"Afghanistan: Hope on a Pinpoint."
Dr. Janet Larson, Rutgers University
Slide Lecture and Discussion
Blurb:   Dr. Larson is an experienced journalist, a full-time member of the Rutgers Newark English and Women's Studies faculty since1978, and Director of the English Master's Program. Her strong interest in global affairs and women's rights is reflected in her course, Writing War and Gender. With autobiographies, novels, poetry, and films, it engages students in thinking about the roles and experiences of women and men, and definitions of masculinity and femininity, in war and post-conflict zones.  Dr. Larson also teaches a unit in the Victorian Literature survey on British imperialism that includes Rudyard Kipling's The Man Who Would Be King; an ironic adventure tale set in the wilds of 19th-century Afghanistan.
    The talk is based on research and a visit to Afghanistan last summer with a group from Global Exchange to learn what Afghans are doing to help their country recover from decades of war and what they want from the United States. She met with leaders of humanitarian and human rights organizations, social activists, a mine clearance team, professors, health and cultural workers, and government ministers, including the Minister of Women's Affairs and the Deputy Minister of Higher Education. In and around the capital, she talked with many ordinary Afghans, from street children, shop owners, and van drivers, to students at Kabul University, returned ex-pats, and young Afghan professionals. Enroute, she also met some American "private security" guards, U.S. military personnel, including a retired Marine on leave from his job with Blackwater headed for a special mission in Afghanistan, and workers with Kellogg, Brown, and Root in Iraq.
    Afghanistan has many homegrown "peace warriors" who are striving, under difficult conditions, to build a peaceful and just society--as Afghans say, "hand to hand." They are the vital security forces that politicians and generals leave out of their calculations at everyone's peril. Even though Americans have many reasons to care about what happens in this faraway country, it has been badly short-changed and neglected by our government.  Dr. Larson is eager to share stories, images, and voices to get Afghanistan back up on our radar screens because peace still has a chance there--balancing on a pinpoint.

The Talk:  The hour-long lecture is illustrated (PowerPoint 3.0) with pictures from vintage post cards, books, maps, and the Internet, as well as Dr. Larson's photography. The introduction puts Afghanistan on physical and geo-political maps and discusses the impacts of landscape and history, especially the tragic modern legacy of military occupation and warfare, on the Afghan people.  The rest of the talk treats life for Afghans today, with portraits of individuals Dr. Larson met and their views of the United States;  the "look" of Kabul;  the activities and ideas of political leaders and non-governmental organizations that work on civil-society building and the country's recovery; warlord culture and the United States' role in creating it;  human rights issues; the politics of "reconstruction" and capitalism; and current sources of instability, including the resurgence of the Taliban and the role of Pakistan in it.

Man clears field of landmines in Afghanistan countryside.

Madelyn Hoffman, New Jersey Peace Action
Slide Lecture and Discussion

Blurb: Madelyn Hoffman

Reports from Women's Delegation to Afghanistan by NJ Peace Action Director - June 2005
Report 1 Report 2 Report 3

Girls in a classroom in Afghanistan.