TRANS Internet-Zeitschrift für Kulturwissenschaften 17. Nr. April 2010

Sektion 8.12. Framed Knowledge as an obstacle for creativity and transition of the societies
Sektionsleiter | Section Chair: Farhad Atai (University of Tehran)

Dokumentation | Documentation | Documentation


Observation and Conclusion of the section:

Fragmented knowledge as an obstacle for transition of the societies

Report by Munira Shahidi [BIO]

Email: munira_shahidi@yahoo.com

Moderators: K.Boboev and Mavlon Muchtorov

 

Knowledge as a universal principle of creativity, constantly enriched in its environmental experience by the study of 'other' cultures, has been defined in the 'Danish-name' ('The Book of Knowledge') by Ibn Sina (Avicenna). Born in Bukhara in 980, he was bridging the gap between Greek and Arab interpretations of knowledge according to the life experience of Maweranahr and Khorasan; he created a flexible and worldly exaptable corpus of science and arts, which has been received by the people of Mediterranean civilization. Although, according to the French scholar Anna Mary Goishon, that corpus produced 'the intellectual revolution in the Europe of the Middle Ages', the transformation of that common source of East and West into modernity has been marginalized in the world educational system from 17c., and later.

The re-evaluation of the common Aristotle-Avicenna tradition in its inner dynamic was undertaken by American scholar, Dimitry Gutas in the 80s of the past century, and raised a wide discussion-discourse in the USA and Europe in the past two decades. However, still not available for the scholars and cultural agents in Central Asia, that discourse of the Western world misses the original sources of the development of Avicennian heritage in Central Asia. Although the soviet period had a large significance for the countries of CA in their adopting of the modern world system of education, inward/outward marginalization of Central Asian scholarship in the academic discourses of the past century strongly restricted actualization of the common sources of knowledge and creativity in Eurasian space, creating a gap in the system of knowledge of the last century. The aim of the announced section was to promote a bridging of the gap, involving Centralasian scholars and cultural agents into a cooperative research circle. The call for papers to participate in the section as a part of the KCTOS conference was written by Dr.Dir.Munira Shahidi and published within the program of the conference. It attracted attention of 12 authors from different countries and universities: Dushanbe Tajik-Slavic and Technological Universities, Tehran State University, Khojand University, Almaty State University, Strategic Institute related to the Office of the President of RT, Canadian League of Composers and Canada Art Council (Canada), Z.Shahidi Museum of Musical Culture, Public Council of RT, Ministry of Justice and Ministry of Health of Tajikistan. Their abstracts were published on the site of the conference. The response, however, was more disciplinary, although the challenge of the announcement was an interdisciplinary approach to the given issue. Nevertheless, five papers were presented in the section. They were extensively discussed, and opened new perspectives for cooperation. To demonstrate how the societies are liberating themselves from the ideological limitations of the soviet period in the system of education and culture was the common idea of the section. All five papers were presented by the professional, experienced authors, and attracted the participants from the other sections of the KCTOS. The head of the section gave an interview for the Vienna Radio, which also brought a few more participants from the Afgan and Tajik diasporas in Austria to participate in the section. All together, there were 14 participants, who were involved in the discussion on the issues of Knowledge, Creativity and Transformations of the Societies in Central Asia.

The presentations of the papers and discussions took place on all three days of the conference. The last day the section was concluded by the discussion on the advantages and disadvantages of the KCTOS conference as a whole.

In the introductive speech of the head of the section, three periods of transformation of the societies during the last century in Central Asia were outlined. The first period was the one ranging from the middle of 19c. until the eve of the past century, when reformatory movement (jadidism) created a project of modernization of the system of knowledge, rethinking Avicennian corps as an original theory of knowledge for Central Asia, as a whole. 'Clumsy dividing' of the region, however, divided that creative regional identity in between hidden 'religious' and official 'communist' styles of identities. Although the aim of the project of modernization of the provincial and dogmatized system of knowledge was to integrate in the modern world, the realization of the project was forced upon by changing the original Arab-Tajik-Uzbek script into the European based Russian Cyrillic. From that time, the inward/outward controlling and restriction of modernization was a common policy of the soviet times. Liberalization from the restrictions and outward control is a common tendency of post-soviet period, although there is too much inertia and stereotypes in bringing some innovative policy as a change of the soviet identity. Although the technological revolution in the West of 1960th brought another wave of development of the modern world, the implementation of these innovations has just started in the countries of CA, enabling the real transformation of its societies. How will the process develop on the local and national and international levels? To what extend the societies are ready to use them on the base of their own, traditional system of knowledge, how new technologies will correlate with the traditional values of the societies and what is the role of the extended, vanguard parts of the societies in the transition period? How are they functioning in the transition period of the globalizing world and what are the contradictions and barriers of the official policy, locally and globally? Are they recognized by the contemporary international scholarly community? These and many other problems were discussed in the section.

The key papers described and analyzed the contemporary situation in education and culture within the new challenges of the post-soviet, globalizing world. The common point of the presentations was quite optimistic: it indicated the growing tendency of the inward/outward cooperation of Central Asia and contemporary, post-modern world.

Obviously, constant inward/outward clashes of personal and group interests for control and assimilation of the life experience of CA have its global significance now, in the post-soviet period, but the holes in the modern world system of knowledge, in regard of Central Asian original potential, open new possibilities for manipulations of the minds in transition. Although these clashes provide a contradiction by the creation of cross-cultural, international, open regional and interregional cooperation (which has improved from the times of the interconnection of Hellenistic and Islamic ideas, and is learned by various academic and interuniversity cooperation of the past century), the genius of the originally intercultural identity of CA people is still not recognized internationally.

The Islamic-Hellenistic identity was, paradoxically, improved in the time of Chingiskhan and the inner challenge for military expansion. When in the 14th -15th century, Timur initiated an expedition to India and the countries of the Meditarranian, that expedition is understood only in imperialistic and military terms. Although the 'hidden' part of that expedition brought the 'other' ideas of harmonization of different cultural values and pushed for creation of new styles of literary thought and arts, expressed, for example, in Indian style of Persian poetry and more realistic features of miniature art, that art was ignored and marginalized by the European Renaissance. The literary and artistic harmonization of the values of different cultures, created as a theory in Central Asia, has been partly re-evaluated by the modern concept of the world literature, created by German literary and philosophical thought of the 18-19c.

Islamic-Hellenistic intercultural values of Central Asia created a rich common modern literary tradition of Central Asia, yet crucial periods of its development are still ignored. International intellectual elite of the past century has been smashed during the Stalinist terror of the 30s and the 50s. Totally dependant from the official one-party authoritarian structures of soviet period, the new academic institutions and universities, however, were gradually re-evaluating and rethinking common values of East and West within the new, western methods of study. Although the reformation as an agency of development is one of the challenges of contemporary globalization, this tendency is strongly restrained by the economic policy of the West toward Central Asia. Thus, soviet, authoritarian style of thinking is still the mainstream in building a new international relationship with its global significance.

To improve that situation, the process of involving the local, regional and interregional forces into the globalizing space of Central Asia means to realize historically informed international, intercultural regional identity in its multicultural, multilingual dynamics. That was the common concern of the participants of the section.

The first speaker, Professor and the Head of the Department of the Tajik-Slavic University, Jura Latipov, was talking about the obstacles of providing the reforms in contemporary system of education in Tajikistan. Defining the problems very clearly, he also indicated the methods of solving them. Although the contemporary educational reform, in his view, is in the interest of international community, to bridge the gap between generations means to create more flexible, original, imaginative, organic ways of teaching, rather then to assimilate the existing models, and already given knowledge.

These ideas were reflected, in a way, in the presentation of a young researcher from the Z.Shahidi Museum of Musical culture, Nasiba Miravazchonova. She said that sometimes the official structures totally ignore the demands of the students. So, now, the main challenge is the process of empowering of the student community and most of them are quite active in this process.

This point was developed by the Senior Researcher of the Center of Strategic Studies, related to the Office of the President of Tajikistan, Kosim Boboev. Describing the contemporary projects of implementation of the western methods of scholarship in the local universities, he shows the results, which, for example, the Commercial University of Dushanbe achieved in the past few years. However, the question has remained how to determine to what extent these methods are improved by students themselves? Are some loans available for the rural students, if we consider the fact that Tajikistan, at a moment, is a more rural, agricultural country, then industrial one?

An interesting presentation, extensively discussed in the section was the one by Farhad Atai (Tehran University, Iran), 'Forging Soviet Identity in Central Asia'. By observing historical background of Central Asia, he writes:

'A marvelous coexistence of various cultures has been the hallmark of the region since the ancient tines. In this region, both sedentary and nomadic lifestyles, various religions and ideologies, (from Islam to Shamanism) and numerous ethnicities (Kyrgyz, Uzbek, Tajik, Kazakh,...) and major civilizations and languages (Turkic, Persian...) lived together benefiting from each other, enriching the culture of the region as a whole. The Russian presence--both Tsarist and communist--brought elements of Western culture to the region, further influencing its multicultural character'. In his analysis of the mechanism of totalizing and sovetyzing Tajik national identity, however, Farhad Atai ignores an intellectual resistance to that process, which, of course, asks for deeper digging into the dynamic of consciousness of the society as a whole. One of the most pertinent issues of this presentation is the issue of perception of the civilization: is civilization a single interactive production of diverse cultures or it is a phenomenon, which changes its character due to specifics of geographical, social, national or regional environmental character? This is a large issue, which could be discussed in the future workshops, seminars or conferences. I think that civilization is universal, based on universal values of humankind, such as peace, creativity and cooperation.

Obviously, the PCC of any society depends on its educational system and creativity, which is constantly improving and purifying the natural environment. Again, the combination of natural sources of a healthy society depends on the knowledge and the methods of using it. Corruption, however, is the main social scourge, which appears in the selling of the outdated medication and products. That was the basis of the presentation of Dr. Salomat Kasimova. She presented a shocking survey of the growth of local diseases, which could be more effectively treated if some still unknown plants and natural, traditional sources are made an object of study for international scholars.

However, the real internationalization of the national system of knowledge should lie in a hierarchy of knowledge, instead in a hierarchy of power. One of the ways to establish that order of knowledge and creativity is to provide more conditions for development of a civil society. To make that development possible is one of the main tasks of the Public Council, the aim of which is to link governmental and non-governmental structures of post-soviet period of transformation of the societies. That means to observe how it functions, what the aim of its organization is, to observe its role in the Peace Agreement during the Civil War of 1992-1997 in Tajikistan, and the ways it is changing its policy at present times. That was the main subject of the paper of Mavlon Muchtorov, the Secretary General of the PC related to the Office of the president of the RT.

These were main presentations in the section: 'Fragmented knowledge as an obstacle for transition of the societies'. The section has demonstrated the capacity of certain parts of societies for transformation via knowledge and creativity. However, it was pity that some other scholars that were concerned with the same issue could not participate in the conference. The main reason was, of course, that some of them could not find funding for that. Therefore, the problem of the financial support of culture, and of the processes of intercultural exchange - as the very structure of the processes of globalization - have to be discussed in the future workshops, seminars and conferences.


8.12. Fragmented knowledge as an obstacle for transition of the societies

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For quotation purposes:
Sectionreport Munira Shahidi: Observation and Conclusion of the section - In: TRANS. Internet-Zeitschrift für Kulturwissenschaften. No. 17/2008. WWW: http://www.inst.at/trans/17Nr/8-12/8-12_shahidi17.htm

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