… they turn your joy to sorrow
By Osa Mbonu-Amadi
Dignity is everything to a man. Take away his dignity, and you’ve taken everything away from him. But what exactly is dignity?
The best definition of dignity I have ever come across is “the right of a person to be valued and respected for their own sake, and to be treated ethically.” Dignity, in this sense, corresponds to the meaning of dignity as ‘human dignity’: “the unearned worth or status that all humans share equally (either inherent or constructed).”
There is another shade of meaning to dignity: “the state or quality of being worthy of honour or respect”, as when we speak of “the dignity of labour”. Unlike the unearned worth or status that all humans share equally, this type of dignity is earned. For instance, a man (or woman) who engages in an honest means of livelihood to feed himself and/or his family has earned this type of dignity. It is this dignity, a sense of pride in oneself or self-respect, that forces a man to refrain from stealing or fraud, and instead chooses to labour to feed himself and his family, no matter how meagre the wage may be.
Often, when one stands on one’s dignity, and insists on being treated with due respect, it is because he knows he has earned this minimum respect as an honest human being. It is a man (or woman) having a strong sense of self worth and self respect and believing that others — both those who earned that minimum dignity and those who naturally have rights to it as human beings — have worth and deserve respect.
Work is man’s truest source of dignity. When a man is competent in the work he does, whether he is a professor or a ditch digger, he earns his dignity in both senses, and therefore deserves to be treated with dignity. It is therefore almost sacrilegious to disparage a competent man and write him off as “useless” or “incompetent”, even if a particular work of his failed to meet your expectations. It is tantamount to piercing his heart with a sword. Only few men will forgive you after you have so taken away their dignity.
