Afghanistan Times
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Since the fall of the Taliban, there is a never ending series of debate over how to develop Afghanistan—a war-ravaged country, that bleed since 1979. Many think economy is crucial for uplift of the nation while a significant number of people believes that improvement of law and order is vital to have better and prosperous future. Indeed these are of utmost importance to steer the country towards development but we have missed one major issue in these long years. The problem is not with the political system but it is the social fabric of the society that is responsible for the problems we are facing today. Literally we are still living in the dark age because most of us are deprived of the light of knowledge and scholarship. We still to embrace the fact that education along with wisdom could change our fate and resolve the socio-political problems. Wisdom comes from books. Unfortunately, our young generation waste most of the time on internet browsing websites that could be a good source of entertainment but not to the benefit of the user in short and long terms. If they use internet for knowledge and research then indeed it’s the world’s biggest library. However, social media sites such as Facebook could create friends but keep us away from those living around us. Importantly, social media could not spark wisdom and education. What it can do is just to keep us aware. It cannot develop a well-learned society that believes in debate culture, scholarly arguments and the power of education. Hence, friending a book is the best option to utilize time properly, groom character and live a life of dignity.
Therefore, decreasing illiteracy should be our prime objective. Equipping ourselves with knowledge is the viable option to overcome illiteracy and existing challenges. We direly need good leaders and intellectuals to guide the nation and steer the country out of crisis. We can do it if we promote a culture of study, because textbooks help us to pass exams rather than convincing us on developing a highly scholarly society. This mindset is developed only libraries. Once this mindset is developed, human rights abuses will decline on its own. Most of the human rights violations are the products of illiteracy. It is study culture that promotes tolerance and put full stop before human rights violations.
It is important to realize that people of the developed countries are not advanced because they got very strong muscles, but they got educated brains. These states are several steps ahead than us because of having high percentage of literate women. If we want to compete with them we should promote study culture. Likewise, books teach our young generation how to be a good citizen, how laws should respected, and also devised and framed. In order to develop a culture of knowledge and study, the government and non-profit organizations in partnership can really bring positive changes by bringing more and more children under the fold of education and those who have earned their degrees are encouraged on taking the roads to libraries because a library is the delivery room for the birth of ideas.
