When do you feel most productive?

There are obvious answers to the question above. Getting a good night’s sleep, waking up refreshed the next morning, full of energy and vigour, makes for a good start to a productive day. Looking after your physical and mental health, maintaining a healthy lifestyle – all these things are necessary to be productive, no matter what profession you are employed in, or activity you engage in.

Let’s step away from the basic idea that writing can be measured by the number of words you write. Being physically and mentally healthy is a great beginning, and if you hammer out ten thousand words in one day, more power to you. I have a different understanding of being productive, one that is not easily quantifiable in numbers of words written, or articles published.

It is most productive when exposing the systematic deceptions and lies deployed by imperialist governments to manufacture consent for overseas wars. No, I am not suggesting that I have a direct wifi connection to the ultimate truth. No, I am not an expert on every topic under the sun.

It is nevertheless necessary, and productive, to counter the lies and propaganda deceptions of the rich and powerful, to expose the agendas behind their calculated language.

In the latest flare up of conflict between the US-Israeli axis and Iran, it is noteworthy to examine how the nation of Iran is portrayed in our Anglophone corporate media. Iran is routinely depicted as a problem nation, a menace to be confronted, a rogue element that is constantly obstructing peaceful resolution and development in West Asia.

Indeed, most nations in the West Asian/Middle Eastern region are portrayed as problem nations, entangled in seemingly intractable conflicts, places where ancient hatreds between Jews and Muslims play out their inevitably destructive psychopathologies.

Iran, a country with which I have no direct connection, is an ancient civilisation. It has had numerous empires, such as the Achaemenid, which developed their economic and cultural influence over the centuries. That empire, which reached its height in the sixth century BCE, was just as geographically large and culturally diverse as the Roman.

Iran was invaded by numerous foreign conquerors – Greek/Macedonian, Arabs, Mongols, Turks – Persians regard the rule of Alexander the Great as a time of cultural darkness and repression.

In the Anglophone nations, we only hear about Iran in the context of mad mullahs, sanctions, nuclear brinkmanship, and oil chokeholds. All these are important, but they contribute to a picture of Iranians as a telegenic soap opera villains, rather than a civilisation with continuity and shared identity.

It is productive to explore and understand other nations, not as targets of regime change, but as countries with civilisational cultures in their own right.

In the early 1990s, with the dissolution of the Soviet bloc, American political scientist the late Samuel Huntington, postulated his now famous ‘clash of civilisations’ thesis. He proposed that with the withdrawal of socialism, there would be renewed civilisational conflict, rival power blocs vying for international supremacy.

I will not go into a critique of the clash of civilisations claim here, because many other writers have already done so. However, there is a connection with Iran here, which I think is a productive line of enquiry.

In 1997, Tehran provided a response to the clash of civilisations thesis. Then president Mohammad Khatami advocated a dialogue among civilisations, an international instrument to promote cross-cultural cooperation and understanding. Actually this was not a new idea. In 1972, Austrian philosopher Hans Köchler, in a letter to UNESCO, advocated a dialogue among different civilisations as a method of conflict resolution, promoting international cooperation and mutual respect.

Is it not productive to take up this effort, not for the purpose of promoting the transnational cultural supremacy of one civilisation over another,but to arrive at a mutual understanding, if not complete agreement, between different nations? In fact, the clash of civilisations thesis, if widely accepted, would result in an international military conflict of rival civilisational blocs we are all working to prevent.

Whether intended by Huntington or not, the clash of civilisations thesis has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you view the world as divided between competing Orwellian transnational entities, then surely your policies and actions will bring about such a world?

The Tehran declaration, while finding supporters around the world, has failed to gain any adherence in the capitals of the major imperial powers. Perhaps it is because the financial oligarchies located in the Global North benefit from keeping the world in a state of confrontation.

Be that as it may, these are the topics that I find productive. Not in the narrow sales and marketing sense of increased web traffic, but in the issues raised. There is nothing wrong with increasing the number of views of your webpage. If you have a million followers, good luck to you. I admire your outreach.

Let us find the time to take cognisance of the issues that impact humanity’s future and ethical wellbeing. There is nothing more productive than helping to preserve life on earth.