Analyzing the history of democratization by Western coalition:

Introduction:

The Western Coalition led by USA has a history from 2nd world war. It succeeded in democratization of West Germany and Japan and to make these two countries a role model of material growth and development under liberal democracy. The Western Germany with liberal capitalist democracy and the Eastern Germany as a red socialist country were the frontline between Capitalist camp and communist camp. The wall divided the Western and Eastern Germany was indicating the physical existence of the iron curtain. The collapse of this wall and the conversion of USSR and China’s communist economies into more capitalized economies were the all the evidence of the successful strategies of Western Coalition in democratization of countries.

Certainly the successful democratization process has encouraged the policy makers and the political thinkers in USA to apply their same strategies in other parts of the world, where the values are rivaling the values of liberal capitalist democracy. It is why forces and thinkers arose in US by the name of “neocons” or neoconservatives who wanted to continue the same policies under the policy famed as “project of new American century”.

All other events after the 9/11 events are well known to all. The success of democratization in Iraq was rapid but the Afghanistan proved totally different form all previous examples even from Vietnam. Following is the analysis of the events:

Democratization of Germany and Japan after 2nd World War by Western Coalition:

Germany was a combat force in Europe and Japan in pacific area who had nationalistic ambitions of global glory and supremacy. They were enemies of the Western coalition before and during Second World War. The main threat to the Western Coalition was the ideology of racial supremacy. Soon after the end of war the western coalition started to democratize the Western Germany and Japan to achieve three objectives:

1- Convert the ideology of racial supremacy into westernized national democracies.

2- Making Western Germany and Japan an economic, democratic and military giant to stop the expansion of communist ideology which were strong in Russia and were taking strong roots in pacific region especially in China, Korea and Vietnam.

3- Democratization of the Western Germany accompanied by the European Recovery Plan (Also known as Marshal Plan) was aimed to keep the markets open for Western Alliance products and prevent another economic recession.



Democratization of Iraq by Western Coalition:

In Iraq the democratization succeeded to a certain limit because of the demographic division of the country. In south there is the majority of Shia population and in north there were Kurds and the small minority of the radical Sunnis were mostly in central area who hosted the Al Qaida extremists. The Stable south and North helped the democratization to succeed. Both shias in south and Kurds in north had struggled for their freedom during Sadam regime. It was the roots of people in south and north of the country in the movements for their autonomy that helped in success of democratizations and stabilization of the country.

Democratization of Afghanistan by Western Coalition:

The history of democratization efforts by Western Coalition in West Germany and Japan after Second World War and the democratization of Iraq in war against terror have some lessons to learn while coming to Afghanistan. Neglecting the history and tradition of people will result in failure of the democratization efforts. Democracy is the will of people. If a group of people do not want a democratic culture it won’t work. The western coalition need to think of Afghanistan as different entities despite a nation.

In Germany and Japan there were national movements and there were will for change and national glory so the process of democratization was successful and they rise as glorious nations. Still the US had to investigate that which nations are capable of changing. The Pashtoon community in Afghanistan is resisting to democratization. The reason is clear and that is pashtoon culture. The religious leaders and the tribal leaders are two sources of the authority in Pahtoon society and both of these authorities are ant-democratizations trends. What are called jirgas are under influence of these two sources of authority including the dominating powers from governments and businessmen in case of pakhtoons. But still these sources of authorities are susceptible to change if they were not rooted in radical Sunni sect of Islam. It is this ideology that is unchangeable because they are rooted in beliefs of people. This ideology asks for supremacy, dominance and use of every means to achieve them. As the Pashtoons have the regional Alliance in Arabian countries and radical sunnis around the world especially in South Asia, and northern Africa and central Asian countries so the Western coalition couldn’t neglect them, especially the rich Arab countries who have heavy investments and business ties with Western coalition so there are more important things than simply democratization.

Other nations in northern alliance like Hazaras, Tajiks and Uzbeks can flourish the democratic values but unfortunately they were especially the Hazaras are neglected. World less knows about the revolution in Hazarajat. Prior the Russian invasion of Afghanistan Hazaras had a feudal system. After the Russian invasion when Mujahidin were engaged in resistance against Russia there were resistance movements in Hazarajat against feudal lords and Tribal leaders. Feudal system collapsed and the common people empowered in Hazarajat. The Shura or community councils became the decision makers in Hazarajat. The fates of people were in hands of people, so the Hazaras were the most optimistic and susceptible to change.

The Hazaras are neglected and the whole concentrations went to Pashtoon areas, where the newly built schools were burnt and the roads and bridges were destroyed by road side bombs but they were rebuilt. The tax money of Western people is used to serve the people who don’t want them but the people who were regularly asking for them were ignored. Hazarajat have only get 2.5 kilometer road paved with no university, electricity and health care system. The shuras never empowered and the literacy and educations were not focused. The people are helping themselves in reconstructions and education but they were also no empowered.

This is main reason that the democratization process in Afghanistan is not getting root while in Iraq it got roots. While democratization process is not getting roots in Afghanistan so it has some consequences.

There are certain points which may are changing the minds of Hazaras and it is time to stop them from becoming so.

1- The funding, concentrations, developments and authority are going in areas where, from where Taliban had risen and there are strong physical and ideological support for Taliban. The Taliban is rooted in the culture of that people and for changing culture a long period of time is required.

2- The separatist movements of Baluchis and their tactics in targeting non-Baluch civilian to pressurize the government. The civilian are soft targets and so both Baluchis and Taliban are targeting civilian. This tactic made different civilian groups and their representatives in governments to support the separatists’ movements in order to minimize their losses.

Certainly the Hazaras are in midst of these processes. Neglecting the demand and desires of hazaras are making these feeling more extensive. The tactics of Taliban, Baluch separatists and ignoring of Hazaras and Hazarajat by international community are topics of discussions between Hazaras which are leading them to conclusion of separatists’ movements.

Certainly the separatists’ movements of Hazaras will affect the geopolitical situation of the area. It is the responsibility of the Western coalition to help Hazaras in their destinations and make the changing situation a non-violent transformation.

A suggested mechanism for philosophy

Philosophy is in crisis. Certainly the mathematics and physics have also passed through crisis and physics is again in crisis. It is a normal part of the growth and is known as a growth crisis but the real philosophers heat their heads to solve the problems. We are living in a scientific era and the science has made people habitual of a mechanism. Every discipline has their own mechanisms by which they judge, direct and demarcate their area of generating or absorbing knowledge and people ask their specialists in case of problems and expect them to solve. Even fashion and sport reporters have their own areas of specialty that people will expect of them. But on contrary the philosophers are speaking and working on untouchable notions of being, spirit and purpose of existence and systems that civilizations are based on haven’t any specialty and mandate to demarcate their areas of specialty. Why? There are two main reasons that philosophy hasn’t yet resolved them:

1- What is the subject of philosophy?

2- What is the mechanism of philosophy?

Here in this article I will propose my solution to these two problems. The answer for the first question is the subject of the philosophy is “IDEA”. Though we use the term idea very commonly but for a better understanding of the term idea as a subject matter of philosophy, we have to look on subject matter of other disciplines also. All objects that could be observed and experimented are the subject matter of science. So Science has a clear boundaries and still science has been divided into different branches based on subject matters to be more specialized. So we expect a zoologist to know about animals and a mineralogist to know about a mineral. Similarly, the subject matter of mathematics is defined. Anything that is measurable directly or indirectly is the subject matter of mathematics. These two examples are very specialized. If we come to social sciences we find the disciplines that are totally related to some form of ideas that human being have agreed upon. The lawyers are specialists of ideas that men have agreed upon. These are called laws, agreements and codes of conducts. Laws are only specific ideas but the philosophy works on ideas that guide and give directions to the agreements, laws, codes of conducts and sciences and math, etc. The main responsibility of the philosophy has to generate ideas for these fields to expand them and verify the ideas that these fields are working on to keep them healthy and intact. As the philosophy has a leading role for other subjects, so it is not a systematic study of the objects of study but it is a system generating machine that provide systems for others systematic studies. Knowing this role of philosophy we can classify the subject matter of philosophy, the “IDEA” in following classes:

1- Ideas generated out of observations

2- Ideas generated out of experiments and experiences

3- Ideas generated out of abstractions

4- Ideas generated out of imaginations and perceptions

The answer to the second question that “What is the mechanism of philosophy?” requires a little effort to understand. I have worked on it when I was a school student and still working on it. Here briefly I present my findings to the time. One can find them in my other articles specified for each of them. Following is the order by which I have deduced them.

1- All mechanisms of knowledge are cyclic. This is named as cycle of knowledge.

2- As all mechanisms of knowledge is cyclic then ideas come out of these mechanisms are partially true OR the reality partially could be expressed by ideas. This is named as instant reality.

3- For expression of ideas to be logical and understandable the ideas have to be presented in relation to other ideas (Because an idea is partial expression of reality)

4- For verifications of ideas and their relations, it is necessary that they must be verified with equilibrium or equations. This is the first order of verification.

5- For the second order of verification, the ideas must be calculated that the equations or equilibriums could be tested. This is named as calculated discipline.

We can express the above mentioned mechanism simplified as following:

“Ideas have four basic sources of generations, like observations, experiences and experiments, abstraction measurements and perceptions and imaginations and these ideas can be verified in four different basis like evidences, experiments or established experiences, abstract calculations and imaginative and perceptive calculations matching with three earlier mentioned calculations”………………..

Explanation:

In science we have two methods for verifications of hypotheses, a) experimentations, b) evidence. These two sources of the verifications are measurable and the sources of scientific data and generation of scientific knowledge. In mathematics the measurements of abstract ideas like numbers, lines, degrees etc are verified by counter measurements and proved. So we have three basic criteria for authentic verifications and those are calculated experiences, evidences and measurements of abstract ideas. If we consider the “idea” as a subject matter of philosophy, so there are two more sources of the ideas and those are perceptions and imaginations and these two are the real sources of the problems as well as the real sources of creating new ideas and fields (Actually these two are the engines of creativity that produce raw materials for other disciplines). If we verify the raw ideas come of the perceptions and imaginations with calculated evidences, experiences and abstractions then we can verify them and make them reliable sources. If we do so we can make the philosophy more specialized and available to masses and hence raise the judgments and thinking ability of masses or in other words we can make able the time to produce great leaders in every fields.

Why to celebrate our achievements?

Anything with definite shapes and formations have some forces that have bounded its basic units. These forces are keys to the symmetry of the symmetrical objects. Our concepts of beauty (aesthetics), excellence, perceptions, imaginations and mechanisms of knowledge are all based on some form of symmetry. The most conspicuous phenomenon of symmetry in human lives is their societies. There are forces which keep the symmetry of societies in order. Cultures, religions and laws are the basic forces which gives particular shapes and order to a society. The basic units of cultures, religions and laws are the values which they are made up of. As values are the basis for acceptance of cultures, religions and laws, similarly, the values are the basis for collisions of cultures, laws and religions.

Though there are collisions among values of societies but one thing is common to all and that every society struggles to sustain their values. There are different strategies to sustain and pass these values to the young generations. One of these strategies is celebrating the achievements. Celebrating the achievements are actually sustaining the values and introducing the values. If the values are not celebrated they lose their recognitions and importance and they will extinct. The most point in celebrating achievements is getting new energy and start for new achievements. Celebration is the end of old efforts and achievements and the beginning of new ones. Sure new beginnings require new strategies, skills and struggles from zero and all these require energies. Celebrating the achievements are the sources of energies and commitments for new beginnings. It provides the energies for a total new starts, energies for starts for new skills, energies for thinking process for new strategies and energies for start from zero. We can divide the celebrations based on the cultures, religions, personal values and global cultures.

Personal celebrations: Everyone has its own methods and reasons for celebrations of personal achievements. Celebrating personal achievements reveals oneself for him. It reveals the personal values and personal strengths. How one celebrates his achievements is also reveal his personality. How and what one rewards himself plays a key role in reshaping ones personality. One can use the rewards for himself to engineer himself, by strengthening his strengths and weakening his weaknesses. Appreciations and accountabilities are strong tools for psychological engineering and if it is used by the person himself will be a stronger tool.

Global culture: To strengthen the common norms and values of human beings the special days are celebrated all over the world. These special days are not only the sources of consciousness for common values and developing of new trends in globally but it also play key role in developing and evolving of global culture. The global culture is the foundation of global civilization which is replacing the civilizations based on cultures and values of nation state and religions. If we look at list of few special days which are celebrated globally we can understand the trends and weight of the global values or common norms of modern world. Diseases that require mass awareness are celebrated globally to increase the awareness and coordination for their eradications. All those things which have global impacts like some explosives, global warming and related issues like pollution, clean water and air, preservations of engendered species, some social evils like smoking etc are celebrated globally. The basic institutions of the societies are foundations of the global cultures so celebrations of the hub of these institutions are also evolving the global cultures. Celebrating the mother’s day and teacher’s day is the two example of this trend.

Religious celebrations: Every religion has their own days and celebrations. The purpose of these celebrations is strengthening the religious values. Two Eid-ul-Fiter and Eid-ul-Azha in Islam and Charismas in Christian world are two examples of these religious celebrations. Eid-ul-fiter in Muslim world is celebrated in honor of successful completion of a month of fast and worships, so it is the celebration of achievements. The whole month of Ramzan, the Muslim practices their basic values and even in Eid they practice their values. This is enough for us to understand the importance and value of celebrations either in personal, religious or global achievements.

Cultural celebrations: Just like religions, cultures have values, which are keys for their survival, identity and the symmetry and order of the societies they belong. These values are specially evident in social celebrations like marriages, funerals, births etc. The birth and deaths are symbolic representations of the continuity and immortality of these values and the marriages as the defender and developers of the values.

Conclusion: Though celebrations are not given much importance in intellectual world but they are foundations of personality and societies. Understanding their psychology, sociology and their positions in making laws and providing lawful basis are key in engineering and reshaping personalities and societies.

Single factor comparison of the Islamic and western countries

Whenever we compare societies, two factors are the foundations for other factors to be compared. Here we limit ourselves to these two foundation factors and that are Individual and society. It requires no knowledge that individuals construct the society and both purpose of society and individuals are same and that is rooted to the concept of human.

The concept of human in western countries could be understood by the established systems of the western society and that are Liberalism, democracy and capitalism. Liberalism, democracy and capitalism serve one thing and that is progress. Progress is synonym to success in Western culture. As both concept and purpose of human in a society is rooted in concept of success so Progress is the purpose and concept of man. In West, the concept of existence is dominant over essence and individuals are practically existentialist or in other words extreme individualists. Progress is fulfilling all requirements of existentialism to higher degree of satisfaction as it provides both free will and acceptable levels of consequences. The Western countries have adopted systems that fulfill the concept and purpose of individuals. Liberalism and democracy are suited to developments and acceptance of new ideas even radical ideas, so the becoming scientists, men and women of letters, writers, artists, politician, economists, engineers, news reporters, etc were considered fulfilling purpose and concept of modern men as they were the sources of free wills and their consequences. These were not only the sources of the free wills and the acceptable consequences but progress. To give acceleration to the progress another vital system was capitalism. Capitalism is open competition of free wills and their consequences, so the people were in constant competitions for the survival of their progress.

In western countries the individuals seek progress and the state provide the opportunities by it by adopting the systems for the progress of individuals. Hence the individuals and society in Western countries are in harmony and symmetry. Individuals serve the systems and systems provide opportunities to practice their existence.

Contrary to the Western countries the concept of human is different in Islamic culture. If we come to concept of human from concept of success, the concept of success in Islamic culture and society is Taqwa. Taqwa is simply personal justice to self and society. Certainly, without a just behavior in economical and social interactions one can’t achieve an accepted level of Taqwa that is considered success in Islamic society. The Islamic state main purpose is helping its citizens in getting Taqwa. It stands on four basic types of justice, economical justice, social justice, political justice and equality before law. In present of these four justices the Taqwa leads to progress along with evolution of society and civilization. In Islamic culture progress is not goal but the tools for creating conditions where Taqwa lead to evolution of human both spiritually and materially. The justices that is counted is always subjects to innovations to absorb changing conditions due to change in technological, economical, social and political advancements, hence they are always debatable.

Taqwa also means insulations against harms to self and also to society. Here Taqwa means a personal act to insulate self and society from harm. The harms include all factors related to self from spiritual, psychological, physical, social, political and economical harms. The insulation is carried out by moral and social codes that Islam provides to individuals. Hence in this perspective taqwa is personal choice and life style that is practicable in any conditions and in any place. Hence though here Taqwa is linked both to personal and social matters but one has to practice justice irrespective of others practicing or not. Every individual has to practice and call and teach practicing justice.

Unfortunately the Muslim countries as well as Muslim intellectual failed to devise and adopt systems suiting justices to enhance and promote the Taqwa. Faithful people as well as liberal people (The people who use the name of Muslim and Islam as identity, not as life codes) in Islamic countries are not satisfied with their governments as well as their lives. The people are not successful through both perspectives of Islamic culture as well as from Western point of view. It is one of the main factors that Islamic countries are experiences deep social dissatisfactions and tensions as well as divisions on terms of hardliners and moderates.

Dialogue with Hazaras

The Hazara society is passing through a historical transition that even individualistic decisions will play key roles in shaping the future of society of Hazaras. A shallow analysis of present Hazara society can elaborate the potentials of these individualistic decisions. Present Hazara society is not an integrated society but composed of small (of different sizes) Hazara societies which are taking nationalistic forms under the influence of the large societies in which they live. Languages, cultures, educations systems, political and economic trends of these large societies are playing vital roles in shaping the trends of these small Hazara societies. It is part of news paper knowledge (general knowledge) that the societies of Western countries, Eurasian countries and Eastern countries in which Hazaras are living, are different from each other and even in some aspects rivaling each other. Beside these Hazara societies are struggling for their survival. In some countries like Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran Hazaras are facing racial, lingual, religious and historical bigotry that accompanying with political and economical rivalries threatening Hazara societies. In Western countries though Hazaras are safe from bigotries but still they are struggling for the survival of their culture and identity. Keeping these two points the Hazaras needs a two dimensional serious steps that the initials of the Hazara intellectuals and politician are more required.

- Dialogue among Hazara societies

- Dialogue between Hazara societies and nations of the world


Dialogue among Hazara societies:


Hazaras are fortunate that there were always small but active part of their societies who were concerned about the integrity of Hazara societies and they have worked for these objectives. In past their efforts were not much fruitful due to lack of mass Medias so they were limited to local cultural and political struggles. The expansion and easiness of use of internet provided a golden opportunity for self activated Hazara patriots to make websites about Hazaras. These websites were the first voices of Hazaras about the oppressions and prejudices they have been facing. These websites also struggled for cultural and nationalistic identity of Hazaras. I am personally evident of the effectiveness of these websites in earning a positive recognition for Hazaras.

Despite the services that these websites provided to Hazaras but still there are load of works and responsibilities that these active part of Hazara societies have to do. Hazaras are in chain of history and their existence are threatened so all societies of Hazaras need an ideological, cultural, political and economical integration. Hazarajat is the motherland of all Hazaras of all over the world and is point of unity of objectives and struggles for all of them. Keeping these facts in minds the websites of Hazaras have to go a step further to start a dialogue among the societies of Hazaras. The cultural, social, political and economical dialogue among Hazara societies is a necessity of time to develop an advanced political, economical and ideological culture to which the Hazaras of the entire world not only proud but also struggle to save their national identity, integrity and for achieving the national dreams.

Dialogue between Hazara societies and nations of the world:

The nations of the world, especially the people of the other nations either don’t know anything about the Hazaras or know very less about Hazaras based on incomplete information or objective reporting of the news reporters who had visited Hazarajat only for a few days without prior deep knowledge of Hazaras. There are a lot of misconceptions of Hazaras in mass Medias of world and hence gaining information from these sources the people of the world have misconceptions about Hazaras. Hazaras have to understand the delicacy of these issues. If Hazaras remained silent to every types of reporting without presenting their own views then world will write a history based on misconceptions and incomplete information. The Hazaras shouldn’t wait for world to come to them to know them but they have to reach the world interested about Hazaras and present to them their own point of view and their identity and history.

During centuries of cultural, economical and political siege Hazaras have alienated from the rest of world. They have adopted to live and interact among themselves to save their existence. These trends still continues as the cultural, economical and political siege still continues (Even in presence of USA and NATO forces, who represent societies which believe in human rights, democracy, freedom of expressions and religious tolerance). This trend of Hazara societies resulted in cultural, educational, economical and political distancing of Hazaras and societies in which they live which in turn resulted in creating suspicion about Hazaras as well as backwardness of Hazaras. If this trend of Hazara societies continued then troubles will be created for next generations of Hazaras in which they will be confused about their identity as well as interacting with societies in which they live.

It is the responsibility of every Hazara, especially Hazara intellectuals, politicians, reporters, artists, students and inherent of Hazaragi culture and history that struggle to inform the nations and start dialogue by nations of world. The nonstop dialogue with representatives of other nations especially with people of other nations will create a positive of image of Hazara nation and help them in achieving their national dreams with their own struggle and with support of nations of world for their struggle.

Note; This knol was written in 2008