Right Friends, Wrong Enemies, Iowa City, Iowa, October 15, 2014

- [Thais Winkleblack] I also want to acknowledge our community supporters, the University of Iowa international programs and the University of Iowa honor's program, as well as the Stanley UI foundation support organization, and our financial sponsors Dave and Diane Martin, as well as Burns Weston. Our work is really also made possible by the financial contributions of these sponsors, so thank you to them. The format today will be the usual one, our speaker will be introduced, and following his presentation at about 1 pm we will have a 15 minute question and answer period, and you'll be able to write questions throughout the program as you think of them and submit those for us to ask the speaker. I will now turn it over to Chris Merrill, and because Chris Merrill is a repeat person here in this organization at this podium, I don't feel I need to introduce him other than to say that he's of course the head of the International Writers Program writing program, and he's also just a dear friend to the ICFRC, so we welcome Chris to the podium. - [Christopher Merrill] Thank you, I thought I would give you just a head up on the fifth question on your trivia, the minimum requirement to be in the IWP, it's A is be able to do a handstand for a minute. That applies to the director, as well. Some years ago, the Tricycle Theater in London commissioned a dozen playwrights to write short dramas about Afghanistan for the Great Game, a 12 hour long extravaganza on the history of British, Russian, and American military campaigns in one of the most beautiful countries on the earth. What the playwrights discovered, working independently of one another, was in the words of David Edgar, quote, 'essential coherent theme that Western interventions' 'in Afghanistan have almost always produced the' 'opposite effect from that which was intended', close quote. His Black Tulips thus traces the Soviet debacle back to its idealistic origins, when a commanding officer asks, what happens if we fail? The same question that American policy makers are asking more than two decades later. The success of the Great Game, the phrase popularized by Rudyard Kipling in his 1901 novel Kim, inspired American military leaders to host a performance at the Pentagon, while General Sir David Richards, chief of the general staff of the British ministry of defense, sent his officers to watch performances at the Tricycle Theater, suggesting, quote, 'that it is crucial that all of us' 'who work out there or have responsibility in any way' 'for our nation's policy in this region of the world' 'have a more nuanced understanding of the' 'historical background that got us to this point'. The same holds for every American, for after 12 years of fighting in Afghanistan, at an enormous expenditure of blood and treasure, we all have a stake in the stabilization and reconstruction of this war-ravaged country. And so it is our good fortune today to hear from an Afghan member of the International Writing Program, Mujib Mehrdad, who will speak on the subject of right friends, wrong enemies. Mr. Mehrdad is the author of three books of poems, Gladiators are Still Dying, which won the Afghan Civil Society's literature contest. The Fish Have Fled Our Veins, Audience, as well as a collection of essays titled The Rain Passed. He has translated the poems of Allen Ginsburg, Sylvia Plath, Langston Hughes, Mayakovski, Tagore, and others into Dari. A board member of the House of Authors, he teaches Persian literature at Al-Beroni University, and I noticed on his Facebook posting this morning, he wrote, the CEO is back. So he's also the CEO of the International Writing Program. And his participation here is made possible by a grant from the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the US Department of State. Please join me in welcoming Mujib Mehrdad to the Iowa City foreign relations council. - [Mujib Mehrdad] Hi. It's a pleasure being here, thank you very much. I want to say that now, it was one week that I was away from this city, and I missed this city. And I'm coming to this understanding that we are, after this, I want to like everyone of you. Of course, you have lots of things, you hear lots of things through media about Afghanistan. But do not trust media all the time. And do not trust the governmental sources, as well. Because most of the time, they are not saying what's really happening in Afghanistan. They want to be very optimist about the situation, they want to say everything is good here, and I'm here to say the reality. I'm not an optimist or a pessimist. I want to say what is the reality, I have tried to show a small part of the reality of the current situation in Afghanistan. And fortunately I was, all the week I was in San Francisco, I was busy with other programs, the only time I had was this night, I couldn't sleep all the night, and I came on 10 and 30 from the Chicago and if I had more time, I would be able make a better speech, but, okay. When the B-52 airplanes started striking the Taliban, the people of Afghanistan had two kinds of reaction regarding this issue. Taliban supporters and followers were upset, and recognized this action as an invasion of an independent country. But the other group of people were choosing between Osama bin Laden and George Bush. Between Pakistan, who was supporting the most horrible armed group on the planet, and the United State of America, whose aim at that time was to bring down the Taliban regime and to begin the democratization of Afghanistan. Because, I will say later that why in this 10 years something's changed. That the slogan at the beginning was democratization of Afghanistan, the war against terror, but later I will say how these things changed and infect us. When the US infantry and convoy entered the Kabul streets in 2001, Kabul residents were shaking hand with them and welcomed them as their savior. Residents were throwing flowers at the allied forces, and cheeks were wet with tears. Afghan soldiers were fighting to bring down the, it is like not Afghan soldiers, it's like the Northern Alliance on that time because on that time there was North and South. The Taliban mostly came from the South, and the North, Central and the West Afghanistan were fighting with them. And of course, some people from the South were fighting against Taliban. Afghan soldiers were fighting to bring down the Taliban government along with US soldiers, it was like a dream that comes true. The people of Afghanistan at the time prayed for US cooperation over cooperation with any other country. And this is still true. Karzai last year called on our national assembly to vote against the security pact with the US, but the people who were gathered in the assembly, the absolute majority of them voted for signing the military pact with the US. They were people from all parts of country from all classes. As you see, that the Karzai policy against US gradually changed from a friend to an enemy. All his policy were against our national interests, and all, the majority of our people were opposite with what Karzai was saying about US, and especially his insist to not sign the security pact with the US government. On that assembly, actually, it was made by Karzai to vote against this, but all the people of Afghanistan, even they were coming from the South, from the most fanatic places in Afghanistan. But they support this agreement with US government. This decade was a decade of war for America because they had their troops on the ground, but this decade was a decade of peace for Afghanistan, a decade of rehabilitation and human rights, a decade of free media and significant social changes. According to the reports in more than one decade along with 2,200 American soldier, 30 thousand afghans including military forces and common people lost their lives. You lost 2,200 soldiers, but we lost more than 13 thousand soldiers, and other people who are innocent, that of them become 30 thousand. But what was the result of all these sacrifices? As you know, before 2001 there was not even one woman in the government. They were prohibited from going to school. They couldn't even appear in the public without member of family, and they endured the worst kinds of violence. But now our national development strategy emphasize on gender, and it is considered an important issue in the security sector and governing, and in social development. Almost eight million students now go to school in Afghanistan, and more than 40% of them are girls. According to the statistics from the ministry of women affairs, 22% of government employees are women. In the first presidential election in 2004, there was a woman nominated for presidential election, and 41.5% of women registered their names to vote. Women won 29% of the presidential council seats in the first round of voting. In the second presidential election, there were two women nominated for the presidential post, and the second parliamentary election 69 women came to the parliament, which is like, something like 25% of our parliament members. In the last presidential election, women turnout was more important than before. They could vote, even some unsecure areas. According to the statistics from the ministry of women affairs, 35% of the people who registered their names to vote were women. Women now hold more than 40% of the legislative power. I can remember I was working for TV there during the election. That we had warnings from Taliban that people of Afghanistan do not go close to the voting centers. If you go there, then you are not more a civilian, you are a target for us. Despite that, the women went, even in the very unsecure area, and they voted. And I think the election was the greatest achievement against Taliban, because they do everything. They did everything to destroy, to disrupt the election. But the people stand against them, and they went, and they vote, but unfortunately, that great event changed to a disaster by some specific groups in the government. And they made a very bad fraud, and they made us very unhappy. So these are the things that we think we should pay more sacrifice to keep, and not let the Taliban return back again. But of course without US support it would be hard work achieve such important aims. These were achievements, but let's say something about the failures, too. All the US donations to Afghanistan have totaled 104 billion dollars, also they have at times been spending 200 million dollars per day to sustain their own presence on the ground. Despite these expenditures, US aims have not been realized. The Taliban are still there. Some analysts says that one reason for falling short in the US war in Afghanistan was not clarifying the definition of terrorism. They changed the title of the war from a war against terror to a war against insurgency. If it's a war against insurgency, then it's a civil war, not an ideological war, and the Taliban are not more terrorists. It was a big defeat for our national and police army, and it supported Karzai too much. It supported the Karzai position, because Taliban are for us, there is no difference between Taliban and Daesh, we are not facing Daesh or Taliban, we are facing international terrorism. Who are waiting for the places with weak government. And they will be there if there is not, if there is not government, if there is insurgency, you will see, they will come from Iraq and they will be in Afghanistan again. But when the US government changed this war against terror to war against insurgency, it supported the Taliban side. So if they are not terrorists, so what are they? Why they are fighting for? And it put us in a very hard position. It was why the Karzai started calling Taliban brothers. Every day they are killing our people, our innocent people in the streets, childrens, women, men. They are attacking religious places like Masjids. Still Karzai is insisting that they are our brothers, oh no, they are not doing this, these are other countries are doing these things. And every year they are releasing thousand, thousand, thousand Taliban from the prisons. The recent attack, it was two days ago, that was killed more than 10 soldiers, our soldiers, was led by a ex-prisoner, his name was Maluwi Zakar. Maluwi Zakar was in prison, according Karzai's decree released with thousand others, with hundreds others. And you see they do not go to their houses. They go to the, again, they join Taliban and they come and start fighting against, and it is repeating. So, because the Karzai says okay, they are not terrorist, they are upset brothers, they want to have share on the government, so let's start negotiation. It's 10 years we are, we opened the door of negotiation, but no one is coming. Extremism is still in our region, we have to pay attention to the financial sources of terrorism in the region. Also, Pakistan is not honest with the US in Afghanistan. On one hand Pakistan is a US ally in the war against terror. On the other hand Pakistan is every day training terrorists and sending them to Afghanistan to kill American and Afghan soldiers. America should bring pressure on Pakistan, because the Taliban are nothing without support of Pakistan's intelligence service. It is why peace negotiations have been meaningless and useless so far. And if the US does not bring pressure on Pakistan to annihilate its Taliban bases on that country, it will empower the conspiracy theory that America does not want to solve the terrorism problem in the region. The US most address to the source of the problem. There have also been problems with the international angels who have dispersed the majority of the money donated to Afghanistan. The international angels have also suffered some corruption, most of the donations have been spent in unstable areas. All the donations have came to Afghanistan, 80% of them, these monies has been spent by the international angels, 80% of this huge money. Only 20% of that, 80 to 75. Only 20% of this money has been spent by our government. And 12% is like something called... Conditional, conditional budget. It means from this 20%, 12% is still you have to negotiate with the international angels in which programs we should spend. Only 8% was spent by the government. Of course, Afghanistan government was the most corrupted government in the world, we were having, we were in the three most corrupted countries. But, international angels who are spending 80% of these donations were corrupt, too. I can remember that they didn't go to our financial... Ministry. They didn't go, they want to avoid going there to say, how is our programs and how we spent this amount of money. It means our government is, of course, corrupted, but the international angels are corrupted, too. We don't say don't help the unstable, and another thing that we are upset is a kind of classification of donations. We don't say, don't help the unstable areas, but you should not encourage insurgency by giving privilege for creating insecurity. Insecurity should not be a source of privilege for the people of the South. And the people of north and central Afghanistan should not punished because there is not an insurgence in their areas. People of north and central Afghanistan, and west, who have been natural US allies in the war against terror are upset. They think that the international community supported Ashraf Ghani in the last election, despite all evidence that fraud was engineered by his team and his followers, and the election commission. This was the most important, you know... We think, I'm coming from the north of Afghanistan, from a Tajik background, and we are upset. We are upset. Because we have been until 10 years, we have been with you, we have been fighting with your soldiers. Giving sacrifice against terrorism. Our provinces are the most secure provinces. But most of the donations goes to the south. They build school, and tomorrow, the Taliban burn the schools. They make streets and they explode the streets, the bridges. We are not saying that do not help the south. Of course, the south problem is the problem of literacity, or It means the low knowledge and ignorance. We have to help them in the south, we have to develop those areas. They have to study, their children have to study. But we have not to give, we have not to forget about other parts, because there is safe, there is not insurgency, okay, stop supporting them. And also in the recent election, in the recent election the nominee of the north, center and west and some part of the south, he was the winner of the election, everybody knew this. But with engineered fraud, they buried the democracy. Taliban cut our people's finger during the voting day. The women participated despite all warnings from the Taliban side. But at the end, a triangle that one side was in the presidential palace, one side was in election commission, and one side was in Dr. Ghani's campaign team. According to the audio tapes that were distributed and displayed and internationally here today. That the executive director of election commission was engineering the votes. Despite all this, now Ashraf Ghani is the president. What should we think about this? The people, our people are very upset. If you are supporting democracy, you have to support the vote of those people that their fingers cutted on that day. Thousand, millions of peoples. Millions of people went despite warnings. A decentralized political system is the only option to prevent political crises and controversies in the future. Afghanistan in terms of ethnicity and languages is a diverse country, the presidential system of power has been a disaster so far. This system changed Karzai into a dictator who was always against our democratic organizations and international allies. This presidential system gave the Karzai like all the powers that a dictator have. Because he start making a kind of parallel power system. For example, we had parliament. This pact, this pact that we were going to sign with US government, it should go to the parliament, and the parliament should decide about that. Karzai made another organization parallel to the parliament called loya jirga, or so-called national assembly to do everything he want, to impose his own policy. It is why he destroy all organizations, our parliament was something useless because there was something made by Karzai, that national assembly or loya jirga, who are taking the most decisions. For example, about to peace with Taliban, about to signing with the US. He did this in this decade. To make other organizations inside the democratic organizations, like parliaments, like provincial councils. And he was leading this, and it was giving him power. The only thing we need is stability. Help us gradually, we will get rid of our financial dependency, and we will stand on our own feet, and we will not let Taliban make Afghanistan a safe haven again. Thank you so much. - [Christopher Merrill] We have a couple of questions about Abdullah Abdullah. One asking why did he join in the unity government, and what is his position in this new government? Will he have any real power, and if not, what are the risks of a new outbreak of civil war? Many questions about Abdullah. - [Mujib Mehrdad] Yeah. Thank you. Abdullah Abdullah position is called executive director. It is according to their protocol, which was signed in front of John Kerry and Jan Kubic, the secretary of the United Nations in Afghanistan. It was just to divide 50% of the power. It means 50% Abdullah, 50% Dr. Ghani. They have to be in the power, it means they divided the cabinet, they will divide the... Governors and other important posts. And Abdullah Abdullah will lead the weekly session cabinet gatherings, he will be. And Ghani, Dr. Ghani will lead the monthly gathering of the cabinets. Another important thing was to changing the political system from presidential to parliamentary. And this executive position is something like prime minister, but we have to change our constitution. And it was also added in that protocol that after two years, we will call the national assembly, or loya jirga, for changing the constitution to the parliamentary system, and then Abdullah will be automatically prime minister. Of course, he is in a very important position, he has half of the power in Afghanistan. But to tell you the truth, he was the winner, the real winner with absolute majority. He was like, he had at the first round, his distance with Dr. Ghani was more than 10%. In the second round, most of the bigger nominees also joined Dr. Abdullah like, others like Sayyaf... Other powerful nominees. And we expected that he will win the 70% of the votes. But it was a disaster then happen in the second round, yes. - [Christopher Merrill] Following up on that, a two-part question. Can they work together for all Afghans, and the questioner says, can Abdullah's history as a warlord, has Abdullah's history as a warlord and mass murderer been forgiven? - [Mujib Mehrdad] I don't know why the people are calling Abdullah or his friends a warlord. The only warlords right now in Afghanistan are Taliban. It is 10 years that Abdullah and his friends, working according to the law. They're obeying the constitution. Dr. Ghani has been defender of Taliban in 10 years. When he went to Kandahar in one of his campaign he said, my honor is, it was not Karzai that released the Taliban, it was my work, and it is a honor so. I don't know what does warlord means, warlord means a person has rifle and he's fighting. But nowadays no one has rifle. Abdullah doesn't have a rifle in his hand. To join this government was to prevent a civil war that was hundred percent possible. We were going toward a division of Afghanistan on the base of north and south. But of course, by your efforts, by your government, John Kerry and Jan Kubic and international society, they had a very important role, we pray for this, than civil war, of course. It was very good and the people are now happy, despite all the things happen in the election. - [Christopher Merrill] Why should we expect that the corruption in the government will lessen under the new president, will there be less corruption in the new government? - [Mujib Mehrdad] We will see the cabinet, and we will see if Dr. Ghani, Dr. Ghani is an educated man. He has been working for the... Very important organizations, international organizations. We hope that he... Deal with the corruption very... Severely. We are, nowadays he's... He wanted to follow the... There was a controversy on Kabul Bank, there was a bank that billion dollars of people was spended by some people in that bank. And that bank failed, and during the Karzai presidency, no one opened that file. And now Dr. Ghani has opened it. And they are following this thing, this issue. I hope it is a good beginning for the government. Of course... We think that it will be very hard to be this government have one voice, but okay. We are hopeful toward a coordination of both team in this national united government. - [Christopher Merrill] Please comment on the results of the training of Afghan military troops by American advisors. - [Mujib Mehrdad] This is one of the good things that, now our national army and police, they are fighting against Taliban bravely. As you see the Daesh in Iraq could capture the cities like, magically. But in Afghanistan, Taliban cannot do that. In every 20 hour, we have 50 casualties in Afghanistan, in every 20 hours. Including our national army, our national police, and our common people. But we are okay, we say we have to sacrifice for this peace we have, for the values that we have achieved in this decade. And your support has been very, very important. Nowadays they are training our soldiers the new tactics of military tactics. Of course something happens sometimes, it happens that some of the soldiers shoot on American trainers and on Afghan soldiers, it's not only American trainers. But of course it is very less, and this new rule of training especially after the new government signed the agreement, it will continue, it was pledged that our role will be, we will train your soldiers and you will do the war by yourselves, and we are very happy. It's since last year, all the war is on our shoulder and we can do it. We are fighting against Taliban, Taliban doesn't have a place, doesn't have a district, doesn't have a province. They are doing some guerrilla attacks and they're focused on the roadside bombs, on suicide attacks. You cannot say that that area belongs to the Taliban, we didn't let them. And if this effort continues, and if you bring pressure over Pakistan, Taliban is not something... We can solve it. But by bringing pressure on Pakistan. - [Christopher Merrill] I'm going to put two questions together here, the first is, is there sympathy and support for Daesh, for ISIL in Afghanistan, and the other part of it would be, does Saudi oil money finance things in Afghanistan and in Pakistan. - [Mujib Mehrdad] Of course Taliban are officially, they are supporting Daesh on their Twitters, on their Facebooks, they are very active now. They are against democracy but they are using the technology more than has. They are very active in the Facebook, they are very active in the Twitter. Of course they are supporting Daesh, but the majority of the people of Afghanistan, they are against Talibanism. Even in the south. South people are tired of this war. Every day their children are killing in the war. They are between Taliban, US and Afghan armies. So they are tired of this situation, and the cause is Taliban. And the other question was? - [Christopher Merrill] Does Saudi Money -- - [Mujib Mehrdad] Yeah. Of course, without this financial support, Taliban cannot survive for one week, they cannot fight for one week without these financial supports. It is why we are emphasizing on the external side of the war against terror, on the regional side. For example, we know that thousands of religious schools are active between the borders between Afghanistan and Pakistan. And their money comes to thousand, Pakistan cannot support those thousand. For example, there are 70 thousand madrasas, religious schools. Pakistan cannot feed them, those students. There are monies coming from many countries. And also there are camps, military camps for Taliban. There is another question for us that, in this 10 years, all the Pakistani Taliban leaders have been targeted by drones. But Afghani Taliban leaders not, they're still alive, they are in the Quetta of Pakistan. Everybody know, our intelligence service knows, everything happening in the Pakistan. We want from the government of United State that keep these drone strikes, they have been very important in the war against terror. All the Taliban Pakistani leaders have been killed by this. Like Hakimullah Mehsud and Shaheen and others. And we hope that those bombs goes to all the Taliban leaders, Afghani Taliban leaders, too. - [Christopher Merrill] What do you recommend would be the best US policy to help the Afghan people? - [Mujib Mehrdad] As I said, your soldiers spending 200 million per day. 200 million dollars. If you support our national army, too occupied with the new equipments, and especially we don't have like air forces, our air force is like, we don't have it. At the beginning, okay, it has a logic that US army was there, they said you don't need an air forces. Because okay, we are here, we have bases, we have airplanes. But after their role changed to a training role, we need an air force. In this field, they can support us, it will be very helpful in the war against terror. And also this training which is going on on our national and police army, it has been very important. We want this to keep continuing, and also you have to conditionalize all of your support to the government. Because otherwise you will have another Karzai. You have to put conditions that we will support you, but, you have to support freedom of speech, you have to support women's right, and you have to conditionalize these supports. Otherwise the government will... Go toward another way. - [Christopher Merrill] Your speech with talking about the gains that women have made in Afghan society. What kinds of resistance have women met in attempting to find equality, and have the women in Afghanistan made proportional gains to gains made in Arab countries in the wake of the Arab uprising? - [Mujib Mehrdad] In Afghanistan, women are very active. They are the first person who raised their voices against everything. They have their movement, they are leading most of Afghan angels, most of several society angels. And for example, there is a law, four years ago there was a law against women enter into the parliament... That was saying that the women should obey the men. And the women start moving and raising their voices, and that law fortunately didn't pass from the parliament. It was because of their resistance. And they are having many, many good results. The result of their movements, their protests, they do protests, every week they are on the streets in Kabul, you can see them. And they are on the power, they are on the cabinet, they are on the parliament, they are on the provincial councils. They are very, they have been very, for example, nowadays if there is one violence against women, there is a kind of big resistance. And it's the result of the women's activities in this one decade, that we are very protective, we are more protective about our women. We are paying attention to prohibit more violence in every corner of Afghanistan. There are shelter houses that, for example, when a girl, there is violence in the family, he will leave the family and he will come to the shelter. And there will be support for her. For example, mostly for the marriages that are against the girl's desire. Most of the time they flee and they come to the shelters. It has been a good decade for women, of course. - [Christopher Merrill] A question about the, do the tribal units prevent the possibility of an effective, central government? I guess the question is really between what has been elected and what different tribes might want to have. Could you talk about that relationship? - [Mujib Mehrdad] To tell you the truth Afghanistan is not a tribal country. One part of Afghanistan is tribal, they have their tribal laws and institutions that is most important, more than important than our constitution. But in other side, like in the north, in the central Afghanistan, we are not tribal areas, we don't have any tribal rules there. You know in Afghanistan, unfortunately there is a, the civil war was based on ethnicity and language. And we are not so much distinct from that period. We just two decades ago we had a very horrible civil war. And now, every ethnicity trying to vote for that kind of system, political system that gave them power and privilege. For example, Karzai in this decade was on the power, and he is from the south, he's a Pashtun. And the people of the south were supporting the presidential system, because it was giving the Karzai the most power. But the only way is to go toward parliamentary system. Because to have a prime minister from Tajiks or from Pashtuns, one should be president, one should be prime minister. Otherwise they will not accept one president. If a Tajik is a president, the Pashtuns are upset. If a Pashtun is president, the Tajiks are so. We have to divide, find a way to divide the power to everybody should feel safe. To not... - [Christopher Merrill] Mujib, you've spoken so eloquently today about the political conditions and the life in Afghanistan, but I'm reminded that you're here first and foremost as a poet and a writer, and I thought that by way of closing, maybe we could ask you to recite a poem or two in your language, or in translation if we have it. So we have that in the air. - [Mujib Mehrdad] Thank you very much. In Afghanistan, everybody's a politician. Everybody. Doctors, engineers, nurse, poets. So it is, why, because it's a backwarded country and everybody can survive to politics. I don't know if I have something. I think I don't have anything. with myself, I didn't expect to read anything from poetry. But I will end my speech in this way that all you have done in Afghanistan, we are very grateful. Millions of people in Afghanistan are very grateful from all your supports. Your soldiers, your sons are fighting there to make a country more peaceful and a good place for the women and children to live. And we are very grateful, we will not forget it in one hand, and in the other, it's a kind of fight for yourself. Because we have not to give safe haven for terrorists. And security is not a national issue, it's an international issue. Of course you have to follow your enemies out of your country, because they will come. They will come as they came on the 9/11. So it has been very important, your supports have been very important for the region, for the country. In these decades, for example, the war in Kashmir is not any more a war. Because all the fighters in Kashmir were going from Afghanistan. In Chechnya, there is not more a war, it means, that place was a very important place for all the region. And the trainers, all the people who attacked, US two big buildings were came from Pakistan. They will come again if we do not, if we do not prevent them from enlarging that ideology, that horrible ideology. And your support has been very important in decreasing that threat in Afghanistan and international society. Once more, thank you very much for all you have done for our country, thank you so much. - [Thais Winkleblack] Thank you again to all of you, and of course thank you to Mujib Mehrdad for his thoughts and his presentation, right friends, wrong enemies. Thanks again to our sponsors, University of Iowa international programs, the University of Iowa's honors program, the Stanley UI Foundation support organization, Burns Weston, Dave and Diane Martin, and, of course, thank you to Chris Merrill and the International Writing Program for always bringing such amazing people here to Iowa City to become Iowans with us. You will be just so shocked to receive this coveted mug as a thank you. - [Mujib Mehrdad] Thank you very much. - [Thais Winkleblack] We do appreciate your time and your sharing your time and your talent with us. One last thing before we adjourn, if you love coming to these programs, and you just have faith that there will continue to be good programs, which I believe there will be, you should consider a prepaid lunch card, which I strongly endorse and have found quite useful, and you can see someone in the back about that. But thanks again, we'll see you very soon, and we are adjourned. - [Narrator] You're watching city channel four, on TV, online, on demand, on Facebook, and now on the go on your mobile device.