On Societal Structuring and the Need for Change

Societies that are developing must begin to address a form of structural violence that has been unconsciously embedded into the fabric of everyday life. This muted violence sees us unintentionally depriving certain segments of society access to the same 'resources' and 'facilities' every other person can access devoid of hassles.

This is due to the empirical construction of reality by the social circumstances holding sway at any particular time and/or place. Institutions that are setup to address problems of people, gradually become 'structured' such that they inadvertently 'disable' some people while 'enabling' others with the creation of a default position. Again, we can see that this ties-in to the theory of unintended consequence of purposive action that makes them exacerbate conditions of suffering for certain categories of people even as this was not the intended outcome that caused the action to be taken.

Usually this structural violence is perpetuated with the use of rules and regulations that guide activities in our institutions. These rules and regulations are made with the mindset of the way the society is setup and thus an inherent bias is imputed into the design of the functioning of the institutions. 

For instance a hospital will request for a policeman/police report before treating a victim of an accident and in many situations this delay becomes a hurdle to the provision of health services to a victim. Another example is how a nursing mother is expected to 'perform' her duties at the place of work regardless of her condition and how 'subtly' a woman's gender defines the extent to which she may be considered for 'favorable' activities such as postings, promotions etc. 

Similarly, the culture and traditions of a specific community would inherently 'box' specific individuals into a disadvantaged position and make it difficult for these disadvantaged people to surmount the 'invisible' hurdles that other 'normal' people are not faced with. Therefore we see that such structuring is not limited to the formal 'institutions' but is rather highly pervasive in the communal and societal constructs. 

It is usually reinforced with the use of religious and/or moral backing so that over time people are conditioned to accept and even champion practices/actions that are detrimental to the well-being of everyone. For society can only progress when every member is afforded a comparatively equal opportunity for optimizing their potentials. And what makes matters worse is that in most cases the validity of the basis used to reinforce the disadvantages are hardly grounded in objectivity and are mostly 'interpretations' or 'perceptions' which are shaped over time by the inherent subjectivity of people.

In conclusion, it behooves people to take a closer look at 'how things are done' and take the initiative of triggering a critical appraisal of structures and default manner of things so that a transformation can be achieved in tandem with the realities on ground. It is either this is done consciously or we allow time to force a change. For change - like water - cannot be stopped, only delayed. 

Haidar Wali  201604061453hrs