Ethical Leadership: The Rural-urban divide

On April 15th, 2021, I joined the global event “Ethical Leadership: The Rural-Urban Divide” via Zoom and discussed the division between rural and urban areas with students from different parts of the world. In the fruitful discussion, we analyzed the tensions between the urban and rural people and the potential causes for them. This event has been especially inspiring for me because of the cultural diversity of the group: there are students from the U.S., India, and China and I am able to see the differences and similarities between each country and consider this global issue in a broader perspective.

Our discussion mainly focused on these questions: What are the tensions between the rural and urban people? What are the causes of the rural-urban divide? Is it good to have an urban and rural area? What tensions between urban and rural communities exist in your country and communities? Are citizens and leaders succeeding in navigating these tensions? What’s the right way to move forward as community members and global citizens?

As the discussion proceeded, I found out that, unexpectedly, the tensions between rural and urban areas are very similar regardless of which country we talk about. All of us agree that the main tensions are the inequality in job opportunities and the housing crisis. It is much more difficult for rural people to get an ideal job. In rural areas, they are exposed to less job opportunities; in urban areas, they are being judged by stereotypes that assume rural people to be less smart and not capable of handling difficult tasks. Hearing these, I was surprised that tensions I see between rural and urban areas in my community exist in other countries as well. My brain was running fastly and I then shared my views on the reasons behind these deep rooted tensions: “the tensions are likely to be caused by the unequal distribution of the resources. People in rural areas lack education which leads to their thick accents and they have less access to information and latest news. In some rural areas, they are still facing problems like insufficient water and electricity sources. These widen the gap between rural and urban areas, and it will continue to get worse if the problems remain unsolved. Sometimes, it is just that the two groups of people are not able to understand each other’s way of thinking.” Rajaa, an Indian girl in my group agrees with me and she said that in India, some people from rural areas can’t understand the motives of urban people pursuing goals and complaining about their lives which seems already flawless in rural people’s perspective. Worse, people from rural areas would perceive those as urban people showing off which generates animosity.

However, regarding how countries are navigating these issues, differences between countries can be seen. Our group is aware that in India and in the U.S., leaders and politicians are taking advantage of the tensions and the divide, because they can use those to gain support. There are political campaigns in rural areas as leaders think they are more likely to succeed. Under this circumstance, when solving the divide is not the priority and the focus of leaders, not much has been done in the U.S. and India. In China, it is a bit different, although the problem is not yet solved, it is clear that the government focuses on the rural areas and tries to diminish the gaps between rural and urban areas to the least. When I traveled to some rural areas these years, I could see lots of improvements in buildings and the quality of people’s lives. Sometimes, people in rural areas have better access to resources than people living in urban areas do. I think that history and the political system largely form the differences. Election works very differently in China, the U.S. and India. Every citizen age 18 could vote in the U.S. and India, but China is based on a hierarchical electoral system (citizens don’t directly vote). So, in the U.S and India, politicians and leaders need to gain more public support to win elections and they would use the urban-rural divide as a tool. Also, looking at the history, peasant revolts play a huge role in Chinese history and are the foundation of the current government, so Chinese are naturally more aware of the people in rural areas and the divide is less severe.

This is a very thought-provoking event. It allowed me to take history and politics into consideration when analyzing social issues the world is facing. I learned that although we all come from different cultural backgrounds and countries, the same problem exists with the same phenomenon regardless of the cultural difference. This event let me reflect on China in a different way and think about things that I never asked myself before. By having people from different countries with different perspectives, I was able to look at all countries with an unbiased point of view. I can judge the issue in a more complete and just way. It is important for us, the young leaders, to gain awareness of this issue and reach out for more information to better understand the different aspects of the issue. We should try to improve the divide in our own communities by helping people from rural areas and interact more with them.

Differences in culture and nationality are never the barriers to reach mutual understandings and advancements, prejudice and indifference are.