On the Dignity

In the beginning of the XX century French artist Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) while dying on the far island Tahiti is creating his last masterpiece – the painting "Where we have come from. Where we go. What for". At the same time Russian proletarian writer Maksim Gorkiy is proclaiming by the tramp Satin's lips in his novel "At the bottom" – "A HUMAN being – it sounds proudly!", hereby anticipating the extraordinary ascent of the human mind and intellect in the upcoming century.

Technical and informational evolution has not left women aside. The most significant revolution of the twentieth century is the change in women's status, as it was confirmed by the famous activist of women's movement Georgina Ashworth. Outstanding women – legendary Bella Abzug, the senator of American Congress, and Devaki Jain, an Indian writer and founder of the Asian women’s network DAWN – have published their mutual work "Women's Leadership and the Ethics of Development" (Women Watch, 1996), where they have first expressed seeming utopian idea that women can change the nature of power and transform the world.

Nowadays on the threshold of the third millennium again we ask a question: what is the meaning of the dignity of personality – of both man and woman?

Half a year ago in the Russian TV-show of A. Malakhov "Five evenings" on the subject of "The value of dignity" there was asked a question: "How much is the person's dignity and whether it is sold?" The statement of a question itself is very absurd in Uzbekistan, where cultural origins of the questions go far away to the past, and the national folklore is a proof for that. Thus, in Uzbek language there are many synonyms of dignity: nature of soul – fazilat, authority – tuturiq, prestige – obro’, ascendancy – nufuz, e’tibor, superiority – ustunlik, ortiqlik, advantage – afzallik, self-respect – izzat, honor, good name – sha’n, value, worth – qadr, characterizing the meaning of a personality for surrounding people, society. Therefore there are some proverbs used in Uzbek life, which are similar to Russian ones: "Keep the dress since it is new, keep the honor since you are young". "Fazilat – farzand kabidir" – "The honor is like a child, it should be protected and always improved" – this is said by folk wisdom from the collection of aphorisms "Gradually learning, gain the wisdom" (Mukhamadiev N., 1977, Tashkent). Dignity is not inherited by blood relationship, it is tender as a flower and brought up since the early childhood.

The origins of the word "Uzbek" is identified with the proverb: "O’ziga – xon, o’ziga – bek" (“He is his own khan, and his own bek”). Uzbek is the owner of his destiny – his life will depend on how he arranges it. This proverb contains an intuitive understanding of causal-investigator relations in the social phenomena. Folk wisdom is concentrated in proverbs and sayings collected for many centuries. Uzbek folklore is reach in proverbs on the subject of human dignity.

Dignity is beginning from the respect of the own personality. Makhtumkuli – the lovely poet of Khorezm and Turkmeniya, on whose poems there have been sung many songs (and written proverbs) for more then 250 years – was simply and clearly explaining the meaning of dignity:

As a Khorezm hafiz (folk-singer), the favourite of the whole Uzbekistan, Kamildjan Ataniyazov was singing:

If we refer to Uzbek linguistics, folklore, then the synonym of 'dignity' is the word 'value'. The widespread expression – to strengthen one's own dignity – “o’z qadrni o’tkazish” – literally means "to prove one's own value".

The value is proved not by the power of money, authority, arms or constraint, it is proved by moral, spiritual authority, demand by the closest surrounding and environment – family, cultural atmosphere, community, state, the nation finally.

Eastern and Western thinkers were emphasising the sense of proportion in the upbringing of the own dignity's perception. Great Uzbek classic Alisher Navoi 5 centuries ago was writing about measure and personality's dignity:

 
What is always respected in the world
What is called honour and dignity,

I would tell: these two stages are right,
But not to each extent are equal.

Render to the king and his army,
And in fact render to his dignity.

But if a khan shows obedience to slave,
He will put a lasso on himself.

You are bowing to a beggar, why?
It’s enough if you give him a dirham.

Don’t stand with a bow in front of the youth
Don’t humiliate your dignity.

Know how to carry the sign of your dignity,
And render everyone at their dignity.

Do not forget the duty of respect to the people:
With your coeval be temperate.

Do not show the excessive obeisance
And never insult by rudeness

There is wisdom in the golden aphorism:
The middle is the best measure in everything.

Know how to carry the mark of dignity
And reward everyone according to its dignity.
(A. Navoi, "Tumult of the righteous", 1485)
 

Self-respect is appearing and developing from the conscious of fulfilled promise or duty. A man looses himself as soon as he forgets his human Duty – to relatives, family, society and nature. In the fifth poem of the immortal “Hamsa” (“Pyateritsa” – “Five”). Alisher Navoi has observed this degeneration dialectics of even the outstanding person – the captain Iskander – whose prototype was Alexander Macedonskiy. "The war (is) for the war, for profit" – cruel and senseless not just for the beaten, but for the winner as well. Insatiable greediness of new conquests drives Iskander to Asian deserts and oceanic depths, resulting in the sudden illness and early death. Before the death Iskander ordered to leave his empty hand, protruding out of the grave, by this willing to express that even though he has conquered half of the world, he is leaving this life empty-handed.

 
That one, who is governed by the fire of greed,
Let he remember this beggarly palm!
(A.Navoi, “Saddi Iskanderiy” – “The Wall of Iskander”, 1474, Vol.7; “Fan”, Tashkent, 1968).
 

The sense of personality’s freedom is appearing only from the confident consciousness of fulfilled duty. Otherwise inevitable dystrophy of the own dignity realization, inferiority and as a result disharmony of personality, insensibility and loss of human reliability take place.

 
Birovkim aning himmati yo’q durur,
G’ani bo’lsa ham, hurmati yo’q durur

Those who lack the generosity,
Even if they are rich, won’t have a respect.
(A.Navoi, “The Wall of Iskander”, 1484 г.)
 

 
Friend, disown self-interest
As on the sowing, rely on generosity!

Be able to give, and far from the thought to take
And it’s better not to take, in order to give.
(A.Navoi, "Confusion of the righteous", 1484, vol.3, “Fan”, Tashkent, 1968, p.77)
 

In the collection of folk wisdom there is also mentioned about the passion for accumulation:

"The reason for everything is the self-interest. If a bird had not put her eye on the corn – it would not have been caught in the traps. If a man had not girded himself with a belt of greediness, then he would not have exchanged the garment of respect for the carpet of the humiliation. The weight of greed lowers all advantages of a man".

May be that is why proverbs express the thought about a unique appraisal of the value of human personality and the life:

At the same time proverbs express a direct connection between the sense of the own dignity with patriotism and such qualities as an astuteness. It is widely known that people with a low sense of their own dignity have a seared sensitivity to pricks and infringements on him.

«Beti yo’q odam», «beti qattiq odam» – literally translated as – "a man without face", "a man with a stiff face", and factually mean " shameless", "insolent". In Uzbek life and in the language a man's face is identified with a conscience.

The great Navoiy has characterised the spiritual "parents" of dignity as following:

“Karam va muruvvat – ato va anodurlar, vafoyu hayo – ikki hamzod farzanddur… Har ko’ngulnikim, vafo maskan qilur, hayo ham qilur… Vafosizda hayo yo’q, hayosizda vafo yo’q… Umrkim, vafosizdur, andin umid ko’zin yorutsa bo’lmas… Komillar – ahli hayo va nokislar – behayo..”

(Alisher Navoi, “Mahbubul-qulub”, 1500)

“Generosity and magnanimity are father and mother, duty and conscience are their mutual children. In every heart where the debt is settled, the conscience lives, too ... A dishonest man has no conscience; a conscienceless one has no honor (sense of duty). The one, whose life has no sense of duty, will never light up the star of hope from him... The perfect ones are people with a conscience, and the vile ones are shameless ...”

(A.Navoi, "Beloved of hearts", 1500)

In the harmony of consumption and return each man is obtaining his own measure of his personality's dignity – within the family, community, society, nation, state.

From the times of zoroastrism there is a worship of the reverse inceptions: fire and water, ground and air. The land itself, the native land of the oldest proreligion, has brought up an intuitive understanding of the unity of reverse powers, laid in the nature and society. Maybe that is why the language of Uzbeks is reach in dual combinations of both synonym and antonym origins, multilaterally and broadly characterising the qualities of a discussed subject. Five centuries ago Navoiy has adopted "the great right to know a high truth of speeches and the dignity of the own language" in the face of Persian, while enumerating various examples of the ramified Uzbek synonymics and its unlimited possibilities (A.Navoi, "An opinion about two languages", 1499). The "dignity" may be also expressed in various twofold word-combinations: izzat-ikrom (honor-respect), obro'-nufuz (authority-prestige), fazl-kamolot (perfection), qadr-qimmat (value).

The height of return – is the creation of a new idea, new vision, new shape, thought, word, melody, image, which are raising the humankind on the new stage of perception the Nature and its divine – a human. Only the man, orientated on the return, may create New Information and feel incomparable pleasure, happiness of co-creation and cognition of the Everlasting Truths. A bourgeois-consumer is not familiar with these feelings of participation in the everlasting truths and in the pleasure of creative enthusiasm. Therefore the height of the personality's dignity is the dignity of maker and creator that glorify the property of their people and the humanity as a whole.

From this point of view a woman is a creator by nature; her highest dignity is children, foster children and pupils, not numerically, but in the qualitative measure – by the upbringing of perfect generation that will inherit the craft, skills and collected knowledge from its fathers, mothers, grandfathers and forebears, teachers and tutors – for an increase of the property of its clan, tribe and the nation. To create the possibilities of full-valued return of the own strengths, capacities, talents for the growing generation of the Republic means to give the youth the perspectives of an adoption of self-value and self-dignity, which will really and many-times intensify the spiritual and financial power of the Republic.

Only the sense of duty and conscience is forming the responsibility for the taken decisions.

Conscious, free and responsible activity is an inherited feature of a man, distinguishing him from the rest of the animal world.

Social progress is accompanied by the gradual widening of the frames of individual freedom and responsibility of the personality of every man.

Thus a DIGNITY OF A HUMAN is a Duty and Conscience, Freedom and Responsibility for the own decisions, conscious, free and responsible activity for the development and strengthening of the property – cultural, material, spiritual – of its own family, clan, nation, state, and in the global scale – the dignity of the whole humanity.

In the hearth of the national cultures' fight for the survival the nation is selecting the most viable models of interpersonal relations, of the family and society – for the sake of the future generations that are inheriting the nation's cultural and spiritual property, of the glory of the unique creation of the Nature and God – the Man and his immortal human DIGNITY.

Flora Pirnazarova

Tashkent, 2000