Thursday, July 22, 2004
Freedom ...
It was a couple of months ago that I went to a very exciting speech. A Nobel prize laureate and an activist for human right in Iran, Yes!, Shirin Ebadi. It was a great speech but I think more than the speech itself I met some people who I couldn't meet them on the regular bases. It was Richard Nelson Frye an emeritus professor and Afsaneh Najmabadi a professor of sociology both in the department of history at Harvard University.
I had a chance to speak to professor Frye for a couple of minutes but in Farsi. He was able to speak Farsi pretty good and I can say better than me! Our conversation last for about half an hour; I came up with some challenging issues in terms of comparing societies in a direct and solid definition. My main concern in that conversation was that we have to define freedom in any society regarding its own values and limits rather than a solid pattern. He was agreed with me and in his conclusion I saw one thing where he was agreed with and that was; because of the present western superiority over the developing countries it is the rule of nature that whoever has more power will be more acceptable. So what do you think?
In my opinion we have the freedom which is in balance with our cultural and religious limitation and we have to try to not to give up and at least do not accept the western pattern completely because we have a giant potential to expand and becoming more advanced to the point where we can possibly have an influence on their society.
