Editor in Chief: Moh. Reza Huwaida Saturday, April 20th, 2024

What is unity?

|

What is unity?

Unity is the act of joining together and living together under a nondiscriminatory political system in order to achieve national goals. In the meantime, political systems, more importantly the educational system, media and elites are to establish a deeper collective feeling of coexistence. This feeling of national unity is extremely required for leading the nation towards its progress and prosperity and this feeling of national unity helps strengthen the nation and promotes peace and love in a country. It gives people sense of security for they are able to know each other better and understand each other’s sensitivity. Unity promotes cooperation and opens opportunity to excellence.  
People living in Afghanistan, somewhat, belong to different castes, religion and ethnic origins. This diversity of caste, colors, religions, languages and cultures is our own identity. They are like different flowers in a garden. The beauty of the garden lies in the varieties of its flowers and fragrance. This is the unique feature of Afghanistan. Whatever caste, creed, culture and customs we follow, we are all Afghani the beautiful flowers of the same garden, Afghanistan. We should think that the progress of the country is our own progress while its misfortune is the misfortune of every Afghan Citizen. Thus, there should be unity in diversity in Afghanistan - the main basis to strengthen the feeling of unity among. According to national and international law, the first important principle of peaceful life is equity and equality regardless of their race, language, culture, color, religion and gender.
Any unity which doesn't have its origin in the multitudes is tyranny. In fact, unity in diversity is a concept of "unity without uniformity and diversity without fragmentation that shifts focus from unity based on a mere tolerance of physical, cultural, linguistic, social, religious, political, ideological and/or psychological differences towards a more complex unity based on an understanding that difference enriches human interactions. “Unity in diversity" is a popular motto within and among nation states, and also in political and social movements. But the deep feeling of unity is not formed by motto or using good words it must come out from national will through creating good educational system, good legal system and over all good political system. So, we should note that unity is beyond slogans or paternal advices!  It is not achieved unless we truly believe in it and realize the common law that one should love his neighbor as himself. Promotion of this feeling is crucial to lead the nation or the world towards its progress, prosperity and sincere brotherhood. It is the only way that increase trust, sympathy and general collaboration against social disorders or foreign aggressions. It gives people sense of security so as to know each other better and understand each other’s sensitivity. It can unite and promotes co-operation and opens opportunity to excellence.
In the other words, no country has ever reached the blessing of unity without social justice. It is highly important that new generation of Afghanistan deeply believe that social justice and meritocracy are an underlying principle for peaceful and prosperous life within and among nations. We uphold the principles of social justice when we promote rights of minority groups, gender equality, children and other vulnerable people. Genuinely, we cannot become one unless we remove all barriers that people face because of gender, age, race, ethnicity, religion, culture or disability. Also, the government should advance social justice to remove barriers that people face because of gender, age, race, ethnicity, religion, culture, disability and replacing tradition to legal justice system. On the other hand, the mass should also play a central role in electing good leaders. They must vote on the basis of ones’ patriotic commitment, meritocracy and background profile. they have to be aware to vote for leaders who unite, not divide and distinguish that they are real representative of Afghan people not any second countries.
Therefore, unity and national integration must be the main agenda of the country government, especially the country’s leaders. Various genuine mottos and strategies need to be organized for the purpose of fostering unity and relationship among races by means of various policies.  In addition, it is the responsibility of religious scholar, ministry of culture and education to aware new generation differentiates between general peaceful spirit of holy Quran and hatred interpretations imposed by extremists. We must accept unity in diversity as one of unbreakable principle in our social and political platforms. People should be taught that religious faithwa (degree) is only issued by credible addresses under certain terms and conditions.
Finally, we must learn from vast political experience available in today’s world; it was the power of unity that changed the destiny of many war-torn countries both in eastern, western and also European countries. No race or tribe can be dignified alone; In Africa, When the Apartheid of Republic of South Africa celebrated 20 years of independence on 31 May 1981, the theme of the celebrations was "unity in diversity" as a cynical attempt to explain away the inequalities in South African life but Anti-apartheid campaigners opposed these celebrations and called on runners of the Comrades Marathon to protest at the co-option of the event by wearing a black armband. The winner of the race, Bruce Fordyce, was one of those wearing a black armband. This term has since been incorporated into the preamble of the 1996 Constitution of South Africa as a central tenet of the new South Africa. In short, we should believe if there is no unity, no rescue.

zakir Akbari is the newly emerging writer of the Daily Outlook Afghanistan. He can be reached at outlookafghanistan@gmai.com

Go Top