The Thistle and the Drone

The LSE Middle East Centre and Asia Research Centre present:

The Thistle and the Drone
by Ambassador Akbar Ahmed

Chair: Professor Christopher Coker, LSE

Wednesday 26 June 2013, 16.00 - 17.30, Shaw Library, 6th floor, Old Building, LSE
The United States declared war on terrorism in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. More than ten years later, the results are decidedly mixed. In The Thistle and the Drone, world-renowned author, diplomat, and scholar Akbar Ahmed, called "the world's leading authority on contemporary Islam" by the BBC, reveals a tremendously important yet largely unrecognized adverse effect of these campaigns: they actually have exacerbated the already-broken relationship between central governments and the tribal societies on their periphery.

In the third volume of his trilogy that includes Journey into Islam (2007) and Journey into America (2010), Ambassador Ahmed draws on forty case studies of tribal societies across the Muslim world to analyze how the war on terror is being fueled by the conflict between central governments and tribal peripheries.  Beginning with Waziristan in Pakistan and expanding to similar tribal societies in Central Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, and elsewhere, this groundbreaking study offers an alternative and unprecedented paradigm for winning the war on terror.

Ambassador Akbar Ahmed is the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies at American University in Washington, D.C. and Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. He is a Visiting Professor and was First Distinguished Chair of Middle East and Islamic Studies at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD. He has taught at Princeton, Harvard, and Cambridge Universities.

This event is free and open to all however registration is necessary. Please register using the online booking system.

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ATTACKS AND BLASTS IN KABUL

Today a car bomb exploded in Kabul killing at least 16 people and injuring more than 40 others. The target of the attack was the Supreme Court. The attacker drove a car full of explosives into buses which were transporting Supreme Court staff and judges. The Taliban have taken responsibility for the blast. The Supreme Court is located near the US embassy and NATO headquarters. 

This comes following the attack on the capital's airport and the discovery of the bodies of 2 boys. On Monday, 10th June, 7 Taliban insurgents targeted the Kabul airport. All 7 attackers were killed and 3 policemen and 15 civilians were injured.

On the same day, in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar, the bodies of 2 boys were discovered. The Taliban, beheaded 2 boys for allegedly spying. The boys aged 10 and 16 were scavenging for food near police headquarters when they were abducted on 9th June.The boys also accepted food handouts from police too. It is thought that they wee suspected of working for the police by the Taliban. However, the Taliban have denied responsibility . According to several sources, the children were beheaded as a warning to villagers to not cooperate with the Afghan government. 

In 2012, the Taliban were accused of beheading a 12 year old boy and 7 year old girl. The Taliban have denied responsibility in both cases.

The NCF condemns these attacks and all types of violence against the Afghan government and people. Security is a serious concern in Afghanistan.  Huge amounts of humanitarian aid goes into Afghanistan and there is a general assumption that the more aid is spent, the more security will improve. What is clear that aid is effective in helping development needs but it is evident that this isn't effective in addressing security concerns. 

LANDAYS: POETRY OF AFGHAN WOMEN

Interesting article about landays and women in Afghanistan

The teenage poet who uttered this folk poem called herself Rahila Muska. She lived in Helmand, a Taliban stronghold and one of the most restive of Afghanistan’s thirty-four provinces since the U.S. invasion began on October 7, 2001. Muska, like many young and rural Afghan women, wasn’t allowed to leave her home. Fearing that she’d be kidnapped or raped by warlords, her father pulled her out of school after the fifth grade. Poetry, which she learned from other women and on the radio, became her only form of education.

Poems and Pictures of Contemporary Afghanistan

by Eliza Griswold

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/media/landays.html