The average Boston University student’s knowledge of Afghanistan is probably restricted to something about the Taliban and that the United States has troops there. Beyond that, BU students and U.S. citizens may find they come up short.
Last night, about 70 students gathered in the Tsai Performance Center to learn more about the situation in Afghanistan by hearing a dramatic reading of William Mastrosimone’s play, The Afghan Women. In a panel discussion following the reading, participants discussed the relevance of the play to today’s political situation as part of the Howard Gottlieb Center’s Ready to Vote initiative.
“Afghanistan gets very little play in the presidential debates,” said panelist Nick Mills, a College of Communication journalism professor.
The panel allowed audience members to ask any unanswered questions they may have had and included Mills, College of Arts and Sciences international relations professor Charles Dunbar and CAS anthropology professor Tom Barfield.
Abdullah Osman, director of operations in Afghanistan for the International Orphan Care Organization, gave a speech before and after the reading.
“[The fighting in Afghanistan is] an issue that many people have forgotten because of the Iraq War,” Gottlieb Center Research and Public Information Administrator Christopher Gately said. “It’s highly relevant to students because if the draft was started, they’d have friends fighting.”
Gately said the Ready to Vote initiative is an attempt to educate student voters on a range of issues, which include the situation in Afghanistan. The point, Gately said, is to prepare students for the election as well as talk about important issues.
The play provides a closer look at the struggle going on in Afghanistan. Its main character Malalai, played by College of Fine Arts School of Theatre alumna Emily Kaye Liberis, is an Afghan-American who runs an orphanage in the Afghan countryside.
When a rebel army commander and his troops exploit her orphanage, she stands up for herself and ultimately decides to murder the commander.
The play fleshes out many issues of life in Afghanistan, including the treatment of women, the importance of cultural heritage and the ramifications of violence.
“The Afghan women in this play represent the Afghan people struggling between the past and the future,” author Mastrosimone, who attended the performance, said during the panel discussion.
While the panelists addressed a number of questions related to Afghanistan, they repeatedly stressed the importance of voting in the November presidential elections.
“One of the points [the panelists] made is that in Afghanistan, because the population is largely youth, everything is the hands of the young, and I think that should be an international sentiment,” BU College Democrats President Rani Woods, a CAS senior, said.