There was this story we must have raised some time back which happened ages back. The guy was a civil servant and it so happened a few cents (not even a birr!) go missing in the accounting books he manages. There weren’t concrete accusations or even suspicions yet. But the very fact those few cents couldn’t be traced was more than enough for the man. He takes his own life. It was a story repeated over and again when it came to trust and how people who keep their reputations couldn’t live under suspicion of being suspected of anything. Not that we condone suicide; in fact it is the worst decision anyone make and should be avoided at all costs. (That’s why recent couple of news flashes of very young person’s taking their own lives saddened many.)
I must have read somewhere that to be trusted is more than to be loved. When people who try to lead all their lives based on the foundations of strong principles suddenly find themselves as subjects of the simplest of suspicions they’d probably take it as some sort of capital punishment. Most of us would have said, “So what! How can anybody be offended by such a small and insignificant matter?” Well it isn’t that easy.
Indeed, to be trusted is more than to be loved!
Recently, we heard heartbreaking news from a small town. The young lady worked in a shop where they sell mobilize apparatus. According to the news three customers choose four mobile apparatus and offer to pay through mobile banking. She must have been familiar with the workings of mobile banking and she agrees. So one of them types certain things on his cell phone and finally shows her confirmation that sixty-thousand plus birr was transferred to the shop’s account. Business done, they leave. However for some reason the young lady goes to the bank to make certain that the transfer was indeed complete, and the payment for the four mobile apparatus safely in the bank’s account. That’s where the ugly reality of life hit, and hit her. The bank people tell her no such transfer has been made. That does it.
The four were nothing but heartless crooks who for all practical purposes stole the mobile phones. Now under normal circumstances one would think all she has to do was tell the owners what happened and if they are aware of such stories which are too common these days they’d understand. That didn’t happen. She chose what she thought was the perfect response. She took her own life. While there are lose ends as to the overall mental condition of the young girl at that moment the story was that she thought the owners wouldn’t believe her story. Sad; very sad. If that indeed was what she really thought she must have some legitimate reason. Being accused of something that she didn’t do deliberately was too much for this young soul to take. Maybe she has been brought up under the strictest of traditions where trust couldn’t be compromised and being suspected of being untrustworthy is the cruelest of punishments; punishments for wrongs or minor failures that haven’t been committed on purpose. May her soul rest in peace!
Indeed, to be trusted is more than to be loved!
Talking about this incident one person asked “What do the crooks feel when they hear that a young girl’s life has prematurely ended because for their greed?” Probably little or nothing! Why do we say that? We hear numerous stories of crooks, even white collar crooks, who having destroyed the lives of whole families feel no remorse or anything that comes close. Some of the stories you hear in this respect are so shocking and blood-curdling your last dose of hope that a better world would be coming down the road is shattered to splinters. Irreparable, irreplaceable!
Looking back there’d be Things you grow up hearing about the untrustworthiness of so and so or how the trust of the innocent was betrayed by the closet of friends or family. The wife who trusted her husband so thoroughly that any shadow of negative comments about him turned her into a lioness suddenly learning that all through their years of marriage he has been the most unfaithful husband jumping from one bed to another and of secretly fathering a couple of illegitimate children.
The person who thought that his friend was so trustworthy lending him forty or fifty thousand birr carried no risk at all suddenly waking up to the fact the trustworthy friend was indeed the worst of backstabbers and the good man was not going to see a single cent of his forty, fifty thousand birr anytime soon. All of a sudden reality sets in and that’s only the beginning of the story. The stories he hears about his ‘dear friend’ could be so weird and out-of-the-world sort of narrative it’d be very difficult to trust anyone after that.
Indeed, to be trusted is more than to be loved!
Loss of trust has assumed such scary dimensions that it’s no more mere personal issue. Much of the world has lost trust in the so-called global mainstream media flushing out which side was telling the truth and which side was battering the very tenets of journalism to the level of rendering the unrecognizable. The dishonesty of the global mainstream media has slid down the well of unprofessional behavior so deep it is indeed difficult to work out ways to prevent it from finally hitting the bottom for good. Presently mankind is subjected to such colossal amount of disinformation and misinformation the line between truth and false hood is thinning at very worrying and frightening pace.
Will mankind ever come to its senses close enough to say “Maybe all our hatred for each other, animosity, conflicts armed or otherwise result because of the high level of loss of trust amongst us and until we fix that nothing will ever work. Maybe we have given the global mainstream media the master key of the global narrative without holding it accountable for its actions and until we take back the master key and put it in safe, efficient and dependable hands nothing will work out!”
Indeed, to be trusted is more than to be loved!
The Ethiopian Herald November 19/2023