Afghanistan’s politics may take years until it reaches to a maturity when the tradition of positive and healthy criticism will be established and practiced. We are not sure when politicians will learn to criticize the others decently and within the given boundaries and also to welcome and tolerate the positive criticism from others. For the time being, it looks as if criticism is the most easy and lousy job in the country. Easy in a sense that it is not limited for anyone, starting from President to a minor employee of the municipal corporation are good in criticizing others. Lousy in a way that most of these criticisms are carried out without taking care of the norms and standards in this regard.
Everyone becomes the target of this criticism and most helpless is the president who is blamed for all the problems in the country. If roads of capital are not paved properly, president is to be blamed, if terrorists carry out any attack, president is blamed, if politicians or government officials accept bribe, president is blamed, if our neighbors interfere in the affairs of state, president is blamed and even if some girls in a remote village are poisoned by unknown elements, president is blamed. It is rather a soft target because when a person is being beaten by a large number of people, it doesn’t make much difference if one more person joins the feast. I don’t defend the president but it should not be forgotten that we can never blame others for our mistakes and baseless criticism would do no good for anyone.
After that comes the turn of politicians, ministers and high-ups in the government and it is the only faction for which I feel no mercy. According to a secret statistical report, all the big businesses, banks, vast properties and other valuable things in country are owned by a limited number of people who are either in politics or ministers or are their relatives. It means, the money that was aimed for the rebuilding country has largely been eaten by these limited number of people. Ministers are mostly criticized for their corruption, nepotism, interference in the matters of state and even nurturing and backing the criminal groups to protect their businesses or bring out their own secret agendas. Unfortunately, most of these allegations are true as is visible by their uncontrollable power and assets of millions of dollars which is a point of great concern for the representatives of a country which depends on foreign donations to meet its domestic expenses.
Third biggest shareholder in this criticism are the international forces and troops who are criticized for a number of reasons like carrying out heedless military operations and killing of innocent citizens, intimidating and harassing the public transport on the highways and plundering the natural resources of country. We are not sure about the health of these accusations but still such criticisms revolve in air.
After this comes a long list starting from the city mayor, to the warlords, the police officers and even the religious clerics and doctors who are criticized for not performing their duties very well. The shopkeepers are criticized for not doing business honestly while government clerks are criticized for working less and demanding more.
In some worst cases, you might have seen on television channels even using bad language against the others especially when the matters shrink down from the general to the personal.
If the trend continued in the same way, day will come when the criticism will lose its meaning and effect and it will be taken as something normal and then the positive or constructive criticism will also lose its meaning. In the same way, the one who is criticized will stop feeling any guilt and would listen to all these things with a smile and the weight and severity of words would not entice him for the desired action or reply.
When we talk of this increasing criticism, we should also ask if it has given the desired results or not. As it is visible, it has not only lost its effect, it has also not given any kind of positive result. Nobody can claim that because of his criticism, anyone like the president, ministers, foreign troops, warlords, businessmen, terrorist groups or others changed their style of thinking and route of his actions. In the same way, no one can say that he made a person or organization carry out a specific work with his criticism.
But this criticism has definitely given birth to many shameful incidents and situations that have greatly deteriorated the general reputation and image of country, its organs, its politicians and its general public in the eyes of its own citizens and in the international community. In a limited time, our parliament was successful to be included in one of the few legislative bodies of the world where papers are torn, chairs are thrown, bad language is used and in some worst cases, people get into physical quarrel with each other. Parliament is considered a very respectable place where mature and polite behaviors are exhibited by the most decent and honorable members elected by the people but our parliament is a place where most impolite manners of shouting and addressing others are practiced and it is a shameful scenario for all of us.
This negative criticism has definitely given birth to so many serious consequences. Many journalists have been physically harmed or threatened due to their criticism and now most of them feel seriously concerned before criticizing anyone who can inflict any serious harm on them. In the same way, many strong politicians have turned the enemies of each other and now they keep themselves heavily guarded with the fear of attack from the enemy and their family members pass their days under constant threat to their lives.
Baseless criticism also discourages those who are doing their jobs honestly. There may be many politicians or ministers who may be performing their duties honestly but when they are also criticized without realizing the true facts, they get disappointed from their good acts.
When almost all the countries of the world came to Afghanistan with their money and forces to re-establish it, people shouted that Afghanistan would be turned into a developed country in no time but when more than a decade past and general conditions of country did not change a lot, there were many who criticized the allies of Afghanistan for not performing their functions properly. On the other hand, it is also on the record that we are the second most corrupt nation in the world and our general public is badly addicted to luxurious life that should be earned with least efforts. With such a general approach, it is impossible that the fate of country should change because our allies may change our cities and infrastructure but they may never change our characters and habits.
Positive criticism is a good habit which is especially needed to run the affairs of government without violence but for this it is necessary that it should be done with all the standards and norms and we can learn these from other civilized nations of the world. Till then, we should better be weighing our words before throwing them on others.