Erosion of public trust

We live in a world where we see much degradation of human values and corruption all around that we now believe this is the only way to prosper. Who is responsible for this situation? We have stopped seeing the good in others and ourselves. We must take responsibility for our actions and not transfer our burdens onto society, family, and friends. Our family, school, environment, and the people we live with shape our values. Our daily interactions constantly shape our behavior and attitudes towards society and ourselves. We must remind ourselves that each of us is born innately good. Education, experience, and daily interactions with people and society make us reactionary and wary of everyone. What we need today is to change all this. We need to understand that being good and doing well is the way we can change the present situation. Societal values are an aggregate of what each of us manifests and all we need is to change our attitude and perception of life. We need to bring back trust and love in our interactions. Then life would be worth living and we would not have to be wary of the man next to us. Society and its complex demands have created a fault in many of us being brought up not to trust people today. We tell children to be wary of strangers. We have come to believe that the meter in every auto or taxi is faulty. We believe that every vendor selling fruits, vegetables, or flowers by the street side is out to cheat us. The trust deficit only seems to be widening. Trust has become a rare commodity. What a wonderful world it would be if we could all learn to trust each other and allow ourselves to be trusted. When we trust, can we expect people to be trustworthy? What is disturbing is that people seem to trust our politicians the least. Public representatives, who in a democracy have the mandate of legislating and shaping policies and programs on our behalf appear to be the least trusted. The institutions of democracy and governance need high levels of trust amongst their many stakeholders for human development to be broad, equitable, just, and fair.  Without trust in these bodies and citizenry, the consequences will be vastly negative and possibly irremediable. What we now need at the moment is for each one of us to work together to create a system where every bond begins with trust. Furthermore, this needs to start with each one of us. We need to take the first step in what is going to be a long journey of learning to trust others and allowing ourselves to be trusted. We have witnessed the erosion of public trust in government institutions because during the last few years, governments have failed to establish transparent, liable, open, fair, and rule-based governance systems. The erosion of public trust in the governance system could lead to the weakening of the very foundations of our state. Worldwide Governance Indicators rank Pakistan’s quality of institutions near the bottom among 200 countries, which creates distrust, uncertainty, and lack of confidence in our policy-making and implementation institutions. Our poor economic performance and inability to build an equitable governance system have resulted in the widening of the wealth gap between different segments of society, which is creating a lot of resentment against inequity and deprivation. The success of the governance system hinges on its capacity to ensure the provision of goods and services to the people. When critical public services are unable to play an active role in maintaining the rule of law and ensuring the effective delivery of services, then it depletes the trust level.