Armanshahr Foundation in collaboration with the French Cultural Center in Kabul (CCF) and the Afghanistan Transitional Justice Coordination Group is pleased to invite you to its 65th (year V) public debate GOFTEGU on the occasion of International Human rights day and National Victim’s day and the public presentation of “Simorgh’s Feather” a new Armanshahr Publication of a collection of poems from the annual Simorgh Peace Prize.
Speakers: Dr. Mohieddin Mahdi (Parlementarian, Researcher), Mr. Kazem Yazdani (Historian), Mr. Assadollah Ahmadi (Social scientist and Professor of Sociology Ibn Sina University),
Moderator: Mr. Rooholamin Amini
Date et Horaire/Date & Time: mardi/Tuesday 14 Dec. 2010, 14:00 H.
Lieu/Venue: Centre culturel français (Lycée)/French Cultural Center
Tel: 0779217755 & 0775321697
E-mail: armanshahrfoundation.openasia@gmail.com
Humans cannot forget atrocities
The 65th Goftegu public debate of Armanshahr Foundation was held at the French Cultural Centre on 14 December 2010, during the Human Rights Week for Victims, under the heading, “Revisiting our collective memory and the public presentation of Simorgh’s Feather anthology.” More than 130 academics, civil society, social and human rights activists took part at the meeting that was addressed by Messrs Kazem Yazdani (historian), Assad Booda (professor of sociology and social scientist) and Shiva Shargh (journalist and MA student of Literature).
Mr. Rooholamin Amini (moderator from Armanshahr) began by presenting Armanshahr’s latest publication, “Simorgh’s Feather” anthology. He said: The anthology before you is a selection of the works collected from all over the world following a call on the occasion of the International Day of Peace. The central thrust of the Simorgh Peace Prize is the revisiting of our collective memory. All the works sent in dealt with abomination of war, rejection of violence, war victims and praise of peace. Writing down the oral history of this land was another goal we aimed to achieve through the Simorgh Peace Prize. The realities of the society have never been reflected in the official history as a result of the rule of despotic and dictatorial governments. Official history has kept silent on the suffering and pain of the people throughout successive decades of despotism, war and migration. Thus, we set out to compile a part of people’s inner narrations as spoken by poets and writers who live among them and know their suffering first hand. Simorgh’s Feather contains some of those poems; it has been published and made available to you. Another elegant edition containing English and Dari Persian versions of some of the poems will soon appear. We have decided to tell the international community in English what our people think; how much they detest the war and we understand a lot if we get the opportunity to express ourselves.
The first speaker to address the meeting was Mr. Kazem Yazdani who offered different definitions of history:
Knowledge of history is very significant. No matter how intelligent a human, history accounts for half of their achievements. History of every nation is its memory. A people who are not informed of the ups and downs in their past resemble a person who has forgotten everything as a result of an accident and must start everything anew. We shall learn great lessons if we looked back at the history of Afghanistan in the past 50 years.
The most important question is why the people in Afghanistan show little interest in history. There may be different reasons for that, including general poverty and lack of financial power to purchase books, illiteracy and lack of awareness, disregard and lack of interest of political leaders, and negligence of the media. The most important reason for lack of interest in history, however, lies at the heart of history of Afghanistan: distortion, forgery, deformity and one-sided approach to history.
We may critique our official history from different angles, for example:
1. Archaeological excavations show that this land was inhabited since 5,000 years ago, but the history of Afghanistan has kept silent on the pre-Aryan indigenous inhabitants of the land.
2. The written history is inundated with discrimination and one-sidedness, where only the history of ruling people has been reported and even that has not been a proper and comprehensive one. This country is a multi-ethnic country where all groups have played roles, made sacrifices and showed heroism; there is, however, no mention of them. For instance, all ethnic groups of Afghanistan were present at the Battle of Maiwand (1880), where the British forces suffered a heavy defeat and showed heroism, but all the glory is assigned to Miss Malalai, who is known as a national heroine now. Her name, however, gained reputation under the regime of House of Yahya and there has been no mention of her in historical reference works, for example in Al-Waghaya or in Bahr ul-Ghawa’ed of Yosuf Riazi or in Saraj ut-Tawarikh, which are the original sources on the Battle of Maiwand. On the other hand, there were other heroes such as Colonel Shir Mohammad Khan Hazara, whose name is not mentioned in official history and there are no centres named after him. Furthermore, the Pot Khazaneh, which is a forged book, has created several imaginary heroes such as Amir Korour, Sheikh Paymand, Assad Souri and others none of whom ever existed.
3. On the other hand, monarchical dynasties such as the Ludian and Sourian of India, which have nothing to do with the history of this land, had occupied some chapters in the history of Afghanistan. The Shaybani, Jami Beig, Uzbek kings who ruled in Balkh or the Hazara kings have been ignored and there is no mention of them in the official history of Afghanistan. Therefore, when history is full of distortion and forgery, it will not interest anybody.
The second speaker, Mr. Assad Booda, referring to the Victims Week, said the title of his speech was Atrocity, Forgetting and Forgiving:
I have chosen this title on purpose to point out the superficial views of Afghanistan that speak of cliché, mouth-filling concepts such as democracy and human rights in very bad ways rather than seeking to find the roots of issues in Afghanistan. My second reason for choosing that title is to address the relationship of thought and morals; not abstract and heavenly morals, but morals that recognise human suffering and pain, e.g. Theodor Adorno’s thought that addresses victims.
We all know the concept and definition of atrocity. The history of Afghanistan is a history of blood and atrocity. From the burnt lands policy of the Hutakian to the horrendous massacres under Abdulrahman Khani, when the cultural and historical foundations of the country were destroyed, to the dark period under the Communists, the Mujahidin and the Taliban to the present day of Kabul’s ruins, they all represent the catastrophic history of Afghanistan. The most important topic of thought must be this: Should we forget the past? Should we accept the theory of the ruling power that we should not remember the past because we are seeking national unity? Is it possible to forget? Is that optional? What are the ethical and social consequences of forgiving the atrocities? Even if we forget, which is impossible, can we forgive? Who has the right to forgive? The people who have suffered the atrocities or the political leaders and statesmen?
Humans cannot forget atrocities and this is where issues such as collective memory, forgetting or forgiving come up. A forgetting society is an animal society. Forgetting is not a personal but a societal matter. It is a human action to remember or to forget.
There are three levels of memory or forgetting. First, there is pathological forgetting that concerns the psychological consequences of the atrocities. Can we forget the victims? Second, there is enforced or political forgetting imposed by the powerful and the statesmen; this is the type we face in Afghanistan. For example the History Society or the History Tolana has published about 1,700 history titles, but there has been no mention of atrocities in them. Then there is enforced memory in the history of Afghanistan, i.e. history of Afghanistan has been enforced history making, and forgetting has also been enforced.
The last concept, i.e. forgiving, concerns a topic called “guilt”. Karl Jaspers has identified four types of guilt in his book “Die Schuldfrage”: 1. Criminal guilt, when somebody has directly perpetrated a crime, e.g. has killed a victim; 2. Political guilt, when leaders and decision makers have ordered a crime; 3. Ethical guilt, when some people forget the victims for example; 4. Metaphysical guilt, which destroys the foundations of humanity or human solidarity. We have a verse in the Koran, too: “Anybody who kills a person has killed a society.” The various thinkers believe that the fourth category of guilt is unforgettable.
These ideas will show us what we should remember and what to forget. Can we forget the victims? Can we forgive the wrong done to the principle of humanity? What will be the consequence of forgiving? Certainly, a repetition of atrocity.
Dr. Mohieddin Mahdi (MP in the second parliament) was expected as the third speaker, but he failed to appear, even though he had confirmed half an hour before the meeting, that he would attend. The meeting organisers chose Mr. Shiva Shargh to speak instead. Mr. Shargh emphasised the concept of identity to argue that the history of Afghanistan is a ‘superseded history’:
In superseded history, there is not a pluralist view. One feature of superseded history is that it cannot express all historical, cultural, human and social realities of the society with consideration for ethnic groups and their lineages. A glance at the history of Afghanistan, in the History of Bayhaqi, Saraj ut-Tawarikh, Katib-e Hazara, books by Mir Mohammad Sadiq and Mr. Ghobar, writers of different periods, would indicate that they do not contain a historical experience approach. An extensive part of the society, encompassing various nationalities, cultures and civilisations, is not present there. That has to do with historical determinism which we have been facing in our history. We have suffered from historical censorship as a result of the rule of totalitarian, dictatorial and fascist powers. The origin of historical censorship and determinism in Afghanistan has been ethnic supremacy. Many ethnic groups and nationalities are absent from our history of the past 300 years.
We are suffering from lack of identity in Afghanistan today and that problem cannot be resolved by superseded and distorted history. One consequence of superseded history is historical depression that does not allow inquisitiveness. But the most important consequence is the absence of a court of history. Thus, the self-appointed ethnic leaders, political leaders and others in power have become pioneers of justice and equality and there are efforts to make historical catastrophe forgotten.
What is to be done? We have to collect and compile historical documents and evidence and rewrite history.
In Question-Answer time, Mr. Jawad Darwaziyan asked one question to each speaker. His question to Mr. Booda was: Women are not present in this history. How do you explain this control on history? Booda answered: I call that policy making for memory, which politicians do and that has happened in the case of Afghanistan.
The second question, to Mr. Yazdani, was: “Why do we not have a social history in Afghanistan?” Mr. Yazdani answered: The history of historiography is short in Afghanistan. The more ideas and thoughts grow, the more will history grow. History has a value when it reflects the realities. However, history of Afghanistan has concentrated mainly on persons and rulers and the general public, e.g. the women, is not present there.
The third question, to Mr. Shiva Shargh, was: “You are emphasising tribalism in the past 300 years, but that phenomenon has existed longer.” Shiva Shargh said: Prior to those 300 years, our history was not censored as much. Since then, there has been ethnic hegemonism and supremacy. Our history is patriarchal in spirit and so is our literature. That is why we do not see any sign of women throughout the history.
In conclusion, two participants from the audience criticised the dishonest attitude of the speakers. Mojib Mehrdad said: Even though you spoke of the dishonesty in the official history, all your examples represented oppression by the superior ethnic group and you failed to make any mention of the suffering of that group. The same ethnic group has suffered the highest number of victims in the war. Women of that ethnic group are the most deprived women in this country. As you mentioned the massacre at the hand of Abdulrahman khan, similarly you should mention the incident at Dasht-e Lailee.
Drs. Alema also criticised Mr. Yazdani’s mention of women’s heroism during the jihad as persons who cooked for the mujahidin, saying: You always refer to the role of women during the jihad as cooks waiting at the pots etc., while women are the first opponents and the first losers of the war in Afghanistan. Whenever you want to remember the women, you mention their sacrifices during the jihad, but you forget them at decisive moments. Mujahidin founded the atrocities committed against the women under the Taliban.
To view the publication related to this Goftegu, please refer to the following links:
گذری بر ویرانههای جنگ، تصویر عینی جنگ، سفرنامه هرات – ۱۳۶۸
Invitation for 65th Goftegu Public Debate: «Re-visiting our collective memory»
