[Los Angeles, May 7, 2009] Levantine Cultural Center presents a salon on the politics and culture of Afghanistan, Friday, May 15, 7-9:30 pm, when authors Paul Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Gould—who as documentary filmmakers and journalists have been visiting Afghanistan since 1981—discuss their new book “Invisible History: Afghanistan's Untold Story” (City Lights 2009), including a DVD presentation followed by Q/A and book signing. They will be introduced by Afghan-American lawyer-activist Mariam Atash Nawabi. The evening includes Afghani-American indie singer Ariana Delawari presenting some of her rock/folk repertoire. The program is copresented by CODEPINK: Women for Peace.

$10 or $20 with autographed book (free entry for members and students with I.D.).Doors open 7 pm. Even 7:30-9:30 pm. Refreshments available.

Over the last thirty years, Afghanistan has grown from an obscure backwater of an issue into a regional confrontation that now threatens to drag the United States blindly into an endless war it can never win. Obama needs to know the truth about what really happened in Afghanistan, not the "sanitized, sugar-coated, ideologically correct version pushed out by Washington’s beltway wonks and popularized by the mass media."
So say Paul Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Gould, in their new book—a penetrating analysis of the history of Afghanistan and America's involvement in it. It fills in all the blanks we needed to know before 9/11 but were never told.

"It's time to correct the historical record and develop an effective and realistic policy for Afghanistan," says Fitzgerald, the first American journalist allowed into Afghanistan in 1981 following the expulsion of the entire Western press corps during the Soviet occupation. “Washington never knew what it was doing. Instead, Afghanistan became a playground for cowboy politics and Hollywood fantasy.” Since the beginning of the Cold War, Afghanistan, they contend, has been “a story, presented to the American public through the lens of 19th-century British colonial policy. Today Afghanistan’s crisis is more a creation of Washington, London, and Islamabad than it ever was of Kabul.”

In her cogent foreword to the book, Sima Wali, Afghan human rights expert and delegate to the Afghan peace talks in Bonn, Germany, calls “Invisible History” a "phenomenal compendium of research and critical analysis of the complex dynamics that led to the death of my home country. Before I met Gould and Fitzgerald, I’d spent two decades seeking an explanation for why Afghanistan was sacrificed in the war against the Soviet Union. ‘Invisible History’ unravels this great mystery as it bears testimony for all humanity about one of the great ‘invisible' injustices of our time."

About Mariam Atash Nawabi

Mariam Atash Nawabi is an attorney, social entrepreneur, and activist. A founding member of the Afghanistan Advocacy Group—a national network of Americans engaging with policymakers regarding development and security in Afghanistan—she has experience in the legal, diplomatic, business, media and civil society sectors. Mariam served as Senior Advisor to the Afghan-American Chamber of Commerce and Afghanistan International Chamber of Commerce, and has also worked at the Embassy of Afghanistan, serving as Commercial & Trade Counsel. She was actively involved in promoting investment to Afghanistan and market development in Afghanistan.

Mariam has also taken part in international conferences and speaking engagements on issues related to Afghanistan's economic development, legal reform, women's rights, and civil society capacity building. In May 2003, Mariam traveled to Afghanistan to meet with women leaders, organizations and members of the Constitutional Commission regarding approaches to women's rights in the new constitution. Mariam currently serves on the Board of Directors of several nonprofit organizations engaged in capacity building efforts in Afghanistan, including the American University Foundation of Afghanistan, Aschiana Foundation, and Nooristan Foundation. She is a graduate of the Georgetown University Law Center (J.D., cum laude 1999), where she served on the editorial board of Law and Policy in International Business and of George Mason University (B.A., International Studies, summa cum laude, 1995), where she was a recipient of the Peat-Marwick, Datatel and John C. Wood scholarships and a White House intern.

About Ariana Delawari

Afghan-American actor and singer/songwriter Ariana Delawari's solo project is Lion of Panjshir. Listen to her music on myspace at myspace.com/lionofpanjshir. She describes it in her own words:

“Lion of Panjshir probably began when I was still in my mother's womb. 20 days before I was born my father's entire family left Afghanistan due to the Soviet invasion. They moved into our home in La Canada, California. In this new land there was a deep need for celebration and union. My parents, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, and the many American artists who my parents were friends with, would join at our home in beautiful parties with live Afghan music playing and really delicious food.

“When my cousins, aunts and uncles started moving out and moving on with their lives, I found life to seem very dull and boring in my quiet suburban town. When I was twelve I started playing the guitar and became obsessed with Jimi Hendrix, John Lennon, and the whole sixties counter culture history. Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew that someday I would make music in Afghanistan.

“I continued my journey through high school and college as an actress and student of literature and film production at the USC School of Cinema Television. After the tragic events of September 11th, my parents sold everything they owned and moved back to Afghanistan to contribute to the re construction of the country. I made my first trip to Kabul in October 2002.

“I have been traveling to Afghanistan every year and documenting my journeys in pictures, video, and songs. It has been very intense and beautiful watching my parents fulfill their destiny in a land that has been in many ways forgotten. I met Max Guirand in the spring of 2006 and we started “lion of panjshir”—named after the great revolutionary leader Ahmed Shah Massoud. A year later Max, Paloma Udovic, and I travelled to Afghanistan together to record with Afghan Ustads. What started as a band really became a project, as many incredible artists have contributed to the album that will soon be born into this world. I wish for peace and strive to create that feeling of celebration, togetherness, and culture that I once experienced in my home as a small child. If I can contribute that gift to this world I will be very happy.

“Thank you for listening and I wish for all of us to experience peace, love, prosperity, and magic in 2009!”

"We consider this our duty—to defend humanity against the scourge of intolerance, violence, and fanaticism." —Ahmed Shah Massoud, the Lion of Panjshir