In the days of the steam engine, the engine drivers
had no option but to stand at close quarters to a
blazing fire. It was all part of being an engine
driver, and without that no train could have run.
Much the same thing happens to the individuals
who make things go in civic life. They are
confronted by the blazing fire of their own anger at
other members of society.
They rage at wrongdoers, cheats and shirkers, both
real and imagined. But just as the engine driver
controls both the fire which drives the engine and
his own desire to escape from it, so must the
individual in society tame both his own fury and a
desire simply to run away from adverse situations.
If a society is to hold together and function in
harmony, individuals must learn to bear with those
who oppose and hurt them. There is no group of
people in which differences of opinion do not arise;
no group in which there are never feelings of
grievance and resentment. It would, indeed, be
unrealistic to expect that everything should be plain
sailing.
How then can people live and work together? How,
with seemingly irreconcilable differences between
individuals, can society be welded into a cohesive
whole? There is only one-way: people must bury
their differences and agree to disagree. But this can
happen only if people react coolly and rationally in
difficult situations where relations are strained and
there seems no way out of the dilemma. It can
happen only if people are fully aware of their
responsibilities towards others, as individuals, and
towards their community as a whole.
This may seem to be asking the impossible. But this
is not so. Every individual does these things in the
most natural way within his own domestic circle. In
quite normal families, differences of opinion occur
almost every day, but the bonds of love and kinship
prevail and grievances are all finally buried. It is in
this way that a family holds together. Every home is
a practical example of people agreeing to disagree.
This spirit of give and take, which is a matter of
instinct in a family, is something which can emerge
in a community only through conscious effort on
the part of its members. While it is all emotional
bond that keeps families from disintegrating, it is a
rational effort which cements society, constraining
its members to hold together despite all differences.
--Maulana Wahiduddin Khan
( Ref - The Moral Vision)
