Monday, November 10, 2008

Looking for a better world!


Photo by Reza Karimi

The difference between a human and a …

“KHODAWANDA, TU MEDANI KE INSAN BODAN O MANDAN DAR EEN DOYA CHE DESHWAR AST,

CHE ZAJRI MEKASHAD AANKAS KE INSAN AST O AZ EHSAAS SARSHAR AST.”

Translation
“Oh God, you know how hard it is to be and remain human being,
How difficult is the world for human full of senses, emotions and feelings”

Last night was one of those and I didn’t or couldn’t go sleep again until too late in the morning just about before the sunrise. I don’t know whether I name it insomnia or something else.
However, I began thinking about here there as if I was looking for something, a better world for example after I read a Dari Poem that was once sent as a comment to one of my Dari writings in Kabul Press website a few months ago.
I don’t exactly remember the name of the poet but the title of the poem was “one night in the place of God” or “If I were God for one night” and it was talking about the existing unjust things in this world and the poet proposed the betterment and changes and ideal solutions for the better condition of living beings through his poem.
I wish I could translate it in English and put it here for you to read and enjoy it.

There are many things in the world to think about and to be concerned about that is how when you can’t sleep at night, you begin traveling around the globe with your imaginations, you suffer a lot when there are many irritating items in your society and in the places where your mind reaches and then you have to enter into an ideal world of yourself, you create the whole system of the world the way you think is right and then, dark in the morning you go sleep with your imaginations. Without having changed anything, later after the sunrise you wake up and see everything is still the same but instead you have headache and nothing has changed at all.

Actually belonging to and growing in a society full of tyranny, violence, social misbehaviors, unjust treatments, corruption, continuous poverty and ignorance automatically you change into a person always thinking about your role in this middle and what you could do for others is your everlasting mental conflict.

These harsh things are the existing realities in the society. The cruelty and tyranny the humans do on the other human beings; the people dying of hanger, the people being forced to leave their homes, the women being raped, the children being misused, the people being kidnapped, the officials being corrupted, the ignorance being spread, the refugees far off their land being misused and many more things on your own land and in other corners of the world where you can imagine of.

Sometimes, thinking about the many responsibilities you have as a human being in the society you belong to and in a bigger range in the world where you live and then you see you can not do anything to help to find a solution at least for a little part of these problems, you wish you were out of such world.

However, although you know that in order to coup with the harshness of the world, it is not the right choice to escape and leave the ground but stand and fight against them otherwise there wouldn’t be any difference between an intelligent human and an animal like a cow, but still you say to yourself, how long more you wouldn’t be able to do something for certain reasons?!

In spite of the strength the humans have but they are not as hard as rocks;
Of course time to time they are happy, they are sad, they are emotional, they are cold- blooded, they are enthusiastic, and they are exhausted but sometimes they are tenderer than flowers and are not able to tolerate much harshness they face in their lives.

What all come here are not the signs of pessimism or the empty part of the bottle but they are the realities in the practical life although if sometimes people pretend to be happy or optimistic about it.

Or a solution; change your vision and the way of living
Wow, in this new way of living, you are happier and more comfortable. When every where is green, that is all for you. Then there is nothing to think about or to be worried about. Why you have to think about something? Why you have to suffer about the wrong things that exist in the world? You eat. You sleep, that are the two most important things in the world for you and you enjoy your life. What else do you want?
So this way, never things come to your mind that hurt you, you do not have any imaginations or foreseeing about what happens in the world or what you have to do for it, because you don’t care for it anymore. Because in this way of living the whole your world is not bigger than a grazing field and your furthest imagination does not go beyond imagining that every where is green for you, which gives you a sense of satisfactory. That is all.
There are not any responsibilities from your surroundings or your society on your shoulders anymore because; first you do not have a mind to think about it and feel responsibility, then you are not in your hand and then you do not live in a society, you live in cattle. There, the most important duty you have is what you are created for; eat grass and produce milk, or to be killed for the meat. That is how the life is for a cow.
And sometimes human beings are forced to live the same way or even worse but then only God can save them from that situation!

Sunday, November 9, 2008

Italy still in the racial discrimination


a commentary by Basir Ahang
Independent Afghan Journalist in Italy
Translated by Amin Wahidi
Mussolini Jr. can not tolerate the presence of a black leader in the While House
Silvio Berlusconi the Italian prime minister when attending in a press conference during his official visit to Moscow has attacked the personality of Barack Obama the elected president of the United States of America for being of black skin.
Regarding Obama, he said,” the new elected president of America is a young, handsome and bronze (tanned skin) president”.
Berlusconi who was supporting the republican candidate John McCain during his electoral campaign doesn’t think that Obama deserve the White House because of his complexion and racial background.


What Berlusconi has lately stated, shows his fanaticism prejudice with the people of black skin.
Although considering the history of Italy as the cradle of fascism, it is something sample and predictable to hear a discriminative statement from a senior Italian official but in the present time, it annihilate the claims of the Italian government for fighting against fascism and racism and this country will again be in the list of fascist countries in the world.
Even in the Italian constitution any kind of movements that distinguish ethnicities and complexions are considered discriminative attempts and are lead to legal prosecutions.
Soon after this news, most of the human rights organizations and the leftist parties in Italy objected to the discriminative statement of the prime minister and condemned it as a fascist statement.


Walter Veltroni, the leader of PD the main opposition party in Italy in a press conference has evaluated it as a non-diplomatic and discriminative statement which could offend the friendship of Italy and the United States of America.
Condemning this statement, Veltroni has asked Berlusconi apologize Obama for what he has stated in his Friday conference in Moscow. He added that Berlusconi’s statement is definitely not the Italian people’s comment on the new elected president of the United States but is his own irresponsible comment.
On the other hand, the Italian journalists in the American have tried to ask Obama’s opinion on this statement of the Italian Prime Minister but they were told that Obama is not interested to talk on it.
It is to say that after the end of the Word War Two and defeat of Mussolini the Italian fascist leader, this period was recognized as an ignominious time in the political history of Italy and thereafter many efforts have been made to eliminate the fascism in this country.
But nowadays after almost 65 years from then, not only fascism and discrimination is not eliminated in Italy but is still alive in this country and even senior government officials are following and applying it.
So we can say it is no more than empty acclaim when some of the western countries pretend to be defending the human rights, equality and democracy when we see such actions.
Although the victory of Obama in this election was the breakage of a taboo in this country and gave hopes to millions of human beings who didn’t have the equal rights in this country for years and years and were treated with as slaves and the second class citizens but on the other hand we still see that the presence of blacks are not yet accustomed and tolerable for some whites.
Although the harsh and abasing statement of the Italian prime minister has had vast objections after, but these objects are not trustable either; they are just political slogans too.
It is the time for all the liberal people in the world to stand against discrimination and prejudice and eliminate it from the world.
Here I am not to defend Obama but because I, my forefathers and other ethnic minority citizens of my country were all suffered fascism and discrimination for years and years and we can feel the catastrophe that fascism brings. And this prepares any liberal person to stand and fight against it as a Saadi the great Persian poet has said;
Human beings are members of a whole,
In creation of one essence and soul
If one member is afflicted with pain,
Other members uneasy will remain.