BEGGING is a humbling endeavor. Parents with a healthy and sensible attitude would teach their children to work for money instead of begging. Begging demands a great deal of convincing and is not as easy as the shabby look of a beggar makes it look. A message laced with a complex concoction of pity, guilt, pain, and empathy need to be conveyed from beggar to begged in order for money to exchange hands.
Stealing, which is not that removed from begging, is based on force. The thief does not convince you of his or her need, he simply takes what is needed. Begging and stealing, however, are based on the notion that you have something that someone else wants or deems a rightful portion of your wealth as theirs.
There is a growing phenomenon on our streets that fuses begging with force in a novel way. There are children (between ages 7 and 12) on the streets selling chewing gum and begging at the same time. They approach cars at traffic lights or in parking lots and beg. If you give them something, they hand you a chewing gum. If not, however, they are close enough to your car to use the nail they hide to scratch your car door and inflict heavy damage to your beloved vehicle. While at it, they shed tears, tell you horror stories, and cajole you in pitiful ways. They seem to know your intentions and if they deem you not the giving type, the sorrowful pleas are extended till the damage they are doing to your car is more or less in proportion to their hate.
How in the world did such behavior become part of childhood? Even Fagan’s rascals did not reach such sublime levels of East London ethics. I think it comes from rearing up a nation of beggars without knowing it. When disenfranchised, the average citizen will have no recourse to anything that guarantees rights. If you want a job, for example, applying for it is one step in the long process of begging. If you need to open a shop, you have to go through regulations that you had nothing to do with nor are you privy to their mechanisms. A traffic policeman’s law is that of pleasing his superior while the average citizen is fair game reduced to begging for clemency.
Everyone is a law onto himself in this place and the only way to get through is to beg or find someone to beg for you. Worse, you can barter favors and get away with whatever you want. The latest verdict against a professor is proof enough since the law was used to favor an individual against another regardless of law and jurisprudence. It required a Royal Decree to put things right.
Hard work is not rewarded. Professional ethics on the job is seen as a sign of weakness. Accomplishment is measured by the number of cars and palaces one has and how many people come to beg you on any given day. This is a potent formula for nurturing hate till it becomes an inherent part of the individual and national character. It is not a psychological secret that the beggar hates his benefactor. Given half a chance, the beggar would turn into a thief in no time at all. Meanwhile the beggar hates himself and projects onto others the venom of disenfranchisement.
The logical progression of such feelings is to reach a point of no return and start blowing people up. It all started with a chewing gum and a rusty nail in a dark parking lot.
