No book about the Middle East or Asia will win awards in this country if it does not reflect the interests of the United States
Author: Farid Yunes, Retired Professor of Cultural Anthropology and Islamic Philosophy at the University of California, Member of the Sangar Advisory Board
From the point of view of history, all issues in society depend on each other, and this is the beauty of history. That is, if the historian does not consider various issues in a historical direction, it may be incomplete historiography.
Today, writing history from the past does not only cover political issues, on the contrary, all issues also have a common context. For example, the mandatory wearing of the hijab in Afghanistan is not only a religious issue, but also a social, political, and economic one, as it is imposed by a government without legal legitimacy, increases the purchase of chodari (burqa) in the commodity market, and has social and psychological consequences.
On May 10, at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public policy of the University of Toronto, a dialogue was held with the author of a new book on the history of Afghanistan “The American War in Afghanistan” Carter Malkasian via the Zoom system. His pioneering research was awarded the Lionel Gelber Book Prize.
The talk about Afghanistan was interesting. The author met Ashraf Ghani several times and praised him and did not hold him responsible for the destruction of Afghanistan. He also did not criticize the actions of the Taliban and indirectly supported them.
From the people mentioned on the book award jury, it was clear that it consisted of a strong lobby involved in US foreign policy. As you know, Ashraf Ghani also came to power with the help of the Jewish lobby. So this author's support is not new. As a researcher, good book or bad, I ordered the book because it must have good things to read.
I wanted to warn you that an American academic body follows American policy. This is very misleading to public opinion. When students and laypeople see what an award-winning academic says, they blindly accept what he says, just as Sunnis and Shiites blindly accept their jurisprudence without researching it themselves, they also blindly accept questions of history.
Why did I write about this new book? No book about the Middle East or Asia will win awards in this country if it does not reflect the interests of the United States. The people of Afghanistan should not be too naive. A very powerful tactic in the United States is the press and academic authorities that cut your throat with cotton and you don't understand what is happening to you.
