Dec 30, 2012
Overachiever
I am not sure I have understood what "overachiever" means (I have not achieved much, not lost much), but I am very much like the #1, certainly not #2 (I used to steal money from my mom's purse when I was a kid; not anymore). #3: I can only say I like sticky notes in different colors all around me! #4: I can't focus when my desk is messy. I don't get #5, but boy, I can relate myself very well with #6. I don't care if I have a weakness when all do, whereas I have strengths not so many have. #7: I seek mentors and love to mentor. For #8, I can only say I have seven weblogs, and believe books and dinosaurs have one common characteristic: too spacey! #9: I am fat. #10: Not sure I like to start things but I surely keep up things. #11: You can hate me or I can say don't waste your time with hatred, and instead, learn some from me! #12: I am crazy by the way! #13: I have never had such a thing.
Dec 27, 2012
Budget and timetable
I made my first draft of the startup budget, and a schedule for making things accomplished to formally launch the business. For obvious reasons, the most challenging task is finding sources of financing our startup. We're currently undertaking a few projects that could partially cover our initial needs for fund. We prefer not going for any loan and the things alike, as things are really unpredictable here in Kabul and we don't really want to incur additional costs of interests.
Dec 22, 2012
Dec 20, 2012
Time for a change
It was time for a change in my professional lifestyle. I resigned from the office I had joined very recently. I don't have any good feeling about it actually, but you can't really help it. I needed a change. It seemed to me I was not enjoying anymore what I was doing. Now, I am working with these guys here. It'll be freelance for a while until we get enough customers and capital to formally start something that we hope will be big! As a matter of fact, I have always been fascinated by design, all kinds of design, from fashion, to architecture, to industrial design. I know it sounds funny and somewhat weird, but I like design and though know little about it, but hell love to be close to the business and these guys, whom I have found very cool!
Dec 15, 2012
Close
I am getting closer and closer to my goal; admission at Harvard Business School. It's been exactly four years now since, and how well I remember that, when I first decided to apply to HBS for MBA. It was December 2009. And, now more than ever, I am close to that.
May 13, 2012
Similar within, different without
As an Afghan refugee living in Iran for 23 years, I was very like all other Afghan refugees to the eyes of Iranians. Our appearance, our culture, our manner, everything, we were believed to be the same. Of course, we were not the same, but it did not matter. At once, an Afghan in one corner of Iran committed a crime, all Afghans were condemned. “These people are all thieves and cultureless” was not an unfamiliar statement to me. Eight years ago, I returned to my own homeland. Here, we are all Afghans, but apparently, very different. However, we seem to be alike within our own ethnicity, to the eyes of the other ethnicities. And, we are treated as if we are one and think the same.
As Edward Saeed points out, there is no single Islamic culture, nor one Western culture. There are great differences between the Islam practiced in Iran and the one practiced in Saudi Arabia, and the one in Syrian, and so forth. Similarly, the democracy in France is very different that of the United States, and the one of the United Kingdom or Germany. A clash of civilizations can’t exist between for example Islam and the West because Islam is not one single country or ideology to have a clash with the West, which is neither a single ideology. But, this is not what we have seen. I lived the first 23 years of my life in a country where the chant of “death to Israel” was the music of every public gathering. Imagining now that most of Iranians think Israel is just one single person like Netanyahu should not be impossible. I guess this less or more what people in western countries think about Muslims: “Someone wearing turban, with long black beard, with fists shaking in the air, violently threatening, burning the flag of America…” You don’t agree with me? See the cartoons! It’s not true, but who cares!
No, I don’t agree with Edward Saeed. Whatever it is called, “self-fulfilling prophecy”, stereotypes, etc. they affect our perspectives, our opinions, our behaviors, or how we are behaved, so they exist. However, should there be necessarily a violent clash between the considered-to-be Islam and West?
As Edward Saeed points out, there is no single Islamic culture, nor one Western culture. There are great differences between the Islam practiced in Iran and the one practiced in Saudi Arabia, and the one in Syrian, and so forth. Similarly, the democracy in France is very different that of the United States, and the one of the United Kingdom or Germany. A clash of civilizations can’t exist between for example Islam and the West because Islam is not one single country or ideology to have a clash with the West, which is neither a single ideology. But, this is not what we have seen. I lived the first 23 years of my life in a country where the chant of “death to Israel” was the music of every public gathering. Imagining now that most of Iranians think Israel is just one single person like Netanyahu should not be impossible. I guess this less or more what people in western countries think about Muslims: “Someone wearing turban, with long black beard, with fists shaking in the air, violently threatening, burning the flag of America…” You don’t agree with me? See the cartoons! It’s not true, but who cares!
No, I don’t agree with Edward Saeed. Whatever it is called, “self-fulfilling prophecy”, stereotypes, etc. they affect our perspectives, our opinions, our behaviors, or how we are behaved, so they exist. However, should there be necessarily a violent clash between the considered-to-be Islam and West?
Apr 8, 2012
They Don’t Care About Us
I am unable to hide my frustration from watching the dramatization of the role of Al-Qaeda, neo-conservatives, Osama bin Laden, George W. Bush, and so forth, when it comes to the so-called “clash of civilization”. They, and what they have done, are undeniably significant in affecting (not shaping) the future circumstances of the international affairs. However, they themselves are the outcomes of their periods’ events, and are vastly affected by them. What the radicalism, be it radical democratic or secularistic or islamic, did to all moderates of the world would pave the way for rising the people who could have become Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and the like.
There is actually a clash of civilization; however, it is upon the global society how to respond to this clash. The Al-Qaeda does not represent all Muslims of the world; or even, if they represent any at all, they do so perhaps just a minority of Muslims. However, they represent a group of people, who may not be insignificant and may not be so small: the group of people who want to live different, and who want to think different.
No one is supporting extremism, but, what else could be expected as a reaction to extremism in the first place; be it, Al-Qaeda’s terrorism or the U.S.’s militarism. I believe most of those young Muslims, who are absorbed in extremist groups, have once experienced a failed moderate effort in being integrated and accepted as citizens of the society, where they want to just live in, but differently; and where, tolerance was not respected towards them.
There is actually a clash of civilization; however, it is upon the global society how to respond to this clash. The Al-Qaeda does not represent all Muslims of the world; or even, if they represent any at all, they do so perhaps just a minority of Muslims. However, they represent a group of people, who may not be insignificant and may not be so small: the group of people who want to live different, and who want to think different.
No one is supporting extremism, but, what else could be expected as a reaction to extremism in the first place; be it, Al-Qaeda’s terrorism or the U.S.’s militarism. I believe most of those young Muslims, who are absorbed in extremist groups, have once experienced a failed moderate effort in being integrated and accepted as citizens of the society, where they want to just live in, but differently; and where, tolerance was not respected towards them.
Mar 15, 2012
Minimizing collateral damage
There are common things, deeply carved into his nature, between the human of pre-modern and modern world. One of them is the will of revenge. Friedrich Nietzsche in On the Genealogy of Morals brilliantly reveals how some of today’s most moral values of “good and evil” had once bases merely in this nature of the human being. In the past, humans were much sincerer in seeking this will, however, the human of our era has an incredible skill to justify revenge with bringing freedom, and thus, they name it “Operation Iraqi Freedom”, “Operation Enduring Freedom”, and so on; thus, they show incredible skills to cover the blood of their revenge.
And, you are not ready how to react to a person who, with all his sincerity, apologizes however asserts that they try to “minimize the collateral damage”!* They call it collateral damage, but we know that it means our little sisters, our little brothers, mothers, and fathers, and so on, but it’s nothing, just a “collateral damage”! Unintendedly, I remember Nietzsche who sarcastically says: “I consider it as an advance, as evidence of a freer , more generous, more Roman Conception of law when the Twelve Tables of Rome decreed it as a matter of indifference how much or how little the creditor cut off in such cases: ‘si plus minusve secuernunt, ne fraude esto.’”**
--------------------------
* One of my professors at AUAF had about the same statement.
** “If they have secured more or less, let that be no crime.” (English translation from Walter Kaufmann’s footnote).
And, you are not ready how to react to a person who, with all his sincerity, apologizes however asserts that they try to “minimize the collateral damage”!* They call it collateral damage, but we know that it means our little sisters, our little brothers, mothers, and fathers, and so on, but it’s nothing, just a “collateral damage”! Unintendedly, I remember Nietzsche who sarcastically says: “I consider it as an advance, as evidence of a freer , more generous, more Roman Conception of law when the Twelve Tables of Rome decreed it as a matter of indifference how much or how little the creditor cut off in such cases: ‘si plus minusve secuernunt, ne fraude esto.’”**
--------------------------
* One of my professors at AUAF had about the same statement.
** “If they have secured more or less, let that be no crime.” (English translation from Walter Kaufmann’s footnote).
Feb 20, 2012
All that matters is power!
“[Our revolution] has been based on speech and logic, and hence, it is to promote, instead of the clash of civilizations, dialogues between civilizations and cultures,” said former Iranian President, Sayed Mohammad Khatami, addressing the United Nations General Assembly on September 21, 1998. As a high school student, regardless of my nationality, I was feeling proud and extremely cheerful when I was watching the live broadcast of President Khatami’s statement on TV. I was unfamiliar yet with the Samuel Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations”, however the thing that mattered for me, and perhaps many other students in Iran, was the difference we felt in the words of the new president of the Islamic Republic of Iran. However, the incident of 9/11, the U.S.-led coalition forces’ wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Iranian nuclear program, and the stories of collapse of such dictatorships as Saddam Hussain and Moammar Qaddafi, had little logic to me based on the “dialogue” President Khatami spoke of, fourteen years thereafter.
Again, as a frustrated student, from a third-world, war-torn country, I was watching Professor Noam Chomsky’s lecture at Harvard University. The words had the same rhythm and intonation, as President Khatami’s, in pleasing such a heart as mine. He was talking about “insincerity” of former U.S. President, George W. Bush, and his “war on terror”. He provided examples of similar “terrorist acts” of U.S. and Israeli governments against other nations. However, it is so inevitable for a person like me not to get excited. I have well come to the belief that the world has never been a sincere place, and is just a one-sided road coming from the sunset, where technologies, ideas, cultures, civilizations, and “International Human Rights Declaration” could come from. I now know there could be little possibility for dialogue between civilizations because there may be no trust and no equal position between them; because all that matters in the international scene is power.
Again, as a frustrated student, from a third-world, war-torn country, I was watching Professor Noam Chomsky’s lecture at Harvard University. The words had the same rhythm and intonation, as President Khatami’s, in pleasing such a heart as mine. He was talking about “insincerity” of former U.S. President, George W. Bush, and his “war on terror”. He provided examples of similar “terrorist acts” of U.S. and Israeli governments against other nations. However, it is so inevitable for a person like me not to get excited. I have well come to the belief that the world has never been a sincere place, and is just a one-sided road coming from the sunset, where technologies, ideas, cultures, civilizations, and “International Human Rights Declaration” could come from. I now know there could be little possibility for dialogue between civilizations because there may be no trust and no equal position between them; because all that matters in the international scene is power.
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