calhoun on the optical faced and a compliment made by ulysses s grant during his presidency. and sunday afternoon at 6:00, historian hetrick schroeder takes us on a tour of the courthouse in virginia, the site of a confederate surrender on april 9, 1865. rula ghani: is the first lady of again a stamp. her husband assumed the presidency in 2014. she recently shared her views on women in afghanistan humanitarian aid and prospects of peace for country. this is one hour.

kathleen: good evening everyone. i rented the national security and in the henry kissinger chair here at ncis. we are here on ash wednesday, so i have not misapplied my makeup. [laughter] thank you also for braving the cold weather we have had in washington. more cold is going to come, i think, while we are here. but i hope you will be warmed by

the conversation we have brought your tonight. i want to thank in particular the city, without whom we could not put on this event this evening. for "smart women smart power" we had put up our twitter and are broadcasting this live the a webcast. and it is my pleasure to introduce our two speakers, most important lead the first lady of afghanistan, rula ghani. as a native of lebanon, she met her husband, the president of afghanistan while they were students at american university in beirut. she is quite accomplished as having earned her master's degree in journalism from columbia university in new york. he has worked extensively on women's and children's issues in afghanistan. i am sure she will be sharing those experiences tonight. providing the moderation for this evening is, as always, nina easton, who helps us host this

"smart women, smart power" series. she is a columnist and chair of fortune's most powerful women international summit. please join me in thanking our speakers for tonight. [applause] nina: thank you kath for that terrific introduction. i want to give a shout out to another piece that we do, which is a weekly podcast. it is right on your smartphone and it is a great way to hear women talk about pressing foreign-policy matters of the day. thank you so much for being here mrs. ghani. it is truly an honor and it is delightful to get to know you over the course of these days. it is interesting because your predecessor, the previous first lady was a doctor, a

professional woman, but never seen in public. you have become quite visible in the past month. and have been accused of making waves, as we like to hear. [laughter] let's start with that. what is your vision for how you want to be first lady? rula ghani: first, i would like to say i am very glad to be with all of you tonight. i hope that i will not disappoint. [laughter] and i would like to say a word about mrs. karazi. -- mrs. karzai. she is indeed a doctor and an accomplished person. she was in her childbearing and child-rearing years during the time her husband was president. i remover when i was in my child rearing and childbearing years. i did not have time for anything else. -- i remember when i was in.

if she chose not to have a public life, i think it is your choice, and she should not be blamed for that. coming back to me, once i moved to the palace, i found that if i stayed at home, i would just be waiting for my husband to come back at night. you may note that my husband is a workaholic, and that he may not come back until quite late. i very quickly got bored. with his encouragement, i decided to have an office. and slowly, this office has grown. we now are seven women, young and old. i am the old one. [laughter] we decided to have an open door policy. basically, i see my role as a

facilitator. i do not have a budget. people do not come to me to get money. they come to me to talk. to share their concerns, to sometimes voice their complaints sometimes just let me know what they are doing. it is really wonderful, because i have had women and men, mostly women, and a lot of young people come and see me. maybe it was a novelty they wanted to see who was the person that had become the first lady. it make you the reason why there is so many of you here tonight. [laughter] but we have a chance to talk about what is worrying them or what is interesting them, their hopes, their misgivings.

this is what my office does. it listens to them. in the cases where we can help, where it is an easy way of helping, like for example, picking up the phone and creating an appointment for than in some government agency. we do it, and we have helped quite a few people. not too many, but still. nina: what have you learned about the country and the state of the country. and in the torrent you are doing, you and i talked about the widening gap between problems with urban centers. rula ghani: the first thing that i discovered is that there are a lot of the strong women who are determined to better their lives. that's it.

it is something that does not come, -- it is like a broken record. it is true, they are facing very difficult situations, but they are facing them with a lot of resumesf resilience, with a lot of strength, and with a lot of resourcefulness. i do accept that there is a widening gap between the urban areas and the provinces. people come to me and say, you have forgotten us, no one comes in helps us, we do not have access to medical services, we don't have access to medication, let alone legal services.

we see a lot of the teachers in the provinces are men. in many of these provinces many families will not send their daughters to a classroom that is led by a man. the solution is very easy, it is to train local women to become teachers. first, elementary teachers, then upper, high school. i worry because if the cap increases, -- if the gap increases, it will be two countries, not one country. rula ghani:nina: we have found incredible

stories of resilience among those women in provinces where security is an issue, where the taliban is an issue. rula ghani: is a very inspiring story. a woman told me a story of someone who had to leave her village and go to kabul to be able to make a living for herself and her children. on one of her visits back to the village, she goes back to this at a conference and find that her home has been dislodged.

she finds that she is to slush by the taliban. she takes three glasses, filled a teapot with hot tea, enters the room, agreed to thegreets the people. she poured tea for them. and then she sits down and starts talking with them. at first it is the usual talk of, how are you, how are your children yes, my family is mine. then she starts telling them very nicely that her cousin needs help, that she has a seven

children and her husband has died seven years before. she really relies on this piece of land. she plans, she cultivates it. it went on it went on for about one hour, two hours. at the third hour, she kept saying-- the commander a taliban commander stands up and tells his guys that they are going to another house. there he calmly and quietly she negotiated with the taliban getting out of the house with her cousin and had her cousin reinstated in her house. that shows you that women are strong.

they do not come barging, they do not go and say "who do you think you are?' but they are persistent, and they keep pushing and pushing until their voices heard. and in this case, it was hard. nina: love that story. what about a more formal role for women in peace negotiations. of course, when the taliban came in and forced women to wear burqas and not leave the house without a man banning from school. -- banning girls from school. now there has been a tremendous progress, 40% of students are girls. now there is a push to put women at the peace table, and a talk about women's rights as part of that process. what is your perspective on that? rula ghani: i think it is not

just the time for. i think we don't really have any negotiation yet. whether or not there are women in the negotiation team is a moot question. yes, there have been a lot of routines and back and forth going to qatar and saudi arabia. i think women have their role where they are living. if they have taliban families there, to detract from those families-- maybe there is a question of a school that needs a teacher. i don't know.

common things why people live together. they share concerns and problems. i do not think it is time for the women to sit at the table, because there is no table yet. nina: okay. and the status of women. we had this conversation about the entrepreneurial spirit of women. this perception about women in afghanistan in the media, we talked about your beautiful coat. can we talk about what kinds of pennies you are seeing women get involved in? -- companies you are seeing women get involved in? >>rula ghani: i have business women coming to me. these are not small businesses. i have had factory owners. i have women who don't own, but

least big tracts of land and try to cultivate vegetables on it. -- btuut lease big tracts of land. of course, there are also the women who trade and to do embroidery and things. women are very savvy. they just need a little bit of push, they need a little bit of support and encouragement. once they are given this space they get results. they get things done. i think maybe half of the audience is women tonight. they know that when they put their minds to it, they really get it done. whether it is something at home or at work. if they put it -- if they put their mind to it, they get it done. and i am pleasantly surprised to

see what they would ask. for example, they would say as women, we are not getting good hills at the banks. -- deals at the banks. the banks will not give us loans without putting as collateral our own house. here is a small loan, and they want the whole house. wanted to take our cars? -- why not take our cars? the car might be the value of the loan. i find these women will talk to me about the problems, and then tell me what the solution is. i find it much easier to help them. we have had a couple of women like that.

it is also encouraging to see how determined they are to make it for them and their daughters. and for the country. they are very patriotic. nina: you gave a speech in oslo, you said afghan women need to reclaim their past. you excited a number of -- you cited a number of powerful women. can you talk about those? rula ghani: yes. i had lived for years in afghanistan -- four years. i had lived with my in-laws, with extended family, and i thought what the situation was

and what afghan culture really was. it is a culture that is very harmonious. of course, there are problems like in any society. but people live in harmony with each other they knew what was expected from them. members of the family that lived in the problem -- in the province would stay for an extended amount of time. they wondered akin fourth over the time -- they wandered back and forth you would spend our weekends there. this is what i call afghan culture in which women are respected. my mother in law, my husband's

grandmother were powerful women. and yet they were women that stayed at home not that they worked outside. but there were other members of the family that worked outside. and they were also quite respected. i never heard somebody say oh, she is working outside. on the contrary, she got a phd in history and became a member of the academy of science. another one was in the hospital division. she became the manager of the hospital. from my microcosm of the family, i could tell that women had their place in society and it was to be respected and appreciated. this is why i am saying i likwe

afghan culture. i am also saying we have to go back to our islamic roots. in islam, women were very important. especially in those first few decades. nina: in the 1920's. rula ghani: no, i am talking about the prophets. [laughter] we'll talk about the queen later. the prophet meant one of the -- met one of the greatest traders in all of saudi arabia, and it was a woman.

his daughter had a lot of suitors, but she preferred to marry someone else. -- mary out of love. what i'm trained to say, is in islam, women's lace is important. -- place is important. what is taking place now is presented to the young generation. it is actually not islam. it is just a, i do not know. i will not say it is a violation. it is something else. i was making a speech one day

for an event that was about midwife and ob/gyn doctors. and in the holy koran, it says very clearly that there should be 13 months between children, between the birth of children. it says it very clearly save it for the help of child and for the health of the mother. i mean, for god's sake. [laughter] this discussion of islam, we should not accept it, we should get back to the basics. we should go back to the text and understand it. you mentioned queen soraya.

she was the wife of the king in the 1920's. she was an educated woman. she became the minister of education. she held a cabinet position. it is my guess that she really is the person who built the foundation for a very strong educational system that existed in afghanistan before the civil war. the education system which gave which allowed people like my husband to arrive for his university studies. my husband and his cohort, when they came to the american university, they had no problem adjusting. they knew as much as the others.

in some cases, they have covered the subjects that they were told to refresh on. we have a wonderful education system thanks to queen soraya. she insisted that they should study education. they wanted to become doctors, engineers, builders, lawyers they had to study. they came back, they had masters, they were the professors in the universities, and they did a great job educating generations of afghanistan. it takes just one woman. i think afghan women, when they put their mind to it, they are really quite formidable.

nina: you were raised as a lebanese christian. in a pretty illustrious family -- talk about what your father did. rula ghani: my father had a scholarship and studied in lebanon -- in france. i am french educated, by the way. when he came back, he proceeded to really put together the agriculture of the country. he introduced varieties of fruit, new varieties of the vegetable. he introduced fertilizers insecticides, pesticides. invest a little -- eventually he got into treatment for food industries.

he was quite a pioneer. he was approached to become head of the fao, but my mother said no i am not leaving lebanon. nina: you left. you studied in paris. we talked about 1968 in the uprising have an impact on your thinking. rula ghani: i went there, and the family in which i lived with was in the middle of all of the events. i did not take part, because i was too young and did not truly understand what was happening. but certainly, what stage with me is that we can be agents of change. -- what stayed with me. all of these students trying to

change the way teaching was done in france at the time. it was done in a very hierarchical way at the time, nothing like the american system. you had a large classes probably larger than the number of students. and down would be the teacher who would do his lecture, and that would be it. you had to study on your own. and they wanted to change it. i did think it in some ways. some things stuck, some things do not. nina: you worked as a journalist for some time. you studied journalism at columbia university. how did that affect your thinking and how you look at things? rula ghani: very unconsciously

i like to put the pieces of information together and understand things. i am able to understand the environment in which i am in. nina: it something how you are approaching your position now. rula ghani: yes, this is how i thought. i like to know who the people around me are. when i was here in washington, my husband was at the world bank and i joined us a on the world bank family network, which welcomes new families and help them adapt to washington dc. it helps them understand. we would see what their ne eds were. at one point, they needed english classes.

at another point, they needed some financial education. some did not know how to do a budget, because they come from a big family where everyone takes care of them. we had financial classes. is was all the gamut.we had an investment club. it is still functioning, i saw it the other day. it is accommodation of trying to get all of the information -- nina: being raised lebanese christian, starting down a professional path in a journalism in ending up in afghanistan with her husband was there any kind of cultural barriers to you? or did you fit right in? you did not convert to islam. rula ghani: no i did not.

i spent four years in afghanistan as a young bride. then i went to the states. i came here for my husband phd and ended up staying at 30 years because of the civil war. my husband decided not to go back because his family was in danger at the time. we are safe. but, the four years when it came to afghanistan were very easy to me. lebanese culture and afghan culture are not very different. we eat the same food. we have the same respect for elders. we have the same way of being welcoming to guests.

remember once -- i don't know if i was married at the time. my father came to me, we got married in lebanon and went back to kabul. there was a couple that came to me maybe married 2 or 3 years. they had a little boy together. she was surprised that i was so relaxed. they had come to visit us, and she was with her mother and law. i do not what to say her mother and thought was formidable but-- [laughter] how can you manage it, what is there to manage?

when we sit at the table, my mother-in-law was a eat -- will say eat, why don't you take that? and i say, she is showing respect, she likes you. ooh no, she said, i said no, and once it is no it's no. so it was a clash of culture. but for me, i knew my mother had done the exact thing back on. -- naback home. nina: rula ghani: or an italian mother would do the same thing. [laughter] nina: you work the site i summoned for not being -- you were criticized for not being islamic, for not having roots. some say that you should not have been a first lady. how did you deal with that? rula ghani: a lot of people say a lot of things. [laughter]

yes, you say i'm christian, i was born in a christian family, but i was an inside christian which meant that we prayed in arabic. when you pray to god, there is not much vocabulary for praying. it was pretty much the same. i do not feel uncomfortable saying muslim prayers because they were pretty much all like my christian prayers. for me, it is not a difference whether i am muslim or christian. for all of those that come to see me, it has never been an issue. they are just happy that i am there, that i am opening my doors to them, that i listen to what they have to say. and that maybe i will be able to help them. nina: and it seems like that works well. you have a care taker gene. when you came back to

afghanistan, can you involve a project you were involved in? rula ghani: it was a school started by afghans for children that worked on the streets. the children's are the ones that pay the price for civil war. they find themselves either with no parents, or parents that have been debilitated or not able to work. they are the ones that have to earn and look out for the family. i have tried to help out as much as i could. basically, whenever we had dinner at home and there were foreigners, i would tell them about this place. some of them would come and visit and make a donation. little by little, we created a

foundation here in the united states so that american supporters could benefit from the 501 tax deduction and have an institution that they really like. this is what this places. -- this place is. nina: i was making of -- thinking of trish, who was responsible partly for you being here. i love how you are very outspoken about a lot of things. in your speech, you made the point that international aid has created a culture of dependency in the country. first, how does that manifest itself, and how would you go about tackling that? rula ghani: what i mean by that is that humanitarian assistance is wonderful.

but, it is short-lived and does not change the situation. bringing food, bringing like it's -- bringing blankets, bringing tents -- all that is wonderful for those who really need it. but you come back the next year and they are still there, and they're even more people that are there. i do not think that he military assistance is the answer. -- humanitarian assistance is the answer. especially, do not send clothes. kabul has a whole market of secondhand clothes. [laughter] the thing that needs to be done is get to the root of the problem. why are these people in camps? they are usually internally displaced people. they have been displaced, maybe because of civil war for they

have been displaced because someone wanted to take their land. sometimes there has been a flood or a landslide. the solution to this problem is not to bring them every year one more ration of fried flour cooking oil. that does not solve the problem. basically, what i would like from the hocs, the international aid, is to stop thinking in terms of humanitarian assistance and to start thinking in terms of development. developing a situation needs training people.

it is very easy to come and help and say, here, i will show you how it is done. i heard recently about how afghans have their hand on the wheel and that they have their hands on the wheel also. and i say no, let them drive the wheel themselves. you have an emergency breakneck to you that you can pull. but let them drive. let them learned to drive. as long as you have your hands off the wheel, they will learn how to drive. you will leave and everything will fall apart. it is to really train people to lead. train people to be in charge. let them make mistakes. people learn from their mistakes.

they are not going to learn by seeing them do things. this is how i am trying to tackle it. i am not quite sure how we're going to do it. nina: are their models that you would cite? rula ghani: i am sure there are. my husband knows. nina: speaking of the people, one of your other frustrations is that afghans who go to the west to become educated go to the university's then it do not want to come back. you want to talk more about that. rula ghani: yes. there have been quite a few young people who had scholarships to come and study. i know that in the united states, there are about 300 of them here altogether. it gives you an idea.

it has started several years back. there is a tendency for them not to want to come back to afghanistan. and sure, i would like to say i know there are some here in the audience, but please remember this money is given to you not because of your beautiful eyes, it's given to you because you're going to go back to your country and help your country. at least spend two years here, but spend two years back in kabul. then go back to the states, well and good, i have a problem. but you have a chance to repay all of this money that has been spent on you. someone mentioned that i should say that the money spent on you,

this is how much you should repay. that may be too harsh. people should feel that they should have to come back and help their country. how is the country going to grow if the people that we train and send it to the best universities here decide to stay here? nina: i will ask one more question before opening up to audience questions. i want to remind you to make it a short question, and end with a question mark, not getting on a soapbox. you have a room full of people. i have heard you say a novel times that you have cameras -- a number of times that you are frustrated with the coverage of afghanistan and the images

portrayed in western media. tell us, what is the real afghanistan is that we are missing? rula ghani: you have to understand, for an agency's need to justify why they are working in afghanistan. -- foreign agencies needed to justify why they are working in afghanistan. they needed to say that the sky is falling. because otherwise they will not be able to raise the funds they needed to function there. somehow, this has got into journalists. -- gotten to journalists. they just need to go in see for themselves. i heard somewhere that afghanistan is the worst country

for someone to be born in. hogwash. there are situations -- difficult situations, there are difficult challenges, but still you can have a good life in afghanistan. we need to work for it, we need to improve it, there is a lot of room for improvement. but it is a beautiful country and a beautiful people. when i see an article that says everything is going wrong in afghanistan or that the economy is falling apart. there is no security in afghanistan, they say. 44 million people live in afghanistan. maybe i don't know the number of people being killed, and it is really too much -- every life counts. but it is probably less than the number of people who get killed

here in the united states. so let's keep a relative few. -- relative view. also, there are real hopes of certain things about eliminating corruption. may be these things are going to be tackled. let us be helpful, let us be positive. i think afghanistan is going to be a beautiful country, and i hope every day -- i hope one day you maymay be able to visit. [applause] >> where are the mics?

nina: lady in the front. >> i came to the united states through the afghan women program. i am glad to be here.

back -- we do want to go back. we need security. rula ghani: i know the situation is probably not ideal for those who want to work in afghanistan. but it is getting much better. and if you want to change the situation, you need to be part of it. that is how i think. but thank you for trying to do something from here anyways. i have been talking with people at the embassy. we will try to have a job fair to know what kind of job are available in afghanistan institute try and connect people with qualification with jobs that would be appropriate. nina: other questions>

>> hi, my name is margaret, and i are proud to be part of the ihl foundation. i have also been in afghanistan. my question is about the taliban. you upset if there's not much progress with regard to the peace talks. -- you have said. but as someone who is live in a telephonic dominated province. -- taliban dominated province. is there more hope for the future, given the power of the telegraph? -- the taliban. rula ghani: my husband's duties to bring security to afghanistan. i have confidence in him. he knows how to think outside of the box and how to solve problems. i hope that eventually the situation will get much better. nina: any specifics? rula ghani: no, i don't know.

>> thank you for your time. what is your opinion of freedom fighters? -- kurdish female fighters? rula ghani: i'm very proud of them. [laughter] [applause] they are taking part in defending their country. they are doing very well. we do have funerals in the afghan army. i met once in the academy.

>> i want to thank you for coming out this evening began with us. my question is very simple.

>> if you see corruption don't look the other way. unfortunately, i think foreign advisors see corruption and are worried to step on people's toes. and particularly in the -- that you can enforce the respect of

women because unfortunately, it does not exist in this country. >> we didn't touch on that much corruption. do you see that getting better? >> yes. i think people are -- engaged in corruption. i'll tell you an an nick dote an neck doteecdote anecdote. i don't know if it's true or not.

corruption is systemic and i think what my husband is trying to do is make a system that is less optimal for corruption. >> time for one more. >> i want to ask this question -- >> can you talk slower and louder? >> sure. i just wanted to ask this question on behalf of all the afghans in the west. i wanted to ask you what can we do to help rebuild afghanistan? what do you personally believe we should focus on? >> okay. >> say she wants to come back. tell her where to go. >> okay. okay. i think it would be good to come first for a short trip before you to see. maybe we can -- we had talked about organizing activities in the summer for young people who

want to come back and try and help. because, you know, i don't know how much -- it's a personal choice. if you come and you just love

it, then you're fine. >> in professions that really need that young talent like teaching and engineering, are there things that stand out in your mind? >> i don't know myself because my children are older. >> right. >> so i don't move in circles of very young people. but i think there might be things that they can do. maybe we can find a mid wife to shadow. [laughter].

>> something -- i mean i think the possibilities are immense, but at this point, i don't know. i've only been a first lady for four months. so please bear with me. >> well you have your work cut out for you. and i just want to thank you for being so insightful and so inspirational for all the people in this room. >> thank you.

[applause].

in january, 2002, something unique unique happened amid a political controversy and a war on terror a bipartisan act of legislation to fix america's broken education system. the goal, straightforward yet ambitious. all children will be proficient in reading and mathematics by 2014. the year is now 2015, so all children have been brought up to grade level. right? >> we need to address the achievement. we need to make sure we're holding schools accountable to be quality schools. but it means that no child left behind has used to measure and assess performance i think are very lacking. >> the question did nclb succeed is complicated. in short, the best answer is it depends. and what it depends on especially is where you live.

>> so it's true that that future is already here but the future's not evenly distributed. we don't have those same resources in every local community. >> here is a snapshot of two cities in our greater southeast michigan community. less than 40 mile's apart. detroit and anne arbor. the two offer a striking contrast to their results and responses to the federal mandate. of the 21 largest urban districts that the national center for educational statistics measures dps performed the lowest on fourth and eighth grade reading and