Friday 8 December 2023

“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” - Martin Luther King, Jr.

    I believe that human morality is based on love and hate which is formed through social conditioning. So, essentially, morality and justice would mean different things to different people in different parts of the world at different periods of time. This shows that both are evolving concepts influenced by the aforementioned factors. Though, individually, love and hate are learned behaviors, as a society, the derived morality, definitely leans to justice since the root objective of morality is to establish justice, even with occasional setbacks. Therefore, the arc of morality is definitely long since establishing justice requires consistent progressive effort towards unlearning and relearning the social conditionings that form the basis of our love and hate, both individually and in solidarity. 

    As expressed by Martin Luther King, Jr.'s words, be it slowly, we're moving towards justice, which is expressed by the efforts, by young changemakers like me, towards fostering awareness and acceptance of differences by challenging age-old social conditionings and pre-conceived notions and, thus, redefining love and hate. For example, research has proved repeatedly that transphobia and homophobia are learned behaviours. This fact sheds light on the possibility of love for and acceptance of these marginalized communities through the mere understanding that we are as human and normal as any other cisgender/heterosexual person, consequently, leading to justice. So, at the root of the issue, the road from morality to justice is really simple, just that it's crowded with too many stakeholders, tears, stories and institutions drenched in love and hate, founded in personal interests. 

  

    Even then, achieving justice is not an impossibility because the tools we can use to do so can be something as small as small as sharing our personal stories in the form lived experiences, feelings and learnings. Small as it might seem, it can also turn into a bigger foundation for more elaborate tools, like Gender and Performance Budgeting, Media and Legal Advocacy, Policy and Programme Analysis, etc., aimed at achieving justice. But all these tools and the journey towards achieving justice is ultimately founded in human morality and the moral desire to present a better and morally justified society to our children and future generations where they can feel the true meaning of freedom by existing while being genuine to who they really are with ease. Ergo, change takes time, but it occurs. So, hope and work towards that hope. 

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