First Wednesday: Where has war left the people of Afghanistan?

 

How do the Afghan people view the last ten years since the US-led invasion and how have their lives have been changed?

With withdrawal the goal and a PR focus on portraying this as a clean exit, we will be looking at the reality of life in Afghanistan and how the events of the past 10 years have impacted the Afghan people.

Is it just another chapter in nearly half a century of conflict and instability? Is civil war avoidable? Is there any hope for the future and what might that  future look like?

Another opportunity to join in a lively public meeting, hosted by Paddy O’Connell of BBC Radio 4’s Broadcasting House, bringing together experts and commentators and mixing their views with contributions from our audience.

With:

Horia Mosadiq, Afghanistan Researcher Amnesty International.

Dawood Azami, visiting scholar and award winning broadcast journalist working for the BBC World Service in London. Until recently, he was the BBC World Service Bureau Chief and Editor in Kabul, Afghanistan. Before joining the BBC in London in 1998 he worked as the head of an educational & training institute in Pakistan, mainly for Afghan refugees.  He was selected as a Young Global Leader (YGL) by the World Economic Forum in 2011. He won Global Reith Award for Outstanding Contribution, (the lifetime achievement award given by the BBC Global News Division in 2009). He also won the first Allama Tarzai Award (Father of journalism in Afghanistan), Kabul/London (2010).

Lucy Morgan Edwards, former political advisor to the EU Ambassador in Kabul with responsibility for civil military affairs, narcotics and security sector reform. She spent 7 years in the country working in a number of roles for the the UN and EU as well as reporting for the Economist and Daily Telegraph. She also spent many months in Jalalabad, Eastern Afghanistan, with a leading tribal family (that of Abdul Haq and Haji Abdul Qadir), which lead her to write The Afghan Solution: the inside story of Abdul Haq, the CIA and how western hubris lost Afghanistan.

Edward Girardet, journalist, writer and producer who has reported widely from humanitarian and conflict zones in Africa, Asia and elsewhere since the late 1970s. He first began covering Afghanistan several months prior to the Soviet invasion in 1979. Author of several books including The Essential Field Guide to Afghanistan and Killing the cranes: A Reporter’s journey through three decades of war in Afghanistan.