A few years ago, the Gallup Institute conducted a survey among second- and third-generation immigrants living in Norway. The main question was:
To what extent do you feel Norwegian?
Interestingly, a good percentage of respondents said they do not consider themselves Norwegian. And remember, these are second- and third-generation immigrants.
They were born in Norway, educated there, many have served in the Norwegian military, their passports say “Norwegian,” and for many of them Norwegian is their first and primary language because they never fully learned their parents’ mother tongue. Their culture is also Norwegian. Yet they still said, “We don’t feel Norwegian.”
When the results were published, not a single white Norwegian got angry.
No one said, “If you don’t feel Norwegian, leave the country.”
No one accused them of being illegitimate or threatened them with violence.
The government didn’t accuse them of spying for Pakistan or Iran.
Instead, do you know what they did? The Norwegian government gave the institute another project and asked them to investigate why these individuals don’t feel Norwegian.
“Go talk to them. Sit with them. Listen to them. Find out what creates this feeling.” And that’s exactly what they did. The findings showed several factors, including that many had experienced discrimination because of their skin color or their names.
The Ministry of Culture increased funding for organizations fighting racism and encouraged public and private institutions to hire immigrants and non-white Norwegians.
Dear friends, I’m sharing this story because lately the conflict and tension between “Afghans and non-Afghans” have escalated sharply, and several friends have asked me what my position on this issue is.
My friends, the cultural situation among Afghans is so tragically degraded that people don’t even have the capacity to ask the question rightly.
Instead of asking, “Are you Afghan or not?” we should be asking, “Do you feel Afghan or not?”
Identity is not just whatever is written in the constitution or on a passport. A major part of identity is how a person feels in their hearts. We need to ask people about their feelings: Do you feel Afghan? If not, why not? What is the reason?
But in this ruined country called Afghanistan, we’re dealing with a group of people who seem sworn to never become civilized, people who have put their hands on the Quran and vowed not to think, not to understand, and never to allow even a small amount of humanely empathy or compassion into their hearts.
How can you have a meaningful conversation with such people? Arguing with them is pointless. Engaging with them only brings you pain and suffering.
And unfortunately, the fate of an entire nation has fallen into the hands of such stubborn, intolerant, and irrational people who believe every problem can be solved with force and brutality.
Yes, the constitution labels everyone as Afghan. Yes, the passports say Afghan. Right now, they have the power—you could even tattoo the word “Afghan” on people’s foreheads if you wanted. But none of that makes someone Afghan. Afghan-ness is a feeling that must grow in people’s hearts. It is a matter of choice. A person must feel Afghan from within.
Through force, insults, coercion, explosions, and suicide attacks, no one becomes Afghan; in fact, these methods only deepen people’s disgust and resentment toward Afghan identity.
If the nationalist hardliners paused for even ten seconds and asked themselves:
With 300 years of absolute rule, with all the pressure and force exercised over this period, why is it that non-Pashtuns still do not consider themselves Afghan? Why do they have a problem with Afghan identity? Let’s actually listen to them.
If they did that—just that much—there’s no doubt the problem could finally be solved.
This is what the decline of humanity looks like; this is what the collapse of civility means.
The Taliban executed a man named Mangal, accused of murder, in the central sports stadium of Khost province, in front of a public crowd. The governor’s office in Khost, in eastern Afghanistan, announced that around eighty thousand people had gathered to watch the execution.
Whether the death penalty itself is right or wrong is a separate legal debate. But carrying out an execution in public, in front of eyes of children and teenagers, is a brutal, primitive, and extremely dangerous act.
As far as I know, this ugly practice is carried out by the government only in Iran and Afghanistan, and in other places by Islamist terrorist groups.
For God’s sake! Eighty thousand people gathered to watch a human being is being killed.
I don’t think that the Taliban forced all these people to attend and watch the killing of another human. It’s impossible. These people went out of their own will and interest. How terrifying.
This, in reality, shows the state of a society’s collective mental illness and its deep addiction to violence. It shows how empty a society has become of human feelings, of empathy towards another person. When a human being can comfortably stand and watch the killing of one of their own kind as a form of entertainment, the erosion of humanity in that society has already begun.
And it is extremely dangerous.
Just imagine: if women’s rights, or the education of girls, were as important to these eighty thousand people as watching a public execution… imagine if these eighty thousand men stood up against the inhumane ideas of Mullah Hibbat. What would happen?
If these eighty thousand gathered to demand the reopening of schools for girls, what would happen? What if these eighty thousand protested unemployment, corruption, and injustice?
Dear friends, please do not turn this issue into an ethnic matter, and do not use it as a tool for promoting hostility or ethnic prejudice. Hatred and division will solve nothing. This is a cultural and intellectual disorder. All the educated and thoughtful members of society are responsible for addressing it professionally, scientifically, and impartially. I know that as soon as you speak, you get accused of ethnic bias, but the truth must be spoken as it is.
My expectation from educated people is at least this: before reacting emotionally or making judgments, think about the issue itself for a moment, then respond.
نگذاریم وطن دوم ما را از ما بگیرند
It is absolutely right to sincerely thank everyone who organized this humanitarian and morally driven gathering, and to appreciate their effort. What they did is truly valuable and worthy of praise, because they introduced a different image of Afghanistan to American society.
They showed that not all Afghans are terrorists, violent, disturbed, or infected with the Taliban mindset. Yes, Afghanistan’s image has sadly been darkened for forty years by extremist Islamists and uneducated, violent jihadists.
For many foreigners, hearing the word “Afghanistan” brings to mind nothing but poverty, misery, terrorism, the Taliban, and ISIS.
But actions like this show that dignity, humanity, and moral awareness are still alive within Afghan society.
Dear friends, one of the most important principles for living an honorable and civilized life as immigrants is gratitude, responding to kindness with kindness, not with disrespect or ingratitude. It means respecting the society, culture, Constitution, and values of the host country. It means working hard, paying taxes, and contributing to peace and order, so that the kindness of that society is returned through positive action, not through shooting and violence.
Yes, the U.S. government has many problems, and its policies, especially toward developing countries, can and should be criticized. But the wrong policies of a government can never be corrected through terror, killing innocent people, or spreading fear in society.
Despite all its flaws, the United States has a democratic system grounded in the will of the people. This means you have the opportunity to create change through civic participation, political involvement, public discourse, and the power of words, not through violence and brutality, and not through lies, manipulation, or betrayal of public trust, like Khalilzad, who effectively erased twenty years of American investment in Afghanistan overnight and handed the country over to the Taliban.
در این ویدیو نقاط ضعف و قوت برنامههای یادبود به مناسب بیست و پنجم سپتامبر را بررسی کرده ام.. چون کمی طولانی شد فقط به نقاط قوت و یکی از نقاط ضعف اشاره کرده ام.. در ودیوی بعدی به نقاط ضعف بیشتری این برنامهها خواهم پرداخت..