The Moroccan thinker, Dr. Saeed Shabar, believes that one of the threats to culture (unilateralism and stereotypes) is the most dangerous thing that can threaten a person's thought and behavior, as he always has only one choice, which makes him lose the breadth of options and the multiplicity of alternatives. He affirms that the origin of pluralism or diversity in culture is an indication of its richness and potential that it can provide its members with, to become a framework for defining and directing human behavior from the current events around it. The idea of the mind drives man to action, and thoughts are the first provider of culture… All human behavior is determined by a general cultural orientation, as well as by specific partial thoughts.
He explained that culture is a collection of sciences, knowledge, languages, and customs… that nourishes the thought and behavior of man, and defines and diagnoses the identity of the group and expresses its various choices and convictions. It is related to behavior and work, which spoils the definition, reduces the concept and weakens its constructive and interactive capacity. The same in that is like those who reduce it to mere songs, folklore, and chants without enabling it from the deep intellectual and spiritual structures of man.
Shabar called for a renewed appeal to the definition that would enable culture to recover the comprehensive and assimilated connotations, and then recover its ability to address and direct human behavior and actions, and even interpret and understand action, behavior and attitudes through the cultural approach first before any other approach, as it is the most capable of evaluation, correction, treatment and guidance.
Shabar pointed out that culture is associated with the circles of religious, intellectual and geographical identity, in a regular, complementary and not confrontational context. It enhances its role, as the religious circle is common to all Muslims, which is supposed to be an element of cohesion, unity and harmony among them. However, this circle does not deny that it has geographical specifics within it, but even country or regional borders as long as it is a reality. Belonging to the country or the region does not at all contradict belonging to the nation, and working on building and correcting the country and the region is a real concern for building and strengthening the entity of the nation. As long as the nation is ultimately the sum of the countries and regions under it.
He considered the cultural diversity, with which the civilization of Islam abounded when it opened up to different social, cultural and civilizational formations in Asia, Europe and Africa, as a richness and richness that absorbed in its origins universal faculties, including monotheism, justice and freedom… and left for it special spaces to express itself, its entity, its experiences or its specificities in the shadow of those assets.
He went to that of the characteristics of culture; it is total; That is, it is a synthesis of different elements from different human interests, different orientations and behaviors, and a variety of pluralism: according to its components and tributaries, in a way that wards off the scourge of profiling; and participatory interaction: open and not closed, capable of communicating and interacting with other cultures, as there is no pure culture; Including religions, foremost of which is the religion of Islam, which calls for openness and assimilation of all wisdom and beneficial experiences, because in the end they only serve the interest and happiness of man in this world or in the hereafter or both. This is the meaning of scrambling, getting to know each other, arguing with what is better, pushing for what is better, and calling to walk the land and look at the experiences of nations, indicating that the most dangerous pest that disrupts the principle of interaction in culture is its closure and confinement in certain frameworks, adding that culture is constructive and formative; It contributes to building awareness and thought, and fortifies education and behavior through its valuable values that it has, and wards off the charge of theory, abstraction, superficiality and marginalization. It is also more capable than others of reform, prevention and treatment, and more capable than others of explaining events and identifying imbalances, because it tends to the deep components in Thoughts that result in behaviors and actions, and include them within the circle of humanity and the world, which strongly supports the role of the common cultural between nations and peoples.
Presented by: Ali Al-Rubai @Al_ARobai