The final definition of the martyrdom culture

The martyrdom culture consists of all remained signs of a martyr containing non-material (spiritual) signs such as beliefs, notions, behaviors, goals, and other spiritual and divine aspects of a martyr being inspirited from Quran and the innocent’s instructions. In addition, the followings can be considered as his material signs: martyr’s clean grave, personal utilities, streets names, ceremonies related to a martyr, written works and totally, whatever which is observable, tangible and can be his memorial.

News ID: ۱۹۰۵۵۰

پنجشنبه - ۱۹ فروردين ۲۰۰۹ / 2009 19 January

Different aspects of culture

Social sciences experts especially, sociologists and anthropologists believe that the culture has two aspects: the material culture and the non-material culture.
1. The material culture: the material culture includes a set of common and general tools, device, facilities, and technologies in a society. Material things, agricultural and industrial devices, photography, music, house utilities, clothes, cars, airplanes, type of housing and,… are all considered as the material culture. In general, that part of a culture having quantitative aspect is considered as the material culture.
2. The spiritual culture: the spiritual or non-material culture includes the qualitative aspect of the culture. This part of culture is not measurable and there is no fixed measure for it. It can be said that whatever non-material is called the spiritual or non-material culture. The literary, artistic, and intellectual works; customs, traditions, morals, beliefs, notions, education, and generally, “the spiritual resources”? of a society is considered as the spiritual culture.
The material and spiritual aspects of the culture have bilateral function. One’s change causes another one’s change. Some of sociologists believe that this change begins in material things and devices and then, its impact spreads and covers the spiritual aspect; but, there is no doubt that changes being made in techniques and devices is the outcome of the human thought and intellect. It is obvious that the human improved and initiative thoughts result in the material circumstances.
Then, such spiritual and non-material effects of the culture to which the term “civilization”? seems to be suitable, cannot be ignored. Although both the spiritual and material aspects of the culture, such as social phenomena, affect each other and these bilateral functions occurs within the society; it is not possible to define changes in the cultural, social and economical phenomena with a definite factor or unit, While, we meet a series of cause here. Moreover, in some fields, intellectual changes (with qualitative changes) i.e. the spiritual aspect of culture may cause a change in technique; and the technique which is the intellectuals product, in turn, may cause intellectual changes in society. For instance, the function of new techniques in education proves such a fact.

Different aspects of the martyrdom culture:

Martyrdom is the ultimate sacrifice of a society’s people and is one of spiritual phenomena, which originates in mysticism. In other words, martyrdom is one of the human mysterious aspects and many of followers of God long for it; but, it doesn’t stop us from debating about a spiritual phenomenon in a framework of human knowledge.
The present essay does not claim to be able to scrutinize all these aspects; but it can be an introduction to such a subject for further study in the future.
Culture has characteristics and, though not exactly, but almost, we can find such characteristics in martyrdom too.
Like culture, the martyrdom culture is general but specific, changing but constant, compulsory but optional too. Then, we tried to demonstrate that the martyrdom culture has functions in society such as preserving the society’s values, giving self-esteem to people, creating a mutual identity and goal, creating social alliance, creating independence and preserving the country’s integrity against aliens and creating liveliness and motivation in a lethargic nation; as well as a cultural functions in a country.

If we consider martyrdom as a culture and confirm the usage of the term “martyrdom culture,”? It must contain different aspects of the culture. As it was defined, the material culture is a kind of culture that can be visible and tangible or be able to be measured. Martyrs graves, clothes, plates, headbands, written wills, streets names, places… are parts of the material section of martyrdom. In fact, for the coming generations, the existence of marks and the material section of martyrdom will be taken as a cultural phenomenon, at the first look, which makes the posterity wonders and makes them think. For example, war museums throughout the world have such characteristic. Also in our country, the martyrs’ museums, which have been founded in Tehran and other cities, are parts of the material section of the martyrdom culture stirring the memories of combatant’s devotions and valor during the war and the Iranian nation’s defense when they are visited. In the spiritual aspect of the martyrdom culture, Islamic rituals have special situations, since, during the age of Shiite imams, and because of the sovereignty of oppressive rulers and the Shiism underdog, followers of Shiism tried to perpetuate the memories of martyred imams and their martyred followers and traditions by rituals, citing poetries and lamenting. Thus, the spiritual section of the martyrdom culture consists of martyrs incentives and goals, mystical whispers, midnight prayers and watches, weeping and praying, ambitions and wishes, true dreams, laments and all of the rituals effective in cherishing their names and memories.

General characteristics of a culture

Social thinkers have mentioned some characteristics for a culture among which all agree three of them. Of course, such characteristics are changing and have different effects while being in different times, places and subjects. These three characteristics are:
1. culture is general and still, it is specific
Since culture is considered as a distinction between the life of human and animal and it exists in every human societies; it is general. Its all manifestations, elements and particles exist in all human life scenes from making devices to clothes and food provision, transactions, needs and instincts satisfaction, laws, customs and habits, political, economical and governmental affairs, philosophy, beliefs regarding the entity and meta-physics, language, marks, achieving objectives and happiness and the way of expressing them, songs, myths, social values and other phenomena of human social life which is the outcome of that society’s history and affected from its special economical and social circumstances. For instance, in every human society, there are language and script for communication. Therefore, language and script are constituent elements of a culture and considered as general. However, we know that every society has its own special language and script, which is different from the other human communities and, this, expresses the specialty of the language element in the society collection. Another instance is that there are religious and meta-physical beliefs in every community and it forms the general section of the culture; still, each community has its own religion, belief, and notion forming that community’s specific culture.
2. Culture is changing and still, it seems constant

Whole social phenomena are fallible to change according to time requirements, inventions, needs and traffics. Consistency (as its physical meaning) cannot be found in any aspect of culture. We can only find consistency relatively in the dead cultures whose signs are apparent in the history of archeological excavations. Human community’s life cannot be still and constant and so, their costumes, ambitions, techniques, arts, and culture are subordinate to it. In fact, this change is the mystery of culture survival and existence. Such a cultural change occurs too slow to be understood easily. Since, human life seems constant because of this slow change. Its understanding is possible when, for instance, the existing culture is compared to the past one. Generally, people feel changes in the material section of culture quicker than the spiritual and non-material section.
To understand cultural changes which seem constant apparently; it will suffice to make a historical cut to realize this change by taking a look at the type of clothes, rituals, language and so on. Making a 50-year historical cut and comparing 50 years ago with today, we feel the cultural change; while, people think their surrounding culture is constant.
3. Culture is compulsory and still, it is optional

Culture necessarily covers our whole social life; but, it rarely imposes itself on our thoughts, knowledge and actions. It means that human, from the beginning of childhood, learns eating, dressing, speaking and finally, knowing merits, beliefs and creed in family and society willy-nilly; but, human beings don’t stay in the fixed framework of society and instead, make cultural innovations. This expresses the compulsory aspect of the culture because of its dominance over society and human presence before it. Thus, cultural elements present in the society from the beginning of his childhood and cover him; but, human is able to correct or reject the type of dressing, life style, beliefs and creed however they have been imposed to him from the childhood. As a result, culture is optional and still, it is compulsory in every society simultaneously.

Characteristics of a culture and its adaptation to the martyrdom culture

Here, we want to know whether three following characteristics are adaptable to the definition “martyrdom culture”?: 1) culture is general and still, it is specific, 2) culture is changing and still, it is constant, and 3) culture is compulsory and still, it is optional. Considering this point, these three characteristics are different from one culture to another and from one phenomenon to another.

1) Martyrdom culture is general and still, it is specific

As it was mentioned before, from the point of social thinkers, all cultural elements can be found in every society; while, every society has its specific culture and is trying to continue it. For example, every society has religions, beliefs, and rituals; still, every society acts as its own specific beliefs. In other words, a phenomenon like creed is found in every society.
Martyrdom exists in every society as a culture i.e. every society compliments the victims of its convenience; still, every society has a specific perception of martyrdom phenomenon according to its beliefs and creed. In every society, some symbols are observed expressing appreciation from people who tried to provide that society’s convenience and even lost their lives over it. Such a thing seems as a general culture of martyrdom like the memorial of “anonymous soldier”? in many countries.
Martyrdom culture, according to the Islamic creed, is a culture whose spirit is formed by Islam. However, in other cultures, there is also a word equal to “martyr”? and, there are similarities like preferring others comfort to personal benefits, patience and resistance, implacability against enemies, opposing prostration, not surrendering to animal life, not fearing from death and according to Imam Hussein. In other cultures, there are people who are freemen; while, they have no religion and no belief to the last judgment. Combatants of independence from colonialism and combatants against dictatorship in other nations are tokens of martyrdom general culture.
Professor Motahari says in general, tradition, i.e. the tradition of whole people of the world including Muslims or non-Muslims and, in the specific tradition of Muslims, some words and terms own a special greatness, respect, and sometimes sanctity. The words scientist, philosopher, peacemaker, inventor, hero, religious scientist, professor, student, pious, God-fearing, believer, diligent, honest, command to good turn, warden, imam and prophet are some kinds of these words some of which are called with greatness, respect and sometimes sanctity in the general tradition and some in the Muslims specific traditions and Islam. It is obvious that a word has no sanctity since, it is a word; but its holiness is derived from its meaning. Holiness of some definitions and meanings existing in all different human communities is related to psychological specific aspects of communities and evaluation background about non-material affairs, which is a deep humanistic and philosophical, debate itself. Professor Motahari says about generality of the term “martyrdom”? while it is “specific”?”?: There is a word in Islam, which has a special holiness. If someone is familiar with the Islamic definitions and considers this word as a particle of Islamic specific tradition, he feels there is a nimbus around it. That word is nothing but “martyr.”? This word has a holiness and greatness in every tradition. There is something about the generality of martyrdom culture and it is the difference of standards and criteria. We are not talking about its non-Islamic definition right now. According to Islam, whoever reaches the grade of martyrdom and can be considered by Islam as a martyr with its specific standards, i.e. he is really killed for the sake of Islamic goals in order to establish the true humanistic values; has reached one of the most superb grades which a human may reach in his own ascending mobility. We can understand Islam’s logic and the reason why this word is holy in the Muslims traditions by seeking through the anecdotes, traditions, and Quran’s perception about martyrs (specification of martyrdom culture for Muslim). Existence of similar words and expressions in other languages approves that there is a sign of martyr definition in every cultures. As an example, when an Iranian is going to introduce a martyr to an Englishman; he does not use the term “shahid”?; but he uses the common word in that language. For instance, there are lots of expressions and definitions related to martyr and martyrdom in the Persian literature whose equivalent can be found in one of the languages (English). Please take a look at these words:
“Martyr, martyrdom, martyrlatry, martyriom, martyr logy, martyrlogist, passional, passianary”?.
Such words in other languages demonstrates that there is a relatively similar expression about martyr in other cultures proving its generality and, its specificity in the Islamic education is “a conscious death for God”?
2) Culture is constant (martyrdom definition) and still; it is changing (epitomes of martyrdom culture)

One characteristics of cultural phenomenon is its change and, at the same time, its consistency. Phenomena like religion and its rituals, language, literature, clothes and material epitomes of culture are changing, while they seem constant.
Although a phenomenon like religion does not experience any change in its base; there is a view and comment adaptable to the time and, according to religious scientists, in any period of time. According to Mowlavi, although the image of the moon in water seems the real moon; water of river in which the moon is shinning is always changing.

POETRY

Islam and Quran has not changed as a belief in its main spirit according to the history; meaning that the generous Quran is the same as what had been in thousand years ago or during the period of imams. Of course, there is no doubt that the religious scientists have searched through the religion and Quran and given responses in order to give comments and meeting people’s needs according to the time requirements.
Commenting Quran, which Quranologists and the religion scientists through the history, have done, has experienced a great change and it means that the comment is synchronized with the time requirements. Professor Motahari says”?: One of Quran’s miracles is the miracle for bibliophiles … in each period, people got from Quran whatever they could comment. After that, the page turned and people’s knowledge changed. People understood that previous comments were not readable; while, Quran itself is still fresh. They got Quran is more adaptable with what is commented today comparing to what was commented in the past i.e. Quran is progressive. It leaves the comment of the first Hegira century behind. In the second century, some comments had been made on Quran. In the third century, science improved. Human became more knowledgeable and then, another comment was made. People of that century found out the mentioned comment was more adaptable with Quran and the previous one had been funny and could not be refreshed at all. Quran has advanced century by century and left the past centuries behind. Therefore, Quran itself is a fixed part of Islamic culture; but scientists’ perception and comments are fallible to cultural changes.
Besides, scientists who lived before the constitutional system and entry of modernism to Iran felt no need to write a book about the veil and no necessity of thinking about such a thing; but, nowadays, one of the most serious debates among scientists is thinking of subjects affected to the present generation. Moghadas Ardebili, Sadr-ol-Moteallehin Shirazi and others don’t have an independent book regarding the veil; but, the martyr Motahari felt the need of writing a book about the question of the veil.
Quran’s miracles is the miracle for bibliophiles … in each period, people got from Quran whatever they could comment. After that, the page turned and people’s knowledge changed. People understood that previous comments were not readable; while, Quran itself is still fresh. They got Quran is more adaptable with what is commented today comparing to what was commented in the past i.e. Quran is progressive. It leaves the comment of the first Hegira century behind. In the second century, some comments had been made on Quran. In the third century, science improved. Human became more knowledgeable and then, another comment was made.
According to the writer, martyrdom is like a religious belief from the point of type i.e. in each culture; its main base does not change. In other nations, defendants of country are considered martyrs.

Different functions of culture:
Like culture, the martyrdom culture is general but specific, changing but constant, compulsory but optional too. Then, we tried to demonstrate that the martyrdom culture has functions in society such as preserving the society’s values, giving self-esteem to people, creating a mutual identity and goal, creating social alliance, creating independence and preserving the country’s integrity against aliens and creating liveliness and motivation in a lethargic nation
Culture has different functions. In the following, some of its functions and uses of culture has been mentioned:
1. The difference between human and animal: human has no difference with animal if he does not have any culture. In fact, the main difference between human and animal is in his knowledge and understandings. Then, Anthropology differentiates human from animal.
2. Culture integrates and unifies a society: culture unifies and valued of the society and gives unification to merits.
3. Culture is a factor to differentiate a society from another one: Another function of social functions of culture is that it can differentiate societies from each other. It makes a cultural diagnosis of every society; for example: Iranian culture, European culture, civil culture, urban culture and so on.
4. Culture is a factor of organization in a society: Social control and surveillance occurs in two ways in a society. First, it occurs through the law. Second, it occurs by internalizing values and norms of a society.
5. Culture is a factor of cooperation and connection in a society: The more common a society culture is; the more connection and cooperation among people will be. Then, in rural and traditional regions and without the presence of formal organizations, the connection and communication among people is more. In other words, culture fortifies the connection and cooperation among people.
Different activities of culture:

Acculturation: Human child is acquainted with different aspects of culture such as behavior, action, creed, tools…from the beginning of childhood in his surroundings. Some of this learning and acquisition is superficial. Some other is deeply internalized. The first part is called Enculturation and the second part is called Acculturation. In fact, Acculturation is a process in which a person knows all his cultural backgrounds, accepts them deeply, and adapts with them.
Acculturation is one way in childhood. Human child is ready for every flexibility and learning towards his culture. However, in adulthood, when his personality is perfect, he can reflect against every peripheral or imposed culture.
In fact, acculturation is bilateral in the adulthood i.e. both the culture affects the person and, the person can play an effective role in the cultural changes. Moreover, the more perfect the person’s personality, the more different his effect. For example, a political-social leader may affect his peripheral culture more than an ordinary person. According to sociologists, mass immigration from one land to another, invasion of aggressive nations and tribes to a country and colonialism phenomenon in the modern world are examples of bilateral acculturation.
Enculturation: Enculturation consists of the methods of education, experiences and learning distinguishing human from other animals and letting him move in a continuum from the beginning of his childhood to the very last days of his life consciously or unconsciously. Social psychologists have studied on people’s personalities and their relation with the society and culture and analyzed the enculturation process and characteristics. This way, they make a relation between the culture as an independent subject and the culture defined as the result of people’s satisfaction (people by whom a culture appears). The constant process of enculturation is necessary during every human life and without that; nobody can consider a person as a member of a society. Enculturation in the first years of life (infancy period) includes necessary things like eating, sleeping, speaking and so on i.e. the things forming an adult’s personality. In mature adults, enculturation is accepted or rejected according to people’s jobs, roles, and insight easily and, it may be together with change or adaptation. Enculturation in general, means that the childhood, adulthood and old age learning including: behaviors, actions and experiences are accepted by society and rarely, people’s thoughts, and their value-system of actions are contrary to others.
Cultural changes: culture is changing all the time. As it was mentioned in the previous pages, although the culture seems consistent; it experiences slow and constant changes. Only, the old-fashioned ancient societies are constant and not changing. Meanwhile, some factors might cause quick changes in the society. Consequently, cultural changes can be classified into two groups:
1. Slow changes
2. quick changes
Main factors of cultural quick changes are introduced as follows according to sociologists:
1. Increase or decrease of population because of natural factors like floods , storms and wars
2. Geographical environment changes and mass immigrations to new lands
3. A political leader’s coming to power or falling

In addition to the above factors, social psychologists introduce innovation and modernism, social acceptance, selective plan, integration and adaptation as social change factors.

Cultural identity: Each group in society has its own history, familial norms, economic methods, rules, belief ceremonies, language, literature, and art. Such characteristics distinguishing a society’s culture from the others, introduce the cultural identity of that society. In other words, historic past, ancestors’ epics and lands, mother tongues, beliefs, tribal traditions, national celebrities, religious models, tribal biases, art and hereditary literature form the cultural identity of a society.
Martyrdom culture and cultural motivations

Martyrdom culture and acculturation: As it was mentioned before, superficial familiarity with different aspects of culture is called “socialism”? and its deep instruction is called “acculturation.”?
Now, if martyrs way which is full of altruism, oppression-challenging, truthfulness, plain-living and so forth, is propagandized in a way that its goal becomes permanence; acculturation methods and models must be used; or, there will be no success. For example, during the war, the majority of the society might be acquainted with the subject of war and martyrs; because, everybody was involved; but, it may be within an acculturation and fades away quickly and the authorities responsibility is to commemorate martyrs into acculturation.

Martyrdom culture and enculturation phenomenon:

Enculturation is a phenomenon moving gradually from a person’s childhood, with his learning simple things to his maturity, youth, and old age. The more a child gets away from his childhood; the more complex enculturation becomes. Besides, the child reflects less against the peripheral culture, namely, he accepts whatever learnt, seen or heard; while, a mature person shows reflection towards enculturation. Then, the martyrdom culture should be propagandized having a deep knowledge of life style, thought, and age necessities of children and adults. Without knowing such phenomenon, an indifference towards the culture or a doubt in cultural instructions including martyrdom occurs in the adulthood. Because of this, the type of works, books, movies, theater, etc. should be introduced according to the above questions; otherwise, it has no more effect.

Martyrdom culture and social changes: It was said before that culture is always changing; but, sometimes, events like war, mass immigration, revolution, and coup and so on, make quick changes in society’s culture. Here, there is a basic question and it is; how could we refresh the martyrdom culture while the society is always changing?. It seems that concerning the society’s circumstances, that part of the martyrdom culture should be propagandized which is adaptable and coordinated with it. Shiite imam’s operation, throughout the history, has been according to their time requirements and it can be a good example for all generations.

Martyrdom culture and cultural identity: Culture is a generalization forming the identity of a society. Now, if some part of this culture is contrary to the other ones; it results in a friction and destruction or at least it is ignored. To express a culture, there should not be any contrast with the other parts of that culture as much as possible. It is a fact that Iran, as a country with historic and religious background has several minorities, thoughts and notions which form our national identity. The martyrdom culture phenomenon, which is a part of this culture, should be in complete coordination with other parts of the culture such as patriotism, respecting, thoughts... to survive and affect the society.

Brief conclusion:
Martyrdom is the ultimate sacrifice of a society’s people and is one of spiritual phenomena, which originates in mysticism. In other words, martyrdom is one of the human mysterious aspects and many of followers of God long for it; but, it doesn’t stop us from debating about a spiritual phenomenon in a framework of human knowledge.
The present essay does not claim to be able to scrutinize all these aspects; but it can be an introduction to such a subject for further study in the future.
Culture has characteristics and, though not exactly, but almost, we can find such characteristics in martyrdom too.
Like culture, the martyrdom culture is general but specific, changing but constant, compulsory but optional too. Then, we tried to demonstrate that the martyrdom culture has functions in society such as preserving the society’s values, giving self-esteem to people, creating a mutual identity and goal, creating social alliance, creating independence and preserving the country’s integrity against aliens and creating liveliness and motivation in a lethargic nation; as well as a cultural functions in a country.
The final part of the essay refers to the cultural dynamism and the martyrdom culture and, both definitions are motivated by acculturation, enculturation and social changes.
At the end, It is mentioned and emphasized again that the debated subjects in this essay are merely within putting questions and there is a possibility of criticism and further study. Our goal has been to challenge minds to think to what extent martyrdom culture is similar and different with the present culture in Sociology.