Tag: Dr. Majed Ashy

Tomorrow’s Wars: A Work In Progress

Posted on by kathiemm

 

Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License Author= UN Security Council

 

This is the first in a new two-part series by  guest author Dr. Majed Ashy.

Often, the bloody destructive assaults known euphemistically as “armed conflicts”  grow out of the operation of at least three factors. Grievances, real or perceived, need to be present in the relationships of two or more sides. These grievances can be due to historical, social, political, racial, religious, economical, territorial, or other injustices that have not been addressed or are simply denied.

 A common second factor is the occurrence of an event with the power to ignite the conflict—e.g., the killing of an archbishop (impetus to World War I), the shooting down of an airplane with a top official (impetus to the Rwandan genocide).

 A third factor is the presence of leaders who will take advantage of the event in order to escalate the conflict and stimulate destructive emotions through their speeches, propaganda, appeals to deep instincts and fears, and use of historical and current symbols and analogies to whip people up into readiness to commit violence.

Another factor, probably less well recognized, is the rampant experiencing of armed conflict by children and adolescents.  The human brain is in a state of elasticity during the years up through adolescence. Various neurological developmental processes are influenced by environmental events. Stresses due to the trauma of war and violence, experienced and witnessed, have hormonal and other physiological consequences that affect various neuro-developmental processes. In my view, the wars of the past decades contributed to the brutality we witness today, and I believe that the wars of today are the factories that will produce the hate and brutality of the future. Unless we stop them.

 

 Majed Ashy, Ph.D. is an Assistant professor in psychology, Merrimack College and a Research fellow in psychiatry, DBPRP at McLean Hospital, Harvard Medical School.

 

The psychology of revolutions, Part 3: Balance of power

Posted on by kathiemm

By guest author Majed Ashy

It is important to understand the differences between revolutions occurring today and revolutions of the past.

Mural of uprising
Mural of uprising, in public domain.

In the past, limited technology and communication allowed for revolutions to be more local and their international effects to take time. In addition, it was easier to hide the bloodshed associated with some revolutions–or even not to record at all in history.

Today, the Internet and other advances in communication and technologies allow for instant recording and broadcasting, and in some circumstances, the biased presentations of events in order to inform or influence public opinion. Such developments transformed the international community into an interconnected one with events in one country having quick consequences in others.

This situation creates a delicate balance of power. Any rapid changes–positive or negative–in one country can change this balance and in turn require the involvement of other regional and international forces to slow or affect such developments. Thus, revolutions are not only shifts in the internal balance of power but also in the regional and global ones.

In the Middle East today, there are mainly two forces in conflict: one that believes in mixing Islam with politics (internal and international), and one that believes in the separation of Islam from politics (some call it the enlightenment era).

In Part 4 of this series, we will explore these two forces.

Dr. Majed Ashy is an assistant professor of psychology at Merrimack College and a research fellow in psychiatry at McLean Hospital/Harvard Medical School.

The psychology of revolutions, Part 2: The case of Egypt

Posted on by kathiemm

By guest author, Dr. Majed Ashy

Arab Spring collage
Arab Spring collage compiled by VOA photo/L. Bryant, Jonathan Rashad. Used under CC Attribution 3.0 Unported license. From Wikimedia Commons.

Following the 2011 Arab Spring revolutions, the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist groups won the first elections, due to their long history in organizing and their experience in politics compared to the other groups. They were also aided by the fact that people wanted to stay away from the previous system.

These Islamic governments immediately started to apply their vision of an Islamic state to their whole nations without taking into account or understanding the power of the other partners in the revolution and without understanding that the supporters of the previous system were working against them.

The previous system is called “deep government” in the Middle East because it created systems and cultures that are so deeply rooted that it is hard for any government or revolution to make any fundamental changes.

Thus, in the Middle East—for example in Egypt–there are several competing visions for the future. Should the Middle East become a set of religious states or modern secular civilian democracies? Or should the old system of corruption and oppression continue in some form? Could it be true, as some people argue, that the old autocratic systems are the only ones that will work in the Middle East?

The revolutions that have been taking place in the Middle East are faced at this stage with challenging geopolitical realities both inside each country and internationally. People cannot escape from their history, cultural realities, human tendencies, or geopolitical environment.

I think the Middle East needs to understand the role of culture and history in their behavior. I believe that a successful government is one that does not exclude anyone and includes all visions of society in its steps forward. I think groups in the Middle East need to understand the politics of co-existence, power sharing, and respect for human rights.

Winning an election does not mean that a small group can use its powers to change the legal system and the government in ways that will guarantee its power forever, nor does it mean the winning group can take the whole nation in its own preferred direction without respecting the wishes of the masses and various interest groups in society.

Dr. Majed Ashy is an assistant professor of psychology at Merrimack College and a research fellow in psychiatry at McLean Hospital/Harvard Medical School.

The psychology of revolutions, Part I

Posted on by kathiemm

By guest author, Dr. Majed Ashy

There are at least two models for national development: evolution and revolution.

The Centennial of Independence by Henri Rousseau, 1892
Le centenaire de l’independance by Henri Rousseau, 1892. In public domain.

Evolution involves the gradual development of a nation over considerable time. It requires progress by both the government and the people in ways that address socioeconomic and cultural realities. It takes into account:

  • Principles of justice
  • Inclusion of society’s diverse members and groups
  • An understanding by both the people and the government regarding the basic concepts of human rights
  • Recognition of the importance of civilian governments standing at equal distances from all groups in society.

By contrast, revolutions happen when the government is rigid and biased towards certain groups in society. Revolutions are most likely when people feel stagnated socioeconomically and culturally in ways that reflect unfairness and corruption in the ruling parties.

Revolutions represent hope for radical changes in the system and society that will allow for rapid development and counter the times lost in stagnation. They tend to be motivated by popular hopes for justice, equality, and dignity. However, these hopes might conflict with the realities in society of some people motivated by personal greed, power, or revenge.

Among today’s Western European democracies, we can identify governments that were largely achieved through revolution as well as governments that emerged through a more evolutionary process. For example, the French government grew out of revolutionary activity that involved about 200 years of bloodshed, fighting between the partners in the revolution, wars with other countries, and counter-revolutions.

At the same time, England’s democratic system evolved gradually, without major internal revolutions, after the 1215 signing of the Magna Carta (The Great Charter of the Liberties of England), which imposed limits on the power of the king.

In recent years, the Middle East has seen several revolutions. There are two visions that joined hands in the Middle Eastern revolutions. The first vision pictures the Arab world as moving toward various versions of Islamic states; these states might be hybrid between some form of democracy and Sharia law. The second vision reflects a desire for a civilian secular government focused on respecting diversity, liberty, human rights, and socioeconomic development. These visions will be considered further in my next post.

For further reading, please see The Psychology of Revolution, by Gustave Le Bon.

Dr. Majed Ashy is an assistant professor of psychology at Merrimack College and a research fellow in psychiatry at McLean Hospital/Harvard Medical School.