It could very well have been the fault of the Fence!

I surely don’t agree with the old Dhivehi saying (it could well have come from another language for all I know!) that goes ‘Eh fulhah mathin fummaali bakari aneh fulhah mathin ves fummaalaane.’

Well I would say that the goat would keep jumping over fences if they were all the same inadequate height. What if she was placed behind a good fence high enough to keep her in? Would she still jump over? I wouldn’t think so.

We use the saying negatively to imply that a person who had once broken a relationship, left a job etc, will do it again. But what do we even know about this person or what this person had gone through in the previous relationship or job? What if this person was put through hell then? What if this person is in good hands now? Isn’t this equivalent to asking what if the goat was placed behind a good fence?

Well, maybe we should think twice before putting such ideas in the textbooks of our school children. Everything that has been handed down to our generation as having been used in our language doesn’t necessarily deserve a place in our children’s textbooks, especially not when we don’t have qualified enough teachers to explain to the kids the limitations. Such notions instil in our kids an inclination towards judging people without even knowing who they are or what the situation was really like. And this does not help them to become open-minded, which however is required of them wherever they go.