The first case of the novel Coronavirus, known as the Covid-19, was reported in the Chinese City of Wuhan in late December 2019. Since then, the pandemic paralyzed the world's economy as well as social life. Almost, no country is immune from being hit by the deadly coronavirus outbreak as the virus has claimed the lives of more than 165,000 people with over two million infections across the world so far. Undoubtedly, the number of fatalities of the virus will vary depending on the level of the public awareness, health facilities and the provision of desirable health services in different countries.

  The first positive case of the coronavirus was recorded in late February 2020 in Afghanistan following the influx of thousands of Afghan refugees from neighbouring countries, especially Iran, which is the worst-coronavirus hit country in the Middle East. Plagued by the Covid-19, Iran shares more than 945 Km of borders with Afghanistan, hosting more than two million Afghan refugees. 

  As an Afghan journalist, I have tried to make people aware of the dangers of the coronavirus with sharing the latest death toll and infections of the pandemic in my Facebook account where I host almost 5,000 friends and more than 14,000 followers. By making a video clip, I have denied the rumours that there is no coronavirus cases in Afghanistan and that this virus is a mercy to Muslims and a punishment for infidels. A large group of the public in Afghanistan, who are illiterate and somehow believe in the pulpit of the mosque, have been guaranteed that the virus will not hit Afghanistan. They do not take it seriously and still have full faith in the clerics who consider the coronavirus as a punishment from Allah to unbelievers. The missionaries in most of the mosques preach the Covid-19 as a mercy for Muslims and chastisement to infidels from Allah. 

  I have shared my commentary entitled "Triangle of Afghanistan's Problem in Dealing with Coronavirus" in my personal BLOGFA address. Recently, we have made a video clip encouraging people to take the coronavirus seriously and stay at home with the coordination of a number of students studying in Turkey. The clip was welcomed by pursuers and have been shared multiple times in different social media platforms.

  Afghanistan is experiencing an extremely painful and obscurant situation. Our lens touches with desperation and calamity from every dimension we look to it. I hope that these efforts will be fruitful and yield to a good result in containing the coronavirus outbreak. But wishes won't wash dishes, governance of dormant and inefficient official to impoverished territorial devastates all these wishes. I am crossing my fingers to my country but every Tom and dick and Harry knows that darker and more catastrophic days will be recorded in the future history of Afghanistan if the government and the people do not take serious actions to combat the coronavirus pandemic. 

Note: The essay was part of an assignment by Prof. Dr. Bedriye Poyraz, Communication Faculty of Anakra University. 

M. Zaher Dowran

Michel Foucault gives us a new way of thinking about power. A way which allows us to find power in a place where we would have never expected to find it before, including in the university and in the scientific knowledge itself. To understand Foucault thinking, we should bear in mind the distinction between the two kinds of power. Repressive power and normalizing power. To think of power in terms of repression is the traditional way of thinking. Against that Foucault suggests that most power indeed the most important kind of power in our modern society does not repressive at all. It works in a far subtler less visible way this power is what Foucault calls normalizing power. 

When we think of someone who is exercising power some of the images that may come up in our minds are these a judge ordering a criminal to be locked up 10 years, a country using its superior military to conquer another country, an angry boss telling his employee to do as he has told or get fired and so on. 

When we think of the power we tend to think of violence, whether physical or mental. This is the idea of power as repression. You want to do one thing but someone else uses their power to forces you to do their bidding instead. Such power is undeniably effective but there is also a sense in which in each of these cases the need to apply power implies a failure. The state only has to lock up criminals if its laws have been broken, the bigger country only needs to go to the trouble of invading the smaller country if it has failed in other ways to make the smaller country do what it wants. And a boss who has threatened his employees is not really in control. A boss who is really in control is obeyed without the need for threats. Repressive power without no doubt the most visible form of power is also is a kind of second-rate. Our lives are shaped by repressive power or by the threat of repressive power only on rare occasions. For instance, only a few of us go to jail for stealing. And what's more, it's not the case that the rest of us are motivated not to steal because we are afraid of going to jail. Because of the threat of jail, we don’t walk through the supermarket with the desire to steal things held in check only by our fear of the police. No, we don't even think about stealing. If we think about it we don't consider it seriously. 

That is where Foucault's idea of normalizing power comes in. Repressive power forces us to do what we don't want to do. Normalizing power, on the other hand, makes us want to do what we have to do anyway. It turns us into people who automatically by their own will do what society wishes them to do. 

Normalizing power is a power that determines what we see as normal. It constructs our view of the world and ourselves. In that, it shapes our beliefs our desires and our decisions while at the same time giving us the idea that these are our own beliefs, desires and decisions that nobody has forced them upon us. In the sense, that’s true even though our lives have been shaped in countless ways by the normalizing power of society. 

Foucault is extremely sceptical of the idea that there is some true you hiding underneath what society has made of you. Without society, you wouldn't be a person at all. All of us are and always will be normalized to a very large extend. Foucault points out that while repressive power often focused in very specific institutions and individuals, the police force, the army, the judge, the bosses and the politicians. Normalizing power, on the other hand, is everywhere. The family is the source of normalizing power. And so is the school, the university, the hospital, the psychiatric clinic and even the commercial break on television. 

So, how we can link Foucault's normalizing conception with Stuart Hall's reception theory?

Stuart Hall's theory suggests that the media carries important messages, which producers "encode" in text. However, audiences come to their interpretations when they "decode" a text through the process of negotiation. He further proposed that audiences come to different understandings of a text depending on the reception context in which they saw it. 

Stuart Hall urges that there are three main positions that the audiences might take when they decode the media message. Such as dominant-hegemonic or preferred, negotiated and oppositional. 

The first type of decoding is the dominated response. In this type of response, the audience or receiver fully accepts and reproduces the code to the producer or sender.

The second type of decoding is the negotiated response. To emphasize the notion of no necessary correspondence between encoding and decoding, Hall (1980a) also distinguishes between "negotiated" and "oppositional" readings. A negotiated reading occurs when despite recognizing the authenticity of hegemonic definitions the viewer contests them through particular or "situated" logics. 

The third type of decoding is the oppositional response. An oppositional reading, according to Hall, occurs when the viewer understands both the literal and implicative meanings of discourse but decodes the message in an entirely heterogeneous way. It is here, he argues, that the "politics of signification" meets the "struggle in the discourse," indicating the failure of practices of encoding to achieve a hegemonic reading of the text.

In our contemporary community where the media messages and ideology behind it shapes the living conditions and lifestyles of people, we can urge that normalizing power acts in its best. Media producers normalize their intended message on audiences in the long run or short terms. As Foucault had said that the media has normalizing power. I think Foucault would agree with Hall's dominant-hegemonic or preferred positions of audiences in the contemporary societies but the negotiated and oppositional positions of audiences are contradicted with Foucault's idea of normalizing power. Media could normalize power verily on passive audiences but negotiated and oppositional readers would not agree whatever the media says.

Note: The essay will be revised and completed later. It is the draft version of my assignment to a professor. 

M. Zaher Dowran

Afghanistan is facing many difficulties in its fight against the coronavirus. The first positive case of the coronavirus was recorded in late February 2020 in Afghanistan with entering a coronavirus infected person from Iran to western Herat Province. Iran, a country plagued by the coronavirus, shares more than 945 Km of the border with Afghanistan and hosts more than two million Afghan refugees. 

One and half months after the first positive case of the COVID-19 was reported in Afghanistan, almost 400 people caught the virus and 14 more died of the illness. But the influx of thousands of Afghan refugees from neighbouring countries, especially Iran questions the validity of these figures. According to official reports, the number of infected people to the coronavirus has reached more than 60,000, with more than 4,000 fatalities in Iran. Following the worsened situation in Iran, Afghan migrants have entered Afghanistan without control and testing of their infections to the virus and this trend continues as well. 

But now, what is Afghanistan's main challenge to deal with the coronavirus?

The first side of the triangle, the public does not have enough awareness about the coronavirus pandemic. They do not take it seriously and still have full faith in the clerics who consider the virus as a punishment from God to the unbelievers. The missionaries in most of the mosques preach the coronavirus as a mercy for Muslims and chastisement to infidels from Allah.

A large group of the public, who are illiterate and somehow believe in the pulpit of the mosque, has been guaranteed that the virus will not enter Afghanistan. They do not hesitate to gather, celebrate special days and enjoy their routine life. 

The second edge of the triangle is the lack of sufficient facilities to combat the deadly coronavirus outbreak. The country suffers from a lack of high coronavirus testing capacity, as it has the only diagnostic centre in the Afghan capital of Kabul. Considering the growing number of Afghan refugees returning from Iran and remaining the country's air corridor open to the world, testing about 100 people for coronavirus in a day is by no means sufficient.

A comparison of the number of coronavirus patients in Afghanistan and other countries shows that the number of infected individuals to the coronavirus is much lower than in other countries. According to the experts, the reason for the low number of patients in Afghanistan is the limited facilities for coronavirus testing. The Public Health Department of Herat Province recently has announced that the activity of the coronavirus diagnosis laboratory in the province has been suspended due to the lack of sufficient materials.

Lack of transparency forms the third edge of the problem. Although the World Bank has provided more than 100m dollars and the US has provided 15m dollars to contain the coronavirus outbreak in Afghanistan, no dramatic measures are taken to combat the phenomenon. The US has long complained of graft by its ally Afghanistan. As Washington had cut more than 160m dollars in direct funding for Afghanistan while accusing the Kabul administration of failing to fight corruption in 2019. 

 In the latest case, the US State Department has stated that "as the world gets slammed by COVID-19, with devastating economic consequences for all, donors are frustrated and fed up by personal agendas being advanced of the welfare of the Afghan people".

Finally, it can be said that if this triangle of the challenge is not broken and destroyed, darker and more catastrophic days will be recorded in the future history of Afghanistan. 

(Views are my own) 

M. Zaher Dowran

افغانستان در مبارزه با ویروس کرونا با مشکلات بسیاری مواجه است. نخستین واقعه مثبت در افغانستان در اواخر فبروی 2020 به ثبت رسید. اولین فرد مصاب به ویروس کرونا از ایران به شهر غربی افغانستان، هرات وارد شده است. ایران، کشوری که سخت در عذاب ویروس کرونا است، با میزبانی بیشتر از 2 میلیون مهاجر افغان با  این کشور حدود 945 کیلومتر طول، مرز مشترک دارد.

بعد از یک و نیم ماه از ثبت اولین واقعه مثبت ویروس کرونا در افغانستان تا حال تعداد مبتلایان به ویروس کرونا در حدود چهار صد تن و تعداد قربانیان آن 14  تن گزارش داده شده است. اما سرازیر شدن هزاران تن از مهاجرین افغان از کشور های همسایه بخصوص ایران درستی این ارقام را زیر سوال می برد. بنابر گزارش های رسمی تا حال تعداد قربانیان ویروس کرونا در ایران نزدیک به چهار هزار و تعداد مبتلایان نیز به بیش از شصت هزار تن رسیده است. مهاجرین افغان بعد از وخیم شدن وضعیت در ایران بدون کنترول و تست وارد افغانستان شده اند و این روند همچان در جریان است.

بعد از یک و نیم ماه از ثبت اولین واقعه مثبت ویروس کرونا در افغانستان تا حال تعداد مبتلایان به ویروس کرونا در حدود چهار صد تن و تعداد قربانیان آن 14  تن گزارش داده شده است. اما سرازیر شدن هزاران تن از مهاجرین افغان از کشور های همسایه بخصوص ایران درستی این ارقام را زیر سوال می برد. بنابر گزارش های رسمی تا حال تعداد قربانیان ویروس کرونا در ایران نزدیک به چهار هزار و تعداد مبتلایان نیز به بیش از شصت هزار تن رسیده است. مهاجرین افغان بعد از وخیم شدن وضعیت در ایران بدون کنترول و تست وارد افغانستان شده اند و این روند همچان در جریان است.

اما حالا اساسی ترین مشکل افغانستان در مقابله با ویروس کرونا در چیست؟

نخستین ضلع مثلث- مردم عام اطلاعات کافی و درست در مورد ویروس کرونا ندارند. این ویروس را جدی نمی‌گیرند و تا حال به روحانیون که این ویروس را عذابی از طرف خداوند به کافران می پندارند باور و اعتقاد کامل دارند. در اکثر مساجد مبلغین ویروس کرونا را رحمتی بر مسلمانان و عذابی بر کافران تبلیغ می کنند. مردم عوام که سواد کافی ندارند و به نحوی اعتقاد شان به منبر مسجد است فکر می کنند ویروسی در افغانستان وارد نخواهد شد. از محافل، گردهمایی و تجلیل روزهای خاص دریغ نمی کنند. زنده گی را همانند گذشته نورمال پیش می برند.

-لبه ی دوم مثلث نبود امکانات کافی در مبارزه با ویروس کرونا در افغانستان است. مجموعه تست ویروس کرونا در افغانستان به طور چشم گیری کم ودر عین حال دارای یگانه مرکز تشخیص ویروس کرونا است. با توجه به برگشت روزافزون مهاجرین افغانستان از ایران و باز بودن دهلیز هوایی این کشور با جهان، تست ویروس کرونا حدود 100 تن روزانه به هیچ وجه کافی نیست.

مقایسه آمار مبتلایان کرونا در افغانستان و سایر کشورها نشان می‌دهد که شمار مبتلایان در کشور، خیلی کم‌تر از دیگر کشورها است. از دید آگاهان دلیل پایین بودن میزان مبتلایان در افغانستان، امکانات محدود برای آزمایش کرونا است. ریاست صحت عامه ولایت هرات اخیرا اعلان کرد که به دلیل نبود مواد کافی کار در آزمایشگاه تشخیص کرونا ویروس در این ولایت متوقف شده است.

-نبود شفافیت کاری در ادارات دولتی کناره‌ی سوم اساسی ترین مشکل افغانستان در مقابله با ویروس کرونا را شکل می‌دهد. با آنکه بانک جهانی بیش از صد میلیون دالر و امریکا نیز 15 میلیون دالر در مقابله با ویروس کشنده کرونا به افغانستان کمک کرد اما اقدامات در مقابله با این پدیده در بسیط ترین حالت قرار دارد. همکار استراتیژیک افغانستان امریکا نیز از فساد اداری و سو مدیریت مالی این کشور شاکی است. چنانکه در سپتمبر 2019 صد میلیون دالری را که برای اجرای یک پروژه برق در افغانستان اختصاص یافته بود پس گرفت و از پرداخت 60 میلیون دالر کمک اضافی نیز خودداری کرده بود. علت اصلی این کنار اوج فساد اداری و سو مدیریت مالی در افغانستان گفته شده بود.

در تازه ترین مورد نیز امریکا اعلام کرد که "جهان درگیر تبعات اقتصادی ویرانگر کرونا است، رهبران افغان اهداف شخصی خود را بر رفاه مردم افغانستان مقدم می دانند". وزارت خارجه آمریکا در بیانیه به علاوه گفته است که "ما از اجنداهای شخصی رهبران افغان خسته و ناامید شده ایم".

در اخیر میتوان گفت که اگر این مثلث شکسته و ویران نشود روزهای تاریک‌تر و فاجعه‌بار در تاریخ آینده افغانستان به ثبت خواهد رسید.

ظاهر دوران

The Frankfurt School, known more appropriatley as Critical Theory, was founded by Horkheimer and Adorno in 1923 in Frankfurt. They migrated to America in the days of Nazi domination and returned to Germany in 1950. The leaders of the Frankfurt School each were specialized in various fields. Adorno was a sociologist and musician, Marcuse a philosopher and Benjamin a critic and theorist. Pollock was an economic, Eric Forum a psychologist, and Neumann a lawyer. Felix Weil, a Jewish German-Argentine Marxist, provided the funds of the School aimed to develop Marxist studies in Gernmany. Most of these people were Jewish, so they became Hitler's anger.  This School was strongly opposed to positivism. Positivism treated human beings as objects.

The Frankfurt School wanted to revive the forgotten aspects of the Hegelian and Marxist schools. In their view, Russian Marxism has not paid enough attention to dialectics, art and culture. In Russia, instead of realizing the rule of the proletariat, the sovereignty over the proletariat has been realized. Instead of weakening the state and strengthening proletariat, the state has become stronger day by day. The Frankfurt School focused on human beings and its concerns rather than economics.

Four important stages can be identified for political and philosophical life of the Frankfurt School, in each of which the political and social events of the world led the school in a certain direction. In each of these stages, new ideas and approaches were proposed in accordance with the time conditions. These steps are: The first stage is from 1923 to 1933 the beginning of the activity until the Nazis came to power. An important feature of this stage was the diversity of ideas and the lack of a dogmatic view of Marxism.

The second phase, from 1933 to 1950, when members of the School immigrate to the US following Hitler's taking office. At the beginning of the migration or exile period, since the members were unfamiliar with English they wrote in German. But after a while, some members expressed their works and writings in English. The institute was headed by Horkheimer.

The third phase covers the period from 1950 to the 1970s and the return to Germany after World War II. During this period, Marx Weber's ideas and theories came to the fore.  

The fourth stage, which includes the seventies onwards, the influence of the school greatly reduced due to the deaths of Adorno and Horkheimer. During this period, the institute distanced itself from Marxist principles.

The pioneers of Frankfurt School Adornor and Horkheimer presented an article on the cultural and mass industries. According to this theory, cultural industries are a new part of the industry of information institutions such as radio, press and cinema, which are used to achieve the interests of industry owners. In this sense, culture becomes an industry that its main goal is to increase profits for the benefit of the owners of capitalist societies. Cultural industry, with its mass production of diverse goods and with the help of media outlets such as radio, television and the press, has made extensive publicity to market and consume goods, deceiving the minds and public opinion of passive and submissive individuals in the interests of ruling capitalist class.

Eventually, culture industry promotes advertising and marketing and consumption of goods with mass production of various goods and with the help of mass media, television, radio and so forth. Thereby, it destroys the minds of public and creates a passive and submissive people to ruling class.

M. Zaher Dowran