| Date | Time | Location |
|---|---|---|
| Thursday, February 24, 2022 | 12:00PM - 1:30PM | Online Event, Online Event |
Afghanistan is complex, diverse, and changing. In ‘Afghan Voices’ we invite Afghans from a variety of perspectives to reflect on the past twenty years—from the US invasion in 2001 to the Taliban takeover in 2021. In doing so, they link their own personal stories to questions about Afghanistan’s past and future.
Mr. Salahuddin Burhanzoi is a retired civil servant with over 40 years of experience in different capacities but mostly as a high school teacher in Afghanistan. Born in 1946, Mr. Burhanzoi has witnessed and experienced several socio-political developments in Afghanistan and thus he will be speaking to our audience regarding the political upheavals in Afghanistan, especially the recent ones, from a lifetime of experience as a civil servant and someone who has witnessed regime change in Afghanistan more than seven times.
Mr. Burhanzoi completed his school and university during the monarchical rule of Zahir Shah. He was a leftist activist and a member the Khalq Faction of the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) when Daoud Khan overthrew the monarchy and instituted the Republic of Afghanistan in 1973. After the PDPA overthrew Daoud Khan in a coup in 1978, he had to flee to Kabul City from his hometown of Khanabad in Kunduz. Mr. Burhanzoi and his family became part of the Internally Displaced People when the Mujahideen took over Kabul City in 1992, and eventually migrated to Peshawar, Pakistan, in 1996 when the Taliban captured Kabul City. After the Taliban were overthrown in 2001, they returned to Kabul where Mr. Burhanzoi resumed his job as a schoolteacher under the new budding Republic propped up by the US and its allies. In year 2015, he retired from public service and stayed in Kabul City until the Taliban captured the city, for a second time, in August of 2021. He bid Kabul farewell on 18th of August when he boarded a C-17 military plane to eventually arrive in Canada on 27th of August to three of his children who live here. Presently, he is attending English Language classes and “enjoying” his first Canadian winter.
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