Youth advised to promote spirit of critical thinking
Sher Alam Shinwari
PESHAWAR: The participants at a study debate here on Sunday have asked youth to promote critical thinking and spread the culture of dialogue through open debate of social, cultural, literary and political issues towards building a tolerant and peaceful society.
They said that towards the end of last year, they thought out a plan how to motivate youth to engage in some healthy activities as the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic had confined them to homes causing a mental stress and tunnel vision.
Young bibliophiles from around the city attended the session and shared their views on various aspects of the bestselling, titled ‘Sapiens’ by Yuval Noah Harari which has triggered a debate at global level regarding the evolution of mankind.
The organizers said that the debate would be arranged in accordance with SOPs and would be extended to other districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa through online and physical participation.
The crux of the session was to engage youth in useful activities as such great reads would help them to enlarge the scope of their thinking and widen canvas of their mind to develop taste for quality reading to get updated about the global geopolitical and intellectual scenario.
Shafeeq Gigyani, a social activist while opening the debate said that he along with his colleagues decided to launch a monthly session, titled ‘Peshawar Circle’ to be conducted on the first Saturday of every month in Peshawar at Book and Chai, a local facility, where young students both male and female would be invited to discuss varieties of topics.
The main objective, he said was to encourage youth to break the culture of silence and promote dialogue culture through discussion and also help them to engage in positive activities and develop a taste for book reading.
He added that through online crowed source, the celebrated book Sapiens - a brief history of Humankind, was selected for discussion session and the participants highlighted salient features of the title and were impressed by standard debate.
Tahira Kaleem, another participant said that Peshawar Circle was in fact an initiative to invite youth to participate in brainstorming and open up their mind to prepare them for dialogue and reduce their mental trauma because the pandemic had further pushed our youth to stick to their laptop screens without performing any fruitful activity.
Urooj Nasir, yet another participant pointed out that Peshawar Circle was launched on the first of January to give hope and expectations to youth and also to give a message that sitting idle would serve no purpose and book reading would help them to beat down the pandemic.
The debate was also followed by a question-answer session. Apart from others, Imad Khalil, Sohail Khan and Obaid Khan also participated on the occasion.
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