Ehsan Naim: The Limits of Youth Activism in Afghanistan

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05/22/2018 Added

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Priscilla Grew, Professor Emerita in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences and Affiliate of the Water for Food Institute, presents Ehsan Naim and his speech, "The Limits of Youth Activism in Afghanistan," for Prague Spring 50. Thursday, April 5, 2018 - 2:30 - 3:45 pm https://praguespring50.unl.edu/welcome

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[99:59:59.999]Well good afternoon
[99:59:59.999]distinguished guests and ladies and gentlemen
[99:59:59.999]my name is Priscilla Grew and I'm a retired geology professor and
[99:59:59.999]The reason I'm here is I'm one of those antiques who actually
[99:59:59.999]Was in Prague in August of 1968 I was happened to be there for the International geological Congress
[99:59:59.999]So James kindly invited me to
[99:59:59.999]Participate in your conference, and I must say it I loved the presentation
[99:59:59.999]We just had with the brought back an awful lot of memories
[99:59:59.999]So we're gonna have kind of a change of pace now. We've had our
[99:59:59.999]musical interlude and
[99:59:59.999]That history and we're going to talk a lot more about I would say probably current events today now
[99:59:59.999]So I'd like to introduce our next speaker Mr. Ehsan Naim
[99:59:59.999]Mr. Naim is originally from
[99:59:59.999]Afghanistan and currently works in Prague as commercial director for
[99:59:59.999]energy and international trade expansion at a new Czech company called
[99:59:59.999]Epidural named Epidaurus for energy project development organization this company focuses on improving
[99:59:59.999]sustainability and stability for developing Middle Eastern and African markets
[99:59:59.999]Epidaurus goal is to become a connecting element between
[99:59:59.999]Western and Central Europe and the Middle East in the fields of energy
[99:59:59.999]petrochemicals
[99:59:59.999]engineering and sustainability
[99:59:59.999]From 2010 to 2014 mr.
[99:59:59.999]Naim was a livelihoods and natural resource program manager for the Czech
[99:59:59.999]non-governmental
[99:59:59.999]organization people in need that you may have heard about
[99:59:59.999]providing technical assistance for agriculture and irrigation in Afghanistan
[99:59:59.999]Earlier mr.
[99:59:59.999]Naim worked in Afghanistan for the Italian humanitarian organization cooperation and development
[99:59:59.999]Says fee and pianist and promoted community development for vulnerable groups
[99:59:59.999]rural reconstruction skills building and health programs
[99:59:59.999]Mr. Naim earned his master's degree in international development and agricultural economics from a Czech University of Life Sciences
[99:59:59.999]the Czech NGO people in need
[99:59:59.999]Organizes the annual One World Film Festival that you may have heard of it's the largest Human Rights
[99:59:59.999]Documentary film festival in the world as a young Afghan social activist mr.
[99:59:59.999]Naim became involved with this humanitarian film festival in 2010
[99:59:59.999]With the support of the one world festival and working with a young Afghan volunteer group
[99:59:59.999]He was able to organize film screening in Afghan universities in
[99:59:59.999]2013 and his first screening was the documentary
[99:59:59.999]power of the powerless of course about Vaclav Havel and the Velvet Revolution in the Czech Republic
[99:59:59.999]The title of mr.
[99:59:59.999]Naim presentation this afternoon is the limits of youth activism in Afghanistan
[99:59:59.999]Please help me welcome mr. Naim
[99:59:59.999]Well, it's so exciting actually to be here.
[99:59:59.999]Let me...
[99:59:59.999]Thank you everyone for the opportunity,
[99:59:59.999]especially, thanks to James for considering me
[99:59:59.999]to be member of this great platform
[99:59:59.999]where I can be, as a young member of
[99:59:59.999]this team today.
[99:59:59.999]More,
[99:59:59.999]I would like to start
[99:59:59.999]not deeply from the history,
[99:59:59.999]maybe from the 1988 when I was
[99:59:59.999]maybe just about eight years old
[99:59:59.999]when the Russian were just withdrawing from Afghanistan.
[99:59:59.999]I just remembered very few of the communist
[99:59:59.999]time in Afghanistan.
[99:59:59.999]But what I remember today,
[99:59:59.999]or yesterday and the day before,
[99:59:59.999]all the history, what I learned,
[99:59:59.999]it's so amazing.
[99:59:59.999]And in the mean time,
[99:59:59.999]the speakers shared the experiment with me
[99:59:59.999]being an international living in Czech Republic
[99:59:59.999]since almost four years.
[99:59:59.999]For me, I personally learned a lot.
[99:59:59.999]I'm proud that
[99:59:59.999]I'm part of this team,
[99:59:59.999]frankly.
[99:59:59.999]What I really,
[99:59:59.999]I really want to share today is
[99:59:59.999]mainly
[99:59:59.999]to talk about
[99:59:59.999]what really we face as a young generation in Afghanistan,
[99:59:59.999]and how I got to involve
[99:59:59.999]with bringing all this
[99:59:59.999]part of the Czech pride
[99:59:59.999]to share with my generation
[99:59:59.999]in Afghanistan and convince them that
[99:59:59.999]how the great management
[99:59:59.999]can positively transfer the power
[99:59:59.999]from one other.
[99:59:59.999]While in Afghanistan we had also the experience
[99:59:59.999]of the communism,
[99:59:59.999]the people would understand it quite clearly.
[99:59:59.999]So let me thank once again to everyone who is here.
[99:59:59.999]It's actually indeed very interesting.
[99:59:59.999]As I said before,
[99:59:59.999]my father who studied
[99:59:59.999]in Russia at the time,
[99:59:59.999]it was always a question for us to know in details
[99:59:59.999]what was his experience
[99:59:59.999]from the time when he was in Russia
[99:59:59.999]and he was studying there.
[99:59:59.999]He never let us go in details.
[99:59:59.999]Probably he wanted completely to grown up
[99:59:59.999]in a different model of life, let's say,
[99:59:59.999]and to focus on different things,
[99:59:59.999]which is positively actually now in our family.
[99:59:59.999]And we wanted somehow to repay back
[99:59:59.999]of all what my father at least tried
[99:59:59.999]to change the atmosphere
[99:59:59.999]in our family.
[99:59:59.999]Just to go briefly about
[99:59:59.999]the current situation in Afghanistan,
[99:59:59.999]and then I will go back
[99:59:59.999]to what I personally
[99:59:59.999]date as an activities in this field,
[99:59:59.999]is that I'm proud to say that Afghanistan
[99:59:59.999]with all the problem which we have internally.
[99:59:59.999]As a young generation, I have,
[99:59:59.999]as other
[99:59:59.999]Afghan,
[99:59:59.999]Afghan youth, we are hopeful that
[99:59:59.999]Afghanistan is 68% of
[99:59:59.999]its population is under 25,
[99:59:59.999]under age 25.
[99:59:59.999]So we are one of the youngest country
[99:59:59.999]which is giving a lot,
[99:59:59.999]and it means a lot
[99:59:59.999]for me and for all other Afghan youth
[99:59:59.999]to try their best to work for our country.
[99:59:59.999]Afghanistan is currently
[99:59:59.999]witnessing a serious
[99:59:59.999]youth
[99:59:59.999]growth,
[99:59:59.999]and it has resulted in a cultural,
[99:59:59.999]social and political consequences,
[99:59:59.999]including the growth of modern youth political activism.
[99:59:59.999]This
[99:59:59.999]is already quite representative
[99:59:59.999]in the current governmental structure.
[99:59:59.999]And two times election in the country have proved
[99:59:59.999]very, very, very broadly
[99:59:59.999]that Afghanistan,
[99:59:59.999]the power is transferred to the young generation who are
[99:59:59.999]mostly educated in Europe and the western world,
[99:59:59.999]and transferring the great knowledge and experiences
[99:59:59.999]from this part of the world.
[99:59:59.999]That's
[99:59:59.999]what actually
[99:59:59.999]prove to be in our election that Afghan
[99:59:59.999]really doesn't care about
[99:59:59.999]deeply how
[99:59:59.999]the Islamic ideology,
[99:59:59.999]they don't really care about
[99:59:59.999]what is happening
[99:59:59.999]or who is the president and who can be so deeply
[99:59:59.999]as in the past
[99:59:59.999]generation, they were really taking care of it.
[99:59:59.999]As our current first lady of the country,
[99:59:59.999]it's a question.
[99:59:59.999]And in the voting time,
[99:59:59.999]it was clearly proved that Afghans really don't care about,
[99:59:59.999]the young generation doesn't care about really
[99:59:59.999]who is the president and who can be the,
[99:59:59.999]what will be the consequences of other deep understanding.
[99:59:59.999]The rapid growth of a technology,
[99:59:59.999]that is something which is very positive for us,
[99:59:59.999]and media, and access to education and information,
[99:59:59.999]since 2001
[99:59:59.999]has a very, very
[99:59:59.999]a lot growth in the country politically,
[99:59:59.999]that made people politically aware.
[99:59:59.999]And more importantly,
[99:59:59.999]they are expecting
[99:59:59.999]the biggest and the very positive role
[99:59:59.999]of the social media in the power,
[99:59:59.999]which is
[99:59:59.999]one of the positive sign for our country.
[99:59:59.999]Like the cultural constraints pose a big obstacle
[99:59:59.999]in the youth political activism
[99:59:59.999]as a person is not considered suitable to lead other,
[99:59:59.999]unless
[99:59:59.999]he is an elder or community leader.
[99:59:59.999]Lack of political awareness among the rural
[99:59:59.999]youth also makes them more susceptible
[99:59:59.999]and also political,
[99:59:59.999]politically weak to raise their voices.
[99:59:59.999]This is one of the other
[99:59:59.999]challenge for the Afghans,
[99:59:59.999]the youth actually.
[99:59:59.999]Although the country is unlikely
[99:59:59.999]to face a new revolutionary
[99:59:59.999]in the immediate future.
[99:59:59.999]But with the 68% of its total population
[99:59:59.999]under the age of 25,
[99:59:59.999]Afghanistan is currently witnessing
[99:59:59.999]a serious growth in the youth population.
[99:59:59.999]And it has resulted in a socio cultural
[99:59:59.999]and political consequences
[99:59:59.999]that has been previously
[99:59:59.999]unheard
[99:59:59.999]or in Afghan political cultural
[99:59:59.999]conventions.
[99:59:59.999]Though it should be mentioned that
[99:59:59.999]youth and student
[99:59:59.999]politics are not an entirely new concept In the country.
[99:59:59.999]If I just want to go to the history,
[99:59:59.999]during the 1950 and 1970s,
[99:59:59.999]young people often express their opinion
[99:59:59.999]through particular ideology called feeling.
[99:59:59.999]And the dominant trends were either to become an Islamist
[99:59:59.999]or communist to challenge the
[99:59:59.999]monarchy.
[99:59:59.999]And more than three decades of a civil war
[99:59:59.999]followed by a democratic set up
[99:59:59.999]in short of the current type of youth political activism
[99:59:59.999]was more tangible and moderate
[99:59:59.999]than
[99:59:59.999]that has been seen in the past.
[99:59:59.999]This is very clearly
[99:59:59.999]in the history.
[99:59:59.999]Even now, you can feel it as I have more experience
[99:59:59.999]in traveling to the rural Afghanistan,
[99:59:59.999]that if you really want to be the community leader
[99:59:59.999]or
[99:59:59.999]to represent a group of the youth in the community,
[99:59:59.999]you should be really coming from a very
[99:59:59.999]Islamic
[99:59:59.999]deep root family that your
[99:59:59.999]father or grandfather
[99:59:59.999]was very
[99:59:59.999]with the Islamist history,
[99:59:59.999]or you should be coming from some
[99:59:59.999]politically or from the tribal family
[99:59:59.999]which the people can at least even trust you
[99:59:59.999]to raise your voice.
[99:59:59.999]This is one of the things
[99:59:59.999]which Afghans or even the government
[99:59:59.999]is challenged how to tackle this program,
[99:59:59.999]these kind of problems.
[99:59:59.999]But more than the three decade of civil war,
[99:59:59.999]followed by the democratic setup,
[99:59:59.999]ensure that the current type of political activism was
[99:59:59.999]more tangible
[99:59:59.999]and
[99:59:59.999]moderate
[99:59:59.999]than that has been seen in the past.
[99:59:59.999]The challenge which the youth
[99:59:59.999]are facing with,
[99:59:59.999]and government is also
[99:59:59.999]highlighting this in the society is that
[99:59:59.999]cultural constraint and traditionalism pose
[99:59:59.999]is the biggest challenge toward the political,
[99:59:59.999]political youth activism.
[99:59:59.999]In such a traditional society,
[99:59:59.999]political authority is not earned based on value,
[99:59:59.999]rather, it's inherited.
[99:59:59.999]Every tribe has its own leader
[99:59:59.999]in each village and community.
[99:59:59.999]This is what I mentioned before.
[99:59:59.999]With such kind of setup in the country,
[99:59:59.999]it's very, very difficult
[99:59:59.999]for the Afghan youth,
[99:59:59.999]even from the rural Afghanistan
[99:59:59.999]to raise their voice and try to reach the cities
[99:59:59.999]or make the political aware of
[99:59:59.999]the government to listen to their voice.
[99:59:59.999]Okay, so let's just go through,
[99:59:59.999]through all these very fast,
[99:59:59.999]and maybe I will just
[99:59:59.999]more explain about my
[99:59:59.999]practical experiences with what I was
[99:59:59.999]doing in terms of the film,
[99:59:59.999]and how I brought the
[99:59:59.999]the One World Film Festival to Afghanistan
[99:59:59.999]and share the ideas
[99:59:59.999]with my generation in the country.
[99:59:59.999]Actually,
[99:59:59.999]in my personal experience,
[99:59:59.999]when I'm talking about the youth activism
[99:59:59.999]and how the people are
[99:59:59.999]kind of put it on the side,
[99:59:59.999]and especially the young generation,
[99:59:59.999]the talk is that I have a personal experience
[99:59:59.999]when I was working for the program called DDR.
[99:59:59.999]It's the Disarmament Demobilization
[99:59:59.999]and Reintegration program.
[99:59:59.999]It was just right after in 2003 and 2004,
[99:59:59.999]after the Taliban regime
[99:59:59.999]and the international community arrived.
[99:59:59.999]I was working for this program
[99:59:59.999]in the reintegration parts.
[99:59:59.999]Well, we had to...
[99:59:59.999]As a regular task, we had to interview
[99:59:59.999]the ex-combatants to return back to the civil life.
[99:59:59.999]We had to talk for an hour
[99:59:59.999]with the young
[99:59:59.999]ex-soldiers who was forced to fight for some reason.
[99:59:59.999]I don't know the reason actually.
[99:59:59.999]But when we were talking for an hour,
[99:59:59.999]an hour to go back to the civil life,
[99:59:59.999]we were trying to give him options,
[99:59:59.999]what he really want to select to go back to the civil life.
[99:59:59.999]He was never ever
[99:59:59.999]able to decide by himself,
[99:59:59.999]unless the leader or his ex,
[99:59:59.999]the community leader or someone decide for him.
[99:59:59.999]Even after one hour of discussions,
[99:59:59.999]like showing that there is no one,
[99:59:59.999]you have your own choice,
[99:59:59.999]but it was impossible to get his idea.
[99:59:59.999]That was giving me a lot of,
[99:59:59.999]myself, as a first humanitarian worker,
[99:59:59.999]I was really thinking deeper into the
[99:59:59.999]rural communities, how the youth are living there.
[99:59:59.999]While we as educated and living in the cities,
[99:59:59.999]for us it was slightly easy
[99:59:59.999]to reach the systems and make ourself understand.
[99:59:59.999]But for the rural communities,
[99:59:59.999]it's very, very challenging,
[99:59:59.999]and it was very difficult for them
[99:59:59.999]to decide.
[99:59:59.999]During the election,
[99:59:59.999]during the election time of
[99:59:59.999]the two times presidential election in the country,
[99:59:59.999]you would see a family,
[99:59:59.999]the leader of the family was
[99:59:59.999]coming with other two or three
[99:59:59.999]family member for voting to the voting center.
[99:59:59.999]The son were not allowed to go
[99:59:59.999]to take the voting card
[99:59:59.999]until his father was deciding
[99:59:59.999]to take voting card first, and then they would decide to go.
[99:59:59.999]So these kinds of things,
[99:59:59.999]I would call it a traditional limits for the Afghan,
[99:59:59.999]until they really, really decide what they want to do,
[99:59:59.999]because it's valid in the families.
[99:59:59.999]These are kind of programs
[99:59:59.999]and the project for the government
[99:59:59.999]with the support of international communities
[99:59:59.999]in order to
[99:59:59.999]raise awareness in the community.
[99:59:59.999]What they do is mainly the political youth groups
[99:59:59.999]are designing their structure
[99:59:59.999]and strengthening the reflect of their
[99:59:59.999]unified national and present all the ethnical
[99:59:59.999]and languages which can represent
[99:59:59.999]all the ethnical language of Afghanistan.
[99:59:59.999]There are awareness-raising programs
[99:59:59.999]which the government is trying to deal with,
[99:59:59.999]and the
[99:59:59.999]international communities are supporting,
[99:59:59.999]especially the NGOs.
[99:59:59.999]They have a significant role on it
[99:59:59.999]which they are trying
[99:59:59.999]to solve these issues.
[99:59:59.999]For me,
[99:59:59.999]the main interesting experience
[99:59:59.999]which I personally started to go deeper into this topic was
[99:59:59.999]in 2010, when I started to,
[99:59:59.999]to join Czech organizations, people in needs,
[99:59:59.999]in Afghanistan, as a program manager
[99:59:59.999]for a program which was supported by
[99:59:59.999]European Union.
[99:59:59.999]I had an opportunity to travel
[99:59:59.999]to most of the Afghan countries
[99:59:59.999]and talk to the rural communities.
[99:59:59.999]And I had
[99:59:59.999]back
[99:59:59.999]with my university
[99:59:59.999]had an opportunity to,
[99:59:59.999]to establish a group of volunteers
[99:59:59.999]with whom we can work together
[99:59:59.999]and try to raise
[99:59:59.999]our voices
[99:59:59.999]and bring this campaign to the remote Afghanistan.
[99:59:59.999]For us, the main reason how to do it was we were
[99:59:59.999]looking for a practical examples
[99:59:59.999]from whom we can take this idea
[99:59:59.999]and try to bring it
[99:59:59.999]to the rural Afghanistan
[99:59:59.999]and try to convince them
[99:59:59.999]in order to take part in the decision making processes.
[99:59:59.999]I started to,
[99:59:59.999]to work with the, as I said, with the people in need.
[99:59:59.999]And I was given opportunity
[99:59:59.999]to travel for the first time to Czech Republic, to Prague,
[99:59:59.999]invited for the One World Film Festival.
[99:59:59.999]It was a great opportunity for me to see
[99:59:59.999]such a big group of youth
[99:59:59.999]in the European communities
[99:59:59.999]and how actively they are taking part
[99:59:59.999]in the decision making.
[99:59:59.999]For me, it was a question.
[99:59:59.999]That was the place where I decided to know
[99:59:59.999]more about
[99:59:59.999]the personality of Vaclav Havel.
[99:59:59.999]What I did was I bought a book from from Prague
[99:59:59.999]to know more about his personality
[99:59:59.999]and his ideology,
[99:59:59.999]and his,
[99:59:59.999]about Vaclav Havel Himself.
[99:59:59.999]It came that
[99:59:59.999]I finished the book,
[99:59:59.999]and I was traveling again
[99:59:59.999]in December
[99:59:59.999]back to Czech Republic.
[99:59:59.999]I was in the airport,
[99:59:59.999]but my father was calling me that,
[99:59:59.999]"Oh, you're going to Czech Republic, right?"
[99:59:59.999]And I was saying yes.
[99:59:59.999]He gave me a news that Vaclav Havel just, today,
[99:59:59.999]he passed away.
[99:59:59.999]I was already in Kabul Airport, traveling to Prague.
[99:59:59.999]For me, it was knowing this person
[99:59:59.999]just as a start,
[99:59:59.999]and
[99:59:59.999]to know such deeply
[99:59:59.999]about him was a big,
[99:59:59.999]a long way even still for me to do more.
[99:59:59.999]I came and I was taking part in his funeral
[99:59:59.999]in Prague.
[99:59:59.999]For me this was so much touching.
[99:59:59.999]And I wanted to really
[99:59:59.999]do something
[99:59:59.999]with his ideas,
[99:59:59.999]and how I should do.
[99:59:59.999]This exactly I was explaining
[99:59:59.999]with the One World Film Festival.
[99:59:59.999]And I was telling that
[99:59:59.999]we already with our group of volunteers
[99:59:59.999]back in Afghanistan.
[99:59:59.999]I really want to have some support
[99:59:59.999]where what we can do.
[99:59:59.999]And of course we needed the right of the movies.
[99:59:59.999]We had to select
[99:59:59.999]the right film for this.
[99:59:59.999]And talking back with our teams,
[99:59:59.999]since we were reading the book
[99:59:59.999]and we were discussing about Vaclav Havel
[99:59:59.999]back in Afghanistan.
[99:59:59.999]We decided to Take the Power of the Powerless,
[99:59:59.999]this movie which is talking about violent revolution.
[99:59:59.999]The reason was not like really
[99:59:59.999]to bring exactly the same concept.
[99:59:59.999]The reason was
[99:59:59.999]to know,
[99:59:59.999]to make our generation,
[99:59:59.999]or at least a group around myself,
[99:59:59.999]and then after circulating around our university.
[99:59:59.999]To know about his leadership,
[99:59:59.999]about his idea,
[99:59:59.999]and how he tackled all these problem.
[99:59:59.999]While in Afghanistan, people would really
[99:59:59.999]easily understand that it's lack of a good leadership.
[99:59:59.999]We took the movie and we screen enough for the first time
[99:59:59.999]in our university,
[99:59:59.999]in Balkh University in the North of Afghanistan.
[99:59:59.999]That was
[99:59:59.999]a big experience for me,
[99:59:59.999]and it was such a
[99:59:59.999]great opportunity to make Vaclav Havel
[99:59:59.999]introduce to this people
[99:59:59.999]and also his ideology to spread around.
[99:59:59.999]Then the same screening was
[99:59:59.999]requested by Ministry of Higher Education from Kabul.
[99:59:59.999]The same concept,
[99:59:59.999]if can be applied to different universities,
[99:59:59.999]which is in the south, in Herat,
[99:59:59.999]and in the west also,
[99:59:59.999]in Nangarhar, in Jalalabad.
[99:59:59.999]In three universities,
[99:59:59.999]they started to bring the same movie and try to create.
[99:59:59.999]The main idea was just to create a debate
[99:59:59.999]and give a tool for the young generation
[99:59:59.999]to start to come together in a place,
[99:59:59.999]and start to discuss about it.
[99:59:59.999]And that was really, really sensitive topic for us.
[99:59:59.999]As living in the same area,
[99:59:59.999]of course it was...
[99:59:59.999]Still some people were in power
[99:59:59.999]who didn't like this kind of concept to be screened
[99:59:59.999]among the young generation.
[99:59:59.999]We did it and it was
[99:59:59.999]a very successful concept,
[99:59:59.999]which is still continuing in a different province.
[99:59:59.999]And then we were able to give them more opportunities
[99:59:59.999]with different movies and different topics.
[99:59:59.999]And we not only stopped to do it only in the cities.
[99:59:59.999]With our
[99:59:59.999]access to the rural Afghanistan,
[99:59:59.999]we started to bring the same ideas and to the screenings.
[99:59:59.999]Because Afghanistan, traditionally, they have
[99:59:59.999]still in the rural areas,
[99:59:59.999]they have two days of market
[99:59:59.999]where the people are coming from different areas together
[99:59:59.999]and do the shoppings in the village market
[99:59:59.999]or in the district market.
[99:59:59.999]That is the biggest
[99:59:59.999]place where the people come together.
[99:59:59.999]And those people were, by any meaning,
[99:59:59.999]they were the main...
[99:59:59.999]I mean the force supporting the ex-Mujahideens,
[99:59:59.999]which they were fighting against different tribes.
[99:59:59.999]And we wanted to make them aware
[99:59:59.999]of this ideas that in other countries,
[99:59:59.999]what kind of people they started to deal with their problem.
[99:59:59.999]And we were doing it in the districts
[99:59:59.999]on the open markets, the open screenings on the projects.
[99:59:59.999]We were
[99:59:59.999]the people to
[99:59:59.999]answer the questions
[99:59:59.999]and make the people understand that
[99:59:59.999]it's really, really about,
[99:59:59.999]about the way of thinking
[99:59:59.999]and how they should be involved in it.
[99:59:59.999]The positive feedback from that work
[99:59:59.999]in the rural area was...
[99:59:59.999]I will always remember it and I always
[99:59:59.999]have it in my mind,
[99:59:59.999]is that when I was two months later,
[99:59:59.999]I was coming back to the same area
[99:59:59.999]trying to talk with the people
[99:59:59.999]for the project for my work purpose.
[99:59:59.999]I saw a farmer stop me,
[99:59:59.999]and
[99:59:59.999]he
[99:59:59.999]devoted
[99:59:59.999]his only orchard, which was for
[99:59:59.999]500 meters squared maybe.
[99:59:59.999]And he devoted for Vaclav Havel,
[99:59:59.999]who put a panel of Vaclav Havel.
[99:59:59.999]I have a photo of him with myself,
[99:59:59.999]and he devoted for
[99:59:59.999]on the name of Vaclav Havel, his only orchard.
[99:59:59.999]For me it was the first question to know why he did it.
[99:59:59.999]And for him, as uneducated
[99:59:59.999]who lost his father
[99:59:59.999]during fighting with Russians,
[99:59:59.999]with communist at that time,
[99:59:59.999]it may be was a touching story that
[99:59:59.999]there were lots of mistakes
[99:59:59.999]in the leadership in the country.
[99:59:59.999]He was one of the victims or his father was.
[99:59:59.999]He lost his father on that,
[99:59:59.999]and he wanted to some how
[99:59:59.999]find someone with whom he can share the feeling
[99:59:59.999]and what he could do is
[99:59:59.999]to devote his only orchard
[99:59:59.999]on the name of Vaclav Havel,
[99:59:59.999]and present it to us
[99:59:59.999]that this is something that he could do.
[99:59:59.999]What I'm saying more all is that
[99:59:59.999]the feelings are there,
[99:59:59.999]but what we are missing really
[99:59:59.999]is the energy.
[99:59:59.999]And all these boundaries
[99:59:59.999]which traditionally, socially, and culturally
[99:59:59.999]are available there.
[99:59:59.999]This is
[99:59:59.999]what makes
[99:59:59.999]a challenge for us,
[99:59:59.999]but the positive changes,
[99:59:59.999]which I told you before is happening.
[99:59:59.999]That's what everybody is hopeful for
[99:59:59.999]is that the young generation is taking the power.
[99:59:59.999]More people are less caring about,
[99:59:59.999]about the Islamist ideas in the country
[99:59:59.999]that much deeply, at least in the cities.
[99:59:59.999]And even in the rural areas,
[99:59:59.999]people just need to know
[99:59:59.999]who is the right leader for them.
[99:59:59.999]And for that,
[99:59:59.999]including me and myself,
[99:59:59.999]today, actually,
[99:59:59.999]the group of volunteers who are back in Afghanistan
[99:59:59.999]will be happy
[99:59:59.999]to follow these ideas and to start
[99:59:59.999]and to continue with that.
[99:59:59.999]And we are very happy that
[99:59:59.999]the Ministry of Higher Education of Afghanistan
[99:59:59.999]supported us with the first concept,
[99:59:59.999]and we will provide them with more materials.
[99:59:59.999]It's the start.
[99:59:59.999]And for me, as the first Afghan living in Czech Republic,
[99:59:59.999]I'm proud to,
[99:59:59.999]to continue this way,
[99:59:59.999]and spread the ideas
[99:59:59.999]among my generation in Afghanistan
[99:59:59.999]and try to make them aware of this,
[99:59:59.999]what's happening.
[99:59:59.999]Yeah, this is actually all from my side.
[99:59:59.999]If someone has some questions, I'm ready to answer.
[99:59:59.999]Otherwise, this is all what I have
[99:59:59.999]in my experience.
[99:59:59.999](applauding)
[99:59:59.999]Thank you so much
[99:59:59.999]also for your perseverance and stamina.
[99:59:59.999]I have a question.
[99:59:59.999]When you mention the farmer with the
[99:59:59.999]image of Vaclav Havel,
[99:59:59.999]you alluded to
[99:59:59.999]it's not a logical,
[99:59:59.999]it's not like a natural necessarily alliance
[99:59:59.999]when one thinks of the contemporary
[99:59:59.999]Czech Republic in Afghanistan, just saying.
[99:59:59.999]And I'm wondering if there is
[99:59:59.999]a kind of joining in anti-Russian
[99:59:59.999]and anti-Soviet feeling feeling perhaps
[99:59:59.999]because of the Velvet Revolution
[99:59:59.999]where this is maybe an affinity,
[99:59:59.999]a political affinity
[99:59:59.999]between the two very different geographies.
[99:59:59.999]And if so, is that generational.
[99:59:59.999]Does that also transfer
[99:59:59.999]from the generation of the fathers in wars
[99:59:59.999]to your generation that
[99:59:59.999]you've given us such insight into today?
[99:59:59.999]Yes.
[99:59:59.999]That's exactly,
[99:59:59.999]that definitely...
[99:59:59.999]Well,
[99:59:59.999]in Afghanistan,
[99:59:59.999]they remember very well
[99:59:59.999]the time of the communism.
[99:59:59.999]We practically even see
[99:59:59.999]the destructions and the things in the system
[99:59:59.999]is still very noticeable,
[99:59:59.999]even in the education system,
[99:59:59.999]even walking to the biggest city, starting from Kabul.
[99:59:59.999]It's quite visible there.
[99:59:59.999]What
[99:59:59.999]is more
[99:59:59.999]connecting these,
[99:59:59.999]and the people are having this debate among themselves.
[99:59:59.999]But what really happened after
[99:59:59.999]once the communist left the country in 1988?
[99:59:59.999]And why we have such a huge destruction in the country.
[99:59:59.999]That's a question mark for the people,
[99:59:59.999]for the young generation at least,
[99:59:59.999]who are looking for the answer.
[99:59:59.999]And these are quite often discussed in the families.
[99:59:59.999]Even in our own family,
[99:59:59.999]this is a big debate between me and my father as well.
[99:59:59.999]We really needed to find the answer,
[99:59:59.999]but he never explained it so deeply,
[99:59:59.999]why it really happened.
[99:59:59.999]But what we know is that
[99:59:59.999]the lack of leadership after
[99:59:59.999]was something that we were missing.
[99:59:59.999]We were promised so many things after the withdrawal
[99:59:59.999]of the Russians,
[99:59:59.999]there will be different leadership,
[99:59:59.999]but it never happened.
[99:59:59.999]What we got is a weird picture,
[99:59:59.999]which we can see today.
[99:59:59.999]People remember it very well,
[99:59:59.999]even from connecting it to the Czech Republic,
[99:59:59.999]myself and even
[99:59:59.999]by the history,
[99:59:59.999]it's quite close, 1988,
[99:59:59.999]and then after happened with the Czech Republic as well.
[99:59:59.999]Okay.
[99:59:59.999]If I may follow up
[99:59:59.999]on the previous question,
[99:59:59.999]just a little clarification.
[99:59:59.999]There has never been
[99:59:59.999]a very strong anti-Russian feeling
[99:59:59.999]in Czechoslovakia,
[99:59:59.999]even after the events
[99:59:59.999]of 1968.
[99:59:59.999]There was a lost of anti-communist sentiment,
[99:59:59.999]anti-soviet sentiment.
[99:59:59.999]But compared to countries like Poland
[99:59:59.999]or the Baltic countries which have had much more
[99:59:59.999]extensive historical experience
[99:59:59.999]and sometimes negative experience
[99:59:59.999]with the Russian empire.
[99:59:59.999]The
[99:59:59.999]Russophobic
[99:59:59.999]feeling was never there.
[99:59:59.999]And actually, it did have something to do with
[99:59:59.999]the events of August 1968.
[99:59:59.999]If you look at this photograph,
[99:59:59.999]it's very illustrative.
[99:59:59.999]On another photograph, I might have been
[99:59:59.999]in the crowd
[99:59:59.999]down there because I was a 19-year-old on the streets
[99:59:59.999]at that time.
[99:59:59.999]The Russian soldiers in the turrets of the tanks,
[99:59:59.999]they were guys our age.
[99:59:59.999]They were 19-year-old, and most of them were
[99:59:59.999]not even Russian.
[99:59:59.999]I mean they came from the
[99:59:59.999]Central Asia and Republics
[99:59:59.999]of the Soviet Union,
[99:59:59.999]there were Uzbeks,
[99:59:59.999]and Kazakhstan,
[99:59:59.999]and what not.
[99:59:59.999]And they had no idea where they were
[99:59:59.999]and what this was all about.
[99:59:59.999]And one couldn't help but feel more sorry for them
[99:59:59.999]than hating them.
[99:59:59.999]I mean of course we screened,
[99:59:59.999]but
[99:59:59.999]they were so lost
[99:59:59.999]that the hatred
[99:59:59.999]simply never came.
[99:59:59.999]I intended to ask a question of my own.
[99:59:59.999]Did you work apart from the movie
[99:59:59.999]also with
[99:59:59.999]The Power of the Powerless
[99:59:59.999]as a text, as an essay,
[99:59:59.999]these students?
[99:59:59.999]And particular because you mentioned that the
[99:59:59.999]young people, especially in the rural
[99:59:59.999]areas of Afghanistan
[99:59:59.999]have a distinct problem
[99:59:59.999]of deciding for themselves,
[99:59:59.999]and they need the authority of someone higher,
[99:59:59.999]of the elder or of the tribal leader to decide for them.
[99:59:59.999]Did you specifically work with the idea of
[99:59:59.999]the concept of individual responsibility
[99:59:59.999]that the actually The Power of the Powerless
[99:59:59.999]is all about?
[99:59:59.999]Thank you for the question.
[99:59:59.999]Actually, with the community, our work was more deeper
[99:59:59.999]than only have the screenings to them.
[99:59:59.999]Were very deeply developing
[99:59:59.999]the community action plan with the community.
[99:59:59.999]We had to really tackle different
[99:59:59.999]aspects of the community problem.
[99:59:59.999]One of them was making awareness among the community.
[99:59:59.999]Of course we had to also involve the woman
[99:59:59.999]in this kind of decision.
[99:59:59.999]That's always very challenging
[99:59:59.999]for someone to work with the farmer
[99:59:59.999]and ask them, also the woman,
[99:59:59.999]to be part of this kind of,
[99:59:59.999]this debate or this community action plan.
[99:59:59.999]We were
[99:59:59.999]preparing
[99:59:59.999]some visual materials
[99:59:59.999]and asking them to draw their own ideas
[99:59:59.999]and to tell us what really they were feeling.
[99:59:59.999]And we were mostly collecting their ideas by drawings.
[99:59:59.999]They were putting the things,
[99:59:59.999]and were collecting their ideas together.
[99:59:59.999]They were drawing the tanks.
[99:59:59.999]They were dreaming about their own village
[99:59:59.999]to be something else.
[99:59:59.999]And we wanted to put these things together,
[99:59:59.999]and then finally find the materials
[99:59:59.999]based on their own demand.
[99:59:59.999]But mostly, their
[99:59:59.999]dream was really
[99:59:59.999]about that they are...
[99:59:59.999]The village is something which they want to develop,
[99:59:59.999]But they don't know how to do it.
[99:59:59.999]For us,
[99:59:59.999]we were really
[99:59:59.999]answering their questions in a different way,
[99:59:59.999]like screening the movies,
[99:59:59.999]asking them to come.
[99:59:59.999]By the text, they were uneducated.
[99:59:59.999]It was very difficult to send them the kind of papers
[99:59:59.999]or ask them to read about it.
[99:59:59.999]We had to really be with them
[99:59:59.999]and ask them to be involved.
[99:59:59.999]It was more community involvement plan.
[99:59:59.999]We were taking their own dreams
[99:59:59.999]and putting back in the pictures or in the movies.
[99:59:59.999]We hear a lot in the press about
[99:59:59.999]the lack of a common,
[99:59:59.999]a real sense of Afghan identity.
[99:59:59.999]We hear a lot about tribalism
[99:59:59.999]and about groups that really can't work together.
[99:59:59.999]Would you comment on what you see as the real
[99:59:59.999]unifying element,
[99:59:59.999]and you feel like that can be overcome?
[99:59:59.999]Yes, that is actually...
[99:59:59.999]Maybe I give also,
[99:59:59.999]I provided some examples in my speech as well.
[99:59:59.999]The tribal problems,
[99:59:59.999]and these traditional decision making
[99:59:59.999]processes in the country,
[99:59:59.999]it's a very, very deep-rooted problem now.
[99:59:59.999]Even it's a big challenge for the government itself.
[99:59:59.999]The only thing which needs to solve this
[99:59:59.999]is to increase
[99:59:59.999]the educated facilitation for the people.
[99:59:59.999]That's the only reason.
[99:59:59.999]Because most of the people who are living there,
[99:59:59.999]they don't have access to the education.
[99:59:59.999]They are not educated.
[99:59:59.999]So, what is really can solve this problem,
[99:59:59.999]it needs time
[99:59:59.999]and it will be something
[99:59:59.999]that the people are educated at least,
[99:59:59.999]the generation or generation after,
[99:59:59.999]to make their own
[99:59:59.999]or to understand what they're really going to decide about.
[99:59:59.999]Because so far,
[99:59:59.999]it's very difficult to make them understand,
[99:59:59.999]and they have to...
[99:59:59.999]The generation at least before me,
[99:59:59.999]they are waiting for someone to dictate
[99:59:59.999]and to tell them what to do.
[99:59:59.999]But what they do is the same person
[99:59:59.999]who doesn't know what to do
[99:59:59.999]is trying to send their kids to the school,
[99:59:59.999]and trying to then to make understand
[99:59:59.999]really, really how to overcome this problem.
[99:59:59.999]But of course,
[99:59:59.999]this issue will take time.
[99:59:59.999]It will remain as a challenge for the government
[99:59:59.999]for some time of course.
[99:59:59.999]I don't need a microphone.
[99:59:59.999]I have a very loud voice.
[99:59:59.999]How many European Union
[99:59:59.999]volunteers are there in Afghanistan today?
[99:59:59.999](speaking off microphone)
[99:59:59.999]What is the economic future of Afghanistan
[99:59:59.999]and how can the European Union and America as well,
[99:59:59.999]how can volunteers help with the evolution?
[99:59:59.999]Your question was more about
[99:59:59.999]how many European volunteers.
[99:59:59.999]And the general move of the economy.
[99:59:59.999]Okay, okay.
[99:59:59.999]The biggest problem actual was
[99:59:59.999]raising so much money and putting so much money at the time
[99:59:59.999]since 2001, when, or 2002, it started
[99:59:59.999]to give to Afghanistan where there was lack of...
[99:59:59.999]It was zero capacity for managing
[99:59:59.999]this huge amount of funds
[99:59:59.999]or money raised for the Afghanistan.
[99:59:59.999]That was the biggest problem at the beginning,
[99:59:59.999]that everybody, we feel it.
[99:59:59.999]It was a very big problem,
[99:59:59.999]but what is
[99:59:59.999]very...
[99:59:59.999]In terms of how many people are working on this,
[99:59:59.999]it's based on the very
[99:59:59.999]programs which the European Union
[99:59:59.999]or American fundings are supporting this
[99:59:59.999]is called national solidarity program.
[99:59:59.999]It's one of the biggest problem on the overall country.
[99:59:59.999]Conceptually, these concepts
[99:59:59.999]are coming from the different countries
[99:59:59.999]like Bangladesh or India
[99:59:59.999]or some other African countries.
[99:59:59.999]These are sponsored or funded
[99:59:59.999]by the international community,
[99:59:59.999]the European Union
[99:59:59.999]or American funding.
[99:59:59.999]And they are providing only advisory services for them,
[99:59:59.999]but the implementers are now the ministries.
[99:59:59.999]With this policy,
[99:59:59.999]of course only international funding is not enough.
[99:59:59.999]of course only international funding is not enough.
[99:59:59.999]Recently, since five years,
[99:59:59.999]they're really trying to encourage the Afghan investors
[99:59:59.999]to be a contributor
[99:59:59.999]in the economical tie
[99:59:59.999]of the country,
[99:59:59.999]and there are some
[99:59:59.999]quite big amount of project implemented
[99:59:59.999]are already starting.
[99:59:59.999]As a name, if I want to talk about
[99:59:59.999]is a big project of TAPI.
[99:59:59.999]It's called Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India
[99:59:59.999]Pipeline Project,
[99:59:59.999]which is one of the huge economical,
[99:59:59.999]and there are lots of internal sources
[99:59:59.999]are spending on it.
[99:59:59.999]But in general,
[99:59:59.999]economically they still need more in the advisory board.
[99:59:59.999]European Union, European Commission in the country,
[99:59:59.999]USA is working very largely
[99:59:59.999]on the agriculture infrastructure
[99:59:59.999]trying to support the Afghan ministries more,
[99:59:59.999]not only them to be there.
[99:59:59.999]They limited their staff in the country,
[99:59:59.999]but they are more trying to bring
[99:59:59.999]work on the capacity of the Afghans
[99:59:59.999]to be involved in these issues.
[99:59:59.999]That's quite a big hope.
[99:59:59.999]But in the mean time,
[99:59:59.999]it should be very carefully watched also,
[99:59:59.999]because
[99:59:59.999]we had,
[99:59:59.999]even these countries
[99:59:59.999]were funding Afghanistan
[99:59:59.999]was making at the beginning
[99:59:59.999]quite a lot of also mistake
[99:59:59.999]that they give lots of money,
[99:59:59.999]but
[99:59:59.999]not proper
[99:59:59.999]control on those money where they are going.
[99:59:59.999]Actually, those fundings made
[99:59:59.999]the ex-warlords quite rich and quite powerful,
[99:59:59.999]which are again becoming a problem for the country
[99:59:59.999]somehow itself,
[99:59:59.999]because
[99:59:59.999]they were on the power,
[99:59:59.999]at the end of the day,
[99:59:59.999]who are receiving such a big support.
[99:59:59.999]Directly or indirectly, but they were.
[99:59:59.999]This is something that
[99:59:59.999]government is working.
[99:59:59.999]I think it will take, as I said, some time,
[99:59:59.999]but it is going on well,
[99:59:59.999]at least in the quite recent years
[99:59:59.999]with the current president
[99:59:59.999]or current management.
[99:59:59.999]Thanks very much
[99:59:59.999]for those very interesting background.
[99:59:59.999]I wanna come back to the Havel thing just a bit because
[99:59:59.999]when the Arab Spring happen in Cairo.
[99:59:59.999]I went to Cairo when I found
[99:59:59.999]a professor there who actually new Czech.
[99:59:59.999]And so, we kind of worked out a scheme
[99:59:59.999]that we would translate the book into Arabic,
[99:59:59.999]thinking that perhaps it might actually
[99:59:59.999]kind of help to move things along.
[99:59:59.999]It actually was translated and published
[99:59:59.999]in a very small addition in Arabic.
[99:59:59.999]But what I realized when I re-read the essay
[99:59:59.999]that I couldn't really see
[99:59:59.999]how the ideas of resisting
[99:59:59.999]a totalitarian system
[99:59:59.999]would apply to military dictatorship.
[99:59:59.999]And I'm wondering
[99:59:59.999]if there's sort of misfit there
[99:59:59.999]in the case of Afghanistan,
[99:59:59.999]or is there something that's directly relevant?
[99:59:59.999]This is somewhat similar to
[99:59:59.999]Mr. Jantoski's question,
[99:59:59.999]but more specifically about
[99:59:59.999]what is it about Power of the Powerless
[99:59:59.999]that applies in the Afghan situation.
[99:59:59.999]Well,
[99:59:59.999]that was very,
[99:59:59.999]also, at the very beginning,
[99:59:59.999]also a question for us.
[99:59:59.999]How we should make the people to understand?
[99:59:59.999]What is more
[99:59:59.999]hot such topic
[99:59:59.999]among the Afghans who they are talking about.
[99:59:59.999]They were not talking about what is happening now,
[99:59:59.999]like whether international troops are coming to the country.
[99:59:59.999]The belief was quite strong
[99:59:59.999]that they are supporting the country.
[99:59:59.999]But what they were thinking about,
[99:59:59.999]what has happened in the past
[99:59:59.999]which they can really try to...
[99:59:59.999]They were questioning the past leadership.
[99:59:59.999]And for these,
[99:59:59.999]we didn't need to really go
[99:59:59.999]in such a deep way to think about
[99:59:59.999]what will happen.
[99:59:59.999]For us, it was really to create a debate,
[99:59:59.999]and we wanted to know
[99:59:59.999]what is making them more to talk
[99:59:59.999]about such a topic.
[99:59:59.999]What kind of documents or study
[99:59:59.999]or reading or watching
[99:59:59.999]can make this generation or university
[99:59:59.999]to raise so much questions
[99:59:59.999]and ask those audience
[99:59:59.999]and the panels,
[99:59:59.999]and some of the responsible authorities
[99:59:59.999]who are sitting on the panel,
[99:59:59.999]to ask them these questions and ideas.
[99:59:59.999]For us, the main idea after this movie
[99:59:59.999]of Power of the Powerless,
[99:59:59.999]or maybe in the future after
[99:59:59.999]some other movies which we did.
[99:59:59.999]The audience who watched it
[99:59:59.999]and see that how the participation of youth
[99:59:59.999]and the young generation can really change,
[99:59:59.999]how their role is quite important
[99:59:59.999]in making the decision
[99:59:59.999]or changing somehow sometime also the power,
[99:59:59.999]and what
[99:59:59.999]all these kind of movement need
[99:59:59.999]and who should be a good leader for them,
[99:59:59.999]and what kind of,
[99:59:59.999]what the leader need actually.
[99:59:59.999]It's not only that someone should raise by the tribe
[99:59:59.999]that is a good man and his leader,
[99:59:59.999]but the good leader should spend a long way,
[99:59:59.999]which also Vaclav Havel,
[99:59:59.999]he did quite a long run
[99:59:59.999]and he had lots of problem,
[99:59:59.999]but which none of our leaders actually.
[99:59:59.999]They had such a problem in their past background,
[99:59:59.999]but they became quite famous,
[99:59:59.999]but they were taking quite negatively
[99:59:59.999]quite a large part
[99:59:59.999]in the destruction of the countries after.
[99:59:59.999]So for us, these debates among the university.
[99:59:59.999]For us, those very simple question like
[99:59:59.999]make the screenings
[99:59:59.999]and ask the audience to raise a question to the panels,
[99:59:59.999]and this panel can bring these questions back
[99:59:59.999]to the higher level, which they did.
[99:59:59.999]And they asked us to spread this debate
[99:59:59.999]also in the other university.
[99:59:59.999]For us it was very simple.
[99:59:59.999]We didn't want it to go so deeper into that.
[99:59:59.999]We knew that there must be some sensitive topic as well,
[99:59:59.999]that people will be raising question
[99:59:59.999]why you are doing it as,
[99:59:59.999]how come that Czech Republic and here.
[99:59:59.999]This was a first question for us,
[99:59:59.999]but we didn't want it to go so deep.
[99:59:59.999]We wanted to ask the audience to decide really.
[99:59:59.999]What do you think about it?
[99:59:59.999]And do they like?
[99:59:59.999]If they like,
[99:59:59.999]what are those questions.
[99:59:59.999]If they don't like, can they comment it?
[99:59:59.999]Because for example, we invited even the Sharia Faculty.
[99:59:59.999]The debate panel was also from the Sharia Faculty,
[99:59:59.999]why we did it.
[99:59:59.999]What is the linkage
[99:59:59.999]between this Sharia Faculty and watching
[99:59:59.999]Vaclav Havel or Power of the Powerless,
[99:59:59.999]but we just wanted to make a sensitive topic
[99:59:59.999]among these people
[99:59:59.999]and the youth to raise questions actually.
[99:59:59.999]Any other questions?
[99:59:59.999]Alright, please join me in thanking Ehsan.
[99:59:59.999]Thank you. (applauding)
[99:59:59.999]Thank you very much.
[99:59:59.999]Thank you.
[99:59:59.999]

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Ehsan Naim: The Limits of Youth Activism in Afghanistan

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