Muslim individual is the basis of any society hoping to achieve the highest goal in his 'Steps Of Work' that is 'UstaziatulAlam' or 'teacher for the world'. Hasan al-Banna's rationale for putting the individual first before building any kind of proper and working society, is based around the fact that the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) worked on building the character and the basics for the sahabah for 10 years in Mecca. If building the government or society is more 'aula' or important than building the individuals, of course the Quranic ayahs that came within the first ten years of the revelation of Islam will be all about governance and syaria law. According to Hasan al-Banna, there are ten aspects or 'MuwasofatTarbiyah' that define the good Muslim in his Steps Of Work. Firstly, one must have 'aqidah' or believe that is undying, believe that is strong. Next, one must be worshipping god in the correct manner, one must do 'ibadah' in the correct way. Thirdly, one must have 'akhlaq' that is great, the way that one communicate and do dealings with others must be ethical and good. Other than that, one must also have knowledge that is wide, knowledge about many things and not just about things that are his own specialty. Furthermore, one must strive to keep oneself healthy, for if we are sick, it is hard for us to do work and to worship god. Nonetheless, one must have the ability to stand by his own feet, one must be independent so that one can live on his own even if people do not help him because of his believe in god. One also must be able to fight his own 'nafs' or desire, winning this fight is absolutely essential because the fight with oneself is the greatest Jihad there are. Caring about time is absolutely essential to have a good Muslim in Hasan al-Banna's view, just like the Arabic saying, 'if you do not cut your time (take care of your time), it will cut you.' Not the least important is that we or the good Muslim takes great care in his dealing, he must be organized to be a good Muslim, Lastly, is it the connection between the society and the individuals in society, one must be beneficial to others. So this is the problem with today's individual in the society, they do not fulfill the characteristics of the 10 'MuwasofatTarbiyah' as proposed by Hasan al-Banna. This problem needs to solved continuously and slowly so that the individual is not shocked by the sudden change that he must undergo. If a person already fulfilled this 10 characteristics, god willing he will contribute optimally towards society.

After fulfilling some of one's needs and some of the requirements of the good Muslim, we will talk about the collective basis of this particular idea. What happens when a few of these individuals come together to become one society, and how these collective of individuals can contribute to societal development. Throughout history, all great societal changes have come from a group of people, not one because of just one man. Abraham Lincoln have Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson as companions in the revolution of America, the Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w) have the 'sahabahs' as his companions to help spread peace. Even 5000 years ago, the prophet Moses (s.a.w) have the prophet Harun (s.a.w) as a companion. Now it is undeniable that we need a collective of individuals to drive the change in society, or help in the societal development. Today some of the individuals who are great and are a great influences towards society work alone and not together, this makes the prospect of societal development looks bleak. But imagine if all this great people got together and worked together to achieve the same goal of societal development, of course it will be easier just like it is easier to lift a bring down a cow for slaughter if a lot of people got together to do the job, as compared to just one person trying to bring down one cow, and another person tries to bring down another cow. A body should be created to represent this group of changers and make sure that they work together to develop the society. Also we must make sure that these people do not bicker with each other, debates are good, but bickering is useless.

Now, as a collective, this group will also have interests, sometimes this interests will clash with the interests of the individual, and here comes the ever popular debate between collectivism and individualism. For the most part, collectivism is better because it caters to the needs of the majority of the collective. But, we must always consider the interests of the individuals also, we do not want to be cruel to any side of the field. We do not want another Lenin, or another Chancellor Mao, where the state can take the land if it's citizen without compensation or unjust compensation even though the land is rightfully theirs and the citizen have proper paperwork to prove that. Even in Karl Marx's original paper, there are no particular saying that the state can take any land that is rightfully the citizen's own land. This also inherently proves that Lenin and Mao have strayed from the original concept as proposed by Karl Marx and his friend Friedrich Engels. There are some people in society that consider their interest is more important than the interest of the society as a whole. This particular mindset needs to be abolished and changed, because this type of mindset will be detrimental towards the development of the society. If the majority or even one-third of society have a mindset like this, then of course the societal development will be stagnant, or even go into reverse. We propose that this problem be tackled with a soft touch, because usually the people who thinks that there interest is the most important as compared to the society, these are stubborn people, and to deal with stubborn people, we can't be the same as them, we must change them slowly but surely. We hope that this problem will be solved to that the societal development will no longer be stagnant.

As a collective, even as an individual, the drive for 'amrma'rufnahyianilmungkar' must be there. The concept of enjoining in doing good and stopping people from doing bad is true throughout the philosophical spectrum. Either you are a Muslim, a Christian, a Jew or even if you don't believe in any deity or other-worldly beings, joining people in doing good and stopping them from doing evil in always a good thing to do. Whether you do good because of some moral high ground that you stand on, or because you believe that god or gods ask you to do so, 'amrma'rufnahyianilmungkar' is applicable. This will create the 'bi'ahsolehah' or ideal society that every sane person wants to have. The problem today is that individuals in society is very shy to enjoin in good and stop the bad, even though they know they action of enjoining in good and stopping the bad is a praiseworthy action. This sense of shyness is out of and need to changed. Society as a whole must be thankful for anybody who do 'amrma'rufnahyianilmungkar' and not be judgemental towards them, this will ensure that people who feel like doing good, will not be put off by the societal reaction.

Being a collective, like it or hate it, we must have some kind of organization, official or unofficial. This organization, must be tuned in the best interest of all in the society, without this particular tuning, the organization will become a warzone for people who are mad for power to be unjust towards others. The organization must be in the best interest of all because it in one way or another represents the society as a whole. If the organization is bad or even the organizational skills are bad, it will certainly cripple the societal development. Some organizations in the society today is no longer fighting for the best interest of the people, but they now fight for the interest of a few powerful people. This kind of action is very despicable and need to stop today. If the tradition of helping others because they will help is continued, the society will inherently be destroyed be it's own people who are in power. The people need to speak up if they feel that the organization is no longer fighting for them, because the organization represents the people of the society, and if the organization is no longer in the best interest of the people, than the organization is no longer relevant to the society.

Social stigma is always a problem in society, no matter what, social stigma does not need to be bad, it can also be good. For example, if the social stigma is that we must pray in 'jamaah', those who do not pray in 'jamaah' will feel weird. But this is not the case, our social stigma is that my life is my life, your life is your life. This is detrimental towards the concept of 'amrma'rufnahyianilmungkar'. This particular social stigma will destroy our society. So it is our job and the job of the media as a means of propagating ideas to change this social stigma.

Even worse, the parts and gears of the society, that is the individual is not the ideal individual in developing an ideal society. With a feudalistic mindset, and a lack of motivation to achieve something greater than what they already have. Furthermore, most 'bumiputra' are being pampered by the government with various specialty until they do not feel they need to strive for excellence. This problem need to be tackled by experts in this field. Politicians must also sit to discuss which of the government help is actually useful and which is detrimental towards society. 

Undoubtedly something is wrong with our society today as have been proven before. If something is dysfunctional, it does not necessarily mean we need to scrap it, maybe we just need to repair it. So our society needs to be repaired by those who are experts in their own fields. These experts need to sit together to review and discuss the issues and find the best solution to the problem. These solutions then must be presented to the right people, if some of the solution needs to be presented to the teachers of the society, present it to the teachers and discuss it with them. If need be, present the solution to the politicians so that they can implement it. The most important thing though, is that every individual needs to play his or her role in societal development.

Reference 

1. Muhammad Abdullah al-Khatib, Nazarat Fi RisalatilTa'lim, Shah Alam :Pustaka Media Budi : 1993T

2. Solikhin Abu Izzudin, Zero To Hero, Jogjakarta : Pro-U Media : 2009, page 251-280

3. MajmukRasail al-Imam asy-SyahidHasan al-Banna, Kuala Lumpur :Pustaka Salam : 2003

4. SayyidQutb, HazadDeen, Kuala Lumpur :Pustaka Salam : 2000

5. UmmuYasmin, MateriTarbiyah :PanduanKurikulumDa'i Dan Murabbi, Solo : Media Insani Press : 2007