Students raise awareness of Afghanistan

Wed., Oct. 7 marked eight years since the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. The anniversary went largely unmarked in New Haven, despite efforts to commemorate the event on the Green. Fewer than 10 people showed up, and those who did were quickly sent home because of inclement weather. Such indifference has been characteristic of the Yale community’s attitude towards Afghanistan in recent years, despite the national debate over the large number of American troops in that country. Recently, however, a group of Yale students has come together in an effort to create an intellectual space for discussion of Afghanistan.

In the spring of 2009, Yale undergraduates Mari Oye, TD ’11, Andrew Mayersohn, PC ’11, Anna Kellar, SY ’12, and Shahla Naimi, TC ’12, organized the Yale Afghanistan Forum (YAF) to provide an outlet for knowledgeable and curious students interested in policy questions concerning Afghanistan. Although most of the founders had been involved with Afghanistan from an advocacy position—Oye, for example, became interested because of her work with Afghan women through the Yale Fair Trade Alliance—they decided to devote themselves explicitly to creating a non-partisan forum rather than an activist group. As co-founder and webmaster Mayersohn put it, “People need to think of concrete solutions to the problems faced by Afghanistan, both with relation to American interests and especially with regard to the Afghan people.”

The group remained small throughout the spring semester, never involving more than a dozen committed members at weekly discussions. Nonetheless, YAF was able to secure a meeting with Afghanistan’s ambassador to the UN, an event its members regarded as the highlight of the spring semester. Some in their ranks might have been disheartened by the low undergraduate turnout, but the group’s founders decided to remain optimistic. “We never had more than 20 undergrads coming to events, but we were able to get a couple of grad students involved, and we thought that was great,” explained Mayersohn. “Our grad student members have actually been to Afghanistan, which adds a whole new dimension to our discussions.”

The YAF board came to the realization that many undergraduates simply lacked firsthand knowledge about Afghanistan, and therefore weekly discussions became uninteresting to those who felt that no new ground was being covered.

“When we first started, we were hit with the same problem that student Muslim and Middle Eastern groups faced when they tried, on very rare occasions, to host an event focusing on Afghanistan: Undergrads had preconceived notions from reading the New York Times every morning, but there wasn’t much firsthand experience to go around,” expounded Kellar, YAF’s vice president. “The grad students all had deep personal connections or personal experience, so it made our discussions a lot more interesting.”

Board members got in touch with graduate students who had spent time in Afghanistan and encouraged them to get involved in YAF’s casual Tuesday night discussions. By the beginning of the fall semester, a handful of graduate students were coming on a semi-regular basis, which helped to keep discussions fresh.

But YAF officers wanted to expand the group’s membership and involve more students in the ongoing discussion, so they decided to host a large, well-advertised public event in order to engage freshmen. Four graduate students involved in YFA agreed to run a student roundtable focusing on their personal experiences in Afghanistan, from both civilian and military perspectives. Flyers went up, mass emails were sent out, and various undergraduate organizations, including The Yale Globalist and The Politic, agreed to co-sponsor the Thurs., Oct. 8 event.

“Afghanistan is central to counter-narcotics, counter-terror, and regional stabilization operations, yet Yale has just a single class covering modern Afghanistan in any detail,” said Alex Soble, TC ’10, the editor-in-chief of The Yale Globalist. “No one really pays much attention to Afghanistan, and I think that’s detrimental.”

About 70 people came to the event and devoted two hours to discussing Afghanistan. Students listened with rapt attention as former American soldiers, UN aid workers, and Afghan bureaucrats each painted a slightly different portrait of Afghanistan. Student questions forced the panelists to flesh out their observations and explain their unique perspectives. The words “challenging” and “frustrating” appeared to be the most common elements of the disparate stories told about modern Afghanistan. Although some participants suggested that Afghanistan’s prospects were bleak, most present seemed to take a more nuanced view indicating that progress was possible, but expectations had to be lowered.

Prior to the discussion, YAF board members were cautiously optimistic, and suggested that a good turnout could lead to future special events. “Our goal is to have weekly discussions complemented by regular events to bring in people who otherwise wouldn’t come,” said Mayersohn. “We think there is a significant, stable group of people who will want to stay involved in the conversation.” If the size of the crowd at YAF’s first event of the year was any indication, perhaps there is a significant constituency for such a forum.

Then again, there are few Yale students from Central Asia, media attention continually places Iraq in the spotlight rather than Afghanistan, and Central Asian languages simply do not have a large place at Yale. If these hurdles trip up YAF, Afghanistan may remain an enigma to Yalies for years to come.

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