| This is the fourth issue of MNB, devoted to the studies of Afghanistan. To have a forum for the discussion of issues related to the reconstruction of Afghanistan, we started to publish MNB a year ago. Though we did not succeed to reach our expectation level in producing a high quality academic journal in Afghanistan's studies, yet we accomplished a job that otherwise required the whole support of a cultural institution. We failed to attract the co-operation of international institutions, which we thought they may be interested in the cause of the suffering people of Afghanistan, but we got full support and encouragement from the Afghan communities all around the world. We firmly believe that without sufficient and up to date knowledge of the affairs of our country and the world, we cannot fulfil our duties in the reconstruction of our war-ravaged country. We started publishing this journal to help the people of Afghanistan, find out the reasons behind their seemingly everlasting miseries. It is the time for the intelligentsia of Afghanistan to understand the realities of our era, to critically review the past and to move forward towards the establishment of a new style of dealing with barriers on our way to a civilised society. We must overcome the traditional ways of solving our problems with blood of our own. Now, more than any other time in our history, we have the opportunity to learn from the valuable experiences of other nations. We are able to come out of our intellectual and nationalist isolation. We must end up the fear of criticism in our community, by preparing ourselves to react more rationally to the critical circumstances of our history. Then we can talk of moving towards a prosperous and humane Afghanistan. We understand that it is the Afghans, who will decide for their future. Though the need for the co-operation of international institutions, who are interested in the well being of the people of Afghanistan could not be ignored. We urge all these parties to co-ordinate their humanitarian or reconstruction programs by establishing a centre for the studies in reconstruction of Afghanistan. The proposed centre, which could be established under the auspices of the United Nations, can accommodate many Afghan scholars who would be the most needed personnel in reconstructing Afghanistan. We believe that all Afghans would be proud to join hand in such an endeavour. We would like to thank all universities, libraries and other institutions who gave us support and encouragement by subscribing to MNB. We do our best to keep the quality of MNB to the expectation level of our readership. In this issue we featured five papers containing new ideas and information in regards to the many aspects of Afghanistan. Dr. Reza Berahani, an internationally known writer discusses the theory of "cultural disharmony in our region" which explains many of the problems rising from the misinterpretation of our cultural achievements and believes by our scholars; Daud Saba in his paper brings up the environmental concerns of Afghans in regard to the CentGas pipeline project in Afghanistan and propose an "Environmental Impact Assessment" study to be conducted prior to the implementation of this project; M. Nasir Mehrin criticises the obsolete style of history writing in Afghanistan and propose a critical revision of our history; Dr. S. Toora and Dr. H. Saba in their joint paper coined the problems of mysterious vaccinations with terrible consequences, carried out in the past few years in Afghanistan; and Dr. L. Tabibi presents his findings of the community structure of Afghan immigrants in western countries in the example of Afghan community in Canada. |