Last night found the small auditorium of Rocky 1 bursting at the seams with students, faculty, and community members sitting and standing in every free patch of space the room had to offer.
What was the attraction? Farzana Razmovar, an Afghan woman refugee who received an advanced degree in Political Law in pre-Taliban Afghanistan, gave the group an inside look at the reality of her native country. Throughout the event, Razmovar remained astonishingly frank and willing to address the most difficult topics in detail -- including her flight from Taliban controlled Afghanistan in 1998.
Razmovar, who was born in Kabul and moved around between there and Northern Afghanistan for much of her adult life, said the pre-Taliban Afghanistan was not much different from the United States.
"Before the Taliban everybody go to school and the jobs like Americans. If you want to put on a short scarf it's fine. If you want to put on pants, its fine."
Both she and her husband were well educated and held respectable careers in pre-Taliban Afghanistan. In fact, only 10 years ago, 70 percent of teachers and 40 percent of doctors were women, Razmovar pointed out.
Reminiscing her life in her native country, Razmovar said, "Women was general, co-pilot, engineer, professor ..." Afghanistan also had both radio and television stations, and the people " ... had a very good culture. Everybody loves music and dance."
However, according to Razmovar, once the Taliban came to power, everything changed. The Taliban government, which is rapidly losing control of Afghanistan, routinely searched people's houses.
"If they have CD, or camera or TV, they put people in jail and ask for money." Under the Taliban regime, women were not allowed to attend school and their appearance was strictly regulated.
"Before the Taliban, women had independent life like man does. Nobody ask women, 'Where you going? What you wearing?'" Razmovar pointed out that even men had to adhere to strict dress guidelines.
"A man must have a long beard. If you have a shorter one, they will take you to jail and hurt you."
Although Razmovar is largely in support of the Northern Alliance, she said she recognizes that allowing them to take control of the country will not solve all of Afghanistan's problems.
Approximately 80 percent of the Afghan population is uneducated, and the country's 25 million people are divided among a laundry list of different political parties and religious sects.
As Razmovar pointed out, it will be no easy task to unite a country that has lived so long under divided and unstable rule.
"It isn't easy to start a new government in Afghanistan. Everybody wants to be power and government and they fight each other and they hate each other."
Despite the uncertainty of Afghanistan's political future, Razmovar expressed support for the military actions of the United States.
"There is no choice. This is the only way to get to the Taliban. This is good. I am happy."
An audience member asked Razmovar to recount her escape from Afghanistan in 1998.
Her voice faltered as she spoke of hiding in her husband's friends house "like a prisoner" and then fleeing to her mother's house only to discover that it had long since been taken over.
If the United States is successful in its efforts to remove the Taliban from Afghanistan, will she ever go back?
"If the Taliban is gone, I don't have anything to go back." She said with an edge to her otherwise soft feminine voice. "They kill[ed] my husband. I don't want to go back."
