Wolfgang Danspeckgruber invites to you join a LISD High Tea with Professor William Maley and Joseph Mohr, an eminent expert on Afghanistan to discuss “Who Rules Afghanistan Now?” 

In our turbulent times, the agony, hunger, and suffering of millions of Afghans seem almost forgotten as news cycles are dominated by daily revelations of crimes against humanity and unimaginable destruction due to a war of aggression in Ukraine.   

It is imperative to not forget the situation in and around Afghanistan and to glean a clearer picture of the dire situation today at the end of winter. More than 20 million people currently live on subsistence and have neither regular work nor income, nor sufficient food or medicine. Most of the freedoms of Afghan society - particularly those of women, and younger Afghans of all ethnicities and religions - have been terminated since the justly criticized withdrawal of Western forces in August 2021. The implications of this withdrawal and its aftermath have been closely observed by Russia and China, with as yet unknown consequences. 

Wolfgang Danspeckgruber, Founding Director, LISD; Founding Chair, LCM, ART.

Joseph Mohr - A ‘Practitioner in all matters Afghan,’ worked in Afghanistan from 1998-2011 (with a short intermezzo in Baghdad 2004,) and has returned from the Middle East to the United Nations in New York.

Professor William Maley, AM; Professor Emeritus, Australian National University, Canberra; former Director of the Asia Pacific College of Diplomacy. Maley is a member of the LISD advisory board and of our Afghanistan Reflection Team, ART.  His latest book is The Decline and Fall of Republican Afghanistan, co-authored with Ahmad Shuja Jamal. https://researchprofiles.anu.edu.au/en/persons/william-maley
 

Select Background Readings:

https://www.internationalaffairs.org.au/australianoutlook/why-now-the-afghanistan-ukraine-nexus/

https://news.gallup.com/poll/391406/suffering-reaches-unprecedented-levels-afghanistan.aspx

https://calgaryherald.com/opinion/columnists/lang-the-threat-to-women-and-girls-in-afghanistan-has-not-changed-only-our-interest-has/wcm/affc53b8-95eb-432b-9890-f78cc6e7a062/amp/

https://www.npr.org/2022/04/05/1091109460/fractured-taliban-leadership-intensifies-uncertainty-in-afghanistan

https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/03/22/afghanistan-taliban-control-arrest-journalists-women/

https://lisd.princeton.edu/announcements/2021/kabul%E2%80%99s-fall-and-its-consequences

https://www.internationalaffairs.org.au/australianoutlook/darkness-falls-on-afghanistan/