Towards Mental Reforms: Ahmad Reza Taheri
Dr. Narayan Bhosale: As long as our recorded history tells, peoples of the world have always suffered from despotic, repressive, and dogmatic attitudes or actions of few ignorant self-interested rulers. These rulers could be monarchs, kings, queens, tribal chiefs, bishops, clerics, etc.
Our history tells us that how people were tortured to death simply because of having different attitudes towards religion or God. It tells us that how poor women were killed because of the arrogant behavior of men. Our history also reminds us, "we" as states and societies, so many times, reformed our own laws to live better. Unfortunately, because of the narrow-mindedness of our elders/rulers/politicians, so many lives sacrificed for nothing.
However, fortunately, many societies initiated reforms for the good of humanity. They fought despotism through reforms. Yet, many others are in the process of reforms.
Even today, despite developments in technology and communication, immature societies can be found everywhere, especially in the developing world. Women as one major section of the society are suffering from this cultural immaturity. In a class society, for women, there are two types of exploitation known as "class" and "patriarchy." In a caste system like India, there are three types of exploitation, such as "class", "patriarchy", and "caste." The same more or less can be true with a Muslim society like Balochistan (as is one of the issues of concern) where sources of women exploitation are "patriarchy" and "religious fundamentalism."
Well, in order to reform our closed societies, we need to reform ourselves first. There are many factors, which without fighting them we cannot reform ourselves. These can be found between the lines in this book.
This book follows a descriptive analytical approach, which is a collection of selected works (2007-2009) of Ahmad Reza Taheri, an Iranian academician. The author, in the beginning, deals with his own traditional society of Balochistan in which for thousands of years has not been reformed. He then deals briefly with the problems of the (Muslim) developing world by reviewing their political developments. He is critical of the developing world on the issue of "world politics" and blames not the western powers, but the developing world itself for providing such an atmosphere. The author also tries to relate the role of humanities in the development of human character by referring to the contemporary developments.
In short, as a very good attempt, this book tries to fight dogmatism. It should be noted, this present work under various parts/sections is mainly designed to explain and analyze the social problems of the Islamic world. I indeed congratulate Ahmad Reza Taheri for this excellent work.
Dr. Narayan Bhosale (PhD History)
A Post-Doctoral Fellow at Indian Council of Historical Research, New-Delhi,
And
Research Associate at the Yashwantrao Chavan National Center of International Security & Defense Analysis,
University of Pune,
Pune, India
December 2009
