Afghanistan: getting back to basics

Jolyon Leslie is one of the few Western scholars who has lived for a long periods in Afghanistan. In his lecture Jolyon will outline the stark choices facing ordinary Afghans - at the level of the household, village and city - and explore their changing perceptions of our 'engagement', set beside the international narrative about efforts to eradicate terror, win hearts and minds and re-build the Afghan state. This event will provide an opportunity to address the spin that underlies much of the western narrative, and explore the perceptions of the Afghans themselves and the barriers that stand in the way of them and their 'allies'.

Jolyon Leslie has lived and worked in Afghanistan since the 1980s. He initiated and managed a number of UN reconstruction programmes in the country and, between 1996 and 2000, served as UN Regional Coordinator. In 2001, he took up a research fellowship at Harvard. He has since undertaken consultancies for the UN, World Bank and the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, among others. In 2004, he co-authored with Chris Johnson, Afghanistan: the mirage of peace. Between 2004 and 2010, Jolyon Leslie managed the urban conservation activities of the Aga Khan Trust for Culture. He is currently working on a book on historic Kabul.