Afghanistan in Focus with Mariam Hotaki, Nawa Lodin, and Malalai Farooqi Ramadan

<p>This show is dedicated to the people of Afghanistan &amp; hosted by SWANA collective members David Lloyd and Rana Sharif. For the past several days and weeks, the people and country of Afghanistan have been subjected to the probably inevitable chaos occasioned by the US and NATO forces’ withdrawal from the nation they have occupied for twenty years and,perhaps more unexpectedly than the chaos that has accompanied the withdrawal, by the rapid collapse of the government security forces in the face of the Taliban’s rapid advances. The Taliban is now in effective, if perhaps temporary, control of the country and is seeking both to establish its legitimacy as a ruling power and to persuade Afghans that its regime will not undertake revenge killings of those who worked with the coalition forces or foreign NGOs. They claim that they will establish and maintain the stability of the country in the wake of the occupiers’ departure. Only time will tell whether the Taliban’s leadership means what it says and has the capacity to control its own militants: already from around the country reports have come in of revenge killings, forced marriages, often of young girls, to Taliban fighters, and the reintroduction of draconian social restrictions in keeping with the movement’s fundamentalist Islamic beliefs. Despite assurances from Kabul, the threat of a reversion in particular to the misogynist regime of the past, that denied women the most basic of rights, remains a pressing concern.</p> <p>Our guests are<strong>:</strong></p> <p><strong>Mariam Hotaki</strong> is Afghan-American, born and raised in Kabul. She moved to the US as a teenager. Her academic background is in international peace and security and social policy. Currently, Mariam works in Big Tech.&nbsp;Mariam can be found on <a href="https://twitter.com/mariamhotaki" target="_blank">Twitter</a> and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/mariamhotaki/" target="_blank">Instagram</a>.</p> <p><strong>Nawa Lodin</strong> is an attorney based in New York City and the daughter