Monday, February 21, 2011

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Once upon a time, a colleague of mine posed a direct question to me. "Afdal (Afzal) do you think, one day in Saudi Arabia would be same like Europe?" I was standing by his desk along with another colleague, while forth one was sitting on a desk so close, that he too was listening to our conversation. The department was of the management employees and all of them including Saudi Nationals were too been educated from western educational institutions. My reply was positive backing-up my argument with descriptive narratives of internal migration in Kingdom with new development, breaking down old relations of tribal bonds, creating new neighbors, new colleagues in work place, new relationships between different tribes by removing the old perceptions of low and high tribal background and also in terms of the social status. This new picture of the society was very much visible by common people that was replacing it by new norms of high and low positions such as Doctors, Engineers, Professors in opposition to labors, clerks, nurse etc. All of a sudden, he stopped the conversation by saying "Afdal (Afzal) haram haram.” Afterwards when I was walking with my colleague who was standing by me, was told the secret by saying, "Afdal (Afzal), do you know, why he said haram haram?" I shook my head with negative sign by saying "no, I don't know.” "He was scared, because he thought may be our colleague who was sitting on to the next desk, could be an under cover or may be, he would have thought, that you, yourself could be an undercover," he said.
All of them were Saudi Nationals. This was the state of affairs in that society. There for to the best of my understanding, it is a natural development, opening-up itself now, moving towards proper democracy, proper justice system, pluralism, freethinking, human rights of individuals and dignity, may be an essential base of a society for creativity, discovery and innovation in today's term. No society can stay static and survive. It would die down as in history had happended with, the religious empires such as Christians, or Muslims and also with Nation states empires such as British, French, or Dutch. There fore the slogans for Caliph, or Holly Kingdoms are the backward reactions in the process of human advancement into a new domain of human understanding.

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