tv Book TV CSPAN August 19, 2013 7:15am-8:01am EDT
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and so, now he will say to yourselves, the woman was kept in the back room and she was oppressed something or another. but i'll tell you, once we're all together i was thinking i want to go there and do this, and the wife was saying, you're not going to go there and do that. you're going to the village to visit the shrine of our great, great ancestor. i don't have done. no. you're going to make them. so there was not, there was not anything squelched about this woman. there is a structured that was characteristic of afghan society in the distant past, in my day in afghanistan, and it's still there all over the country. so the negotiation of the old afghanistan and the culture of the outside world is very deeply mixed up with what is going to happen going forward. i'll just up there.
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-- just stop there up on. >> thank you very much. i'm not a historian, not analytical as tamim is, but i'm just so fortunate to be here in a position to be able to speak on behalf of the afghan people. and the reason i really took and embark on this journey was to write "lost decency" is for the afghan people. for millions of people who have had nothing to do with the decisions that put them in the misery we are talking about today. submission is indeed that and that is what i again i wrote the book to start part of this dialogue to talk about the decency of human beings, and the loss of decency, and that was very important to me. so in that regard, i want to apologize to you that when i speak to groups, when i sounded
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judgmental, because when i talk about the social aspects of life and people who defend them, it is very difficult, especially in today's environment where there are so many different opinions and so many extreme ideas come if you will. it's not just extremists fighting out there but extreme ideas which are within our own society. it's amazing. so they put me in a position and said oh, my god, who are you to tell us this? are why don't you go back to your own country if you don't like it? and my answer to that is, i'm a great citizen of the united states. not just an average citizen, but i am much, i do things that average citizens would not be. and i'm a great afghan. him and afghan american, but i may human race and had to represent decent people. so that's what i tell them, and don't be judgmental. so i wasn't called -- i was called doctor liber in san
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diego. and a lady got a little upset i guess what she knew about afghanistan, and one of the questions was, so what the people of afghanistan want? it was really, i say great question. i said what would you like in life? i really want to know what you want in life. i said, the home, bread, you know, three meals and all that. well, great. i said, that's exactly what the people of afghanistan want. are rough on the head, i said not three meals, how about one meal a day? that's not even available. so i think that's what they want to but it's how things are prioritized in the world. that's how politicians are prioritizing things in this world where people are suffering from and it's not because of lack of money. there is moment in this world than you can imagine. i can tell you, i'm a banker. [laughter] so i was in banking for 20 some
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years and i've been all aspects of this, and there's no lack of money on this earth. but it's how which prioritized and distributed. not to take away from people, but how which prioritized by government. my mission was to talk about, i didn't open up this dialogue and to really go back and take people back towards the real afghanistan, the peaceful afghanistan that i was privileged to live and grow up. quite frankly after 1990, i would say that it has its own share of peaceful and time of prosperity. we call prosperous. my mother calls it prosperity. not really developed but she relaxed a. she said i wish would go back to that environment where it was one of the most peaceful spots around the world. during my upbringing where we were tourists from all over the world were coming in and enjoy afghanistan. what i would as a tour guide would take them to areas where
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they would be considered a guest of the village, and by the way, a country were killing of a person would be more and in each and every village around afghanistan. that's what the afghanistan, that of want to tell people about. we did. our father will tell us in our community, somebody's private would go to or watch and they would say somebody has been killed in iraq, and we would go. so that's the environment we're talking about. i want to talk to people about the fact that afghanistan was never a corrupt nation. it's not okay to call, it's called a corrupt nation today, but corruption was imported and was imposed on the people of afghanistan, special in the last 13, 14 years. and when people emigrated, when refugees went to neighboring countries and the warlords and
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others and the people started to fight, trade ammunition, sal people, so human beings, and that's when corruption commend. that's when it started. i remember in the village in a place where i lived, actually -- everybody wanted to stay in that whole area. today, it's common business all over as window. that's afghanistan that we knew. but was taken what was the model that the king and others used? what was really the benefit? what did they do? i wish and i prayed that the was a model, that the was to realize and know that's the model to bring back. and how do you bite people's minds and hearts? what was it? what kept regard afghans to fight so close together? what is this about factionalism? what about farsi and this?
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are you serious? i ask. we live within a area where every single ethnicity live together. we played together. we played soccer. i coached them. my sisters went to school with them. we had no problem. we could actually go and see a neighbor and talk to them and get them borrow a little bread or a piece of what it. that's the society afghanistan was. so what you're hearing is not what it was. what you're seeing on the images on tv and, it's not what afghanistan was but and that's what really hurts. that's my mission to talk to people and to really get the world's attention to say the models were using is the wrong model. when i went back after all these years, and i was hurting, i was the first after 9/11, we were hurting so bad. that was one of the days you could only read in my book, well, other stories are there,
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but from my story, just read my story of nine 9/11 and how of the way home and what happened, and i was in washington at a time. when i had a meeting with my manager's. that day only, that day only, i can't even imagine, i can't even tell you how the day went through, but how it hurt to be an afghan anti-know that the attacks on my own, not my own country or, on the united states, was launched for my own native country. that was very hurtful. so that's what i was on a mission to go back and do something, i wanted to go and do. i really wanted to go out. i had a plan, a 10-point plan, very easy. with really with little skills come with a high school education i could have done something that these people did and it until this day. it's not about me. it's about the fact that priorities were again missed. we missed those priorities to go back and gain the hearts and minds of people.
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so when i went back again to afghanistan, and i saw what i saw like tamim did, i just could not believe what i saw. so again, it's not a lack of money. you cannot by people with money. as i walked out of the airport, this 10 year old that walked in right away and said i want to shine your shoes, i realized -- i said no, no, no. he said let me do it. i said i'm going to give you this $10. the first thing as, come from america? i said how did you know? he said, well, unfortunately they give us money. they throw money. to a 10 year-old who actually supports seven members of the family, and actually begging to be honest because he did not want to give the money without shine issues. i said do it for me. do it as a gift. do it for your sisters. just take his, so i gave him $20. but the point is, is that people may not be educated but they are not stupid. there's a difference that the
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world today does not understand. that's why this lady asked me what the people of afghanistan want, because they think they are all criminals. they're not. they are good people. they are innocent. they have been victimized. read the history. they have been victimized for years and years. they have been abandoned. there's a section in my book, deserter. that's exactly what happened but how was it possible for the world to allow a saudi arabian national to go rule of another country? what happened? how is it possible for those outlaws in the middle east and others to go and build another country, or actually rule other nations? did we go to sleep? here is the cost today. look at what's happening. so the point is again, my whole focus has been really to talk about the real great afghanistan, the peaceful days
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where basically a lot of western societies and governments were building high schools in afghanistan. where tourists who were there were peaceful organizations were there. good things were happening. we were growing. we were making progress. our sisters were going to school. we had things going. we were looking to the. and then, of course you know, here comes the russians and here comes the neighbors trying to get a hand in the affairs of the afghan people, and the rest is history because i don't want to go through any of those steps. but again, it's really a tragedy as to what has really happened to afghanistan. it really is. and begin, my mission is to be able to talk about that. talk about the quality of the past. and i'm very engage in afghan societies and the communities, trying to really not only enlightened them but encourage them and challenge them to become the best citizens that they can be, whether they're here or anywhere around the world, to really stand on their
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feet and to not accept the that today the country is known as one of the most corrupt nations oare a country that is known for opium, top opium producer around the world. there's nothing to be proud of that. and afghans should understand that and do something about it. not only around the world but inside kabul. you know, to go on a peaceful type of uprising, start thinking, start becoming educated. it's not going to happen. i have done some studies as part of my book, comments that i know who are the top producers of weapons. and i know who's pointing all those bombs and grenades inside afghanistan. i know who they are. but that's what you thing. it's not going to accomplish anything. but as long as we have arms or as long as we boards, we will not have peace. we would not have security. thank you.
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[applause] >> thank you, thank you and thank you, colonel. now it's time for q&a of this program. and i'm robert rosenthal, moderate for today. we have a lot of questions but because there's to such distinguished inaugural people there, we're going have more of a conversation picks i hope you guys get involved with each other, and all be the guide here today. i think one of the things that's clear is that the west and america did not understand, does not truly understand afghanistan historically. we've seen it happen over and over again, and tamim's book you talk about the grea great, greae one, the great game too. start out like by the role and what you both mentioned today in your presentations your families and the scale of the families but the role of family clan and
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in relationships which lead to the definition which i think uniquely afghan about what leadership means. you address the in your book so maybe you can start, tamim, talk about that. and atta, please join in. >> the first thing to talk about is the extent to which life in afghanistan is shaped by networks of personal relationships. and i withdraw the contrast to hear that we are familiar with a society in which there's a lot of impersonal institutions, and we think of, say, getting a job, you go, you fill out an application and so on. in afghanistan, the age old idea, if you want to get a job, you go talk to someone who knows how to get you a job. now, that might sound like corruption, and once you mix the two systems together, but you have to remember that the original afghanistan was a world in which there were sort of know
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appointed officials. everybody knew each other in the area where they live. everybody with somebody in the family structure, and there were relationships and patronage that were, you know, that evolved through someone doing a favor for somebody, not as a buy and sell kind of thing. not i did this for you, now you only whether it's just building a relationship. and then over the course of time, those relationships extend over generations, and people whose father is were imminent and did great things, they have a little up on being more important person. but they have to secure that by their own great deeds. there is an intricate social network of do's and don'ts insurance and shouldn't that nobody could tell you what they are. afghans just know it. and in a social interaction, those who do that gracefully and
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well gain prestige. those who do that awkwardly, humbly and help other people, they lose prestige. so how people become leaders is a subtle, interpersonal, interactive process. and that's the grassroots afghanistan. that's how village elders, for example, emerged. and that's not even clerics emerged. people who want to be -- they're not appointed. to hang around with a mole of the village. they learn how that works. after while they been so helpful that just part of the scene and that old mullah dies, they're just the mullah. that's how if there disputes to be adjudicated in a village, and this is still the case in many villages, the people of the village, the men of the village, they gather and have a tribal council and they discuss that matter, whatever it is, criminal
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matters are often discussed that we over disputes about land or something like that. no one is appointed. it's the prestigious people sit closer to the center and the people have less prestigious on the outside going, what's going on? so that system of finding leaders at the local level in the original society of afghanistan recapitulates all the way up the line. and that's the way the families negotiate with each other and clans negotiate with each other, and even tribes. and i would just add one other thing, which is to say that although if there is this country is divided into many tribes and many clans and so what, it is not the case that the tribes and clans were always fighting each other. you know, that's, they lived in their separate areas and interacted injuries ways, and they didn't fight all the time.
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sometimes they fought but not all the time. >> do you want to follow up on that? >> quickpoint. really great explanation. i think afghanistan had in the history that i grew up, had great leaders. and again these were tribesmen. my uncle would be one. phenomenal impact he has had on his village. and people like that. and my father actually was just there helping everybody. and anytime, right in the communities. i think afghanistan had just within a tribal society had an incredible, incredible numbers of leaders in the style, and today there's a real big gap in not having the. and guess who are the leaders? the so-called leaders, the commanders try to refer to, who had fought, and would never been to school or who have no education. and today they have massive support of their constituents, and, of course, of armies and a lot of money.
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but just imagine, there's this huge gap and that's why there's hope for the educators to come in and fill that gap. and there's a real big gap right now because again, look to the leaders are spent let me add one other thing that because of that system of leadership in emerging, i think what's misunderstood by outside interveners is that when you set up a rational process and gather people that identified and then somebody is elected as leader, that guy is not necessarily the leader. he's now been ratified by the u.s. in a meeting that the u.s. has set up and now he's got a title. these the president. maybe he is but he has to show off that leadership by operating in the whole of the system as well. >> so we're now at a point where the u.s. is preparing are hoping to leave, and this foundation of understanding afghan culture and what the role and defined leadership and what makes go to
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work in the richness, trembling, you described. let's go forward. two questions. how did they not learn from the past? what lesson should we learned when we been in? and going forward now, where is a solution to potentially destabilize? can you see that happening? >> sure. i believe we had a great opportunity, devastating attacks of 9/11. somebody did asked nato what now? i said, you know, it's really sad to say but it's like a lottery where now afghanistan has a chance to come out of this whole misery, and by the opportunity to go build a model, if you will. and to do that, because people were on the run. people were on the run. we had great times to recruit, to build a national army. that should've been the number one priority to building strong national army, where people could have defended their own country.
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but instead, of course we went to the warlords. we went to the commanders and said here's the back of money, go and build your own army. so what it did was it really kind of brought in a different type of culture, environment, into the -- i think that the real leadership going back to the earlier conversation, the control of the village or the respect of the elder. those things were not stop. so i think it was a huge mistake in that regard that we didn't really address from the very beginning to understand the cultural aspect of society come to build an army, and actually build the country in a way, the infrastructure, to really gain support of the people. when you go and address the needs of the few l.a. the masses out, guess what happens? it's a big loss. but going forward, you know, for me again i wish and hope that there is a way that we can go back and depend and rely on the
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tribal leaders. get them back to defend their own rural area. give them real support, not cash, but give them real support and structure to build their own area. and if you don't gain the support of all these tribal areas and all, there will not be peace in afghanistan, i can assure you. >> i just want to first say that i don't want to come off as saying afghanistan will turn into a mess because a lot of people made a lot of dumb mistakes. i think afghanistan is a mess because it was really hard to fix that and there was a lot of complications, and with the question of building a national army, the question was first, and remains, you've got an army can you do have an army in afghanistan now, a professional army, but the question is when the foreign forces leave and if there's any interruption of their pay, whose army is that? there has to be the development of the sense of leadership of the people who are in charge of
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the army that will enable the people in the army to say yes, these are our leaders, we are the army of this country. so that's a problem. if we want to go back to 2002 and what happened there, you know, anyone can give their opinion. but to me, the major thing that the u.s. didn't do was to go in there with a lot of small-scale but really distributed help, and it also did not do something that a notice or difficult to do, but it did not cede control of the development monies that it was bringing in two afghans. because it's understandable to some extent, you know, we are talking of technocrats, experts and they know what's right and they're worried that afghans will screw it up, but you have to allow for afghans to take
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charge of their own destiny. because that's how you build, that's what enables the generation of afghans to come into leadership. and if you just go in there and do it, for example, bring and engineers, hire some afghans to break rocks and build a highway from one major city to another, you have sidelined all the afghans along the roads in every part of the process, and you just have to in afghanistan a highway. that doesn't really help afghans. you've got to do in such a way that afghans are participants in the development. there are ways to do that that gets into extreme detail so not going to bother you about that but that's the general principle, i think spent some of which are both sync and you think there is an afghan solution if the afghans were left alone to do it. reality right now is whether you're the pakistanis, even the russians, the iranians, the u.s., other interests, chinese, the mineral wealth, and the taliban. so how do you see the next
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period of years with all those forces at work? and what will the role of the taliban be? do you see them having a productive role, possibly? >> well, you know, if you're only thinking of the u.s. presence in afghanistan as being about helping afghans, i think you're in trouble there. there is a certain sense of, oh, you know, the u.s. owes us. the u.s. doesn't owe afghanistan, you know, afghans are not entitled to be fixed by the attorney. afghans have to fix their own country. the u.s. is there for different reason. the u.s. is there because like all the great powers of the past, it does actually have strategic interests in afghanistan. and my thesis is a can best serve the strategic interests by having an independent autonomous afghanistan that is friendly to the united states. that would be perfect. then the u.s. would have an actual ally that's strongly
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associated with and will not cut its ties with being a muslim country and it's right in central asia. it needs them to the domination of afghanistan will hurt u.s. interest but i think u.s. does have to be there because of all these things you said. there's pockets, those guys are going to be swarming and two days after there's a power vacuum and that will be a mess for afghans, to. >> very true again. there's outside interests and there's bigger, you know, i would say questions just inside afghanistan as to how you control the neighbors and what are the interests in there? look at the latest example, the border area of afghanistan and pakistan where now suddenly a conspiracy. it is a true conspiracy where basically now suddenly there is an attack on both sides in trying to actually question the line that was drawn many, many years back.
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i said, are you serious? that's all of the problems in the little land area and we're going to question what belongs to what we have all these problems? so that's the and of the four, whether the one neighbor or another, those are the kind of constructions that are stopping. so again as far as the long-term, like train to mention, there's got to be a better strategy to really address the needs, and then control of these neighbors. because as long as they have been in the afghan affair it will be extremely difficult. >> we would like to write our listening audience that this is the commonwealth club program called afghanistan. our speakers are tamim ansary and atta arghandiwal but let's go on with another question. atta, in your book you have some wonderful personal scenes the day 9/11 happened to its very powerful. when you return to afghanistan, there's a great description or
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seen around the corrupt officials and party you went to at the private home. one of the things i found most memorable is vivid here, your family's home village. and in that you visit your father's grave, but also i talked to you earlier about the mosque, when you visited the mosque there were taliban there. can you describe that scene? and also again, what role might they have going forward? a productive role, critical role? may be addressed that, bring us to that moment. >> it really wasn't open when i did go to kabul and i told my cousin that, of course, that was the first order of the day, to go in. we left early morning, just kind of going back to the old days and it was snowing. it was just crisp early morning meeting. as we met there, one of the first things i was told that it's friday of course and it's going to be a prayer.
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i second what a wonderful opportunity to be able to connect with so many, which we did. by the way, my cousin said that they would be some taliban in the. i said, oh, good. he's what do you mean? i said i really want to talk to them. again, this would be my first opportunity ever to find out who are these, what are these people? i said, -- he said yes, because i go out and they spread out but they come whenever, you know, their families. so that's a wonderful opportunity. the mosque was full because then we found out that i was coming. and not because of need to be honest with you but because my brother was such a great fighter for 10 years. he was well known, and they had lost him and united states three years ago by cancer. but he was very well known and he was like a champion to them and they knew i was a brother. so they had great respect. this mosque completely fill the. there were people outside lining
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up and we all prayed together. and at the end i said i would want to meet with these boys, and which we did. i don't i tell you i could not find a note person than 25 in the taliban groups, which was really, really sad. these were 18, 17, 19 year old, young, incredible teachers with long beards with their guns, you know, and so i said, one of the questions quickly was, i said, what do you pay them? they said, i believe they're averaging about $80 a month. and again, now, take a look at this. the villages only 10 farmers away from the taliban and it was not a single school except for one school that had been billed by gentlemen who lived in concord. when i talk about this, what could've been a school, the good it in a place where these kids could have been going to. but it was not addressed to the village is old.
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just like, i think almost nothing has moved. it was amazing. but the point was that i saw a loss of decency, a loss of opportunity to go to these people, these kids can embed them into society. so briefly quoted to the next point, which is there two different types of taliban. the local taliban that are really the afghan people like these kids have no idea what it is and they just get paid and they get sort of religious purpose or something national fight, somehow have been attacked now because there were fallen soldiers -- foreign soldiers undersold. these people should be embedded. these people should be brought in, be a part of society. then you have extremists who are not really too many but they disrupt society. these are the people that are watching on the borders from chechnya, where ever. they are all on that mountainous
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area. so it's a nightmare for afghanistan people. but a place for the taliban in the future, absolutely. they should be brought in and they should be given autonomy. they should be given a place to build their own society can be a part of the solution rather than to fight. >> one of the more powerful elements i found in your book was schools and what's happened to schools. we use the schools as a symbol. so maybe you could type it into your thoughts in an taliban and also some samples of what you don't think it's such a good thing they are doing. >> well, there's one thing to say about schools, which is schools can weekend to think of them come we tend to use the word school and then think of it as a neutral good the way you think of medical care. and actually, the taliban also have schools. the convention is what kind of school to the have like 30,000 of the schools along the border
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whether todd, you know, fundamentalists jihadists islamist ideology, but on the, you know, sayings of the prophet and also in many of them, they can't them how to shoot guns. so when we ar or anybody puts schools in areas where there's conflict, that's also part of the conflict. so i just want everybody to be aware of that. and one of the turning points of the post-9/11 reconstruction of afghanistan came during the year 2006 when there were 200 school burnings or attacks on schools. really traumatized people in those areas where the schools were, and those goals are all in like helmand province and those areas and were not very well under control. and so anyway the children were
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made hostages to the war of the older folks, and that was a terrible thing. the other thing i want to say about schools is although many, many schools have been built now, there are 2.2 million girls better in school i think, they're still a real crisis about schools and they're still a big problem in a. i would say. and with girls school from one of the problems is that the culture still has a dominant, the conservative culture still has so much control that it's able to restrict the education of girls of a certain age by men. so there are people who say, well, we're not against girls education but they have to be taught by women. but now the problem is that there's that dark ages when women were not being educated because of the taliban control of afghanistan. so there's a gap there of women who can teach girls to and so
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women who are teaching young girls and they themselves are studying the next grade up as hard as they can so they can stay ahead of their students, so that's a problem. the other problem that i saw, it's just my opinion, but when i went to kabul come in my day there were a number of schools and their open by the government and there was a curriculum and. now there's hundreds of schools, people send their kids to private schools and not to the big public schools. they specialize in very technical education. they specialize in, you know, there's a university of microsoft word or something like that. and i think that kind of schooling, when it replaces the kind of schooling where you learn literature, geography, history, you know, the history of your own country, all of that
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stuff, it tends to add to the fragmentation. so i think there has to be some commitment to rebuilding schools as a unifying force of society. and i have 17 more things to say about schools, but i think i will stop there. >> several questions from the audience about clarity. i'm trying to understand for the american audience the role of islam and this item in the difference or similar question from is them or sunni or shia influence in the role potential of sharia also in afghanistan, but also the future but in the past. i don't know if you want to take that on, whoever would like to answer. >> what i quickly want to comment on that is we enjoyed a remarkable, remarkable, you know, benefit of our upbringing. actually this was a really a factor at all. we respected to go to each
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other's mosque and elaborate and talk and respect. but it really has taken a different form. and to be honest with you, a lot of it is again the work of neighbors. i was -- when i saw the neighbors trying to separate the shia from the sunni. it was devastating just to see that. it is all funded by these outside sources. so that, i know there's not enough time to talk about the real details of that, but that's what's happening so is the outside influence, enormous role and there was never a factor in the past. but today, something that brings people together because that is islam and that's the first thing they look at. >> you know, i'm going to set aside sunni-shia because i don't think that's an important question to ask, but i think that in the old afghanistan and islam was like an atmosphere,
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just was everywhere and it wasn't the separate thing from this daily life. and afghans, they considered themselves very devout muslims. they wouldn't even say i'm religious. what does that mean? it's just being a good person is being a good muslim. but it was a soft kind of islam that was mixed in ways people didn't bother to differentiate with customs. and i think that in the course of these wars the thing that is that this other kind of hard edged doctrinaire islam that is preached by international jihadists revolutionaries, backing into afghanistan. and i believe that some afghans, younger afghans, are sympathetic to the. partly because the old ways have been so distorted that people have lost their connection to the own history so they're grasping for something, and this stuff comes in as a package and you can take the whole thing.
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so i would say forget about sunni-shia. talk about conventional conservative islam, old-fashioned islam, and this politicized jihadists islam. that's a whole different thing. >> i really appreciate the soft side because we were encouraged, we were not like bush to go to the mosque. they were part of what you want to do because it was embraced rather than being forced. actually you're so right, the extreme that is brought up on these people that actually have no realization. so they grasp, no employment, no jobs, no nothing. now they associate with these thoughts and these things. and by the way, in the name of islam and the name of nationality and recently to tell people that the art countries are being occupied. >> unfortunately we're getting
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near the end of the programs i'm going to ask one last question and i'd like you both to entry or say whatever you like. we'll have a few minutes. we are where we are today through tumultuous chaos. the future is unclear for afghanistan but can you frame the last question, a lot of questions about the role of women and going forward. can you lay out what you hope happens in the next cycle, and also what role you hope women will have in the emerging and changing afghanistan? >> i will just say this, that in that golden period, you know, when you and i grew up in afghanistan and there was rapid development of the liberation an apartment of women, it was plain that afghan women have powerful leadership within them, and that afghan society is very capable of adjusting to and accounting so that it becomes a society in which men and women have an
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equal place in public life. afghans can do it. i'll echo everyone's referring here, outsiders can spoil it. spent i think very well stated. that's a tough thing. a real very now, how to overcome that and to really open up. but something that really hurts personally that i saw, nothing, not a whole lot of support from national leadership of afghanistan in terms of support of afghans. what of the afghan woman? what about the outside forces, russia the international communities that are done a great job and try to really encourage the woman to come into the fold. but the leadership is what i'm concerned with. spent we have a couple more minutes i've been told. going forward in the aftermath of u.s. involvement, if you're in afghan not, how do you perceive the russians intervention and the american intervention? are we sort of coming to a place
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where the afghans pursue both the russians and u.s. a similar occupiers? >> well, you know, i went back to afghanistan twice, and those two times in 2002 right after the taliban were driven out, and 2012, last year, after 10 years of the americans being there. and in 2002 when i went there, everything i saw had been reduced to rubble just about. the physical country was more destroyed in any place i have ever seen. and yet i felt like the social atmosphere of the country was just not changed at all since i was there. it was the afghanistan by me. i come back 10 years later and i feel like the contras changed more in the last 10 years than it did in the previous 38. and there's no rubble. now there is a skyscraper. probably a wedding palace, and, where some rich person has 1000 guests for a wedding. i feel fat, you know, and there is some way -- i feel that they
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were not able to stand up to dollars. >> atta? >> you know, you're right. i did go for the question, i did go in search of that answer to that question as to why we look as occupiers. as i referred to in the beginning it's about priorities and what do you see? the woman with 11 should have told me, you know, why do you see, tough to talk about america? and i said why? and he said it's not for us. if not for me, it's not for my children. what's the difference? that answers the question. it's only for the benefit of a few, not for the masses. that's why they look at this ridiculous. otherwise they are in need of help. >> okay. thanks to tamim ansary, the
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author of "games without rules: the often interrupted history of afghanistan." he is the director of these efforts a garage workshop and also want to thank atta arghandiwal, who describes himself also as a banker but is really a writer now, and on a mission clearly. his book, "lost decency: the untold afghan story" are both available outside but we also want to thank our audience here as most of those listening to the recording and on the internet. i'm robert rosenthal, executive director for investigative reporting. this meeting at the commonwealth club of california celebrating its 110 years of enlightened discussion is adjourned. [applause] >> you've been watching booktv, 40 hours of book programming beginning saturday morning at eight eastern through monday morning at eight eastern.
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