Our environment continues to deteriorate at an alarming rate. In Malaysia, frequent episodes of landslides, flash floods, water shortage and haze are some indications of the failing interaction between human and its environment. It also indicates the unsustainable living of our present society.
Stephen Viederman in his article entitled A Sustainable Society: What is it? How do we get there?, offers a simple definition of a sustainable society, “a society that ensures the health and vitality of human life and culture, and of nature’s capital, for present and future generation.”
Sustainable society consists of individuals who are willing to put an end to activities which destroy not only the natural world but also human communities. In other words, they are willing to make appropriate changes in their lifestyles in the support of conservation, restoration and prevention of any harmful behaviour in the environment.
In order to restructure a society to live sustainably, we must begin by changing their minds. We must educate society to seriously consider his role in this world and how it is related to other creatures on this earth.
Efforts in fostering a sustainable-minded society must be shared by everyone including the government, educators, business communities, religious scholars, scientists and researchers. Each of them will be using different tools in order to transform the society. In this regard the cooperation of all parties is critical to ensure its success.
There are also two important elements which must be understood to develop a sustainable-minded society. The two elements are “urgency and action.”
“Urgency” refers to the urgent need of the society to acknowledge that the world or the environment we live in today is under intense pressure, mainly from various human activities. There is also an urgency to implement appropriate efforts to reduce human impact on the natural world.
Understanding this “urgency” will lead to a commitment to take the right “action” in producing a healthy and sustainable living. These actions do not necessarily mean some extravagant or gigantic project but any consistent small-scale projects which will eventually have huge social consequences. Even small religious communities have a role in promoting sustainable living. Religious communities in Malaysia should consider some appropriate sustainability-based programs in their house of worships.
For Muslims, the idea of sustainability is in fact parallel to Islamic teaching. Islam has always been supportive to the idea of preservation and conservation of the environment for the benefit of the whole creation, either living in the present or future.
The idea of a Muslim as the khalifah, the earth as Allah’s creation and the whole universe submitting to Him, consumption in moderation and no wastage life style; are some of the basic foundations of sustainability that can be extracted from Islamic teachings.
Islam or religion as a whole, will always be the dominant factor as to how a human sees the world or commonly known as worldview. As SMN Al-Attas pointed out, for a Muslim, the Islamic worldview reflects the Islamic tawhidic paradigm that is the doctrine of divine unity or oneness of God. Islamic worldview then defines God as the Creator and law-giver and considers worship and service in His way as the very object of life. This principle definitely influences our relationship with our surroundings including nature.
However in today’s world, the dominant worldview (the secular worldview), of which “man is the measure,” is centred on mankind as the ultimate norm by which truth and values are to be determined. In fact, human is regarded as “God” and have the absolute right upon other creatures. Such thinking leads to destructive acts to nature in terms of over-consumption, wealth inequality, unsustainable use of natural resources and wasteful society. Unfortunately, many of us are committed to such mindset.
A rigid commitment to the dominant worldview including the unwillingness to see how it fails to respect the limitation of the natural system is likely to bring about the collapse of our society. Indeed, it is a great threat to the present effort in building a sustainable society.
We must therefore strive to change or at least improve our way of thinking and actions in order to achieve a sustainable world.