Panel Discussion: Approaching Afghanistan

Modern warfare came to Afghanistan with the Soviet invasion in 1979, the decade of brutal civil war that followed kept the area in turmoil. Now, the global war on terrorism continues to plague the land and sky of Afghanistan, and new questions arise as the Canadian Forces battle group prepares to withdraw from the country. Join us for an in-depth discussion on the current and impending issues facing Afghanistan, led by individuals whose experience and research give insight into its people and culture.

Cost: Free

Who is on the panel:

Ms. Najia Haneefi was born in Kabul and had her primary and secondary education in Mazar-i-sharif, Balkh province, where she also worked part time at local radio and TV stations. Haneefi has been passionately defending women's rights inside and outside Afghanistan. She was the founder of the first women's community based radio station in Afghanistan (Rabiha I Balkhi), the founding member of three Afghan non-profit organizations, the former director of the Afghan Women's Education Centre and an active member of the Association for Freedom of Expression. Haneefi was twice part of the Afghan Civil Society Delegation for Peace and Reconstruction of Afghanistan conference in Berlin and Japan and has worked in different UN and NGO organizations. In 2007, she received an international award from the UKs international Service for the Defence of Women's Human Rights.

Richard Johnson is graphics editor and news illustrator for Canada's National Post. He is artist/blogger of the Kandahar Journals, and just returned a few months ago from Afghanistan after spending time with the Canadian Infantry in their last weeks of active operations. He lived and patrolled with them daily and had opportunities to interact with Afghan villagers. Johnson's work from the Iraq invasion and the war in Afghanistan is now held by the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, in Washington, D.C.

Sara Matthews is Assistant Professor in Culture and Conflict in the Department of Global Studies at Wilfrid Laurier University. Her interdisciplinary work explores the dynamics of social conflict and reparation from the standpoint of how individuals and communities remember and learn from traumatic historical events. Matthew's current research considers how contemporary Canadian war artists are responding to Canada's mission in Afghanistan.

Roger Simon is Professor Emeritus at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education in the Department of Sociology and Equity Studies at the University of Toronto. He will present on CBC radio's 'Afghanada', a program beginning in 2006, whose objective is to tell the story of the Canadian soldiers working overseas, without confronting policy issues. His presentation will initiate a discussion by exploring the relation of the audio drama to the provocation of thought about Canada's involvement in the war in Afghanistan and will consider the broadcast's limitations and possibilities as a form of public pedagogy.

Jeremy Copeland reports and produces stories from across Canada for Al Jazeera English TV. Currently teaching in the Graduate Program in Journalism at Western's Faculty of Information and Media Studies, he started his career with CBC TV. Having spent three years at BBC World TV in London, England, Copeland opened a news bureau in New Delhi where he covered stories across South Asia for CBC and BBC TV and radio, the Globe and Mail and CBC Online. He helped run Iraq's first elections after the fall of Saddam Hussein and was part of the team in Washington, D.C. that launched Al Jazeera English TV.

The panel is sponsored in part by the Centre for Social Concerns (King's University College) and Public Humanities at Western