Language is a powerful tool that can turn the content of the human intellectual world into words. Human conversation, in keeping with the prevailing knowledge of each society, also gives thoughts concrete form in an honorable and honest way. Every child, every student, every woman and man, and every human being, at some point faces the question of whether to speak or not to speak. But the question of speaking or staying silent, beyond its psychological dimensions for the individual, is directly tied to the political system governing a country. Present-day Afghanistan not only lacks systemic stability, but the blade of censorship produces silence in every sphere, and the ruling structure, instead of moving toward equilibrium, continually reproduces the crises and fractures that already exist in society. Political life in Afghanistan unfolds far removed from any internationally accepted convention, fair trial procedures, active citizen participation, and the transparent criteria for the durability and continuity of a political and legal system as defined in the international arena. The blade of censorship and the suffocating atmosphere have targeted the throat of every progressive idea, and the socio-political crisis in Afghanistan deepens with each passing day.
The current situation in Afghanistan cannot easily be fitted into the prevailing theories of international relations, because we are dealing with a complex, closed, and anarchic system. If we define stability as “the durability and continuity of relations among the variables of a system,” then systems are either unstable and moving toward disequilibrium, or stable. Stable systems, in turn, either exist in a state of equilibrium or strive to achieve greater equilibrium. In Afghanistan, however, we are not facing “lasting systemic stability,” the kind of stability that could provide a foundation for progress, growth, and a decent life for citizens. The ruling despotism continually deepens “control and security stability” through instruments of repression. A broad wave of poverty and unemployment, the flight of elites and capital, severe censorship, ethnocentrism, gender apartheid, the destruction and neglect of the environment, and dozens of other crises all bear witness to this instability. Under such conditions, the silence that arises from blockage inflicts fundamental and deep damage on the imagination, analytical capacity, and dynamism of society.
Systems theory reminds us that a society or political structure is not a mechanical and lifeless construct, but a “living and dynamic organism” in which all components and variables contribute to one another’s stability. In a healthy system with organic stability, there is a phenomenon called “feedback mechanisms,” meaning mechanisms such as criticism, freedom of expression, civil institutions, and citizen participation, which allow the system to identify its own internal errors and readjust itself. Afghanistan today presents a clear picture of the complete inversion of this systemic logic. The ruling despotism has mistaken naked repression for “stability.” From a systemic perspective, total repression only creates a kind of “coercive and dead equilibrium,” a condition in which all of society’s safety valves are blocked, and the system has entirely lost the ability to correct its own behavior. Instead of producing equilibrium, this condition leads to the formation of a “negative and self-destructive feedback loop.” Poverty, the flight of human capital, and the complete elimination of half of the society’s organism, namely women, are not separate phenomena. Rather, they are variables that intensify one another and push the structure toward internal erosion. Therefore, a society in which language has been cut off as an instrument of assessment and critique resembles a system that has lost all of its sensory receptors. Such a system cannot withstand internal and external shocks, because its vital variables are not regenerating and growing, but are on a path of decay and disintegration from within.
A society armed with the instrument of language can decide its direction, whether to remain silent or to speak. A child can have the opportunity to think instead of receiving ideological instruction, and citizens can demand a decent life. As Aristotle speaks of the “rational animal,” depriving a human being of language is in effect emptying him of a part of his humanity. If we look at censorship through the lens of realist assumptions, we encounter the premise that human nature is filled with a desire for power. Therefore, the question arises: where does a voiceless human being release his inner potential and power of resistance? History testifies that this silence does not mean that citizens have been deprived of the power of thought, but rather that political life has been transferred beneath the skin of society. This accumulated energy releases itself through other channels: in underground study circles that keep the lamp of intellectual dynamism burning; in diaspora awareness-raising networks; in the formation of armed resistance against despotism; in the formation of a collective wisdom that, more with each passing day, challenges the foundations of harsh and rigid traditionalism; and in the fundamental rejection of the ruling ideology in the minds of the new generation. The speaking human being may fall silent temporarily, but the levers of thought within him do not stop working.
Perhaps society in Afghanistan, following its experience of this suffocation and repression by religious extremists, will reconsider the link between religion and despotic monarchy once and for all, lose its interest in political Islam, and, in a new leap, looking toward a bright tomorrow, envision a progressive and secular system.
You can read the Persian version of this analysis article here:
