Thursday, November 1, 2012

Think 2022 Goa.

2000 thinkers..75 speakers, 25 performances, 10 artists..a forum for thought, provocation and hopefully some solutions at the end of three days.

Goa, in the beginning of November, an overcast day, with the prospect of rains, and a flood of ideas in multiple fields of inquiry.A proud legacy and an uncertain future.

Into the second year now, the festival to celebrate thought and ideas, in Goa, got off to a subdued start, in the sense, that the Afghanistan issue is hardly THE issue on top of the mind of the assembled thinkers. But the whole idea is to keep an open mind and see if we can learn from afganistans mistakes..

Fauzia Koofi talked about the other Afghanistan where people live, learn, love and learn to love..the war left scars, but emerging out of the ashes is the possibility of a lasting peace. Where women like fauzia show the way to what is possible.

On American involvement in afghanistan , she says that they came without being invited, and left without being asked to leave, and all they left behind was a mess. According to her the situation there is not exclusively an afghan issue, but a regional and global conflict being fought in her backyard.

Jason Burke is the journalistic incarnation of Jason Bourne. He has been in some of the toughest spots in the world. He has been close to the action, sometimes in the thick of it, a way with words to describe it, but most importantly he has a perspective that lays bare the futility of this war.

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