Ammon News - By Musa Keilani

HRH Prince Hassan put a question to all of us last week: How to a sense of responsibility among Jordanian citizens, and how to cultivate that sense to be a part of the collective subconscious in our society?

In an article published a few days ago, he questioned the reasons behind why Jordanians still practise the odd habit of firing weapons and lighting fireworks to mark their jubilation when a member of the family passes the Tawjihi - the General Secondary School Certificate Examination. This year, one student was killed and 13 people were injured due to the faulty handling of AK 47 guns.

Moreover, no family could sleep before dawn due to the noise of firecrackers, bullets and gunshots when the Tawjihi results were announced last week. This negative phenomenon falls within the context of a lack of civic responsibility - when a whole neighbourhood cannot sleep because one person needs to express his pleasure.

Another manifestation of this negative phenomenon among Jordanian citizens was reflected in the apathy at a grassroots level towards the floods in Pakistan. With the exception of the commendable efforts and immediate relief sent by the Jordan Hashemite Charity Organisation, bonds of religion, friendship or common humanity did not mobilise Jordanians to identify with the suffering and agony of 14 million Pakistanis as the devastating floods along the Indus River little signs of abating.

According to a recent United Nations estimate, the number of people affected by these massive floods in Pakistan is more than the combined total of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the 2005 Pakistan earthquake and the 2010 Haiti earthquake.

The floods were caused by monsoon rains, which were forecast to continue in August and were described as the worst in this area in the last 80 years. So far as many as 500,000 or more people have been displaced from their homes, although later reports increased the number to as high as a million. Six million still need food, shelter and water, according to the UN. Up to 1,600 people have been killed, and officials have warned that the death-toll could rise as many towns and villages are not accessible and communications have been disrupted.

The ongoing devastating floods in Pakistan will have a severe impact on an already vulnerable population, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). In addition to all the other damage they have caused, the floodwaters have destroyed much of the healthcare-infrastructure in the worst-affected areas, leaving inhabitants especially vulnerable to water-borne diseases.

In early August, the heaviest flooding moved southward along the Indus River from severely-affected northern regions towards western Punjab, where at least 1,400,000 acres of cropland was destroyed, and the southern province of Sindh. The crops affected in what used to be called the bread basket of Pakistan were cotton, sugarcane, rice, tobacco and animal fodder. Floodwaters and rain destroyed 700,000 acres of cotton, 200,000 acres each of rice and cane, 500,000 metric tonnes of wheat and 300,000 acres of land planted with animal fodder. Moreover, the floods destroyed 2 million bales of cotton.

Aid agencies have warned that outbreaks of diseases, such as gastroenteritis, diarrhoea, and skin diseases due to lack of clean drinking water and sanitation can pose a serious new risk to flood victims.

It is predicted that fresh rainfall would trigger two further waves of flooding, inundating more land and swallowing yet more villages.

One of the new surges is currently sweeping down from mountainous areas in the north and expected to hit highly populated areas in the coming days, while the second wave is being formed in the mountains.

An article in the New Scientist attributed the cause of the exceptional rainfall to "freezing" of the jet stream, a phenomenon that also caused an unprecedented heatwave and wildfires in Russia.

However, the main question remains valid - how to inculcate a sense of responsibility among Jordanians to make them act in an expression of identification with victims of similar disasters in future? Could it be civic education that will guarantee a new breed of generations who feel that they are part of the global family with multilayered shared denominators of ethical values, hopes and common destiny. Or is it religious education that fosters a sense of responsibility as part of the Koranic “Amana” which the Almighty entrusted to all mankind, irrespective of differences in creed, colour, race or faith. The appeal by Prince Hassan should be well comprehended and implemented by educators and religious authorities in our country to cultivate a collective subconscious with a refined sense of responsibility.

* Jordan Times