Not necessarily as an expression of allegiance to the learned way of starting discussions rather to assert the whole truth, we HABESHAS have appreciable ethical values that we need to nurture. And also not to stir wanton controversy on marginal issues on what and what nots that the list may include, I shall leave up to the readers to have their own take on those ethical values that we consider akin to us. But understanding ethics as a measure of both personal and social behaviour is worth examining.
What do we mean by ethics and what are the justificatory grounds for being asked to be ethical at least in selected professions? I specifically refer first to professional ethics because personal ethics presumably falls outside the secular standards of behaviour as there are no secular laws that oblige individuals generally to be ethical, except to be abided by specific legal norms that aim at maintaining peace, securing social conduct, and even at times fostering economic development. We have medical ethics, legal ethics, ethics for the bureaucrats and politicians that are backed by specific legal stipulations. The wide arrays of non-secular ethical standards that regulate personal behaviour are, however, immeasurably diverse and irresolutely contested.
One societal ethics or 'un-ethics'-if that word exists-that we Ethiopians are ‘blamed’ for is disrespect for appointments, and thus generally our behaviour of being 'unethical to time.' In my frequent working encounters with fellow Africans as well, I have observed far less problems of quality delivery in what they do than making it on time. Thus, YE HABESHA KETERO as an expression of the culture of lateness in appointments has wider scope than being the domain for HABESHAS. It is very difficult to question why this is so as it is not easy to find any scientific, historical or even wise answer to it. But we may easily examine it as an issue of ethical behaviour that need to be addressed as a matter of general concern.
‘I ought to arrive on time’ is an assertion that many, if not all, human beings would want to comply with. But why would I want to arrive on time? This is the hard ethical question that may trigger diverse responses. Plainly it cannot be because the law says so for, if it were the case, the question would have ceased to be an ethical one. And if it were so, it would rather be a legal obligation that transcends personal choice to or not to comply. However ‘I ought to arrive on time because that is what my conscience tells me to’ is an ethical proposition that may or may not be agreeable with each and every one of us. Basically, the statement rather brings in a much more fundamental assertion that ‘we ought to do what our conscience tells us to,’ and the rest part of the statement is just a baggage, so to speak, to this premise. Thus, it is similar to assert an ethical statement that goes ‘what is ethical is doing what our conscience tells us to do under all circumstances.’
I would expect less or no discomfort with this latter ethical proposition though probably I do for the first part that I referred to as a baggage. So are we then going to dismiss it for lack of propriety? Isn’t compliance with one’s words concerning appointments something that our conscience as humans would compel us to? አርቆ ማሰቢያ እያለን አዕምሮ እንደምን ተሳነን ለማክበር ቀጠሮ!! Does this ring any bell in situating respect for appointments within the subjective human sense of conscience?
The other thinking that provides us with possible measures for ethical behaviour is experience-based. This thought, rather than detaching an ethical question from what we observe, brings it back to experience and pragmatism. Look at what others have achieved, whether in the West or across the Atlantic; scientist so and so has never been late in his/her appointments, not even by a single minute. Thus, it goes on to say, practice tells us that it is ethical to be punctual and we err in failing to observe our duty that we owe to our fellow human beings with whom we have an appointment. This situates the rationale of what is ethical and what is not within human practices and as being derivatives of experience. This very fact brings us into that muddy debate of pluralism, and relativity that prevails in societies. In other words, it becomes excessively difficult to agree on any universalised ethical behaviour of the human race in the widespread diversities of so many sorts. Some people even start to put a stranger on task to try to calm down, to understand where s/he is, that s/he must know that it is YE HABESHA KETERO, and at times make fun about his/her ‘foolishness’ in expecting punctuality, etc, etc.
But this scenario relies on the presupposition that one’s ‘probity’ to appointments is not matched by his/her counterpart who rather considers lateness as normal course of action, or simply lives up to the YE HABESHA KETERO standard. What if both happen to be ardent believers in the latter? In that case it becomes hardly plausible to talk about a violation of ethical standards whether based on their conscience or their past experience.
Moreover societies change and there is nothing static as far as our experience is concerned. A very interesting example is Japan. History has it that the Japanese people were not of any different in terms of their conception of time not long ago (to be exact up to the Meiji’s period that run from 1868 to1912). Hashimoto cites William Kattendyke’s personal memoir in which, as a European encounter to an Asian society, he stressed how he was extremely puzzled and frustrated by the Japanese indifference to the clock. Here I briefly quote his statements:
After arriving in 1857, Willem van Kattendyke spent 2 years at the naval training center in Nagasaki, where he taught young Japanese the principles of Western navigation and scientific technology. In his published memoir, Kattendyke cited a series of events to illustrate the frustrating slowness of the Japanese. For example, the supplies necessary to make repairs, which he had specifically ordered to be delivered at high tide, did not arrive on time, one worker showed up just once and never returned, and a stableman spent two whole days going around to make his New Year’s greetings. In his diary, Kattendyke lamented that, while the Japanese were extraordinarily polite and modest, they had disappointed him in various respects, and he despaired that he would leave the country having accomplished much less than he had hoped.[i]
How, then, did the Japanese transform themselves and acquire a sharper sense of time? Now for every Japanese, punctuality is taken fore-granted and they are productive as well as highly efficient. A research had been carried out by the International Centre for Japanese Studies in Kyoto to investigate this transformation that resulted in a report titled the birth of tardiness.[ii] It was a prolonged process of structural changes and resistance that the Japanese had gone through to shift from the seasonal time to the western mechanical clock system. It is also worth noting that even the West had been using the seasonal time until its 15th century acquaintance to the clock system.[iii] Therefore, this fluidity of experience in social values must inform our investigation for what defines ethics, or more specifically how to establish the basis for asking someone to be punctual.
In our capitalist world of today, experience could also be resorted to saying ‘time is money’ and ‘if you happen to be late, no worries, you will just have to live with its minor consequences-losing money.’ This, however, goes outside the realm of ethics as money making cannot be of any worth, in my view, to justify an ethical behaviour.
It is very interesting to note that time is occupied by series of events and that ‘if the universe did not change, there would be no time.’[iv] Where those events that fill time are considered as a continuum (and so should they be), one appointment that we commit ourselves to constitutes part of that continuity. Obviously, connecting those events occurs if/when we make it to the meeting place and more accurately when we make it on time. Therefore, even if in and of itself cannot be regarded as losing money for the defaulter, it is without a shadow of doubt costing more and properly the other person and also is injurious to the continuous flow of events.
[i] See Hashimoto, Takehiko, (2008), ‘Japanese clock and the history of punctuality in modern Japan,’ East Asian Science, Technology and Society: an International Journal, Vol. 2, pp 123-133
[ii] Ibid, p 127
[iii] While the clock system follows the movements of the clock and divides the entire day into hours of equal length, the seasonal time divides the day into day and night and divides each of these separately into equal time units. Accordingly, in Japanese old seasonal system, the day time and the night time were divided into six partitions, and not into 12 equal hours as the modern clock system does. See Hashimoto, op.cit. p 12
[iv] Allen, James F., & Hayes, Patrick J., (1985), A common-sense theory of time, (University of Rochester: Departments of Computer Science and Philosophy), p 528
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