Reflections of Humanity [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

society with so much starvation and general feelings, desires and behaviour
resembling those of present day Americans, English or French? The latter
is surfeited with an excess of delicacies and pleasures and lacks purpose
and goals. He wants rest and seeks peace. He is sick of the strict discipline
imposed on him by the machine. He groans and complains of the discipline
and order which have caused him so much distress. But I, suffering from
the lack of technology, am yet groaning and complaining of distresses caused
by technology! It's as if we were run over by a car, had broken our arms
and a leg, had blood all over our face and head; and yet, we empathize
and feel for the person behind the wheel, who is fed up with having to
drive and run over people!

In this way non-European societies become alienated by European societies:
their intellectuals no longer feel Eastern, groan like an Eastern person
or aspire to be Eastern people. The intellectual does not suffer because
of his own social problems, rather he conceives of the pain, sufferings,
feelings and needs of an European in the final stage of capitalistic and
materialistic success and enjoyment. Thus, today the most painful disorder
possible sweeps non-European countries, the psychological disorder of non-Europeans
who possess a unique character and yet deny it. They hold in mind something
alien. They conceive of someone else and imitate him blindly.

These non-European countries in the past were real and genuine. If you
had visited these countries, say 200 years ago, they would have lacked
today's Western Civilization, but each and every one of them had its own
authentic and solid civilization. They were unique: their desires, their
delicacies, their forms of worship and all their good and bad behaviour;
their action, their beauties, their philosophy, their religion - everything
belongs to them. For instance, if I had gone to a country like India or
any African country, I would know that they had their own unique tastes
and buildings.They composed their own unique poetry, pertinant to their
culture, and relevant to their lives.They had their own unique social manner.
They had their own unique colors, maladies, desires and religions. All
they had was their own. In spite of the fact that they were far below the
level of present day civilization and material enjoyment, still, what they
had, however trifling, was their own. They were not sick, poor they were,
but poverty is something different from sickness.

But today, western societies have been able to impose their philosophy,
their way of thinking, their desires, their ideas, their tastes and their
manners upon non-Europeans countries to the same extent that they have
been able to force their symbols of civilization (technological innovations)
into these countries which consume new products and gadgets; countries
which can never adjust themselves to European manners, longing, tastes
and ways of thinking.

As Alined Yope, one of the greatest black intellectuals, puts it: "societies
have come into being outside the European civilization - like our societies
- which are "mosaic societies." What does he mean by "mosaic societies"?
A mosaic contains hundreds of colored tiles with different shapes and colors,
all pressed in a mold. What shape do these tiles make? None! A mosaic has
different colors and is composed of different pieces of gravel with different
shapes, but in sum has no shape. Some civilizations, too, are mosaic civilizations.
That is, civilizations which carry some leftover parts from the past, some
deformed parts from Europe, and the combination of the two produces a half-civilized,
half-modernized society. It is a mosaic also in that we did not choose
the same materials as the Europeans to make a civilization for ourselves,
because we did not know what a civilization was and how to form it. It
is they who gave us the form, as well.

So without knowing what to make and without having any prior intention
of how to form our society according to our own tastes and thoughts, and
without knowing how to integrate different parts, or properly taking from
here and there according to pre-planning, we started putting together different
parts and elements to build a modern but formless society with no aim or
goal. In the distorted result we find parts from everywhere, some native,
some European, some old-fashioned and some modern - all piled up in shapeless,
aimless confusion, and in result, creating a shapeless , aimless society
as well. Such societies are non European societies which, during the last
century, have been able to get their construction materials from the West,
in the name of civilization.

What is the origin of the emergence of this mosaic civilisation (or
what I would call cameleopard societies) in non-European countries which
have no special shape and no fixed goal? It is not clear what kind of societies
they are; their people and intellectuals cannot understand what they live
for, what their goal is, what their future holds and what their ideology
contains.

The machine emerged and developed during the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries
in Europe in the hands of the capitalists and the rich. The machine has
the characteristic of the need for constant increase in production when
it is working. This is the machine's coercion. If it does not increase
its production with 10 or 11 years, it will die out, it cannot continue
to function and cannot compete with other machines. Why? Because if it
does not increase its production, other machines, producing the same merchandise
on a larger scale, can sell it cheaper. Therefore, the production of the
obsolete machine stagnates. The machine must produce more and more to be
able to pay more to labor and to put products in the market more cheaply
than its competitors. Science and technology have contributed to the development
of the machine and improved its efficiency. This development has changed
the face of humanity today. We should not consider it as one of the problems
emerging in the world today; rather, strictly speaking, there is no other
problem but this, which has been before us for the last two centuries.
From it grow all the other problems facing the world today.

The machine must increase its production progressively each year. Therefore,to
avoid stock-piling, it must also progressively create the necessity of
continuous consumption. However people's consumption does not increase
at the same rate as does production. A certain society may have 30% increase
in its paper consumption in 10 years and 300%, or tripling, of its paper
production. Ten years ago machines produced 5 kilometers of paper per hour
andtoday produce 50 kilometers per hour, while paper consumption has not
risen and cannot rise to that extent.

So what is to be done about excess production or surplus? What is to
be done with the extra piles of paper? New fields of consumption must be
provided. Each European country has a special and particular taste and
a fixed consumption; their populations do not exceed 40 to 60 million.The
frantic production rate, rising constantly, exceeds the desires of people
to consume. They can't keep up! Thus since the machine has compulsively
produced excess goods, it must step over it's national boundary and push
goods into foreign markets. When the capitalists gained control of machinery,
technology and science in the 18th century, humanity's destiny was determined.
Every single human on the face of the earth would be coerced into becoming
a consumer for the produced merchandise. European markets became saturated
rapidly; consequently the surplus goods had to go to Asia and Africa. Asians
and Africans had to consume the surplus European products.

Can these products actually be taken to the East, whose pattern of life
does not require them, and force their consumption? Impossible! When you
enter an Asian society you notice that the Asian's clothing is made by
his wife or in a native workshop. They wear traditional garments. There
is no demand here for the products of factories which make machines, or
"high fashion" clothes, or the "modern" fabrics of Europe. In an African
society we will notice that their desires, interests and joys are confined
to horse-riding and appreciation of the grace of their horses. They lack
highways, drivers, ideas of machines, and the need for any of these. In
their style of life their production is equal to their consumption, which
is consistent with their traditions, tastes and necessities. For them,
therefore, an automobile, as any other European product, is entirely redundant.

European factories produced an ever-increasing quantity of luxury goods
and sought for them a market in Asian and African countries. It was out
of the question to expect Asian and African men and women to use these
products in the 18th century or even the 19th even if the products had
been furnished free. They had other enjoyments; they had their own special
native adornments. An African or Asian woman had no need for European cosmetics
and no need for trinkets to beautify herself and dress up. She already
had her own cosmetics, her own materials and make-up. She would use them
and all would admire her. Nor would she feel any need for a change.

As a result of her attitude, the capitalist's merchandise remained unsold.
People with this way of thinking, with unique necessities and tastes, who
have their own life style and produce their own necessities, were not the
type of people who would consume the products of 18th century European
capitalists. So what to do? The problem was to make people in Asia and
Africa consumers of European products. Their societies must be structured
so they would buy European products. That meant changing a nation literally.
They had to change the nation, and they had to transform a man in order
to change his clothing, his consumption pattern, his adornment, his abode
and his city. What part of him to change first? His morale and his thinking.
Who could change the spirit of a society, the morale of a society and the
way of thinking of a nation? In this respect, there was little the European
capitalist, engineer or producer could do. Rather, it was the business
of the enlightened European intellectuals to plan a special method of perverting
the mind, the taste and lifestyle of the non-European, not in a way that
he himself chooses, - since the change he desires might not necessitate
the consumption of European products - rather his desires, his choices,
his suffering, his sorrow, his tastes, his ideals, his sense of beauty,
his tradition, his social relations, his amusements - all must be changed
so that he is coerced into becoming a consumer of European industrial products.
So the big producers and big European capitalists of the 18th and 19th
centuries let the intellectuals handle this project.

This was the project: all the people of the world must become uniform.
They must live alike.They must think alike. Practically, it is impossible
for all the nations to think in the same way. What structural elements
go into the personality and spirit of a man and nation? Religion, history,
culture, past civilization, education and tradition. All of these mentioned
are the structural elements of a man's personality and spirit and, in its
general term, of a nation. These elements differ from one society to another.
They result in one form in Europe, another in Asia and in Africa. They
all have to become the same. The differences in thinking and spirits of
the nations of the world must be destroyed in order for men to become uniform.They
must conform, wherever they are, to a single pattern. What is this pattern?
The pattern is provided by Europe: it shows all Easterners, Asians, Africans,
how to think, how to dress, how to desire, how to grieve, how to build
their houses, how to establish their social relations, how to consume,
how to express their view, and finally how to like and what to like. Soon
it is realized that a new culture called "modernization" was presented
to the whole world.

Modernity was the best method of diverting the non-European world, from
whatever form and mould of thinking, from their own mould, thought and
personality. It became the sole task of Europeans to place the temptation
of "modernization" before the non-European societies of any complexion.
The Europeans realized that by tempting the inhabitant of the East with
a compulsive desire for "modernization", he would cooperate with them to
deny his own past and desecrate and destroy with his own hands the constituents
of his own unique culture, religion and personality. So the temptation
and longing for "modernization" prevailed all across the Far East, Middle
East, Near East and in Islamic and Black countries - and to become modernized
was regarded as becoming like the Europeans.

Strictly speaking, "modernized" means modernized in consumption. One
who becomes modernized is one whose tastes now desire "modern" items to
satisfy his wants. In other words, he imports from Europe new forms of
living and modern products, and he does not use new types of products and
a lifestyle developed from his own original and national past. Non-Europeans
are modernized for the sake of consumption. Westerners, however, could
not just tell others they were going to reshape their intellect, mind and
personality for fear of awakening resistance. Therefore, the Europeans
had to make non-Europeans equate "modernization" with "civilization" to
impose the new consumption pattern upon them, since everyone has a desire
for civilization. "Modernization" was defined as "civilization" and thus
people cooperated with the European plans to modernize. Even more than
the bourgeois and capitalist, the non-European intellectual labored mightily
to change consumption patterns and lifestyles in their societies. Since
the non-Europeans could not produce the new products, they became automatically
dependant upon the technology which produces for them and expects them
to buy whatever it produces.

While studyingin Europe, I heard of an automobile factory that advertised
high-paying jobs for sociologists and psychologists. I was looking for
a job, and besides I became very interested in knowing why a car factory
needed sociologists and psychologists. So I went there for a job interview
with the man in the public relations department. He asked me, "Perhaps
you are wondering why we are recruiting sociologists while we usually hire
mechanical engineers and the like?" I said yes. He brought out a map of
all of Asia and Africa and pointed to some cities, telling me that in some
there was a great demand for the cars and many customers but that in others
there was no demand. He continued:"We can't find out why there is no demand
from engineers. It is the sociologists' task to find out what these people
like and why they don't buy cars, so we can change the color or design
of the cars, if possible, and if not, make them change their taste." Then
he gave me an example of European sociologists' success in modernizing
a certain tribe.

He showed me a wooded and mountainous area on the bank of the Chad River
in Africa where many long-nomadic tribes lived. People there did not wear
clothes and kept cattle for a living. He pointed out some areas where a
group of people lived around the tribal chief's castle. They had no schools,
no roads or highways, no clothes and no houses. They lived in tents. Then
he told me that the chief of this semi-wild village had parked two modern
Renaults with gold trim in front of his palace.

"These natives were only interested in horses originally. The person
who possessed the best horse was the most well-known and envied. Everyone
tried to raise the best horse as a means of self-glorification and achieving
dominance. As long as this kind of consciousness predominated in the tribe,"
the car employer told me, "no-one would buy a car. Rather, all of them
would continue to buy horses, and we do not produce any horses. So we tried
to think of a way to make the natives buy the automobiles we produce in
Europe."

"The women of the tribe make themselves up attractively with preparations
made of gum and sap from the forest, and everyone likes their style. Happy
with their local culture, folk dance and native food, it is obvious that
no women in the tribe will buy Christian Dior cosmetics nor would the men
buy Renaults. Europeans never even tried to sell them anything. But eventually
a development allowed the European sociologists an opportunity to change
the taste of the natives. The chief of the tribe used to tie two beautiful
horses with his best hunting dog in front of his headquarters, and now
we have changed his taste. We have modernized him: instead of tying up
his horses in front of his place, now, he takes pride in parking there
the two Renaults with golden trim."

I asked him with surprise: " But they don't have any roads?" "They have
built a temporary 8 kilometer road," he said.

"When the chief of the tribe first bought the car, every morning he
would take a ride and all the people of the tribe would gather and watch
the car. He did not know how to drive, so he hired one from here. The driver
worked for him eight months and received a handsome salary. There were
no gas stations near the tribe, so the gas was bought from far distances
by boat."

So the goal of the capitalist was not really to civilize this tribe
but to modernize it. The chief who was proud of his horse and was a horse
rider is now proud of his car and enjoys driving it. The chief of the tribe,
like many other Asians or non-Europeans, has become modernized but one
must really be naive to judge superficially that he has become civilised
as well.

Modernization is changing traditions, mode of consumption and material
life from old to new. People made the old ways; machines produce the new.
To make all the non-Europeans modernized, they first had to overcome the
influence of religion, since religion causes any society to feel a distinctive
individuality. Religion postulates an exalted intellectuality to which
everyone relates intellectually. If this intellect is crushed and humiliated,
the one who identifies himself with it feels also crushed and humiliated.
So native intellectuals began a movement against "fanaticism". As Franz
Fanon says: "Europe intended to captivate the non-European by the machine.
Can a human or society be enslaved by a machine or certain European product
without taking away or depriving him of his personality?" No, it can not.
The personality must be wiped out first.

Since religion, history, culture, as a totality of intellect, thought,
amassed art and literature give personality to a society, they all have
to be destroyed, too. In the 19th century I would feel as an Iranian that
I was attached to a great civilization of the 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th
centuries of Islam which was unparallelled in the world and had the whole
world under its influence. I would feel that I was attached to a culture,
more than 2000 years old, which in various forms and shapes, had created
new intellectualism, new art and literature in the world of humanity. I
would feel that I was attached to the Islam that was the newest, the most
sublime and the most universal religion, creating all those intellectualities
and dissolving all those different civilizations in itself to create a
greater civilization. I would feel attached to the Islam which created