Saturday, May 17, 2008

Do I have the right to use my mind ?


Should I apply my reason only to things confined to my country of citizenship, or do I have the right to observe, study, and build a reasonable informed opinion on things related to the rest of the world ?

As a great admirer or travelers and observers, Ibn Battuta was always a long-time hero for me. He travelled from Morocco to Central Asia, Afghanistan, China and the Arabic peninsula. He was an acute observer and "journalist", commenting on local habits, and often acting as a judge, using his wisdom and common sense.

No one has infinite knowledge, but wisdom and common sense are universal tools that one can apply in China as well as in Timbouctou.

But today I am more and more weary of the criticism of change in sectarian societies: change (especially in the sense of open democracy and separation of religion and state) is bad, because change comes from the outside. Change is a new form of colonialism, with soft power.

There is a legitimate suspicion in that criticism. Even if it is flawed, I can understand it because by definition it comes from closed societies.

That is why change should mostly come from within one country's borders. The biggest job is done in the field by local, grassroots NGOs.

Let only the Egyptian NGOs tackle FGM in Egypt, only Jordanian NGOs tackle "honor killings" in Jordan, only Muslim NGOs tackle women's rights in Islam, only Israeli NGOs criticize Israel.
Not because they're the only ones who share these principles and values. But because they -at least- cannot be accused of neo-colonialism and of being insensitive to local cultures.

My conclusion, after years of working with NGOs is, maybe there is no place yet in the world outside Euro-America, for a cosmopolitan community of observers of Politics, a fraternity of freethinkers, because at the local level there will always be the obstacle of  "if you don't come from here, you have no right saying what you think because it just means you want to impose your values".

No amount of time traveling, studying customs and languages can give the legitimacy needed by closed societies in order to listen to new ideas and think about changing.

But it's vital that we look beyond our own problems, that we imagine solutions.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

i think you're giving up too early!!just as i was expecting !!
and to answer your question..
yes , you should use your mind!!!
anyway it was a nice trial from you...
you only need to drink a cup of coffee in each country in the middle-east to at last use your mind and decide to withdraw...again that's what i have expected...
you're absolutely right...but don't try to generalize, and try to resemble Ibn Batouta...
oneday ..in the coming days , we will help you -genuinely- to better understand your
Euro-American history and society. ...

nevertheless, it was nice knowing you .
good luck
D

Anonymous said...

Of course, the post sounded so. Don't worry I did not really give anything up. I just changed my aproach that's all. Listening more, and just be there to suggest, but in the end, it's the victims who will change the system.