What are your thoughts about this video?

[Digital Malang]

What are your thoughts about this video?

YouTube - Afghan-Canadian woman Suraia Sahar speaks out to end the war in Afghanistan - October 13, 2010

[graveyardofempires]

very very good

[Digital Malang]

^^lol...Are you sure? And explain further why did you say "very very good"?

[graveyardofempires]

^^lol...Are you sure? And explain further why did you say "very very good"?

that she is against the occupation

i dont have to agree with everything shed said,atleast she said canadians out of afghanistan.

[laevanay]

is she pakhtun? she speaks farsi(i think) or maybe Dari.. a very beautiful language in its own right

[Digital Malang]

is she pakhtun? she speaks farsi(i think) or maybe Dari.. a very beautiful language in its own right

Yeah she is not pashtun, she is a Kabuli(tajik).

[BLS_1919v2.0]

She is Pashtun, I know her personally. She has tajik relatives though. Pashtana daa.

[Digital Malang]

She is Pashtun, I know her personally. She has tajik relatives though. Pashtana daa.

Reshtia wayee??

[Catya Sher]

She's doing SOMEthing by speaking out.
But she's still catering to all the Western prejudices based on the media's indoctrination of which side is good and which is evil.
I was already getting bored when she said - something like - "No one despises the Taliban like the Afghan people."

Of course the Taliban are too controversial to praise them publicly.
But better to leave them out entirely and emphasize the main point.

It's good that organization got that many people even to attend a lecture on Afghanistan.
Unfortunately too much of North America is uninterested to hear other appraisals of the situation than the standard party line.
Wish her success.
But why did she pronounce Hazaras and Kochis so strangely if she's an Afghan? Even the name Afghan, too?

[BLS_1919v2.0]

Because she grew up in Canada. You are over thinking things and twisting it. There is a sizable population of people in Afghanistan who do not like Taliban and there are those that support them.

[Digital Malang]

She's doing SOMEthing by speaking out.
But she's still catering to all the Western prejudices based on the media's indoctrination of which side is good and which is evil.
I was already getting bored when she said - something like - "No one despises the Taliban like the Afghan people."

Of course the Taliban are too controversial to praise them publicly.
But better to leave them out entirely and emphasize the main point.

It's good that organization got that many people even to attend a lecture on Afghanistan.
Unfortunately too much of North America is uninterested to hear other appraisals of the situation than the standard party line.
Wish her success.
But why did she pronounce Hazaras and Kochis so strangely if she's an Afghan? Even the name Afghan, too?

I agree and why did she said the last sentences in DAri? Would it have not been better if she had said that in pashtu and if she had forgotten pashtu thats why she said it in Dari, then I wouldn't call her a pashtun.

[Catya Sher]

What do you think about her appearance, though that could be a delicate question, don't answer if it's not becoming to.

Because I read the controversy FIRST before I saw the video, I was trying to figure out does she look more Pashtun or Tajik?

I can't say as I'm not used to seeing Westernized Afghans - it's sort of funny, I know. I'm used to seeing them over there...


Maybe I'll watch the end, to see that part.

[Digital Malang]

I would not go deep in her appearance because thats how some westernized Afghans like to be.
What I am most concerned about is that why would she call herself an Canadian-Afghan?

[Catya Sher]

OK I watched it, Yeah, sounds like Iranian Farsi to me because I know the sound of that much better than Dari.

You're right it's bizarre !

As far as BLS's remark, it seems so exclusionary and ivory towerish to leave the Taliban out completely as though they were some marauding tribes bearing down from the steppes of Central Asia.
They are Pashtuns and other Afghan groups, not some foreigners as she numbers them in her list of parties interfering mostly from abroad. She does mention warlords as bad guys, which is useful to teach North Americans.

But I still feel there's a little 'treachery' in the strong condemnation of the Taliban. Especially if she's a Pashtun.

My guess is that she's one of those who has absorbed too much of the Western perspective on Afghanistan today.

She seems to be caught between the two worlds.

She looks like she needs a good healthy trip to discuss with people along the border with Pakistan to hear their sides.

If she wants to quote documentaries featuring tribal elders' denunciations, why not have used the one from al-Jazeera which Rethink Afghanistan also did, when there was the killing by American forces of the two college students returning home to Wardak ?

THAT would have been a really good one, when the man says there's no difference between the American and Russian occupations: we saw both and they are equally cruel. [Or words to this effect.]

[Toramana]

I think it is not wise calling for ending the occupation (so-called) without suggesting the alternatives. There is no denying the fact that US+NATO with their present strategy seem more to part of the problem than any solution especially when they are not going after the sanctuaries of terrorism.

The best strategy would be expanding the alliance against terrorism by including China, Russia, India, Turkey, Malaysia, Bangal Desh, and of course Afghans themselves...

But it seems it all will end up in another bloodier civil war and then the dismemberment of both Pakistan and Afghanistan....