Defeat Is A Reason

I keep posting my replies to Anon 2 as separate articles to keep the discussion running and attracting as many participants as possible. That's the latest one:

Dear Anon2,

Sorry for the delay longer than before. Some hassle with my broadband connection and British Telecom’s misconduct kept me deeply engaged with local bureaucracy and now I’m sitting here satisfied and triumphant, enjoying my broadband after almost 3 months of struggle.

As for our debate, seemingly we are getting each other’s points more easily. Whatever you said about difficulties and hardship back at home were the point of my concern in my initial postings.

Even if you want to get more distraught you can pick up any other sphere of life in Tajikistan and you'll sink into a real depression. Corruption is webbing the entire country faster than ever, mother tongue is vanishing and the link between the language and thought is disappearing leaving a tribe in pain of explaining a simplest thing with hundreds of “kim-chi xel”s and “vay-vay”s, nothing new is coming out of our thoughts as the result of our linguistic difficulty, xenophobia is flourishing as a means of self-defence of a weaker against a stronger, books are rarely published and even more rarely read, the art of verbal debate has joined history years ago, a top official swearing at a bunch of journalists does not raise our eye-brows anymore, the most elementary ethics downgraded to its minimum as well as the nation’s world view…

The list could be continued forever, but… There is a big BUT. There is a way out, because a little sparkle of hope is still twinkling, and on no account our depression could lead us to embrace that sparkle. There are still people not afraid to face the truth in its bare and ugly shape and speak about it. One of them is you. The very fact of thinking about our problems is that much promising sparkle. As the first step we have to talk about our discontent as long as to see it wide spread in the entire country. No room for bla bla, sheer lies and comic pride.

One of the oldest reasons of our misfortune could be our historic defeat. We could not rise and hold our heads high after Samanids were broken by Ghaznevids into tatters. Central Asian part of the Persian world succumbed to a pit of stagnation after that with a huge historic blister on its leg. The old nation still kept moving, but the blister of defeat would not allow it move as fast as before and show the previous agility and creativity. A bleeding nation was easier a prey for fresh predators who crawled into our backyard and stabbed us again and again until we stopped moving at all. That’s the moment we are living now with you.

Defeat of a nation is a significant topic of social psychology. There were years after World War II that German parents had to beg their offspring not to shout national mottos in football matches and not to display their national pride at all. Of course, Germany is still a top nation of the world, however, it was reduced from the world’s superpower to a satellite nation to accommodate over 60 000 soldiers of a rising superpower, namely the USA. That American contingent in Germany is still the largest American troop abroad. Germany is still doing well and the collapse of the Soviet Union served it well to recover faster than they imagined. However, it lost its second-ranking power to Japan in the field of industry. Such is the price of just one defeat. Can we now imagine the price of our endless defeats?

In order not to lose what has left in our possession we need to enhance our world view and get closer to realities.

Yours,
D
PS. Your recollection of OINA was breath-taking and moving. I thought it was well-forgotten by anyone who used to watch it.