Third Round of Youth Symposium for Peace & Tolerance | Heart – Afghanistan
The third round of Youth Symposiums for Peace & Tolerance – Herat province, initiated by the Afghanistan Economic and Legal Studies Organization (AELSO) has been successfully organized in the Fraksion office, Jibrail Township of Herat Province on 22nd of October 2020.
Along with Mr. Ali Naqi Fayyaz and Najibullah Nikzad (Fraksion’s office incharge in Herat province), number of youths, university students & lecturers, religious scholars, cultural & social activists were among the participants of this program.
The speakers and participants of the program comprehensively discussed about peace, tolerance and other free society values as well as promoting these values as a way of ending the ongoing war violence. They also shaded some lights on the importance of promoting culture of tolerance for ensuring peace and ending the ongoing war and violence in the country.
At the beginning of the symposium, Mr. Najibullah Nikzad, head of the of the Fraksion (Change and Stability) office, thanked all the participants for their participation and dedication, and expressed his pleasure for such programs being organized in Herat Province. He encouraged the youths for playing their parts in promoting the values of peace, prosperity and mutual acceptance in the country.
After that, our provincial fellow in Herat province also thanked all the participants and provided detailed information about the third round of the Youth Symposium for Peace and Tolerance as well as other academic initiatives of the Afghanistan Economic & Legal Studies Organization (AELSO).
He said:
“”the honor of successfully organizing such programs in this critical time goes back to all the hard-working and committed youth of Herat province, who have made this possible through the initiative taken by the Afghanistan Economic and Legal Studies Organization (AELSO).
Later, Mr. Ali Naqi Fayyaz, University lecturer, while appreciating the Afghanistan Economic and Legal Studies Organization (AELSO) for organizing such symposiums across the country particularly in Herat province, scrutinized the challenges ahead of democracy and promoting democratic and human right values in Afghanistan, and answered participants questions and concerns in this regard.
Mr. Fayyaz spoke about the lack of institutionalization of real democracy in Afghanistan and considered the classic and irrational perceptions from religious texts as well as the lack of modern rationality within the government as the main challenges in front of educating and institutionalizing democracy in Afghanistan.
He added:
“Rationality, meritocracy, mutual acceptance, and equality are the main components of the modern rationality. But unfortunately most of the leadership cadres of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan are lacking these and other components of the modern rationality.
Mr. Fayyaz also divided the challenges in front of educating the values of human rights in Afghanistan into two categories namely Islam and Liberalism discourses.
He then divided the challenges of the Liberalism discourse in Afghanistan into Absolutism and Relativism, talking in that context he said: In the Absolutism debate, not all human beings are equal because individuals are divided in that debate, but in the relativism debate, there is no difference among human beings. He also spoke about other challenges such as ethnic rationality, gender rationality and linguistic rationality.
Fayyaz considered superstitious perceptions of religion as one of the main challenges and said: “The religion has no issue with human rights in principle, but unfortunately today it is superstitious believes that have overshadowed our religious values and created many challenges for us.
At the end of his speech, Mr. Fayyaz divided the role of youths in promoting democracy and human rights in the academic institutions into two parts, Operational & Theoretical, and explained the solutions to this problem by answering the questions in this regard.
The program also had a Q&A session where participant’s questions and queries have been answered by the keynote speakers.
At the end of the symposium, the participants were slotted into separate groups where they discussed about the pre-assigned questions and the main points of the discussions have been presented by the representatives of each and every group with the other participants.
The third round of Youth symposium for peace and tolerance – Herat Province, ended up with wishing for a free, prosperous and peaceful Afghanistan along with distributing certificate of participation for the participants and clicking a group photo.
October 22, 2020
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