Saturday October 22, 2016
Kabul (BNA) Pen is the shortest way to help reach peace, though no regard had been still paid to it since the last long years in Afghanistan, where all of people efforts to reach the goal had been in vain.
Farhad Shaheer, head and founder of Pen Day said, one of his organization aims was to lodge pen day in the country’s calendar in order to institutionalize the event to support the writers of the country. “As we live in an Islamic geography and Allah The Almighty has sworn by the pen and paying respect to the sacred toll could be called fate and future making, if the pen was priced highly in the last 80 years, the position of the country was politically and economically higher among the regional countries,” said Shaheer adding the supporters tried in vain to lodge the Pen Day in the country’s calendar, but fortunately, the ministry of information and culture, recently agreed for the first time, in 2013 to take the draft plan to the cabinet council for approval. The Pen Day for the time was marked in Kabul, in a grand ceremony, initiated by the country’s CEO office, attended by the country’s culturists, house members, national and international organizations representatives. The move was warmly welcomed by the penmen/women and the country’s writers.
On how pen could be used as replacement with arm to embrace peace, Shaheer believed pen should be admired, respected and used as a mean to tackle all problems and the people, particularly the youth should be helped get aware of the pen everywhere in their deals with ordinary people, traders, officials and national and international entities, as it had a civilization value and the Islamic civilization and history have started with pen. “We should keep intact the value of pen in the society,” said the founder advising that the people should use pen instead of arm, as it is the shortest way to help sustainable peace. He regretted for the writers failure to use pen as a weapon of serving the country and reaching for good peace and said that the writers were not in good situation; in term of economy, socio politic and other fields and facing sometimes violence for their writings. They are not allowed to independently write their favorite articles about social, economic and political reforms, as their writings are occasionally censored, or prevented to be released. Shaheer said all challenges would be tackled by pen, if the writers were respected and supported to independently what they want, as the world advanced nations who speak the first word have respected pen in the past several centuries.
Thanking the government for lodging the Pen Day in the country’s calendar, the founder asked for more to be done in this field and discuss the issue with the international organizations, particularly the UNESCO, via diplomatic ways to globalize the event, as he said the international entities, welcoming the move asked the Afghan authorities themselves, for working hard in this respect. He said his country would reach the apex of its desire through pen, as the pen is the only solution for all problems.
Suraya Raiszada
