SESSION 5: EXERCISES FOR DISCUSSION AND FINAL TASK

DISCUSSION: Here is some additional information you may need to read before you come to our discussion on Wednesday:

'The Bookseller of Kabul'

The Bookseller of Kabul is a non-fiction book written by Norwegian journalist Åsne Seierstad, about a bookseller, Shah Muhammad Rais (whose name was changed to Sultan Khan), and his family in Kabul, Afghanistan. It takes a novelistic approach, focusing on characters and the daily issues that they face.

Åsne Seierstad entered Afghanistan two weeks after the September 11 attacks and followed the Northern Alliance into Kabul where she spent three months. Disguising herself by wearing a burka, she lived with a bookseller and his family in Kabul which provided her with a unique opportunity to describe life as ordinary Afghan citizens saw it.

As well as giving a historical account of events in Afghanistan as democracy is established, Seierstad focuses on the conditions of Afghan women who still live very much under the domination of men—Afghan traditions allow for polygamy and arranged marriage. She also addresses the conflict between westernization and traditional Islam, and gives an accessible account of Afghanistan's complex recent history under the rule of the USSR, the Taliban and coalition-supported democracy.

Following global critical acclaim, many of the book's descriptions have been contested by Rais, who has taken the author to court in Norway for what he says is a defamation and assault on his character, family and country. Seierstad for her part insists on the integrity of her account and asserts that Rais has no grounds for a successful challenge. Throughout the book Rais is depicted as a fairly nonpartisan intellectual who has suffered greatly under different regimes and worked hard all his life, but no different from many Afghans in his horrendous and selfish treatment of women. Rais has claimed to defend women's rights, pointing out his opposition to extremism and his assistance to the author and many other journalists over the years. As Rais is such a well-known figure in Kabul, the author's attempt to anonymize the family by changing their names has been unsuccessful.

On 24th July 2010 Seierstad was found guilty of defamation and "negligent journalistic practices" and ordered to pay damages to Suraia Rais, wife of Shah Muhammad Rais . An appeal is underway.

During a trip to Scandinavia in November 2005, Rais declared he was seeking asylum in either Norway or Sweden, as a political refugee. He felt things revealed about him in Seierstad's book had made life for him and his family unsafe in Afghanistan, where bootleg versions of the book had been published in Persian.

Rais has published his own version of the story, There once was a bookseller in Kabul. It was translated to both Norwegian and Brazilian Portuguese.

Afghanistan

The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, commonly known as Afghanistan, is a landlocked country in south-central Asia. It is bordered by Pakistan in the south and east, Iran in the west, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan in the north, and China in the far northeast. The territories now comprising Afghanistan have been an ancient focal point of the Silk Road and human migration.
The Taliban developed as a politico-religious force in 1994, eventually seizing Kabul in 1996 and establishing the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. The Taliban imposed on the parts of Afghanistan under their control a Wahhabi interpretation of Islam.

After the fall of Kabul to the Taliban on September 27, 1996, Ahmad Shah Massoud and Abdul Rashid Dostum, one of his former archnemesis, were forced to create an alliance against the Taliban, Pakistan and Al Qaeda which were about to attack the areas of Massoud and those of Dostu. The alliance was called United Front but in the Western media became known as the Northern Alliance. In the following years many Afghan factions and individuals were to join the United Front. These included Afghans and Afghan commanders from all regions and Afghan ethnicities including Tajiks, Hazara, Uzbeks and many Pashtuns such as prominent Commanders Abdul Haq, Haji Abdul Qadir and Qari Baba, or diplomat Abdul Rahim Ghafoorzai. As the Taliban committed massacres, especially among the Shia and Hazara population which they regarded as "sub-humans" worse than "non-believers" and thus according to them were without any rights many civilians fled to the area of Massoud. When the forces of Dostum were defeated by the Taliban in 1998, Massoud remained the only leader of the Untied Front in Afghanistan. The National Geographic concluded: "The only thing standing in the way of future Taliban massacres is Ahmad Shah Massoud. In the areas under his control Massoud set up democratic institutions including political, economic, health and education committees and signed the Women's Rights Charta.

From 1996 to 2001 Osama Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri had become a virtual state within the Taliban state. Bin Laden sent Arab fighters to join the fight against the United Front, especially his so-called Brigade 055, which was also responsible for massacres. Pervez Musharraf - then as Chief of Army Staff - was responsible for sending scores of Pakistanis, including the Frontier Corps, to fight alongside the Taliban and Bin Laden against Ahmad Shah Massoud. In total there were believed to be 28 000 Pakistani nationals fighting alongside the Taliban.

Following the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States and the Taliban's refusal to hand over Osama bin laden, the U.S. and British air forces began bombing al-Qaeda and Taliban targets inside Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom. On the ground, American and British special forces along with CIA Special Activities Division units worked with commanders of the Northern Alliance to launch a military offensive against the Taliban forces. These attacks led to the fall of Mazar-i-Sharif and Kabul in November 2001, as the Taliban and al-Qaida retreated toward the mountainous Durand Line border with Pakistan. There were some reports of ethnic cleansing. In December 2001, after the Taliban government was toppled and the new Afghan government under Hamid Karzai was formed, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) was established by the UN Security Council to help assist the Karzai administration and provide basic security to the Afghan people.

From 2002 onward, the Taliban began regrouping while more coalition troops entered the escalating US-led war with insurgents. Meanwhile, NATO assumed control of ISAF in 2003 and the rebuilding of Afghanistan began, which is funded by the international community especially by USAID and other U.S. agencies. The European Union, Canada and India also play a major role in reconstruction. The Afghan nation was able to slowly build democratic structures and to make some progress in key areas such as health, economy, educational, transport, agriculture and construction sector. It has also modernized in the field of technology and banking. NATO, mainly the United States armed forces through its Army Corps of Engineers, is rebuilding and modernizing the nation's military as well its police force. Between 2002 and 2010, over five million Afghan expatriates returned with new skills and capital. Despite all this, Afghanistan still remains one of the poorest countries due to the results of 30 years of war, corruption among high level politicians and the ongoing Taliban insurgency backed by Pakistan. U.S. officials have also accused Iran of providing limited support to the Taliban, but stated it was "at a small level" since it is "not in their interests to see the Taliban, a Sunni ultra-conservative, extremist element, return to take control of Afghanistan". Iran has historically been an enemy of the Taliban.

NATO and Afghan troops in recent years led many offensives against the Taliban, but proved unable to completely dislodge their presence. By 2009, a Taliban-led shadow government began to form complete with their own version of mediation court. In 2010, U.S. President Barack Obama deployed an additional 30,000 soldiers over a period of six months and proposed that he will begin troop withdrawals by 2012. At the 2010 International Conference on Afghanistan in London, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said he intends to reach out to the top echelons of the Taliban. Karzai set the framework for dialogue with Taliban when he called on the group's leadership (including Mullah Omar, Sirajuddin Haqqani and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar) to take part in a loya jirga meeting to initiate peace talks. According to the Wall Street Journal, these steps have been reciprocated so far with an intensification of bombings, assassinations and ambushes. Talks with those Afghan Taliban who approached the Karzai government in recent months however are supported by American politicians and senior military servicemen.

According to a report by the United Nations the Taliban were responsible for 76 % of civilian casualties in 2009. Afghanistan is currently struggling to rebuild itself while dealing with the above mentioned problems and challenges. According to the Human Development Index, Afghanistan is the second least developed country in the world. Every half hour, an average of one woman dies from pregnancy-related complications, another dies of tuberculosis and 14 children die, largely from preventable causes. Before the start of the wars in 1978, the nation had an improving health system and a semi-modernized health care system in cities like Kabul. Ibn Sina Hospital and Ali Abad Hospital in Kabul were two of the leading health care institutions in Central Asia at the time. Following the Soviet invasion and the civil war that followed, the health care system was limited only to urban areas and was eventually destroyed. The Taliban government made some improvements in the late 1990s, but health care was not available for women during their six year rule. There are an estimated one million disabled or handicapped people in the country. An estimated 80,000 citizens of the country have lost limbs, mainly as a result of landmines.

The nation's health care system began to improve dramatically since 2002, which is due to international support on the vaccination of children, training of medical staff. According to USAID, infant mortality rate has dropped by 33 percent and approximately 64 percent of the total population now has access to some form of health care. Most Afghans live within one hour travel to a health facility.

Asne Seierstad

Åsne Seierstad studied at the University of Oslo where she successfully completed her studies in Russian, Spanish and the history of philosophy. From 1993 until 1996 she reported for the Arbeiderbladet in Russia and in 1997 from China. From 1998 until 2000 she worked for the national television network NRK (Norsk Rikskringkasting) where she reported from the Serbian breakaway province of Kosovo. With Their Backs To The World: Portraits from Serbia, her first book, is an account of this time. (This book was extended and republished in 2004 when she again visited Serbia. The name was changed slightly, to Portraits of Serbia, signalling that Serbia’s back is no longer turned to the world.)

As a reporter she is particularly remembered for her work in war zones such as Afghanistan, Iraq and most recently Chechnya, as well as for her reports on the September 11 attacks in the United States of America. The Bookseller of Kabul, her second, bestselling book, is an account of the time she spent living with an Afghan family in Kabul after the fall of the Taliban in 2001. Her other books include One Hundred And One Days: A Baghdad Journal which describes the three months she spent in Iraq in the build-up to the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, and most recently Angel of Grozny: Inside Chechnya, an account of the time she spent in Chechnya after the war.

On 24th July 2010 Seierstad was found guilty of defamation and “negligent journalistic practices and ordered to pay damages to Suraia Rais, wife of Shah Muhammad Rais. An appeal is underway.

She currently lives and works in Oslo.

PREPARING A DISCUSSION IS FUNDAMENTAL:

THIS MUST BE DONE IN TWO DIRECTIONS:

FIRST, YOU NEED TO LEARN NEW VOCABULARY AND EXPRESSIONS THAT YOU WILL HAVE TO USE FOR THE DISCUSSION.

SECONDLY, YOU HAVE TO PREPARE THE TOPIC BY LOOKING UP INFORMATION IN THE INTERNET, BOOKS, ENCYCLOPAEDIAS.

THIS WAY YOU WILL FEEL MUCH MORE CONFIDENT AND AT THE SAME TIME YOU WILL HAVE MUCH MORE TO TALK ABOUT.

FINAL TASK:

HERE IS ONE FINAL TASK THAT YOU MAY DO IN ORDER TO COVER THE FOUR SKILLS YOU SHOULD FOCUS ON WHEN LEARNING A LANGUAGE: LISTENING, READING, SPEAKING AND WRITING.

Write a composition and leave it in the blog as a comment to Session 5, I will edit it in the blog so that everybody can learn from other people´s opinions. Choose one of these two options:

•  'Muslim women should not wear veils in Spain'. Express your opinion.
• 'It´s more difficult now for authors to write books about people in other countries without the risk of being sued'. Express your opinion.