The situation of intellectual community in modern Afghanistan

Mohammad Zahir Akbari | 22 October 2020
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Although there are numerous intellectuals, degree holders, scholars and universities, they have not played effective role in reconstruction of culture, economy and social integrity in Afghanistan. During Habibuallah Khan and Amanullah Khan, though there was only one committed intellectual in country, Mohmood Tarzee, and one educational center, Habibia high school, these brought widespread changes in the country which finally led to independence of the country, establishment Afghanistan’s first constitution, promotion of culture, modernism and many more.

Now, there are thousands of professors, scholars and writers many of whom graduated from well-known university of the world but they are the followers of ethnical racist leaders  and accordingly divided on the basis of ethnical and lingual criteria. Therefore, the intellectual situation in Afghanistan is not good in modern Afghanistan. They are not busy in doing their historic mission in the country.

Unfortunately, they have no serious commitment  and no strategic approach  to get out of this situation. If there is a little effort in this field, it is more for boasting or promoting of their social and political position rather than having serious concern about critical state of country. for example, there were many intellectuals in recent years who seriously criticized against current situation but after reaching their desired position, they have been quickly changed as if the world were rebuilt and all problems resolved overnight. However, it does not mean we have a hostile position against ruling system, it means we must not interpret everything on the basis of personal and economic interests. Our national interests must be prioritized than everything. Instead of adulation ,we must theoretically support our government with providing fundamental suggestions and solution to get out from the ongoing critical condition. this article is going to highlight the intellectual situation but never deny any imperfections.

the first requirements of intellectual and cultural work is the need for careful research about history of the country because a large part of the current situation is rooted in the tradition and history of the same society. If there is a sound and prosperous society and the law applies equally on everyone, it means that the society must have passed many challenges and barriers until has reached this position. It also means, that its intellectuals have correctly understood the problems and logically analyzed the situation.

It must be admitted that is impossible to expect that everything will suddenly be blossomed and societies will be abruptly developed. Accordingly, it is impossible that everything collapse at once and then oppression, poverty, corruptions, mafia, drug smugglers and so on dominate everywhere.

Therefore, most of social and political phenomena are rooted in distant or recent past and  a war-torn and miserable society does not suddenly rise from the ground. We need to find out how the current situation is rooted in the history and past tradition of this land if we want to get rid of the impasse.  we need to accurately understand and analyze the situation and seriously study the history of this land. Undoubtedly, this is the first mission of the intellectuals of this land.

However, it should be added that the intellectuals, in addition to reading the history and culture of this land, they also need to study the history of other nations because, in principle, human societies are not inherently very different from each other, and so understanding the experiences and histories of others can be a significant help to free a nation from existing impasses.

The next problem is the culture of politicization in this multi-ethnic country. However, politics is not a negative thing; it plays the most important role in political management of human life. According to Aristotle’s definition of human beings, we are basically political animals but the goal of politics is to organize the public affairs, not engulf in public affairs.  If we had studied the history of our nation and other nations, we would have understood that this country will not be built on the basis of racial, religious and lingual discriminations. If we had studied the history of the developed nations, we would have realized that the social justice is not something to be realized with word and void promises. There is no nation in the world to have reached modernization on basis of racism or intolerance.  the deep oneness, brotherhood and national integrity will not be achieved unless and truly and practically everyone is considered equal.  Although some of our intellectuals might know these obvious things but they are largely influenced by ethnic leaders. Unfortunately, they do not have any strategic goal in their social and personal life. Usually, they do intellectual and academic work so as to get hired somewhere and reach personal interests.

The last but not least problem is rooted in traditional methods applied in Afghanistan’s universities. The mission of these universities are not to produce graduation degrees but play their genuine role and goals. In advanced countries, universities pursue five major goals: firstly, as a repository of the Knowledge, universities act as ‘knowledge vaults’, maintaining and securing crucial knowledge for present and future generations. Secondly, as a producer of new Knowledge, undertake the activity that we call research.

Thirdly, as transferor of knowledge to the next generation, i.e. what we call education. Fourthly, as transferor of Knowledge to society, i.e. what we call distribution. Fifthly, as generator economic development, play an integral role in furthering economic growth through pursuing socio-economic goals. Unfortunately, the duty of most our universities are to produces certificates and gradation degrees. As result, our intellectual community plays no problem solving role and it said that the share of Afghanistan in global science production  is about 00.2% which shows the weak situation intellectual community in today’s world.

Mohammad Zahir Akbari, Writer.

This article was originally published on Daily Outlook Afghanistan.
Views in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect CGS policy.


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