Afghanistan How to Partner with Empower the New Generation
[Music]
it wasn’t easy to think about what to
say today
it’s been really hard
to find words or even understand
my feelings since the fall of
afghanistan to the taliban
i’m going to try my best
to not be political as that’s one of the
ted guidelines but it’s it’s very
challenging because i was born into a
political body
being an afghan-american woman
i attended my first protest in my
mother’s womb just after the soviet
invasion of afghanistan
so today
i speak with deep loyalty and love for
my people for the people of afghanistan
if i had been born in afghanistan i
could likely be stuck in the country
right now
or for example right now there are a
group of refugees afghan refugees in
indonesia who have
thrown their mouths shut in a hunger
strike because they have been stuck for
several years and
and this is their protest so i want to
honor my people today
in 2012 i gave my last tedx talk in
kabul it was the inaugural tedx kabul
and i remember the feeling in the room
it was
full of
hope
collaboration and inspiration
i remember looking out at the audience
everybody had these headsets on and and
there were three different channels
an english channel a dari channel and a
pashto channel
i looked out at the crowd and i saw this
generation
that i realized were the children i
visited in schools 10 years prior and
now they had come of age
and i felt
a very big responsibility as i spoke
before these this generation
i spoke
about being born
in los angeles just after the soviet
invasion of
afghanistan my father’s family fled the
country 21 days before i was born
as refugees and moved into our home
my mom was afghan and sicilian born in
new jersey today is her birthday she
passed a year and a half ago
i told the story of how my parents met
in kabul in the 60s
my mom went back to discover her
father’s roots
and she wanted to meet the nomadic
people the coochies and my father was
her translator for the day because they
spoke pashto and she spoke dari
i told the story of my parents being
dedicated activists all my life and how
afghanistan was the conversation at
every dinner table i never thought in my
lifetime i’d ever get to go back there
was always war
and then there was taliban rule
when 9 11
and the u.s occupation of afghanistan
began the taliban fell and my parents
moved back to the country to be part of
a new chapter
i made my first trip in october of 2002
and i talked about how
that trip changed my life forever
afghanistan became the deepest love of
my heart my inspiration for all of my
art and activism
i ended my talk by singing a song called
the east about a little boy who grows up
to become a talib and regrets it
i met
many incredible young afghans who are so
vital to their country
like for example my friends
pulitzer prize-winning photojournalist
masood hosseini
afghanistan’s first female graffiti
artist shamsia hassani
activists like sahar fatrat
the bands
district unknown and kabul dreams we
played shows together we worked on peace
campaigns together and i watched for
several years as this generation
continued to outdo themselves
it went from a few different bands to
a full spectrum of different genres of
music
they were playing classical instruments
of east and west it went from a few
entrepreneurs to a flourishing economy
of young entrepreneurs
when i first made my my first trip in
2002 there was barely any electricity we
had to use dial-up internet now the
entire country had smartphones
in 2001 there were zero girls in school
because of the taliban
now there were 3.5 million girls in
school
by 2015 my dear friend fresh deferral
founded afghanistan’s first coding
school for girls called code to inspire
the country was
unrecognizable because of this
tremendous generation of young afghans
that had rose up
literally from the ashes of war and
debris like a phoenix
they rebuilt their nation in
record time and somehow the world didn’t
know about them
there were
terrorist attacks the room
at estaclaw school where we gave our
tedx talks was bombed a few years later
someone was killed several were injured
universities were bombed schools
businesses
not to mention drone strikes
but i still had so much faith i did not
think the country could go backward
because of this generation
when the peace talks began in september
of 2020
i felt pretty concerned i didn’t
understand how a negotiation would stop
the taliban when they were continuously
acting out in violent ways
when the withdrawal was announced i held
my breath and
prayed on august 15 2021
our worst nightmare happened and
afghanistan fell to the taliban
again
i started getting a flood of dms from
young afghans desperate to get out of
the country
one that stands out to me today is from
a young government
worker
he reminded me that we met at tedx kabul
in
- he was one of the young people in
the crowd that i met that day and he
said to me ariana
i’m waiting for my turn to be killed
there is no way to escape
another young afghan woman called me
crying and she said ariana i can’t sleep
i can’t eat i’m afraid for my life i’m
afraid for my children
i calmed both of them down as best i
could while i
sat in shock
and motivated to do whatever i could
with my voice and my access
all of the diaspora around the world
have been working around the clock to
try to evacuate afghans we have photos
passport photos of children on our
phones
we don’t know if we can get them out or
not we try our best but
the taliban banned girls from secondary
school today is the 79th day that afghan
girls are banned from secondary school
women have been banned from working
journalists are being beaten and flogged
there have been public hangings and
stonings
what is going to be the fate of my
beautiful people and our thousands of
years of history
i hesitate to offer any kind of solution
today
because what has happened is so horrific
and what is happening is such a betrayal
i can’t make it okay
but i want afghanistan to come out of
this dark time as quickly as possible
so i want to offer an idea
if a few men sat at small tables in
small rooms and negotiated away a
country with very little regard for
millions of afghan lives
then what if the billions of global
citizens around the world
come together
and we uplift
amplify and empower
this generation
of young afghans that i have spoken to
you about those that are still in the
country and those who have recently fled
with them in the lead
we can work with them we can partner
with them in revolutionized and peaceful
ways
all of you guys have different gifts out
there gifts i can’t even think of maybe
you have an idea i don’t even have
but through art beauty psychology
wellness practices science
finance technology
we can support this generation
we can partner with them
and maybe this moment that is seemingly
a failure and a breakdown can become a
breakthrough
i believe that we can weave a new dream
that is peaceful
free united inclusive
maybe afghanistan is where we transcend
borders and broken systems and we come
together as a planet
together
and protect the human rights and freedom
of one another
i believe in this generation
i believe in all of you
and i believe in me and i believe that
if we come together with these
intentions a miracle can emerge for
afghanistan
thank you
[Applause]
you