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在线翻译:
szdaily -> Opinion -> 
Civil cures for uncivil actions
    2012-07-23  08:53    Shenzhen Daily

Mike Lawrence

lawrencemike@gmail.com

USING legislation to ban and punish uncivil public behavior such as spitting, littering and jumping queues would be like using a rolled-up newspaper to stop an elephant.

You can swat and swipe at it all you want, wasting valuable energy and time, but the elephant’s not going to stop unless it wants to — unless it comes to that decision on its own. Swatting will only make it irritated.

Wouldn’t it be better to give the elephant a bath and persuade it to clean itself up, for its own benefit?

And who’s to say the elephant needs to stop in the first place?

Many such questions arose last week, as Shenzhen’s legislature kicked around ideas for dealing with an elephant in the room — the city’s cleanliness, or lack thereof, and perceptions of civil public behavior.

Local lawmakers could move forward in coming months with drafting and reviewing laws that would ban certain types of “uncivilized” behavior in public, possibly requiring violators to pay fines, do community service or endure a nebulous and somewhat-frightening “degradation of credibility.”

But imagine the potentially enormous expenses, time and hassle involved in enforcing a ban on spitting and littering — the city would need to fine entire blocks of Old Shekou at once. The appeals, arguments and legal questions would be staggering.

What if the spitting was a matter of survival, to avoid choking? What if you were sipping a drink just as a friend made you laugh? What if you bit into a really bad piece of fruit and couldn’t stop yourself? What if you just added trash to an existing pile of trash, without a garbage can nearby?

Those questions could go on for days — but they’re beside the point.

The point is that there are many better ways than cumbersome legislation to address littering and spitting on Shenzhen streets, and many better ways to spend tax dollars, if the city decides such action is needed.

More public trash cans, for example. More street-sweeping trucks. More trash collectors. More community-led efforts to clean up individual neighborhoods and residential buildings. Public campaigns with signs on the Metro, street corners and so on. Discussions with business owners and legal vendors about how clean sidewalks and storefronts can attract shoppers, and how trash can deter them.

The trick is to make it good for people to adopt clean habits and care for their communities, rather than make it bad for them if they don’t.

The elephant has to want to stop.

If the laws were enacted and I did one day toss aside a food wrapper or real estate flier, for example, I would feel much worse about it if I was chastised by a shop owner or a resident than I would if a law enforcement officer promptly wrote me a ticket.

A ticket would just make me irritated.

But if a shop owner asked me to please pick up the flier, because her neighborhood was working together in a community campaign to clean up their streets and improve local business and hygiene, I would immediately pick it up, apologize and feel bad about having thrown it on the ground — and I would change my actions in the future.

Habits only truly changes through individual decisions. Fines and penalties only mean that spitters and litterers would look around for a chengguan (urban administrator), before doing so. They have to personally want to change.

And by “they,” I mean “we.”

(The author is a Shenzhen Daily senior copy editor and writer.)

 

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