Ehsan Naim speaks at Prague Spring 50

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04/12/2018 Added

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Ehsan Naim gives his talk "The Limits of Youth Activism in Afghanistan" at Prague Spring 50. https://praguespring50.unl.edu/speakers#ehsan-naim

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[00:00:12.430]Well, it's so exciting actually to be here.
[00:00:16.600]Let me...
[00:00:17.540]Thank you everyone for the opportunity,
[00:00:21.920]especially, thanks to James for considering me
[00:00:26.160]to be member of this great platform
[00:00:29.400]where I can be, as a young member of
[00:00:33.850]this team today.
[00:00:35.740]More,
[00:00:37.090]I would like to start
[00:00:40.700]not deeply from the history,
[00:00:42.940]maybe from the 1988 when I was
[00:00:45.810]maybe just about eight years old
[00:00:48.430]when the Russian were just withdrawing from Afghanistan.
[00:00:50.340]I just remembered very few of the communist
[00:00:53.220]time in Afghanistan.
[00:00:55.410]But what I remember today,
[00:00:57.940]or yesterday and the day before,
[00:01:01.040]all the history, what I learned,
[00:01:03.944]it's so amazing.
[00:01:05.810]And in the mean time,
[00:01:07.610]the speakers shared the experiment with me
[00:01:09.720]being an international living in Czech Republic
[00:01:13.230]since almost four years.
[00:01:16.810]For me, I personally learned a lot.
[00:01:22.054]I'm proud that
[00:01:23.860]I'm part of this team,
[00:01:26.890]frankly.
[00:01:29.800]What I really,
[00:01:31.560]I really want to share today is
[00:01:34.670]mainly
[00:01:36.200]to talk about
[00:01:37.860]what really we face as a young generation in Afghanistan,
[00:01:42.250]and how I got to involve
[00:01:45.600]with bringing all this
[00:01:48.250]part of the Czech pride
[00:01:51.590]to share with my generation
[00:01:53.220]in Afghanistan and convince them that
[00:01:56.370]how the great management
[00:02:00.580]can positively transfer the power
[00:02:02.700]from one other.
[00:02:03.620]While in Afghanistan we had also the experience
[00:02:06.770]of the communism,
[00:02:07.830]the people would understand it quite clearly.
[00:02:12.540]So let me thank once again to everyone who is here.
[00:02:20.560]It's actually indeed very interesting.
[00:02:23.166]As I said before,
[00:02:25.680]my father who studied
[00:02:29.723]in Russia at the time,
[00:02:32.990]it was always a question for us to know in details
[00:02:38.560]what was his experience
[00:02:40.420]from the time when he was in Russia
[00:02:42.380]and he was studying there.
[00:02:45.020]He never let us go in details.
[00:02:47.240]Probably he wanted completely to grown up
[00:02:50.280]in a different model of life, let's say,
[00:02:52.890]and to focus on different things,
[00:02:56.029]which is positively actually now in our family.
[00:03:00.680]And we wanted somehow to repay back
[00:03:03.130]of all what my father at least tried
[00:03:06.010]to change the atmosphere
[00:03:09.770]in our family.
[00:03:12.120]Just to go briefly about
[00:03:15.120]the current situation in Afghanistan,
[00:03:16.980]and then I will go back
[00:03:19.020]to what I personally
[00:03:22.060]date as an activities in this field,
[00:03:25.300]is that I'm proud to say that Afghanistan
[00:03:28.640]with all the problem which we have internally.
[00:03:33.990]As a young generation, I have,
[00:03:37.330]as other
[00:03:38.900]Afghan,
[00:03:41.200]Afghan youth, we are hopeful that
[00:03:43.620]Afghanistan is 68% of
[00:03:46.400]its population is under 25,
[00:03:48.940]under age 25.
[00:03:49.900]So we are one of the youngest country
[00:03:53.350]which is giving a lot,
[00:03:54.800]and it means a lot
[00:03:57.040]for me and for all other Afghan youth
[00:03:59.700]to try their best to work for our country.
[00:04:03.180]Afghanistan is currently
[00:04:04.730]witnessing a serious
[00:04:06.580]youth
[00:04:07.960]growth,
[00:04:08.793]and it has resulted in a cultural,
[00:04:10.710]social and political consequences,
[00:04:12.520]including the growth of modern youth political activism.
[00:04:17.040]This
[00:04:18.795]is already quite representative
[00:04:20.920]in the current governmental structure.
[00:04:25.370]And two times election in the country have proved
[00:04:28.200]very, very, very broadly
[00:04:30.680]that Afghanistan,
[00:04:32.500]the power is transferred to the young generation who are
[00:04:36.790]mostly educated in Europe and the western world,
[00:04:41.600]and transferring the great knowledge and experiences
[00:04:44.110]from this part of the world.
[00:04:47.140]That's
[00:04:48.720]what actually
[00:04:50.220]prove to be in our election that Afghan
[00:04:54.180]really doesn't care about
[00:04:58.800]deeply how
[00:05:00.550]the Islamic ideology,
[00:05:03.970]they don't really care about
[00:05:06.920]what is happening
[00:05:08.040]or who is the president and who can be so deeply
[00:05:10.900]as in the past
[00:05:12.920]generation, they were really taking care of it.
[00:05:15.800]As our current first lady of the country,
[00:05:20.285]it's a question.
[00:05:21.540]And in the voting time,
[00:05:23.191]it was clearly proved that Afghans really don't care about,
[00:05:27.480]the young generation doesn't care about really
[00:05:29.670]who is the president and who can be the,
[00:05:32.410]what will be the consequences of other deep understanding.
[00:05:36.800]The rapid growth of a technology,
[00:05:38.720]that is something which is very positive for us,
[00:05:41.060]and media, and access to education and information,
[00:05:44.760]since 2001
[00:05:48.002]has a very, very
[00:05:50.934]a lot growth in the country politically,
[00:05:55.150]that made people politically aware.
[00:05:57.750]And more importantly,
[00:06:00.140]they are expecting
[00:06:04.295]the biggest and the very positive role
[00:06:05.960]of the social media in the power,
[00:06:09.410]which is
[00:06:10.670]one of the positive sign for our country.
[00:06:14.390]Like the cultural constraints pose a big obstacle
[00:06:18.750]in the youth political activism
[00:06:20.710]as a person is not considered suitable to lead other,
[00:06:23.460]unless
[00:06:25.416]he is an elder or community leader.
[00:06:28.930]Lack of political awareness among the rural
[00:06:31.430]youth also makes them more susceptible
[00:06:35.560]and also political,
[00:06:38.650]politically weak to raise their voices.
[00:06:42.460]This is one of the other
[00:06:44.680]challenge for the Afghans,
[00:06:47.090]the youth actually.
[00:06:48.460]Although the country is unlikely
[00:06:50.420]to face a new revolutionary
[00:06:52.840]in the immediate future.
[00:06:56.120]But with the 68% of its total population
[00:06:59.090]under the age of 25,
[00:07:00.510]Afghanistan is currently witnessing
[00:07:02.260]a serious growth in the youth population.
[00:07:05.110]And it has resulted in a socio cultural
[00:07:08.010]and political consequences
[00:07:09.670]that has been previously
[00:07:13.344]unheard
[00:07:14.508]or in Afghan political cultural
[00:07:18.430]conventions.
[00:07:19.610]Though it should be mentioned that
[00:07:22.780]youth and student
[00:07:24.920]politics are not an entirely new concept In the country.
[00:07:30.410]If I just want to go to the history,
[00:07:33.090]during the 1950 and 1970s,
[00:07:35.930]young people often express their opinion
[00:07:38.670]through particular ideology called feeling.
[00:07:41.960]And the dominant trends were either to become an Islamist
[00:07:47.080]or communist to challenge the
[00:07:51.540]monarchy.
[00:07:53.150]And more than three decades of a civil war
[00:07:55.960]followed by a democratic set up
[00:07:59.480]in short of the current type of youth political activism
[00:08:02.870]was more tangible and moderate
[00:08:06.600]than
[00:08:07.910]that has been seen in the past.
[00:08:10.970]This is very clearly
[00:08:14.160]in the history.
[00:08:16.410]Even now, you can feel it as I have more experience
[00:08:19.090]in traveling to the rural Afghanistan,
[00:08:22.350]that if you really want to be the community leader
[00:08:25.160]or
[00:08:27.120]to represent a group of the youth in the community,
[00:08:30.180]you should be really coming from a very
[00:08:33.676]Islamic
[00:08:35.410]deep root family that your
[00:08:37.780]father or grandfather
[00:08:41.805]was very
[00:08:43.260]with the Islamist history,
[00:08:45.930]or you should be coming from some
[00:08:49.230]politically or from the tribal family
[00:08:51.760]which the people can at least even trust you
[00:08:53.820]to raise your voice.
[00:08:54.745]This is one of the things
[00:08:57.650]which Afghans or even the government
[00:08:59.670]is challenged how to tackle this program,
[00:09:03.210]these kind of problems.
[00:09:05.520]But more than the three decade of civil war,
[00:09:08.720]followed by the democratic setup,
[00:09:10.270]ensure that the current type of political activism was
[00:09:13.230]more tangible
[00:09:14.470]and
[00:09:15.700]moderate
[00:09:16.800]than that has been seen in the past.
[00:09:21.510]The challenge which the youth
[00:09:23.600]are facing with,
[00:09:25.040]and government is also
[00:09:28.650]highlighting this in the society is that
[00:09:32.450]cultural constraint and traditionalism pose
[00:09:37.626]is the biggest challenge toward the political,
[00:09:41.280]political youth activism.
[00:09:42.740]In such a traditional society,
[00:09:44.900]political authority is not earned based on value,
[00:09:49.910]rather, it's inherited.
[00:09:52.380]Every tribe has its own leader
[00:09:55.150]in each village and community.
[00:09:56.950]This is what I mentioned before.
[00:09:59.160]With such kind of setup in the country,
[00:10:01.300]it's very, very difficult
[00:10:02.830]for the Afghan youth,
[00:10:03.980]even from the rural Afghanistan
[00:10:05.780]to raise their voice and try to reach the cities
[00:10:09.253]or make the political aware of
[00:10:12.370]the government to listen to their voice.
[00:10:16.490]Okay, so let's just go through,
[00:10:19.960]through all these very fast,
[00:10:21.160]and maybe I will just
[00:10:23.010]more explain about my
[00:10:24.600]practical experiences with what I was
[00:10:26.930]doing in terms of the film,
[00:10:29.070]and how I brought the
[00:10:31.280]the One World Film Festival to Afghanistan
[00:10:33.340]and share the ideas
[00:10:37.340]with my generation in the country.
[00:10:41.550]Actually,
[00:10:44.230]in my personal experience,
[00:10:46.860]when I'm talking about the youth activism
[00:10:48.500]and how the people are
[00:10:51.330]kind of put it on the side,
[00:10:53.540]and especially the young generation,
[00:10:55.490]the talk is that I have a personal experience
[00:10:57.240]when I was working for the program called DDR.
[00:10:59.983]It's the Disarmament Demobilization
[00:11:01.850]and Reintegration program.
[00:11:03.740]It was just right after in 2003 and 2004,
[00:11:07.550]after the Taliban regime
[00:11:09.210]and the international community arrived.
[00:11:11.100]I was working for this program
[00:11:13.860]in the reintegration parts.
[00:11:16.080]Well, we had to...
[00:11:18.160]As a regular task, we had to interview
[00:11:22.951]the ex-combatants to return back to the civil life.
[00:11:27.790]We had to talk for an hour
[00:11:30.804]with the young
[00:11:32.541]ex-soldiers who was forced to fight for some reason.
[00:11:36.528]I don't know the reason actually.
[00:11:39.562]But when we were talking for an hour,
[00:11:41.742]an hour to go back to the civil life,
[00:11:44.530]we were trying to give him options,
[00:11:46.920]what he really want to select to go back to the civil life.
[00:11:51.070]He was never ever
[00:11:54.790]able to decide by himself,
[00:11:57.140]unless the leader or his ex,
[00:12:01.340]the community leader or someone decide for him.
[00:12:03.570]Even after one hour of discussions,
[00:12:06.050]like showing that there is no one,
[00:12:07.840]you have your own choice,
[00:12:09.920]but it was impossible to get his idea.
[00:12:12.810]That was giving me a lot of,
[00:12:16.710]myself, as a first humanitarian worker,
[00:12:20.270]I was really thinking deeper into the
[00:12:22.340]rural communities, how the youth are living there.
[00:12:24.640]While we as educated and living in the cities,
[00:12:28.547]for us it was slightly easy
[00:12:32.080]to reach the systems and make ourself understand.
[00:12:34.190]But for the rural communities,
[00:12:35.980]it's very, very challenging,
[00:12:37.720]and it was very difficult for them
[00:12:41.950]to decide.
[00:12:45.010]During the election,
[00:12:46.840]during the election time of
[00:12:48.940]the two times presidential election in the country,
[00:12:52.600]you would see a family,
[00:12:55.631]the leader of the family was
[00:12:58.870]coming with other two or three
[00:13:01.340]family member for voting to the voting center.
[00:13:05.530]The son were not allowed to go
[00:13:07.360]to take the voting card
[00:13:08.510]until his father was deciding
[00:13:10.230]to take voting card first, and then they would decide to go.
[00:13:14.160]So these kinds of things,
[00:13:16.750]I would call it a traditional limits for the Afghan,
[00:13:21.974]until they really, really decide what they want to do,
[00:13:25.700]because it's valid in the families.
[00:13:28.640]These are kind of programs
[00:13:31.240]and the project for the government
[00:13:33.530]with the support of international communities
[00:13:35.840]in order to
[00:13:37.430]raise awareness in the community.
[00:13:40.680]What they do is mainly the political youth groups
[00:13:44.150]are designing their structure
[00:13:45.680]and strengthening the reflect of their
[00:13:48.600]unified national and present all the ethnical
[00:13:51.780]and languages which can represent
[00:13:54.340]all the ethnical language of Afghanistan.
[00:13:55.660]There are awareness-raising programs
[00:13:57.690]which the government is trying to deal with,
[00:14:01.650]and the
[00:14:04.460]international communities are supporting,
[00:14:06.190]especially the NGOs.
[00:14:07.290]They have a significant role on it
[00:14:09.180]which they are trying
[00:14:12.742]to solve these issues.
[00:14:15.900]For me,
[00:14:18.140]the main interesting experience
[00:14:20.710]which I personally started to go deeper into this topic was
[00:14:25.900]in 2010, when I started to,
[00:14:28.830]to join Czech organizations, people in needs,
[00:14:33.468]in Afghanistan, as a program manager
[00:14:38.730]for a program which was supported by
[00:14:41.590]European Union.
[00:14:43.080]I had an opportunity to travel
[00:14:45.790]to most of the Afghan countries
[00:14:47.690]and talk to the rural communities.
[00:14:50.820]And I had
[00:14:52.450]back
[00:14:53.800]with my university
[00:14:54.820]had an opportunity to,
[00:14:56.560]to establish a group of volunteers
[00:14:59.130]with whom we can work together
[00:15:00.840]and try to raise
[00:15:04.210]our voices
[00:15:05.043]and bring this campaign to the remote Afghanistan.
[00:15:08.520]For us, the main reason how to do it was we were
[00:15:13.680]looking for a practical examples
[00:15:17.450]from whom we can take this idea
[00:15:20.280]and try to bring it
[00:15:22.640]to the rural Afghanistan
[00:15:24.190]and try to convince them
[00:15:25.690]in order to take part in the decision making processes.
[00:15:29.880]I started to,
[00:15:32.600]to work with the, as I said, with the people in need.
[00:15:34.950]And I was given opportunity
[00:15:36.760]to travel for the first time to Czech Republic, to Prague,
[00:15:41.490]invited for the One World Film Festival.
[00:15:44.985]It was a great opportunity for me to see
[00:15:48.670]such a big group of youth
[00:15:52.040]in the European communities
[00:15:53.960]and how actively they are taking part
[00:15:56.240]in the decision making.
[00:15:57.870]For me, it was a question.
[00:16:00.020]That was the place where I decided to know
[00:16:02.870]more about
[00:16:05.170]the personality of Vaclav Havel.
[00:16:07.390]What I did was I bought a book from from Prague
[00:16:11.330]to know more about his personality
[00:16:14.100]and his ideology,
[00:16:15.440]and his,
[00:16:18.870]about Vaclav Havel Himself.
[00:16:22.020]It came that
[00:16:23.010]I finished the book,
[00:16:25.760]and I was traveling again
[00:16:28.840]in December
[00:16:30.170]back to Czech Republic.
[00:16:31.890]I was in the airport,
[00:16:35.140]but my father was calling me that,
[00:16:37.777]"Oh, you're going to Czech Republic, right?"
[00:16:39.890]And I was saying yes.
[00:16:41.760]He gave me a news that Vaclav Havel just, today,
[00:16:45.420]he passed away.
[00:16:46.930]I was already in Kabul Airport, traveling to Prague.
[00:16:50.740]For me, it was knowing this person
[00:16:53.390]just as a start,
[00:16:55.070]and
[00:16:56.540]to know such deeply
[00:16:59.234]about him was a big,
[00:17:01.190]a long way even still for me to do more.
[00:17:04.210]I came and I was taking part in his funeral
[00:17:09.220]in Prague.
[00:17:11.020]For me this was so much touching.
[00:17:16.780]And I wanted to really
[00:17:19.280]do something
[00:17:20.670]with his ideas,
[00:17:22.000]and how I should do.
[00:17:23.940]This exactly I was explaining
[00:17:25.860]with the One World Film Festival.
[00:17:28.320]And I was telling that
[00:17:31.440]we already with our group of volunteers
[00:17:34.130]back in Afghanistan.
[00:17:35.330]I really want to have some support
[00:17:37.550]where what we can do.
[00:17:39.740]And of course we needed the right of the movies.
[00:17:43.279]We had to select
[00:17:46.310]the right film for this.
[00:17:47.320]And talking back with our teams,
[00:17:49.730]since we were reading the book
[00:17:50.700]and we were discussing about Vaclav Havel
[00:17:52.300]back in Afghanistan.
[00:17:53.970]We decided to Take the Power of the Powerless,
[00:17:58.150]this movie which is talking about violent revolution.
[00:18:02.329]The reason was not like really
[00:18:04.880]to bring exactly the same concept.
[00:18:07.990]The reason was
[00:18:10.210]to know,
[00:18:11.330]to make our generation,
[00:18:13.110]or at least a group around myself,
[00:18:15.760]and then after circulating around our university.
[00:18:20.300]To know about his leadership,
[00:18:22.010]about his idea,
[00:18:24.100]and how he tackled all these problem.
[00:18:27.950]While in Afghanistan, people would really
[00:18:30.340]easily understand that it's lack of a good leadership.
[00:18:34.250]We took the movie and we screen enough for the first time
[00:18:38.090]in our university,
[00:18:41.160]in Balkh University in the North of Afghanistan.
[00:18:46.691]That was
[00:18:48.240]a big experience for me,
[00:18:49.550]and it was such a
[00:18:54.830]great opportunity to make Vaclav Havel
[00:18:57.960]introduce to this people
[00:18:59.280]and also his ideology to spread around.
[00:19:03.430]Then the same screening was
[00:19:06.260]requested by Ministry of Higher Education from Kabul.
[00:19:10.090]The same concept,
[00:19:11.470]if can be applied to different universities,
[00:19:14.035]which is in the south, in Herat,
[00:19:15.685]and in the west also,
[00:19:19.266]in Nangarhar, in Jalalabad.
[00:19:21.035]In three universities,
[00:19:22.040]they started to bring the same movie and try to create.
[00:19:25.620]The main idea was just to create a debate
[00:19:27.480]and give a tool for the young generation
[00:19:29.140]to start to come together in a place,
[00:19:33.393]and start to discuss about it.
[00:19:35.310]And that was really, really sensitive topic for us.
[00:19:38.660]As living in the same area,
[00:19:41.150]of course it was...
[00:19:44.240]Still some people were in power
[00:19:46.430]who didn't like this kind of concept to be screened
[00:19:50.980]among the young generation.
[00:19:53.050]We did it and it was
[00:19:57.067]a very successful concept,
[00:19:58.400]which is still continuing in a different province.
[00:20:00.590]And then we were able to give them more opportunities
[00:20:03.130]with different movies and different topics.
[00:20:07.733]And we not only stopped to do it only in the cities.
[00:20:13.540]With our
[00:20:16.040]access to the rural Afghanistan,
[00:20:17.990]we started to bring the same ideas and to the screenings.
[00:20:22.790]Because Afghanistan, traditionally, they have
[00:20:25.100]still in the rural areas,
[00:20:26.700]they have two days of market
[00:20:28.080]where the people are coming from different areas together
[00:20:31.010]and do the shoppings in the village market
[00:20:34.100]or in the district market.
[00:20:35.840]That is the biggest
[00:20:38.560]place where the people come together.
[00:20:40.260]And those people were, by any meaning,
[00:20:42.120]they were the main...
[00:20:45.580]I mean the force supporting the ex-Mujahideens,
[00:20:50.080]which they were fighting against different tribes.
[00:20:54.714]And we wanted to make them aware
[00:20:58.384]of this ideas that in other countries,
[00:21:01.510]what kind of people they started to deal with their problem.
[00:21:07.020]And we were doing it in the districts
[00:21:09.360]on the open markets, the open screenings on the projects.
[00:21:13.498]We were
[00:21:14.710]the people to
[00:21:17.350]answer the questions
[00:21:19.150]and make the people understand that
[00:21:22.840]it's really, really about,
[00:21:25.880]about the way of thinking
[00:21:28.110]and how they should be involved in it.
[00:21:32.020]The positive feedback from that work
[00:21:34.190]in the rural area was...
[00:21:37.150]I will always remember it and I always
[00:21:39.300]have it in my mind,
[00:21:40.800]is that when I was two months later,
[00:21:44.760]I was coming back to the same area
[00:21:46.440]trying to talk with the people
[00:21:49.030]for the project for my work purpose.
[00:21:52.130]I saw a farmer stop me,
[00:21:54.400]and
[00:21:55.540]he
[00:21:56.940]devoted
[00:21:59.010]his only orchard, which was for
[00:22:01.600]500 meters squared maybe.
[00:22:03.540]And he devoted for Vaclav Havel,
[00:22:05.230]who put a panel of Vaclav Havel.
[00:22:07.950]I have a photo of him with myself,
[00:22:10.310]and he devoted for
[00:22:11.620]on the name of Vaclav Havel, his only orchard.
[00:22:15.390]For me it was the first question to know why he did it.
[00:22:18.890]And for him, as uneducated
[00:22:22.160]who lost his father
[00:22:23.930]during fighting with Russians,
[00:22:25.920]with communist at that time,
[00:22:29.450]it may be was a touching story that
[00:22:33.040]there were lots of mistakes
[00:22:34.730]in the leadership in the country.
[00:22:36.810]He was one of the victims or his father was.
[00:22:41.000]He lost his father on that,
[00:22:42.140]and he wanted to some how
[00:22:44.270]find someone with whom he can share the feeling
[00:22:46.930]and what he could do is
[00:22:48.520]to devote his only orchard
[00:22:51.840]on the name of Vaclav Havel,
[00:22:53.880]and present it to us
[00:22:54.900]that this is something that he could do.
[00:22:59.160]What I'm saying more all is that
[00:23:02.490]the feelings are there,
[00:23:03.820]but what we are missing really
[00:23:08.308]is the energy.
[00:23:09.220]And all these boundaries
[00:23:11.723]which traditionally, socially, and culturally
[00:23:14.560]are available there.
[00:23:16.690]This is
[00:23:18.210]what makes
[00:23:19.460]a challenge for us,
[00:23:22.149]but the positive changes,
[00:23:24.610]which I told you before is happening.
[00:23:28.150]That's what everybody is hopeful for
[00:23:32.530]is that the young generation is taking the power.
[00:23:35.850]More people are less caring about,
[00:23:38.760]about the Islamist ideas in the country
[00:23:41.630]that much deeply, at least in the cities.
[00:23:47.334]And even in the rural areas,
[00:23:49.600]people just need to know
[00:23:53.195]who is the right leader for them.
[00:23:55.730]And for that,
[00:23:59.720]including me and myself,
[00:24:01.740]today, actually,
[00:24:04.928]the group of volunteers who are back in Afghanistan
[00:24:09.372]will be happy
[00:24:12.050]to follow these ideas and to start
[00:24:14.720]and to continue with that.
[00:24:15.910]And we are very happy that
[00:24:17.090]the Ministry of Higher Education of Afghanistan
[00:24:19.600]supported us with the first concept,
[00:24:21.650]and we will provide them with more materials.
[00:24:23.970]It's the start.
[00:24:25.270]And for me, as the first Afghan living in Czech Republic,
[00:24:32.317]I'm proud to,
[00:24:34.680]to continue this way,
[00:24:35.650]and spread the ideas
[00:24:39.230]among my generation in Afghanistan
[00:24:40.800]and try to make them aware of this,
[00:24:43.840]what's happening.
[00:24:47.210]Yeah, this is actually all from my side.
[00:24:55.400]If someone has some questions, I'm ready to answer.
[00:24:59.690]Otherwise, this is all what I have
[00:25:03.750]in my experience.
[00:25:05.279](applauding)
[00:25:27.930]Thank you so much
[00:25:31.740]also for your perseverance and stamina.
[00:25:34.770]I have a question.
[00:25:35.630]When you mention the farmer with the
[00:25:38.310]image of Vaclav Havel,
[00:25:40.660]you alluded to
[00:25:41.930]it's not a logical,
[00:25:43.300]it's not like a natural necessarily alliance
[00:25:45.960]when one thinks of the contemporary
[00:25:47.350]Czech Republic in Afghanistan, just saying.
[00:25:50.800]And I'm wondering if there is
[00:25:52.820]a kind of joining in anti-Russian
[00:25:55.010]and anti-Soviet feeling feeling perhaps
[00:25:57.990]because of the Velvet Revolution
[00:25:59.560]where this is maybe an affinity,
[00:26:01.090]a political affinity
[00:26:02.740]between the two very different geographies.
[00:26:06.060]And if so, is that generational.
[00:26:09.050]Does that also transfer
[00:26:11.520]from the generation of the fathers in wars
[00:26:14.540]to your generation that
[00:26:16.210]you've given us such insight into today?
[00:26:20.010]Yes.
[00:26:21.090]That's exactly,
[00:26:21.923]that definitely...
[00:26:23.770]Well,
[00:26:25.096]in Afghanistan,
[00:26:26.957]they remember very well
[00:26:29.108]the time of the communism.
[00:26:31.260]We practically even see
[00:26:35.308]the destructions and the things in the system
[00:26:39.416]is still very noticeable,
[00:26:41.530]even in the education system,
[00:26:45.510]even walking to the biggest city, starting from Kabul.
[00:26:49.852]It's quite visible there.
[00:26:52.150]What
[00:26:53.700]is more
[00:26:54.930]connecting these,
[00:26:56.150]and the people are having this debate among themselves.
[00:27:00.030]But what really happened after
[00:27:03.088]once the communist left the country in 1988?
[00:27:06.980]And why we have such a huge destruction in the country.
[00:27:13.890]That's a question mark for the people,
[00:27:16.360]for the young generation at least,
[00:27:17.640]who are looking for the answer.
[00:27:19.270]And these are quite often discussed in the families.
[00:27:22.570]Even in our own family,
[00:27:23.910]this is a big debate between me and my father as well.
[00:27:27.220]We really needed to find the answer,
[00:27:28.380]but he never explained it so deeply,
[00:27:33.030]why it really happened.
[00:27:33.863]But what we know is that
[00:27:37.200]the lack of leadership after
[00:27:40.270]was something that we were missing.
[00:27:42.660]We were promised so many things after the withdrawal
[00:27:47.296]of the Russians,
[00:27:48.970]there will be different leadership,
[00:27:50.210]but it never happened.
[00:27:53.530]What we got is a weird picture,
[00:27:56.040]which we can see today.
[00:27:58.950]People remember it very well,
[00:28:01.090]even from connecting it to the Czech Republic,
[00:28:03.740]myself and even
[00:28:06.280]by the history,
[00:28:07.140]it's quite close, 1988,
[00:28:09.420]and then after happened with the Czech Republic as well.
[00:28:16.660]Okay.
[00:28:17.700]If I may follow up
[00:28:19.870]on the previous question,
[00:28:21.553]just a little clarification.
[00:28:27.780]There has never been
[00:28:29.930]a very strong anti-Russian feeling
[00:28:32.360]in Czechoslovakia,
[00:28:34.970]even after the events
[00:28:39.315]of 1968.
[00:28:40.449]There was a lost of anti-communist sentiment,
[00:28:43.870]anti-soviet sentiment.
[00:28:45.010]But compared to countries like Poland
[00:28:49.830]or the Baltic countries which have had much more
[00:28:53.220]extensive historical experience
[00:28:56.020]and sometimes negative experience
[00:28:58.380]with the Russian empire.
[00:29:00.310]The
[00:29:02.236]Russophobic
[00:29:04.040]feeling was never there.
[00:29:06.380]And actually, it did have something to do with
[00:29:09.550]the events of August 1968.
[00:29:12.110]If you look at this photograph,
[00:29:16.395]it's very illustrative.
[00:29:21.097]On another photograph, I might have been
[00:29:24.521]in the crowd
[00:29:26.550]down there because I was a 19-year-old on the streets
[00:29:30.770]at that time.
[00:29:32.340]The Russian soldiers in the turrets of the tanks,
[00:29:37.950]they were guys our age.
[00:29:39.920]They were 19-year-old, and most of them were
[00:29:43.020]not even Russian.
[00:29:43.990]I mean they came from the
[00:29:49.710]Central Asia and Republics
[00:29:52.681]of the Soviet Union,
[00:29:54.230]there were Uzbeks,
[00:29:57.000]and Kazakhstan,
[00:29:58.330]and what not.
[00:29:59.630]And they had no idea where they were
[00:30:02.886]and what this was all about.
[00:30:04.790]And one couldn't help but feel more sorry for them
[00:30:10.278]than hating them.
[00:30:12.160]I mean of course we screened,
[00:30:15.213]but
[00:30:16.574]they were so lost
[00:30:19.883]that the hatred
[00:30:22.320]simply never came.
[00:30:25.396]I intended to ask a question of my own.
[00:30:29.370]Did you work apart from the movie
[00:30:35.640]also with
[00:30:37.900]The Power of the Powerless
[00:30:39.570]as a text, as an essay,
[00:30:43.071]these students?
[00:30:44.660]And particular because you mentioned that the
[00:30:49.220]young people, especially in the rural
[00:30:51.620]areas of Afghanistan
[00:30:53.470]have a distinct problem
[00:30:55.780]of deciding for themselves,
[00:30:57.440]and they need the authority of someone higher,
[00:31:00.550]of the elder or of the tribal leader to decide for them.
[00:31:06.530]Did you specifically work with the idea of
[00:31:10.280]the concept of individual responsibility
[00:31:13.230]that the actually The Power of the Powerless
[00:31:17.350]is all about?
[00:31:19.500]Thank you for the question.
[00:31:20.333]Actually, with the community, our work was more deeper
[00:31:24.480]than only have the screenings to them.
[00:31:27.600]Were very deeply developing
[00:31:28.880]the community action plan with the community.
[00:31:32.550]We had to really tackle different
[00:31:36.400]aspects of the community problem.
[00:31:39.550]One of them was making awareness among the community.
[00:31:42.150]Of course we had to also involve the woman
[00:31:44.885]in this kind of decision.
[00:31:46.480]That's always very challenging
[00:31:49.643]for someone to work with the farmer
[00:31:51.500]and ask them, also the woman,
[00:31:54.120]to be part of this kind of,
[00:31:55.910]this debate or this community action plan.
[00:32:00.130]We were
[00:32:02.930]preparing
[00:32:04.640]some visual materials
[00:32:06.610]and asking them to draw their own ideas
[00:32:10.250]and to tell us what really they were feeling.
[00:32:13.950]And we were mostly collecting their ideas by drawings.
[00:32:17.610]They were putting the things,
[00:32:19.650]and were collecting their ideas together.
[00:32:21.936]They were drawing the tanks.
[00:32:25.100]They were dreaming about their own village
[00:32:27.170]to be something else.
[00:32:28.580]And we wanted to put these things together,
[00:32:31.520]and then finally find the materials
[00:32:35.260]based on their own demand.
[00:32:36.540]But mostly, their
[00:32:39.100]dream was really
[00:32:44.993]about that they are...
[00:32:48.030]The village is something which they want to develop,
[00:32:52.220]but they don't know how to do it.
[00:32:55.320]For us,
[00:32:56.930]we were really
[00:33:00.400]answering their questions in a different way,
[00:33:02.040]like screening the movies,
[00:33:03.970]asking them to come.
[00:33:05.700]By the text, they were uneducated.
[00:33:08.370]It was very difficult to send them the kind of papers
[00:33:13.060]or ask them to read about it.
[00:33:15.080]We had to really be with them
[00:33:17.350]and ask them to be involved.
[00:33:18.360]It was more community involvement plan.
[00:33:20.740]We were taking their own dreams
[00:33:21.920]and putting back in the pictures or in the movies.
[00:33:39.160]We hear a lot in the press about
[00:33:43.530]the lack of a common,
[00:33:44.870]a real sense of Afghan identity.
[00:33:48.210]We hear a lot about tribalism
[00:33:50.360]and about groups that really can't work together.
[00:33:54.100]Would you comment on what you see as the real
[00:33:58.360]unifying element,
[00:33:59.780]and you feel like that can be overcome?
[00:34:07.233]Yes, that is actually...
[00:34:09.350]Maybe I give also,
[00:34:10.290]I provided some examples in my speech as well.
[00:34:15.620]The tribal problems,
[00:34:16.990]and these traditional decision making
[00:34:19.970]processes in the country,
[00:34:23.320]it's a very, very deep-rooted problem now.
[00:34:25.980]Even it's a big challenge for the government itself.
[00:34:30.680]The only thing which needs to solve this
[00:34:33.700]is to increase
[00:34:35.617]the educated facilitation for the people.
[00:34:38.400]That's the only reason.
[00:34:39.730]Because most of the people who are living there,
[00:34:42.870]they don't have access to the education.
[00:34:45.990]They are not educated.
[00:34:46.950]So, what is really can solve this problem,
[00:34:52.090]it needs time
[00:34:52.923]and it will be something
[00:34:54.700]that the people are educated at least,
[00:34:56.540]the generation or generation after,
[00:34:59.350]to make their own
[00:35:00.650]or to understand what they're really going to decide about.
[00:35:03.900]Because so far,
[00:35:07.184]it's very difficult to make them understand,
[00:35:08.920]and they have to...
[00:35:11.160]The generation at least before me,
[00:35:16.296]they are waiting for someone to dictate
[00:35:18.260]and to tell them what to do.
[00:35:20.170]But what they do is the same person
[00:35:22.430]who doesn't know what to do
[00:35:23.620]is trying to send their kids to the school,
[00:35:27.957]and trying to then to make understand
[00:35:30.110]really, really how to overcome this problem.
[00:35:33.650]But of course,
[00:35:36.305]this issue will take time.
[00:35:38.590]It will remain as a challenge for the government
[00:35:40.890]for some time of course.
[00:35:48.050]I don't need a microphone.
[00:35:49.570]I have a very loud voice.
[00:35:52.870]How many European Union
[00:35:55.980]volunteers are there in Afghanistan today?
[00:35:58.684](speaking off microphone)
[00:36:10.190]What is the economic future of Afghanistan
[00:36:14.170]and how can the European Union and America as well,
[00:36:18.147]how can volunteers help with the evolution?
[00:36:23.590]Your question was more about
[00:36:25.790]how many European volunteers.
[00:36:29.780]And the general move of the economy.
[00:36:32.340]Okay, okay.
[00:36:35.570]The biggest problem actual was
[00:36:41.340]raising so much money and putting so much money at the time
[00:36:44.010]since 2001, when, or 2002, it started
[00:36:46.920]to give to Afghanistan where there was lack of...
[00:36:49.890]It was zero capacity for managing
[00:36:51.820]this huge amount of funds
[00:36:54.410]or money raised for the Afghanistan.
[00:36:56.030]That was the biggest problem at the beginning,
[00:36:59.060]that everybody, we feel it.
[00:37:01.380]It was a very big problem,
[00:37:03.810]but what is
[00:37:06.660]very...
[00:37:09.080]In terms of how many people are working on this,
[00:37:12.070]it's based on the very
[00:37:14.100]programs which the European Union
[00:37:17.840]or American fundings are supporting this
[00:37:19.770]is called national solidarity program.
[00:37:22.550]It's one of the biggest problem on the overall country.
[00:37:27.530]Conceptually, these concepts
[00:37:29.310]are coming from the different countries
[00:37:30.530]like Bangladesh or India
[00:37:31.530]or some other African countries.
[00:37:35.280]These are sponsored or funded
[00:37:39.624]by the international community,
[00:37:40.810]the European Union
[00:37:42.769]or American funding.
[00:37:44.170]And they are providing only advisory services for them,
[00:37:47.380]but the implementers are now the ministries.
[00:37:52.300]With this policy,
[00:37:54.130]of course only international funding is not enough.
[00:37:55.497]of course only international funding is not enough.
[00:38:00.080]Recently, since five years,
[00:38:03.300]they're really trying to encourage the Afghan investors
[00:38:07.530]to be a contributor
[00:38:10.350]in the economical tie
[00:38:12.310]of the country,
[00:38:13.210]and there are some
[00:38:16.390]quite big amount of project implemented
[00:38:19.010]are already starting.
[00:38:20.050]As a name, if I want to talk about
[00:38:21.500]is a big project of TAPI.
[00:38:23.410]It's called Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India
[00:38:25.970]Pipeline Project,
[00:38:26.803]which is one of the huge economical,
[00:38:29.380]and there are lots of internal sources
[00:38:31.860]are spending on it.
[00:38:33.340]But in general,
[00:38:36.020]economically they still need more in the advisory board.
[00:38:41.380]European Union, European Commission in the country,
[00:38:45.963]USA is working very largely
[00:38:48.470]on the agriculture infrastructure
[00:38:50.780]trying to support the Afghan ministries more,
[00:38:52.800]not only them to be there.
[00:38:55.480]They limited their staff in the country,
[00:38:58.360]but they are more trying to bring
[00:39:01.300]work on the capacity of the Afghans
[00:39:04.650]to be involved in these issues.
[00:39:08.840]That's quite a big hope.
[00:39:10.850]But in the mean time,
[00:39:12.030]it should be very carefully watched also,
[00:39:14.100]because
[00:39:15.414]we had,
[00:39:17.670]even these countries
[00:39:18.880]were funding Afghanistan
[00:39:20.420]was making at the beginning
[00:39:22.680]quite a lot of also mistake
[00:39:23.950]that they give lots of money,
[00:39:25.030]but
[00:39:26.780]not proper
[00:39:28.230]control on those money where they are going.
[00:39:30.640]Actually, those fundings made
[00:39:33.820]the ex-warlords quite rich and quite powerful,
[00:39:37.620]which are again becoming a problem for the country
[00:39:42.200]somehow itself,
[00:39:44.110]because
[00:39:45.600]they were on the power,
[00:39:46.660]at the end of the day,
[00:39:47.493]who are receiving such a big support.
[00:39:51.580]Directly or indirectly, but they were.
[00:39:55.790]This is something that
[00:39:59.490]government is working.
[00:40:00.730]I think it will take, as I said, some time,
[00:40:04.110]but it is going on well,
[00:40:06.150]at least in the quite recent years
[00:40:09.493]with the current president
[00:40:11.750]or current management.
[00:40:23.170]Thanks very much
[00:40:24.003]for those very interesting background.
[00:40:26.610]I wanna come back to the Havel thing just a bit because
[00:40:30.700]when the Arab Spring happen in Cairo.
[00:40:34.440]I went to Cairo when I found
[00:40:38.383]a professor there who actually new Czech.
[00:40:41.360]And so, we kind of worked out a scheme
[00:40:43.560]that we would translate the book into Arabic,
[00:40:46.100]thinking that perhaps it might actually
[00:40:47.970]kind of help to move things along.
[00:40:50.940]It actually was translated and published
[00:40:53.230]in a very small addition in Arabic.
[00:40:56.880]But what I realized when I re-read the essay
[00:41:00.670]that I couldn't really see
[00:41:02.520]how the ideas of resisting
[00:41:05.510]a totalitarian system
[00:41:07.650]would apply to military dictatorship.
[00:41:11.580]And I'm wondering
[00:41:13.685]if there's sort of misfit there
[00:41:15.590]in the case of Afghanistan,
[00:41:17.430]or is there something that's directly relevant?
[00:41:21.000]This is somewhat similar to
[00:41:23.690]Mr. Jantoski's question,
[00:41:25.140]but more specifically about
[00:41:27.380]what is it about Power of the Powerless
[00:41:30.370]that applies in the Afghan situation.
[00:41:34.340]Well,
[00:41:36.120]that was very,
[00:41:37.230]also, at the very beginning,
[00:41:38.470]also a question for us.
[00:41:42.900]How we should make the people to understand?
[00:41:46.300]What is more
[00:41:48.210]hot such topic
[00:41:49.620]among the Afghans who they are talking about.
[00:41:51.870]They were not talking about what is happening now,
[00:41:54.648]like whether international troops are coming to the country.
[00:41:59.190]The belief was quite strong
[00:42:00.430]that they are supporting the country.
[00:42:02.040]But what they were thinking about,
[00:42:03.380]what has happened in the past
[00:42:05.110]which they can really try to...
[00:42:10.540]They were questioning the past leadership.
[00:42:12.730]And for these,
[00:42:16.580]we didn't need to really go
[00:42:18.140]in such a deep way to think about
[00:42:21.500]what will happen.
[00:42:22.980]For us, it was really to create a debate,
[00:42:25.500]and we wanted to know
[00:42:27.010]what is making them more to talk
[00:42:28.870]about such a topic.
[00:42:32.260]What kind of documents or study
[00:42:33.970]or reading or watching
[00:42:35.010]can make this generation or university
[00:42:40.940]to raise so much questions
[00:42:42.750]and ask those audience
[00:42:45.130]and the panels,
[00:42:46.310]and some of the responsible authorities
[00:42:49.030]who are sitting on the panel,
[00:42:50.890]to ask them these questions and ideas.
[00:42:54.583]For us, the main idea after this movie
[00:42:57.170]of Power of the Powerless,
[00:42:58.280]or maybe in the future after
[00:42:59.630]some other movies which we did.
[00:43:04.090]The audience who watched it
[00:43:05.840]and see that how the participation of youth
[00:43:09.840]and the young generation can really change,
[00:43:12.660]how their role is quite important
[00:43:14.730]in making the decision
[00:43:16.680]or changing somehow sometime also the power,
[00:43:19.890]and what
[00:43:21.900]all these kind of movement need
[00:43:24.270]and who should be a good leader for them,
[00:43:26.440]and what kind of,
[00:43:28.580]what the leader need actually.
[00:43:30.480]It's not only that someone should raise by the tribe
[00:43:33.680]that is a good man and his leader,
[00:43:35.600]but the good leader should spend a long way,
[00:43:38.365]which also Vaclav Havel,
[00:43:39.900]he did quite a long run
[00:43:41.850]and he had lots of problem,
[00:43:43.000]but which none of our leaders actually.
[00:43:45.100]They had such a problem in their past background,
[00:43:48.420]but they became quite famous,
[00:43:49.590]but they were taking quite negatively
[00:43:52.420]quite a large part
[00:43:53.320]in the destruction of the countries after.
[00:43:55.270]So for us, these debates among the university.
[00:43:58.070]For us, those very simple question like
[00:44:00.892]make the screenings
[00:44:01.900]and ask the audience to raise a question to the panels,
[00:44:04.470]and this panel can bring these questions back
[00:44:06.820]to the higher level, which they did.
[00:44:09.330]And they asked us to spread this debate
[00:44:13.480]also in the other university.
[00:44:15.390]For us it was very simple.
[00:44:16.630]We didn't want it to go so deeper into that.
[00:44:18.860]We knew that there must be some sensitive topic as well,
[00:44:21.640]that people will be raising question
[00:44:23.410]why you are doing it as,
[00:44:25.340]how come that Czech Republic and here.
[00:44:29.767]This was a first question for us,
[00:44:32.729]but we didn't want it to go so deep.
[00:44:34.710]We wanted to ask the audience to decide really.
[00:44:37.630]What do you think about it?
[00:44:39.470]And do they like?
[00:44:40.440]If they like,
[00:44:42.530]what are those questions.
[00:44:43.690]If they don't like, can they comment it?
[00:44:49.480]Because for example, we invited even the Sharia Faculty.
[00:44:53.850]The debate panel was also from the Sharia Faculty,
[00:44:56.130]why we did it.
[00:44:57.810]What is the linkage
[00:45:00.520]between this Sharia Faculty and watching
[00:45:02.950]Vaclav Havel or Power of the Powerless,
[00:45:04.930]but we just wanted to make a sensitive topic
[00:45:06.690]among these people
[00:45:07.890]and the youth to raise questions actually.
[00:45:15.730]Any other questions?
[00:45:17.950]Alright, please join me in thanking Hassam.
[00:45:21.380]Thank you. (applauding)
[00:45:24.742]Thank you very much.
[00:45:25.575]Thank you.

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Ehsan Naim speaks at Prague Spring 50

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