Afghanistan: challenging the now with past

Last night I chaired a debate at the British Museum to coincide with a major new exhibition on Afghanistan. These days every major show at the BM is accompanied by such a debate, sponsored and continued online by the Guardian’s Comment is Free. It was a complete sell-out with some 400 people crammed into the Museum’s auditorium. An amazing mix of people – Afghan students, academics, media, politicians, teachers, and interested persons. So much so, that people had to be turned away for shortage of space.

The whole thrust of the evening was to explore what Afghanistan‘s past, represented in the exhibition, could tell us about the “now” and the future. The remarkable Afghan civic activist, Orzala Ashraf Nemat, who fought courageously for women’s rights under the Taliban regime, was joined by my erstwhile colleague and awarded documentary maker Saira Shah, Minna Jarvenpaa from the UN in Afghanistan, and Professor Michael Clarke from RUSI.

Read more in the Channel 4 News Afghanistan Special Report

The mood was of a strenuous desire to get foreign forces out of the country, but in no way to reduce commitment to Afghan development. I learned the extraordinary statistic that the Afghan Government raises $1 billion a year in taxes, whilst the international community provide some $40 billion. This is a place completely dependent upon outside interference.

But it wasn’t only the high fibre content of the evening that amazed, it was the very fact of its happening at all. A significant, if eclectic group of people coming together in this “cultural space” to talk about something current but so apparently intractable. Where else in the world? What other bastion fo the “old” could find itself so robustly challenging and questioning the new?

And whilst I’m on, I’d like to say how much I have appreciated recent threads, not least on Japan. Not least yesterday’s. There is little more rewarding than to find people from Japan itself, from the tsunami affected region itself, contributing to our dialogue and our understanding of what is happening. Thank you!