Thou shalt not make … your neighbor!

It is extremely important to maintain a cordial relationship with the neighbor, because it is the closest in emergency situations or in case of any need. However, the actual behavior of such relationships contradicts common wisdom and expectations – the fundamentals of the workings of a human mind that normally determine this behavior, if we focus on the modern era in particular. It is a more or less confirmed fact of the human mind that you start to dislike a thing once you have it or possess it, so you always look for the things of others. If you live with your neighbor in floors with exact architectural details, you may like the furniture arranged on the neighboring floor much more; if one’s spouse does not dare to say how handsome or beautiful the neighbor’s spouse is, he can deftly deviate into used clothes, and how attractive those are than theirs; those bursts of fragrance from cooked food from your neighbor’s kitchen would obviously make your mouth water to the detriment of food cooked in your own kitchen; and so on.

That it is very wrong to envy or covet others has been shown if we take it in a historical perspective. At least one of the Ten Commandments tells you:
You will not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.
– Exodus 20:17 ”
Therefore, ‘do not envy your neighbor’ is fully justified, because any of the impulses of the human mind towards a neighbor can lead to small disputes on a daily basis or even long-term enmity that results in contamination. environment that is bound to negatively impact your life.

However, in the modern context and with diplomatic ramifications, things can be different and complicated. At the macro level, we can think of many nations that have disputes and tensions between neighbors that last decades or even centuries. For the convenience of this writer, the eternally fighting neighbors India and Pakistan can join here.

For some stakeholders in India, there has been a substantial amount of historical evidence that seems to suggest that Pakistan envies India, be it India’s development or India’s technological progress and innovations or its vibrant democracy or diverse atmosphere. but peaceful. Since Partition and Independence in 1947, Pakistan has been seen as a chronic victim of its “envy” factor: wars and skirmishes, border disputes and rapes justify this. It is very unfortunate that Pakistan refuses to learn from the lessons taught over the decades, and only to carry out the enmity, calling a day at night if India prefers to call a day by day, the country has become more harm yourself than your neighbor. The scenario, of course, is becoming increasingly complex when it comes to international alignments and interests. Now what about India, how is it executing its neighborhood duties?

India has tried to be a perfect and tolerant neighbor, often placing the emphasis on peace and the process of dialogue, and at other times imposing a “punishment” that it seeks to justify as inevitable in the face of the excesses of the neighbor. Therefore, it can never be proved that India wants Pakistan; But there are some other “problems” that go beyond our neighboring behavior pattern. In recent years, it is seen that India shows a greater interest in the ‘punishment’ part than in maintaining the peace dialogue: some voices argue that this is due to the growth of nationalism that is taking place in India in recent years. As it were, Pakistan is somehow becoming an outside factor for India to prosper in its attempt to promote nationalism, patriotism and the like. For many other Indian stakeholders, primarily the pro-system print media and television news channels, like-minded political parties and an intricately complicated matrix of other interests, the word ‘Pakistan’ has become a existential catchphrase: they fear extinction without it. In this particular case, we, in the spirit of the story, can still attest to ‘you shall not propagandize’ or ‘you shall not use’ a kind of neighbor behavior commandments.

Also at the microeconomic level, modern sophistication has resulted in significant obstacles to our analysis. Let’s take an example of two neighbors who live in identical flats, who have all the modern conveniences and don’t suffer from any of the ‘envy-greed’ factors. Despite the digital perspective, one of the neighboring families cannot avoid falling prey to ancient traditions. They believe in offering to the souls of the ancestors and also in loving all animals as an integral part of God. So they keep offering food scraps and feeding crows, dogs, cats, and so on all day long on their balconies, inside their rooms, and in the common hallway outside. Obviously, this causes an extreme disadvantage and irritation to the other family: the birds also rush to their balconies in search of more; the animals lounging in the corridor and descending the ladder that damages the road; And every time the neighbor is away from home, these animals ambush the front door and threaten to enter anytime the door needs to be opened. Leaving aside the ‘envy-greed’ factors as secondary, we cannot help but confront here a new ‘curse’ of factors. Yes, the hapless family can only afford angry curses, silently thrown at each other for diplomatic reasons so that relations do not get out of control. Therefore, armed as we are in historical perspective, we can safely add one more commandment ‘shall not curse’ here.

So we have seen, despite the support of history, that the neighborhood behavior syndrome is still fraught with many other dangers: lurking, secret and unknown.