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starting from tomorrow. that's all from our election headquarters to this our, our teen bankers correspondence. keeping the updates right through those 3 days and voting for bringing the all important results on monday morning. do stay with us. teeth rested for this. i'll return with more, the the in the moon. ah, [000:00:00;00]

me . well to the alexandra sure. where we turn once again to the end of the war in afghanistan. this time when to be to women, whose lives have been inescapably touched by the long conflict. masika his sonny was an african refugees who finally came to the u. k. during the 1st period of taliban government, doctor on ripley was a tough journalist who for a short period some 20 years ago, became the most famous women on the planet i. she was captured by the taliban on the eve of the need to invasion, expedients this of giving them different perspectives of i've got a son in war. i didn't pay for join alex in a moment to put the 1st few tweets notes on messages in response to our program last week on the aftershock of loan call that he faith says highly informative interview. the case has been made to wait a mask and keep

a safe distance from all. we must above all take care. this cool, it can destroy your life. thanks alex and take care. john watson says, thank you for this great program, alex and his mena. i 5 long covert knife, 18 months and have long term nerve damage, but been for has pretty much cleared up. so i feel qualified to see, i think, to minute analysis at the end of the program with both on the side to draw on. and we wish you well louise talk says if it just a post vital syndrome, identical to amy while amy navy, to can see display and properly researched or will people with long code would be left for 13 years to the psychological or even sent for damage. graduates an exercise therapy. suddenly william nickle says sign for that. that is definitely long covert or continuous health problems. even after the box, you can truthfully say, since march 2021 my legs more, but someone elses some investigation to to be into a good few health centers in scotland. anyway. thank you for another informative

show. well, thank you, william and wish you well. now must go his sunny ask on board, but her family fled their country. she became a very, a typical and i've spoken miss england and i run campaigns for mental health strategies, particularly for muslim women. i'm also welcome to the family. sure thing to tell us. but have you and your family came to the u. k. my family and i were living between 2nd son and i got a son because my parents study in sex done so we would go back and forth during the holidays. so throughout my childhood i was spending some money in cobbled, and one year we came back to was like a son to for like a short break. so we'd literally pack a vacation bag left everything and then the war broke out and we never went back. and i remember for years my mother crying over her wedding pictures because those

are the only memory she had left from her wedding day. so we left everything that we've ever known and just took the clothes on our back and just never went back home. it was the waiting game because we thought that this is a matter of a year or 2 and we will go back home at some point. but as we said in the sun and we watched the situation deteriorate more and more, the only option was to try and get the rest of the family members out. so i remember my grandmother and grandfather came separately very hard journeys. she was stuck as an airport for hours to people smugglers and whichever way we could, we got them out. so it was very, it's a very vivid memory. that's what i remember got. it was all was the assumption that one day the family would return home a day to fi as afghanistan yourself and we were thinking about when they will bill to go back. hopefully,

i think when you speak to any afghans around the world and you asked them why they're from me, always introduce i thought that and then our host country, because i don't to, so far on our country we not was for that case now. and then he's integrations, a born on die in war. and because of that we feel extra protective over identity because it's always someone's invading. and so i was trying to paint this in a very bad way. so that's why i think from the day that we're born, we get told to don't forget where you from. don't forget where you ruth. say you are afghan, you are afghan. and to be honest, i didn't understand that up until recently because i was too young and i thought, why is this being imposed on me so much? yes, i know i'm, i've gotten with my parents in my community always made sure that i don't forget where i come from. but now with the recent events and everything that's going on and i've got that, i feel exactly the same. and i will make sure that my children's children know that

i was asked, and that every generation of mine will not forget where they come from because i feel so protective over my identity now. but as a young refugee that doesn't stop you having substantial achievements, it became miss england. tell us, tell us about, but thank you. i mean, i started modeling as a very young age which was very unconventional from someone of my background. but i was very lucky to have the opportunity to do that and also have the support. and i really enjoyed what i was doing. and then the pageant came up and it wasn't something that i planned to do. i didn't know, did i dream of being a beauty queen when i was young? but for me it was. if i do this and i'm successful, that's giving me a platform to have to speak on the situation of my whole country. you are perhaps an unconventional beauty queen in the sense that you took the opportunity to speak out against the the prime minister of the day. tony blair. yes,

i'm looking back at that may have been a little bit rushed because i was 18 years old at that time. so i was put on the spin spotlight and i had no media training. i just knew the situation in my home country. and when i got given the opportunity i, so this is the only time that every food you get from, i guess that will have the world listen to her. so i'm going to speak from my heart and i'm going to say what i truly feel. and i feel like that was probably the name of my age that i just spoke exactly how i felt. and, but i don't regret that most people, some courage as an 18 year old, achieving a great achievement. but, and i totally feel to say, i want to say something about the, the views of the prime minister make criticism not come quite a step to take as an 18 year old. yeah, i mean from the day that i was my,

when was very political because the timing of the pageant fell 2 months after the london bombings happened. so it was july and then i wanted the pageant in september . so the sense of islam of phobia was very, very present at that time. and for the 1st time muslims were getting attacked since 911. it then came to the u. k. and so we were constantly, every time i went and did interviews, all right, good introduction. to people they would look at me like i was lying about where i was from because surely people from afghanistan don't look like me, don't speak like me because they had this image of what the media painted. i've gotten people to be like, or muslim community to be like just barbarians. and so i felt that they fell on my shoulders to, to get rid of that view, a stigma that it was created by the media. so that's why it was just the timing of it and it was my obligation. i felt like it was my duty to my people to change the narrative of the way the world was painting people,

which is again what's happening now. so your concern was lot before be arising from generalize the acts of some terrorist and saying, well that's the whole religion or a whole range of people. that was your concern. yes. whole range of people and of course because $911.00 was linked to ghana said it was the why the muslim community . but then in particular, i've got a son because every time i spoke to people and they would ask me, where is your background from? i say i've got a son like, oh, some of you know, he's not, i've got so yeah that's, that doesn't relate to me, but that's the view that people had of i was gonna stand. so i felt like i was the, the fight for the gun. i didn't to see and i did that then and at that time there was no social media things going viral. so now that i'm speaking up, i feel does a lot of my god follows feel that it's very new to them and this is not the 1st

time i've done this. so i'm more than happy to 5 micro 95. so what i believe is right. and then you started your work and mental health looking particularly at the mental health of refugees to tell us, tell us. but i went through this myself of course. so i think the way i fell into the mental health side is because i look back as everything that i have achieved. and also the battles and difficulties that i had to deal with as a migrant. as a re, fuji a, someone who didn't speak english or someone who was always the all foreign child at school, the one that didn't have nice close to air until my parents managed to get jobs and earn money. so we could, so i would always go good to school in the 2nd hand clothes of donations for the 1st few months. and then there i was 10 years later representing england as their beauty queen or being a model and being in magazines and flying around the world. so i felt like i had to share my journey and experience because i understand the battles that people of the

afghan. yes. for a face or any other face. you know, if you are determine if you keeps strong and say truth is who you are, the new kind of 2 things and you can get that. and having said that, it's not an easy journey. but because i've done as i'd like to share that knowledge, unexperienced and help others flourish, because i know that we have so much talent. i know that we're just as intellectual, smart, motivated people and women because i feel like i've got women are so oppressed and they're painted as these. i mean, they're not, they're just the human eyes. you know, lives are getting lost, left, right, and center children and women and girls with what's happening right now. they're just, you know, they seen as numbers as these blue goes with the brokers. that's all i've got women i know now in the world. so i just want to show the world as know we're, we're also capable, we're just as good as anyone else. thinking about the life you, jeez,

who you've spoken to help through your work. some idea of the range of activities, least people are now in gauge and across the, the full extent of life. yeah, i mean, the people that i speak with even, and i've got a son during the last 20 years where there was a little bit of peace. there is a gals robotics team casing t like you know, given the opportunities these the gills. robotics team build ventilators out of call, pause to help with cosy. and it was actually working and functional and was used in some of the hospitals. this is the level of talent that's out there, but it's just that we're just not seen as people of human. so we don't get those out of paternity and that's why i was always grateful. an appreciative of the opportunity that i received because that could have been me. i was just lucky to be born as a different place in a different time to different parents. so i manage to grasp the opportunities with both hands, but if all our people had the same opportunities as me,

i'm sure that our country would be in a very phase right now on the cost of the influx of some thousands of african refugees, many of whom have fled the country in the most distressed circumstances. well, what would your message be to, to these people coming in and what message would you have to the host community in terms of, of improving the life chances of the, of the people were welcoming and to this company? we need to understand that these people have probably severe pvc. they're all in traumatic trauma response at the moment, so it will take very long time and it will be difficult. it's not easy. i'm hearing some perfect stories of being stuck in airports for hours on end without food and drink. so their trauma hasn't even ended yet. so until they settle,

it's not going to be easy. it's not going to be, you know, it's not like they came into an amazing new life. they may not get killed, but there is other ways and mental health that will just deteriorate and will be very difficult for them. but, you know, at the end of the day they are the lucky ones that escaped and they, if they should, we should all be grateful that we managed to help some people given this opportunity to have a new life, you know, it will be okay. it does take time and they have the community here to help them as well as other people because i've had an influx of people who are non, i've got who wants to help and volunteer. so there are people who are very welcoming and hopefully with time and a lot of how a lot of mental health, what they'll be able to start a new life. and i, so the host country, i'd say the media pains the re fuji's as this us and always. but these are just people and they just,

they are running away from farms and you know, minds. and they just, they just want to have a chance to live and to have an opportunity to like, look at me, i was given that opportunity and i've done my fair share for english or for my job, my industry and everything else that i stand for. so these are just people like me and they're giving, if you give them the opportunity, they'll also flourish and do their best. i'm also thank you so much for joining me and me, alex, i'm coming up after the break. i'll continue his discussion on a time. i see interviews to everyone. ripley join us. thing me the sea food that are maybe red, orange, yellow. maybe we assume that they going to be on the sweet side of things and

received a rounder a soft and soon again, they're going to be sweeter in some way. welcome back. alex is discussing the end of the war in afghanistan. from a women's perspective. he takes up the story with dr. von ridley vulnerably. welcome back to the alex simon show. thank you. 20 years ago, almost to the day you were just about the most famous movement on the planet. because you were captured by the the taliban. what i'm f for you, we're doing and getting captured and 20 years ago. oh wow. and intend to get captured. i was sad that she should portrait the sunday. i read the newspaper and i gone into afghanistan on an undiscovered mission. it was after the events of 9, the lesson was $3000.00 journalists assembled on the pocket stone on board

a waste into the wall to start. i've always been impatient and i want to get in there ahead of them and find out what life was like under the ruling taliban. the only thing that went wrong with the plan today's day and i got cold. so avoid a combination of bravado, determination. the taliban found you too hot to handle and you are of actually the least. what's the perspective at 20 years perspective? look back when you find yourself out in the morning. the thing that really happened to me. yeah, i just think for thinking of doing, you know what you say it was a reckless thing to do, although it was happened intend to to get cold. i was terrified as we single day. although having said that,

i was also the person from how i spotted my floor, them i through thing shopton. simply because i was convinced that they were going to kill me. and so i wanted it over and done with this quickly as possible. i didn't want any torture, i want to cut out the middleman. take me straight against the wall and shoot me because this is what happens in an evil, brutal regime. but they didn't. they treat me with kindness and they kept saying to me why you be anything like this. you were our guest, we want you to be happy. so you came out of that extraordinary experience with a different what of perspective been you came to the conclusion that it was time to revise the waste views on on was of state building nation building, occupation and where would lead it?

well, on my lunch night, by this time i've been transferred to prison in fall, belittle started and i suddenly found out what it was like to be formed by person and america. and this know where to run nowhere to hide. i sort of thought to myself, if i get out of this on going straight into the anti war movement, i did as a matter of fact, i'm not a peacenik. i think, you know, there's the rose for the full service. ready but imperial into low meal walls and occupations. no way. and terms of the taliban, len, i mean as a government they had been ruthless, vindictive, repressive of women's rights. from what you know, do you think there are still light laughter? do you believe the, the new wave taliban is going to be substantially different?

or should we just wait and see the combination of all 3. i think that they've learned quite a lot. you know, they've been out of government for 20 years. they've had time to reflect on this, on the mistakes that they made. they were brutal, they were list. but now i think that they're all mature registered govern properly. when they gave a press conference, i was astonished, you know, talking about women's rights and i'm thinking, how don't you notice the taliban? but they made. all right. so let's see them roll it out. let's see the de follow up and much of course the progress that has been made for women and last can the stand has been probably the only justification for the the intervention over 20 years. and no doubt,

some of that is real. but you know, skeptic about how that starts, the lives of, of most women and i've got to stay. yes. i mean, it would be childish not to acknowledge that women empty the women churches for women journalists and tv presented. however, you know, i'm from a working class background, i like to know what's going on with my sister's in bed working class areas. and that's basically where i travel to when i've been to off down the stone. there are no korea women emerging from the rubble of the rural areas. more than 2 thirds of african women still can't read and write 10000000 children to full time education in the last 2 years because of the instability of the country. for 1000000 children will still not get into schools and this was done to the truck, gone the government. and you know,

they had to run new school belts in kandahar spiritual home of the taliban. but they have no teaches to teach the children. so these are things, unfortunately, the media have been falling short. all the, you know, they've been in the building of a new school for 2000 pupils. how wonderful. and then they walked off and haven't followed up to see if there aren't any teachers in the school to teach the pupils. well, well pass to show you in dollars has been expanded mostly on military equipment and bombs and missiles and bullets and hardware and software. if you ever consider what happened to it and dollars had been spent on economic and social development of the people, every paradise on ass,

it was that sort of expenditure. well, you know, things have 20 years to build a nation. and the i was trained some money being wasted on the weaponry to replace the taliban with the taliban. essentially, that's what 20 years as fighting this done. now i was looking into some history books and that old wrote robert mac gobby. when he became leader of his symbolic way. he invested a lot of money on education. and in to decade, he turn symbolic way into the talk to forming country in africa with the highest literacy rates among women. and the literacy rate, he got up to 89 percent. now, if an old road like that, who did many of the bad things can turn around the education system and lift his country to,

to the top of belief. an option what the west could have in afghanistan, they really couldn't liberated african women. they really could, is brought in and lifted up the literacy rate instead. the only shocking focused on top the leak in is the amount of women who contemplate try out and commit suicide everywhere as in the world. the think is in every single country, without exception. oh, predominantly men, the highest weakest in afghanistan, the highest figures of those attempting to side all women. and it's about $3000.00 to get back to, to bill subject. so it's probably much higher, but 80 percent of those trying to commit suicide in afghanistan or women. and you

have to ask why, why if women's rights, if ration is if educate ation is, why is this happened lee? and i really wish that my sisters in afghanistan are the same questions. how much consciousness and your experience as the protest, galveston of africa was done as a nation state that told me, do people in various localities associate with the tribe rattle of the country? does it vary from part to part the fact that it is a very tribal society is without doubt and the taliban won't say show us the type of government they go to have they say it's going to be increased and they've reached out to the she has ara apparently

which is new, the top checks the specs and pasting. so it is very much a tribal society, but they all ask gums and i think that god is the commonality that will bring them together. also they've had 45 years of famine, stripe, to occupations, and endless was, and they read the 50, say they, they want something you. and i think i'm really quietly optimistic this time. finally vulnerably. when you came out, you have captivity with the taliban, new and public platforms and a strong voice. here again, visa preventions and the extent was what was your message now would be to,

to west leave those and terms of how the approach afghans stand in terms of how they could properly assist in the development of the country. don't walk away the last time you walked away, you isolated the tall about on the international stage, and i've got the star became a k brown for every want to be happy. so don't walk away, it won't work. however, if you going to come back all me oh south this time was a with practical ho. with socialist motivation. i'm not sure the west can do that. but you know, that country needs to know me as teachers. they have just had a brain drain. they, they need doctors, professionals who can rebuild the country, the west this time. can try nation building without weapons. yvonne ridley,

thank you so much for joining me once again on the i like simon show. thank you. alex was the flight from the capital and the final collapse of the last embers of resistance and upon sheer valley north of couple wasted me to interest enough. gone to sun is fading fast. however, for those whose lives have been touched by 40 years of conflict, but is it more considered and sustained from us? of course, dining provides a not unusual inability to someone who by what determination find fame and success and her adopted land but still has never lost her affinity. sort of gone on doctor bon ridley, achieved something in hard brush for the taliban, which eluted beneath 2 allies in the 22 years. the conflict she best at them had expedient conditioned her you on the futility of military occupations and interventions. and instead, now cause for armies of medicine teachers to assist the god. people from both these

women comes to perspective morning shooting and more important than instant reporting of the blood and chaos excites from cobble and so from alex myself and all this is good bye for night 50. i hope to see you all again next week. oh, i the good evening of welcome to our coverage of the 2021 russian state duma elections. we've chosen. it's definitely one of the best the most certainly the most