A nation like a family

George Lakoff, a professor of linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley, writes in his 1996 book Moral Politics that a nation is a lot like a family. He does the mapping between these two entities: the homeland as home, the citizens as siblings, and the government or head of the government as parent. Once that is established, the rest is common sense. The government's duty is to citizens as a parent's is to children.
That's exactly how it should be. Lakoff says the government will work in a country like a parent does in a family. It will provide security to protect us; make laws to tell us what we can do and cannot do; run the economy to ensure we have enough money and supplies; and provide public schools to educate us.
The metaphor tells us what we need to know. Nations largely depend on their governments, families on parents. Governments enforce law and order, and parents enforce discipline. Governments build infrastructures and parents build characters. Governments give incentives, and parents give encouragements. Governments are responsible for fairness, justice and equitable distribution. Parents have to see that all their children get love, care and equal treatment.
There are children of varying ages in a house as there are citizens of varying interest groups in a country. Parents arbitrate quarrels amongst children, when the older ones try to bully their younger siblings. Food at the table must be equally available to all so that each can eat according to his appetite and nutrition. There will be bright children and poor performers, but parents are responsible to see that they get equal opportunity and the same attention.
A government can be no less responsible. It has citizens of divergent clouts and interests -- the clever ones, moneyed ones, muscled ones, crooked ones, brilliant ones and boorish ones. It has men and women. It has the children, the minority and the majority. It has the literate and the illiterate. It has the privileged and the underprivileged, the aristocrats and the riffraff, the strong and the weak.
Needless to say, the government has a critical role to play in the life of a nation. It has to be strict, fair and alert to protect the rights of its citizens. While all governments are elected with the money of the rich and powerful, they also need the votes of less fortunate people. A truly democratic government belongs to all people. Ideally, it shouldn't belong more to some and less to others.
That brings us to the crux of the problem in this country. The country is comparable to a house where parents are away most time of the day. The children are unruly, free to do what they like. They fight, empty the refrigerator, and dump their clothes all over the place. They ignore their studies, don't do any cleaning and the older ones deprive the younger ones in terms of food, space and other shared amenities.
Parents return late at night like governments do before elections. They hardly have time to inquire about all the kids and rush to judgments based on the accounts of those kids who can suck up to them. Kids also learn to be smart and tell their parents what they want to hear. They enjoy their freedom and indulge in bad habits. They skip classes and grades slip. They learn to tell lies because they know their parents don't have the time to catch them.
Lakoff's metaphor is a prefect fit. Our government is largely absent from the home that we call our country. Our roads are in chaos. Neighbourhoods are unsafe.. Universities are unmanageable. Parliament is lopsided. Bureaucracy is hamstrung. Intelligentsia is indifferent.
The average citizens of this country are living like neglected children in an inadequate home. The big brothers dominate them with the blessings of their governments. The big businesses, politicians, bureaucrats and musclemen exploit them while their government chooses to look the other way.
It's perhaps because we no longer metaphorically see our country in terms of a family. But then that is how the rest of the world views their countries. Mother Russia, Mother India, German Fatherland and Uncle Sam in America show how the countries and governments relate themselves to families. When soldiers die in battlefields, countries refer to them as sons and daughters.
Once it was the same thing for us as well. In 1971, we fought for our motherland. We still speak of those women who were violated by the Pakistani soldiers as our mothers and sisters. Freedom fighters who died are the glorious children of this land.
As it is, a nation is meant to be a collection of families. It works fine when governments hold families together, not if some families hold governments together.

The writer is Editor, First News and an opinion writer for The Daily Star.
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