Friends:
What used to be the most unstable area in the world, is going through a phase of realignment probably for a better and more pragmatic Middle East in the time to come. This realignment is part of the world-wide repositioning that started after the fall of the Soviet Union. The loss of the Soviet Union as a challenger to the West and the ceasure of the cold war, created a vacuum forcing a new competition, around the world. The turmoil that followed is definitely not over as yet. However, crystallization process has started and the liquid state of the new order is forming new polarization to cling to the new realities on the ground. Middle East is no exception to the rule. Being the supplier of the main source of energy around the world, Middle East does have the power of cash and wealth that would create new faces of the crystallization process and might even force the world to rethink about the status quo of the image of the Middle East. The future of the Middle East, in many ways would be shaped, based on the following factors and the new realities:
Iran's New Power Base:
The single most beneficiary from the recent wars in the Middle East has been an outsider, a country that has been trying desperately to make some headway in its pursuit of international recognition. They have been waiting on the wings to make some gains in terms of its relationship with the Middle Eastern countries. It was a blessing for them that was never intended in the first place. Turn of events somehow, has fulfilled their dreams of having a strong foothold in the Middle East along side other major players. Fall of Saddam Hussein has created a tremendous opportunity that they have been ushered with and they have taken the full advantage of the vacuum created in the area. Arming and training the Hezbollah in Lebanon, along with a formidable ally Syria, they have been able to establish a chain of power base in the area that stretches right across the heart of the Middle East. Their open west bashing technique has been working well for them and they are gaining new grounds over their competing forces in the area. Their links to Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, and other countries are creating a new wave of realization among the radicals and moderates alike.
The Shiaa and Sunni divide is even wining them new friends in the area. While the Sunni base is much larger, they are able to chip away the mass from underneath with their open social programs targeting the very poor. Their tacit support from the poor Sunnis is alarming for most of the Sunni lead governments in the area. While their support base remains to be the radical Shiaas, they have sympathetic and tacit support from the mass, who otherwise feels that the Sunni leadership is very much sold out to the west. For the first time in the history of Iran's post revolution, the ruling clerics have an ally in the executive government. Most of the ex-governments have played a more balanced role representing the moderate mass. The emergence of an ultra conservative government has sent red signals around and are bound to create new waves in the area creating new allies who are opposed to the western style democratic institutions. Other countries who are likely to fall into their laps are Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Algeria, Morocco, and may well be Yemen and Tunisia.
The Faltering Sunni Power Base
While the Shiaa population have doubled over the last decade, the Sunni population have waned considerably during the same time. Shiaas are becoming more known for their uncompromising attitude to the west and as such are being branded as the true defenders of Islam by the fellow Moslems. Recent war between Hizbollah and Israel have fermented a new thought among even the most liberal Islam that Shiaas would eventually defend Islam from the expansionist forces in the area and would lead the Moslems to victory as has been professed in Islamic scholars by many scholars. The closely neat shiaa community have shown the rest of the Islam that they are better organized as a community and that they are supportive of each other and that the pyramid structure of the community leadership is the true representation of Islamic living. This is just one of the strengths that have caught eyes of the poor Sunnis, who in spite of their wealth have failed to share that evenly with the poor.
While the Sunnis dominate the governance of the Islamic world, they lack a coordinated plan for their future as a community other than laying the bricks for some lavishly furnished and decorated mosques around in the poor Sunni nations. Shiaas on the other hand have built schools, managed a well coordinated education system that even reaches the houses of the very poor, housing for the homeless and the system for community loans for the very poor have uplifted the very spirits that binds them as a community. These are being noticed by all and are being talked about at great lengths in the houses and the coffee shops around. The lingering effect are being felt everywhere. The recent war between the Hezbollah and Israel was another scorer. For the first time, after so many wars with the Sunni Governments, a non governing entity has proven to the world what a small disciplined army can do to the one of the strongest armies around the globe. Even the gulf nations was startled by the outcome that took even the ruler of Qatar make public statements in favor of Hezbollah.
The Palestinians were left in the wilderness for about a year for electing a pro Islamic government. All aids were denied to them for expressing their democratic wishes. Who stood by them?..guess what..a Shiite government giving aid to a Sunni government in peril and dire need for funds. The Moslem world in the Middle East woke up in horror watching themselves being engulfed into a format of new lines in the sand being drawn by a non- Arab nation. A new realization is born. Pan Arabism is waning fast giving a new road map for a Pan Islamism lead by a non Arab nation.
The outcome of all these are shifting sands in the Middle East. The concept of Pan Arabism is being replaced by a different face of Islam that has the mantle for more radicalism and an alignment that has brought new nations into the equation.
to be continued...
Rial
Saturday, May 5, 2007
Friday, May 4, 2007
The Dynamics of Human Relationships Current mood: creative
Human relationships are very delicate matters and require tremendous inner site to understand the dimensions that initiates and manages these relationships. Human relationships are based on three very distinct phenomenons. One is driven by the chemical affinity that exists between two individuals as per law of chemical theory, the second is driven by the biological needs and the spirituality or the inner sphere of the sub-conscious minds drives the third depends on the telepathic connectioons.
The Chemical Bond of Relationship:
As you can imagine why two elements bond together and form a very different substance than what two elements individually used to be. The chemical affinity between two elements exists because of the way the elements are structured chemically. There are deficiencies and surpluses in the way that elements are structured. Based on the need and thirst to become more stable in nature, the elements look for other elements that has what they are deficient in and once there is a good mutual match between the deficiencies and surpluses the elements bond together and give rise to new substance in nature. Water is the greatest example of such an affinity between hydrogen and oxygen. If you compare this to the human you would see a very similar phenomenon. Our structures have the deficiencies and surpluses and that we get attracted to the people who seem to have what we don’t and vice versa. The deficiencies of life should be looked at ones mission in life. Allah has created us with a mission and each person has strengths and weaknesses embedded into him or her. In order to be able to fulfill ones mission in life, they have to utilize their own strengths and get help from others who seem to have the strengths that one lacks in. This process has a conscious part and a sub-conscious part. The conscious part forms an outcome relationship that is often looked at friendship and the one that is controlled by the sub-conscious leads to love. This is the “click” factor of our love relationship. One does not know why suddenly one feels attracted to another…. It just clicks…
The Biological Bond of Relationship
Majority of our physical relations are based on the biological make of our body. A male and female get involved in love relationship based first on the chemical bond and then on the biological need and thus they reproduce and keep the human chain alive.
Spiritual/Telepathic bond of RelationshipsVincent Paradis in one of his websites http://members.aol.com/vin6mar/esp.html writes "Tele" is from the Greek word meaning, far off, from a distance. "Pathy" derives also from a Greek word meaning, to feel. Thus, telepathy basically means to feel something from a distance. The dictionary defines telepathy as "apparent communication from one mind to another....." To be more specific, we can define "telepathy" as mental communications of thoughts, feelings, and info between two or more people.The meaning of the word "telepathy" implies that we radiate, to a more or less degree, what we mentally think and feel. It also implies that we have sensing capabilities - besides the body's physical senses of seeing, hearing, feeling, etc. - which enables us to sense and perceive the mental thoughts and feelings of another person, that is, we have extrasensory perception (ESP) abilities. ESP is a phrase coined by Dr. Rhine who is known for the application of statistical analysis to psychic research. If we look at the religious side of telepathy, we can say that each individual has a spiritual presence that is controlled more by our sole than the body or even the mind. Our access to this world is very limited and is often very distant to our normal human minds. This is where our souls take control. We radiate our thought process and our inner being out to others. This spiritual presence often creates impression on other peoples spiritual presence and based on the common phenomenon of chemical affinity, in this case I would tend to call it as “Telepathic affinity” that brings people together. This is the purest form of relationship that one can attain. I have a feeling that you have very strong telepathic sense that you often term as sixth sense. You have this inner ability to get into peoples mind and the thought process and thus you can see things through and get to understand things about the future. The voices that you hear are nothing more than this telepathic radiation of other being that are spiritually connected to you. Now the spiritual connection can either be with the human or any other form of creation including the Jinn and the angels.
Kind regards,
Rial
Human relationships are very delicate matters and require tremendous inner site to understand the dimensions that initiates and manages these relationships. Human relationships are based on three very distinct phenomenons. One is driven by the chemical affinity that exists between two individuals as per law of chemical theory, the second is driven by the biological needs and the spirituality or the inner sphere of the sub-conscious minds drives the third depends on the telepathic connectioons.
The Chemical Bond of Relationship:
As you can imagine why two elements bond together and form a very different substance than what two elements individually used to be. The chemical affinity between two elements exists because of the way the elements are structured chemically. There are deficiencies and surpluses in the way that elements are structured. Based on the need and thirst to become more stable in nature, the elements look for other elements that has what they are deficient in and once there is a good mutual match between the deficiencies and surpluses the elements bond together and give rise to new substance in nature. Water is the greatest example of such an affinity between hydrogen and oxygen. If you compare this to the human you would see a very similar phenomenon. Our structures have the deficiencies and surpluses and that we get attracted to the people who seem to have what we don’t and vice versa. The deficiencies of life should be looked at ones mission in life. Allah has created us with a mission and each person has strengths and weaknesses embedded into him or her. In order to be able to fulfill ones mission in life, they have to utilize their own strengths and get help from others who seem to have the strengths that one lacks in. This process has a conscious part and a sub-conscious part. The conscious part forms an outcome relationship that is often looked at friendship and the one that is controlled by the sub-conscious leads to love. This is the “click” factor of our love relationship. One does not know why suddenly one feels attracted to another…. It just clicks…
The Biological Bond of Relationship
Majority of our physical relations are based on the biological make of our body. A male and female get involved in love relationship based first on the chemical bond and then on the biological need and thus they reproduce and keep the human chain alive.
Spiritual/Telepathic bond of RelationshipsVincent Paradis in one of his websites http://members.aol.com/vin6mar/esp.html writes "Tele" is from the Greek word meaning, far off, from a distance. "Pathy" derives also from a Greek word meaning, to feel. Thus, telepathy basically means to feel something from a distance. The dictionary defines telepathy as "apparent communication from one mind to another....." To be more specific, we can define "telepathy" as mental communications of thoughts, feelings, and info between two or more people.The meaning of the word "telepathy" implies that we radiate, to a more or less degree, what we mentally think and feel. It also implies that we have sensing capabilities - besides the body's physical senses of seeing, hearing, feeling, etc. - which enables us to sense and perceive the mental thoughts and feelings of another person, that is, we have extrasensory perception (ESP) abilities. ESP is a phrase coined by Dr. Rhine who is known for the application of statistical analysis to psychic research. If we look at the religious side of telepathy, we can say that each individual has a spiritual presence that is controlled more by our sole than the body or even the mind. Our access to this world is very limited and is often very distant to our normal human minds. This is where our souls take control. We radiate our thought process and our inner being out to others. This spiritual presence often creates impression on other peoples spiritual presence and based on the common phenomenon of chemical affinity, in this case I would tend to call it as “Telepathic affinity” that brings people together. This is the purest form of relationship that one can attain. I have a feeling that you have very strong telepathic sense that you often term as sixth sense. You have this inner ability to get into peoples mind and the thought process and thus you can see things through and get to understand things about the future. The voices that you hear are nothing more than this telepathic radiation of other being that are spiritually connected to you. Now the spiritual connection can either be with the human or any other form of creation including the Jinn and the angels.
Kind regards,
Rial
Intellectual Bankruptcy
Intellectual Bankruptcy Current mood: sympathetic
Dear Readers:
Most of the developed world has the facility to file for fiscal bankruptcy to protect someone or a company not to slide down into oblivion and put other people or organizations’ life or their future at risk. The same does not apply for the government though. They can borrow in Trillions and get away with it without having to explain to anyone. It does not sound fair, does it? Well, before a company gets into a bankrupt situation, it is preceded by an intellectual bankruptcy within the company. It must be the work of the company executives that takes a business into such a quagmire with their faulty business direction or the lack thereof. While the businesses are protected against such an eventuality, are the people of a nation or the nations themselves are protected from the onslaught of other nations to render a targeted country intellectually Bankrupt.
I was thinking should the United Nations also come up with such an innovative idea of “Hold Harmless” clause in their resolutions for the governments on the verge of moral or intellectual bankruptcy and for their “action or inaction” in dealing with their countries’ problems. While there is no such protection as yet for the helpless citizens of the countries around, who have inefficient leaders and ineffective bureaucrats, who seem to have the mandate of the people to rule the country and take it to the shambles, as there are no better option at hand. While looking at the desperate situations in some countries around, there is also the possibility of creating a vacuum of intellectual capacities of a given country to cripple their economic and social development efforts and make them depended on outside sources so that their will can be imposed. Whatever the case may be. UN and other international agencies need to come up with some sort of moral supervision of such phenomenon that are making so many of the developing world at risk of total anarchy and dismal economic performances. On the other hand, the process of brain drain and target removal of intellectual capacities from a country or an organization is a great threat to the developing nations. Should there be some efforts by the international agencies to look into such acts of cold acts of intellectual incapacitation.
The greatest blessing of a land is the combined knowledge capital that God has blessed it with. While the knowledge Capital might contain opposing bases and views, yet they in no way neutralize each other as they add value in varying spheres of life and sometimes they are used to strike the critical balance that is so much needed to bring about the check and balance control of any given system. Any nation falling short of the knowledge Capital goes through a vicious and violent period of self adjustment that often are marked by violence, self inflicted wounds or even destruction. The greatest damage one can inflict on a nation is to drive the country to intellectual bankruptcy. Time and again many nations and vindictive leaders around have taken the initiative to drive the opposition into such a state, whether to brain drain a country or to engage in direct killings of the intellectuals to bring the intellectual deficiency.
Brain drain obviously is the most creative weapon for such an act and has been successful in driving many countries into such a Bankruptcy. Some have been more direct in establishing their objectives through target killing of the intellectuals in a given country to destabilize their development and progress. And such a process does not stop at one or two killings but is a process that endures over a long period of time until their ultimate objectives are fulfilled.It is important that an international mechanism be initiated to check such a heinous act of vengeance that in many ways bleeds a given economy or their development process. Most of the developing nations do not have the power of its own to contain such a worldwide phenomenon and are easy prey to such an onslaught.
Dear Readers:
Most of the developed world has the facility to file for fiscal bankruptcy to protect someone or a company not to slide down into oblivion and put other people or organizations’ life or their future at risk. The same does not apply for the government though. They can borrow in Trillions and get away with it without having to explain to anyone. It does not sound fair, does it? Well, before a company gets into a bankrupt situation, it is preceded by an intellectual bankruptcy within the company. It must be the work of the company executives that takes a business into such a quagmire with their faulty business direction or the lack thereof. While the businesses are protected against such an eventuality, are the people of a nation or the nations themselves are protected from the onslaught of other nations to render a targeted country intellectually Bankrupt.
I was thinking should the United Nations also come up with such an innovative idea of “Hold Harmless” clause in their resolutions for the governments on the verge of moral or intellectual bankruptcy and for their “action or inaction” in dealing with their countries’ problems. While there is no such protection as yet for the helpless citizens of the countries around, who have inefficient leaders and ineffective bureaucrats, who seem to have the mandate of the people to rule the country and take it to the shambles, as there are no better option at hand. While looking at the desperate situations in some countries around, there is also the possibility of creating a vacuum of intellectual capacities of a given country to cripple their economic and social development efforts and make them depended on outside sources so that their will can be imposed. Whatever the case may be. UN and other international agencies need to come up with some sort of moral supervision of such phenomenon that are making so many of the developing world at risk of total anarchy and dismal economic performances. On the other hand, the process of brain drain and target removal of intellectual capacities from a country or an organization is a great threat to the developing nations. Should there be some efforts by the international agencies to look into such acts of cold acts of intellectual incapacitation.
The greatest blessing of a land is the combined knowledge capital that God has blessed it with. While the knowledge Capital might contain opposing bases and views, yet they in no way neutralize each other as they add value in varying spheres of life and sometimes they are used to strike the critical balance that is so much needed to bring about the check and balance control of any given system. Any nation falling short of the knowledge Capital goes through a vicious and violent period of self adjustment that often are marked by violence, self inflicted wounds or even destruction. The greatest damage one can inflict on a nation is to drive the country to intellectual bankruptcy. Time and again many nations and vindictive leaders around have taken the initiative to drive the opposition into such a state, whether to brain drain a country or to engage in direct killings of the intellectuals to bring the intellectual deficiency.
Brain drain obviously is the most creative weapon for such an act and has been successful in driving many countries into such a Bankruptcy. Some have been more direct in establishing their objectives through target killing of the intellectuals in a given country to destabilize their development and progress. And such a process does not stop at one or two killings but is a process that endures over a long period of time until their ultimate objectives are fulfilled.It is important that an international mechanism be initiated to check such a heinous act of vengeance that in many ways bleeds a given economy or their development process. Most of the developing nations do not have the power of its own to contain such a worldwide phenomenon and are easy prey to such an onslaught.
Intolerance and Hatred
Dealing with Intolerance and Hatred Current mood: lonely
Human minds are prone to various influences from within and outside. Most of these influences are caused due to our prolonged engagement with the environment that we live in and the value system we develop over the early ages of our education both formal and informal. Our minds and soul are subjected to various forces that interact with us both physically, psychologically, and from the unseen forces of nature. The unseen forces may have the overwhelming influence on our body, mind and soul. All creations are given a part of God that remains intact through the early ages of our life and remains intact until the days of formations. Once we start interacting with the outside world and start forming opinion we either enlarge the goodness of our hearts or shrink them based on the type of influences we are subjected to.Parents and teachers have a critical role to play in the formation ages (5-12) of a child in implanting the value system and the roots of culture.
The sense of negativity is the root cause of Intolerance and hatred. The roots of such implantation come from the exposure of the children and adolescents to the negative environment and the family setup they undergo. A happy family hardly produces a negative oriented child given the love they get from their parents. The most vulnerable children are the ones who come from broken homes, who witness the negative arguments between their parents and their eventual breakup. These arguments leave a daunting mark on their mind frame and thus the roots of positive thoughts get clipped from the very early ages. Another vulnerable group are the ones who gets unfair treatment from their teachers at school. The positive thoughts come from the sense of balance and contented mind inside. The question is how do we produce such a balance inside ones mind. The task is not that difficult if the parents and teachers are careful enough in how they treat their children or the students.
In general, people get involved in conflicts because their interests or their values are challenged, or because their needs are not met as expected. Some people have more internal resistance than the others and have the power to accommodate others views and utilize internal mechanisms to filter the information out to the advantage of self-development.
The central piece of conflict is the negativity of our thought process. The more negative we are the more conflict we generate. Conflict is a natural and very typical phenomenon in every type of human relationships, at every level: From interpersonal (the realm of psychology) to global. It is easy to resolve or help resolve a conflict stemming from a clash of interests. It is more difficult to deal with a conflict that emanates from a clash of values. And it is even more difficult to handle a conflict in which at least one party's basic human needs are not satisfied. That is why such conflicts usually are deep-rooted and intractable. This negative thought process, when we grow up, leads us to develop our individual relationships on the basis of similarities of lower calibre rather than the strengths of the diversities of higher calibre. This is due to our understanding that is formed in our early lives to keep away from diversity. Diversity is never shown as strength. As a result the individual and group relationships tends to create cells of individual strengths that are similar, and become antagonistic to the other cells that are also formed on the basis of individual strengths of a different kind. Then starts the process of an ever-escalating competition among these cells for establishing the ultimate influence in all aspects of life. The negativity of our thought process somehow does not allow us to be able to sit together and utilize our strengths for a common cause of the good for the society or the nation. During our childhood, we do not learn the value and the spirit of team efforts. On the contrary, our formal training leads us to the competition of individual strengths. Our curricular and co-curricular activities in the schools and colleges are dominated by individual strengths. The only avenue for practicing group efforts is sports and games. Even in those events, we tend to utilize our individual strengths and try to win the game rather than developing any collective efforts of individual strengths. Based on our initial upbringing, we start making social comparisons on the basis of individual ability and merit, and any stratification that is not attributed to differences of individual skills or worth is considered unacceptable. Such a change, of course, marks the beginning of inter-group conflict. Strong group identities resulted in an 'us' versus 'them' division that lead to inter-group animosity. Competition between these groups simply intensified the mutual dislike.
It is this paradoxical process, particularly its more complex version, which takes place at the societal level that; Social Identity Theory aims to explain. According to this theory, every individual divides his/her social world into distinct classes or social categories. Then, within this system of social categorization, individuals locate themselves and the others. The sum total of where they are located with respect to each category and classification constitutes their social identity. In other words, one's social identity consists of how one defines oneself in each social category (gender, geographic location, class, profession, etc.).Creating conducive home-environment so that our children can develop positive attitudes towards life in general: The key factor in this component is first the mother and to a lesser degree the father. All parents should attend community classes regarding positive attitude building techniques. Local religious institutions or community groups who then will keep on monitoring the individual progresses can organize these classes. Mothers should be taught not to use the “white lie” tactic of feeding their children or inducing them to study. These do hit short-term successes in being able to feeding the reluctant children or inducing them to study but no one consciously realizes the long-term damage this does to the negative senses that it creates. When we grow up we do the same things with our children because now it has become part of our culture. As an example, most mothers would say, “look, look, the eagle is coming to eat your food, and as the child looks to find the eagle, the mother forces a chunk of the food in his mouth and the child being busy with finding the eagle gulps the chunk down”. When he/she grows up, they tend to use the same techniques in getting something done from others that one consciously would not do. These are the items that we should teach in our community classes. We should also teach the items that provoke positive thinking. Childhood is the time when one picks up the cultural trends and the mothers are the most important factors in that building up process. We have to teach the mothers adequately so that they can transfer positive attitudes in our early childhood.
Reform Primary and Secondary Education Syllabus and Takeout any Negative Teachings and Replace them with Positive Mind Building Items:
Our ill-fated education system is the major breeding ground for developing negative attitudes amongst our children. Our education system must be turned into a more objective weapon of building future citizens with conscience rather than readying individuals for the available jobs. Talking about my generation, we always had taken our education as a pill or quinine. We had never looked forward to attending our classes to learn things that aid us a human being. We never look at our education as the preparing grounds for a complete human being. The very culture of reading books to pass the exams has to change so that we can look at education as a career building effort rather than an instrument to finding future jobs. The teachers have a tremendous role to play in building positive attitudes in the classroom. The senses of fear and intimidation and has active role in learning rather has counterproductive outcomes. Teachers can take out the element of fear from the minds and hearts of our children. This element gives rise to negative thinking when we grow up.
Role of Religion in Building Positive Attitudes:
Religion is a major tool for building conscience and positive attitude provided they are given in the right doses and in right format. The current state of religious teachings is also characterized by negative overtones. We look at the differences among various religions and highlight the inter-religious tensions building items. We never emphasize on the bridge building efforts of religion. No matter what religion one follows, if they were followed properly then this world would have been a lot better place to live. We should highlight the events of religion that shows the human bonding and the endurance of the hardships without retaliations and the sense of kindness and forgiveness. Most religion has specific events that breeds tolerance and the power of endurance amongst its followers. We should encourage our young generation to follow these events and be part of the cultural transformation of our society.
Human minds are prone to various influences from within and outside. Most of these influences are caused due to our prolonged engagement with the environment that we live in and the value system we develop over the early ages of our education both formal and informal. Our minds and soul are subjected to various forces that interact with us both physically, psychologically, and from the unseen forces of nature. The unseen forces may have the overwhelming influence on our body, mind and soul. All creations are given a part of God that remains intact through the early ages of our life and remains intact until the days of formations. Once we start interacting with the outside world and start forming opinion we either enlarge the goodness of our hearts or shrink them based on the type of influences we are subjected to.Parents and teachers have a critical role to play in the formation ages (5-12) of a child in implanting the value system and the roots of culture.
The sense of negativity is the root cause of Intolerance and hatred. The roots of such implantation come from the exposure of the children and adolescents to the negative environment and the family setup they undergo. A happy family hardly produces a negative oriented child given the love they get from their parents. The most vulnerable children are the ones who come from broken homes, who witness the negative arguments between their parents and their eventual breakup. These arguments leave a daunting mark on their mind frame and thus the roots of positive thoughts get clipped from the very early ages. Another vulnerable group are the ones who gets unfair treatment from their teachers at school. The positive thoughts come from the sense of balance and contented mind inside. The question is how do we produce such a balance inside ones mind. The task is not that difficult if the parents and teachers are careful enough in how they treat their children or the students.
In general, people get involved in conflicts because their interests or their values are challenged, or because their needs are not met as expected. Some people have more internal resistance than the others and have the power to accommodate others views and utilize internal mechanisms to filter the information out to the advantage of self-development.
The central piece of conflict is the negativity of our thought process. The more negative we are the more conflict we generate. Conflict is a natural and very typical phenomenon in every type of human relationships, at every level: From interpersonal (the realm of psychology) to global. It is easy to resolve or help resolve a conflict stemming from a clash of interests. It is more difficult to deal with a conflict that emanates from a clash of values. And it is even more difficult to handle a conflict in which at least one party's basic human needs are not satisfied. That is why such conflicts usually are deep-rooted and intractable. This negative thought process, when we grow up, leads us to develop our individual relationships on the basis of similarities of lower calibre rather than the strengths of the diversities of higher calibre. This is due to our understanding that is formed in our early lives to keep away from diversity. Diversity is never shown as strength. As a result the individual and group relationships tends to create cells of individual strengths that are similar, and become antagonistic to the other cells that are also formed on the basis of individual strengths of a different kind. Then starts the process of an ever-escalating competition among these cells for establishing the ultimate influence in all aspects of life. The negativity of our thought process somehow does not allow us to be able to sit together and utilize our strengths for a common cause of the good for the society or the nation. During our childhood, we do not learn the value and the spirit of team efforts. On the contrary, our formal training leads us to the competition of individual strengths. Our curricular and co-curricular activities in the schools and colleges are dominated by individual strengths. The only avenue for practicing group efforts is sports and games. Even in those events, we tend to utilize our individual strengths and try to win the game rather than developing any collective efforts of individual strengths. Based on our initial upbringing, we start making social comparisons on the basis of individual ability and merit, and any stratification that is not attributed to differences of individual skills or worth is considered unacceptable. Such a change, of course, marks the beginning of inter-group conflict. Strong group identities resulted in an 'us' versus 'them' division that lead to inter-group animosity. Competition between these groups simply intensified the mutual dislike.
It is this paradoxical process, particularly its more complex version, which takes place at the societal level that; Social Identity Theory aims to explain. According to this theory, every individual divides his/her social world into distinct classes or social categories. Then, within this system of social categorization, individuals locate themselves and the others. The sum total of where they are located with respect to each category and classification constitutes their social identity. In other words, one's social identity consists of how one defines oneself in each social category (gender, geographic location, class, profession, etc.).Creating conducive home-environment so that our children can develop positive attitudes towards life in general: The key factor in this component is first the mother and to a lesser degree the father. All parents should attend community classes regarding positive attitude building techniques. Local religious institutions or community groups who then will keep on monitoring the individual progresses can organize these classes. Mothers should be taught not to use the “white lie” tactic of feeding their children or inducing them to study. These do hit short-term successes in being able to feeding the reluctant children or inducing them to study but no one consciously realizes the long-term damage this does to the negative senses that it creates. When we grow up we do the same things with our children because now it has become part of our culture. As an example, most mothers would say, “look, look, the eagle is coming to eat your food, and as the child looks to find the eagle, the mother forces a chunk of the food in his mouth and the child being busy with finding the eagle gulps the chunk down”. When he/she grows up, they tend to use the same techniques in getting something done from others that one consciously would not do. These are the items that we should teach in our community classes. We should also teach the items that provoke positive thinking. Childhood is the time when one picks up the cultural trends and the mothers are the most important factors in that building up process. We have to teach the mothers adequately so that they can transfer positive attitudes in our early childhood.
Reform Primary and Secondary Education Syllabus and Takeout any Negative Teachings and Replace them with Positive Mind Building Items:
Our ill-fated education system is the major breeding ground for developing negative attitudes amongst our children. Our education system must be turned into a more objective weapon of building future citizens with conscience rather than readying individuals for the available jobs. Talking about my generation, we always had taken our education as a pill or quinine. We had never looked forward to attending our classes to learn things that aid us a human being. We never look at our education as the preparing grounds for a complete human being. The very culture of reading books to pass the exams has to change so that we can look at education as a career building effort rather than an instrument to finding future jobs. The teachers have a tremendous role to play in building positive attitudes in the classroom. The senses of fear and intimidation and has active role in learning rather has counterproductive outcomes. Teachers can take out the element of fear from the minds and hearts of our children. This element gives rise to negative thinking when we grow up.
Role of Religion in Building Positive Attitudes:
Religion is a major tool for building conscience and positive attitude provided they are given in the right doses and in right format. The current state of religious teachings is also characterized by negative overtones. We look at the differences among various religions and highlight the inter-religious tensions building items. We never emphasize on the bridge building efforts of religion. No matter what religion one follows, if they were followed properly then this world would have been a lot better place to live. We should highlight the events of religion that shows the human bonding and the endurance of the hardships without retaliations and the sense of kindness and forgiveness. Most religion has specific events that breeds tolerance and the power of endurance amongst its followers. We should encourage our young generation to follow these events and be part of the cultural transformation of our society.
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