Dr. Abdur Rabb
Published in canadaBdNews.com
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We think and we feel. We express our thoughts and feelings through speech. The importance of correct expression of our thoughts and feelings in language cannot be overemphasised. We all know that a good politician should be a good speaker. One cannot be a good teacher without the ability to speak and communicate effectively. If we do not speak effectively at an interview for admission to a good school or for a job, we know the consequences. In this article I shall discuss what we need to do to speak effectively in our day-to-day life.
We should not speak much. We should be good listeners. The wise is the one who listens more and speaks less. An Iranian proverb says that if we speak too much, either we shall make more mistakes, or our stupidity will come out in the open. We have two eyes to see, two nostrils to breathe and smell, skin all over the body to touch, and two ears to hear; but we have only one tongue which also have two functions : to speak and taste. It seems that Allah subhanahu ta’ala, in making these organs, required that that we do not speak too much. Hence He gave us just one tongue to perform two functions.
Our speech should be clear and easy to understand. The great philosopher Aristotle, who was a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great, told us that a good teacher should be able to make a difficult subject easy and simple for students to understand. I think that I was a reasonably good teacher. One reason for that is that I have always tried to express my ideas clearly in a simple language.
The ideas that we try to express to others should be clear in our own minds first. If we do not have a clear concept of the subject matter under discussion, our efforts to communicate that matter to others are bound to fail.
We need to make our sentences and stories comprehensible and complete. Our listeners are not mind-readers, nor do they have divine powers.
We should enunciate every word, speak slowly, pause where we need to, and stop where we are supposed to.
We should be careful about what we speak. Our speech is like an arrow shot from a bow or a wild bird in a cage. If we release the bird from the cage, we shall never be able to bring it back. Similarly, once we speak, we can never get back our words and expressions; but the effects of what we say may last forever. If for example, we use abusive words that hurt somebody, our relationship with that person may never be the same again. We say, “Look before you jump.” We should add to it, “Think before you speak.”
We should speak directly to the point, and not beat about the bush. The listener has no time, energy or patience to sift through a garbage can looking for a needle. I have heard people talking volumes without realizing that the listeners had no idea about what they were talking about. A Bangladeshi gentleman needed the services of a lawyer. After one sitting the lawyer refused to accept his case because he was unable to get answers to his questions from this Bangladeshi gentleman. At my insistence the lawyer finally agreed take the case on condition that at every visit I would go to him with the Bangladeshi gentleman to help him understand what his client wanted to say.
We should not indulge in any unnecessary talk. Our speech must have a purpose. We should not speak just for the sake of speaking. We should remain silent unless we have something new to say, or a new perspective to bring to a discussion.
We should not repeat something that has already been said. I have heard some people who could say nothing other than what someone has already said. If we repeat ideas in an academic paper or a dissertation, the consequence may be disappointing. If someone repeated something in the presence of my five-year-old granddaughter, she would invariably say, “You said that already.” Listeners do not like chewed cud.
What we say should be interesting to the listeners. So often we hear boring speeches. The subject of speech may be boring, the way the speaker speaks may be boring, or the details of the speech may be boring. I have seen one person telling stories with minute details in which the listeners are not at all interested. Since the people do not pay attention to what he says, he goes close to some people in the gathering, hold their hands and say, “Mr…, please listen to me.” Why should we say something that the people are not interested in hearing? We must be aware of what our audience would like to hear.
We should not speak loudly. We know that in our old countries there may be too much noise around us; hence we may have to raise our voice to be heard. In North America that condition does not exist. Yet, we see our people sitting two feet of each other but actually shouting on top of their voice while speaking. Sometimes we hold meetings in the basement of Harvey’s or McDonald’s restaurant. There we speak in a voice so loud that the clients of these restaurants may think that we are actually fighting. Sometimes I feared that they were going to call the police because of our ‘fighting’. Here is what sometimes happens in the express bus coming from the suburbs to Montreal very early in the morning. Many passengers are tired at that hour, and some are actually sleeping. Then suddenly comes a loud voice from one end of the bus addressing someone at the other end, “Bhai sab, keya hal hai? Other passengers open their eyes and stare at the shouting man. Canadians are a patient and polite people. Their tolerance level is very high. Often they will rather suffer than protest. The other day I was travelling to Toronto by a Via Rail train. We were asked to keep our cell phones on vibrating mode so that the telephone rings would not disturb others. Most people of North America feel disturbed by loud sounds. I wonder why we have to hear the ring tones of cell phones while we are actually praying in jama’at.
We should remain completely silent while attending certain events. I am very sad to see people talking to each other during khutbahs in the masjid on Fridays. Sometimes I could not even start my wedding speeches because the wedding reception hall sounded more like a bazaar in Bangladesh. I repeatedly requested the people to give me only ten minutes for the speech, but to no avail. People also keep on talking to each other while a guest artist visiting from Bangladesh is singing, and a speaker is delivering a lecture on an important issue. On the other hand, I see five hundred people, one third of whom are young children, attending a cultural event in an elementary school of Montreal with pin-drop silence. We have a great deal to learn from our mainstream Canadian friends in this regard.
Should we ask about people’s age? In Bangladesh, at least in my days, we had no problem asking someone’s age. Actually the older people sometimes exaggerated their age perhaps because older a person was, more respect he received. In the villages many people did not know their real age anyway. The practice of keeping records of birth was not common. Nor did the people take age seriously. Once in the 1950’s I was waiting at the outpatients’ clinic of the Dhaka Medical College Hospital. While registering a patient the clerk asked his age. The patient said, “25.” The clerk said, “You look much older than 25.” The patient replied, “Then you can write 40.” In North America, women, usually after the age of 39, do not like someone to ask their age. As far as I know, North American men do not mind revealing their age. I myself have no difficulty mentioning my age in private and public talks. There are however some men among us who get upset if people ask them about their age. I shall give an extreme example. Recently I heard the following story from a friend of mine. A group of three people including my friend went to the house of a Bangladeshi gentleman for donation to a masjid. My friend said to the gentleman of the house, “You should be of the same age as that of so and so who is your contemporary.” This statement infuriated the gentleman. He said, “You uncivilized man. If you were in the old country, I would have beaten you from head to toe with my shoes.”
We should not glorify ourselves in our speech. At the very first meeting with someone many of us quickly give a rundown of our wealth, education, big job, children’s achievements, the great family in Bangladesh to which we belong, and so on. This practice is quite unacceptable in western societies. We notice that Canadians talk least about their own ‘greatness’. We often notice that even those who perform acts of heroism say, “I am not a hero. You would do exactly what I did in similar circumstances.” We also say with pride some of the ‘extraordinary feats’ of our small children and grandchildren. We should remember that these feats are very important and interesting to parents and grandparents, but these may be very boring to others. An Iranian proverb says, “Trees that bear fruits bend their heads.” We can see in the Fall the apple trees of Quebec with an enormous number of apples on their branches bending their heads low. We can also see the pine trees standing straight but not giving us worthwhile fruits.
We should not talk about our diseases. Telling others about our diseases is a disease with us. We also tend to exaggerate our sufferings caused by our diseases probably to get sympathy of the listeners. Sometimes I heard people giving a detailed description of their diseases, which doctor said what, who prescribed what medicine, and so on. I am sure that unless one is a close relative or friend, one does not want to hear all these. Let us describe the aches and pains of our body to our doctors and not to gatherings of people who came to attend a dinner at a party in someone’s house. Sometimes the listeners are also to be blamed. Recently the host of a party said that he had some problem with his left foot. A number of people not only asked for the details of his illness; many of them instantly turned into physicians and volunteered various prescriptions for his ailment. We should rather leave the treatment of our ailments to the experts who have trained at medical schools for many years.
We should be careful when you talk to the children. I have heard many of our parents saying in front of all their children, “The older one has no brain. He will not be able to achieve anything in life. The younger one is very smart. He will shine in life.” This kind of talk is detrimental and even dangerous for the children who are told that they are good for nothing. If a lie is told twenty times, it tends to become a truth. The children who are told again and again that they are brainless actually end up being brainless. They lose confidence in themselves and give up trying to achieve goals because they are convinced that they will not be able to achieve those goals.
We should open our mouth to thank and appreciate people. Many of us love to speak. I have been told that sometimes our people pay money for a chance to speak in a gathering. Yet when it is necessary to thank and appreciate people, suddenly we turn dumb. I can give the example of thanking people for their gifts to a newly-wed couple. I am sad to see that often the people receiving gifts do not consider it necessary to pick up the telephone to say “thank you” to those who gave those gifts. In Canada our local telephone calls are free, and today it costs very little to make a long distance call. In fact most mainstream Canadians routinely send a thank-you card in appreciation of gifts.
We should not speak ill of others behind them. What we call backbiting has almost become a Bangladeshi national pastime. Some of us make it our profession to speak bad things about people in their absence. Presumably, these people want to raise themselves in the estimation of others by putting other people down. This is the psychology of backbiting: “So and so is bad; but I am not like him. I am better”. Actually, in trying to put other people down, the backbiters only lower themselves in the eyes of the listeners. Good people do not speak ill of others. The backbiters also lose the trust of the listeners. If the backbiters could speak ill of others now, chances are that they will also speak ill of the listeners in their absence in the future. It should be mentioned that Islam strongly disapproves of backbiting. Our rasul sallallau alaihi sallam equated backbiting to eating the flesh of one’s dead brother. I am sure our rasul would not be proud of many Bangladeshis of Montreal in this respect. It should also be said that the mainstream Canadians do not like backbiting. If someone speaks bad things about a person to a Canadian, the Canadian will say, “Why are you saying this me?” I think we should try the Canadian approach next time we hear someone backbiting.
I hope that our Bangladeshi friends will not be angry with me for what I have written above. I think that self-criticism is necessary for improvement. In referring to our people from Bangladesh, I include myself as one of them. My writings and deeds are a result of very sincere love of and concern for the people of Bangladesh. I would like to see them prosper, and live in peace in this great country, C A N A D A.
