Afghanistan is a hot issue in Second Life, attracting great interest, controversy and debates about its future. This week I attended 4 lively Afghanistan discussions in Second Life (SL), attracting dozens of people... and heard from numerous SL Citizens with sympathy or direct connections to the beleaguered country. There are 12 sites in SL with at least some Afghan themes, 5  Afghan-related SL groups, and I found over 46 SL people mentioning Afghan in their profiles, many of whom are in Afghanistan today.

In picture 1, I visited the World Peace Flag Garden  and met owner Edd Thor, who told me: "We are both humans who speak for peace. It is never popular, but in the end, we are far happier... By the way.... I'm a... professor in real life. One of the issues I keep carrying on about is how much of today's global conflict is to secure the rights of women." I appreciate Edd's insights and generosity, his World Peace Flag Garden gives away flags and freebies from 100s of countries.
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Odaesan/88/160/42

Afghan activities in SL attracted the interest of other professors, including Professor ToBe Destiny, who discussed examples of how SL-based research can lead to real-world (RL) proposals such as algae based oil production. Susan Aldrin is another educator in SL who suggested that distance education (Internet or telecommunications based) could provide many advantages in Afghanistan. Susan is a member of the Science Research Institute of Afghanistan (SRIA), an SL group (Picture 2-4). SRIA is affiliated with a number of real-world Afghan projects such as the Books With Wings, which sends medical textbooks to colleges in Afghan (Picture 4). Leandra Kohnke of SRIA offered to provide advice and support through her many connections in Afghanistan, regarding our Afghan initiatives in SL. SRIA is at http://slurl.com/secondlife/Silver%20Bog/14/56/24

For his weekly SL political debate, Amandeep Timeless featured the Afghanistan question, what is the continuing rationale for Western military presence? At the debate, Jeffrey Essex took the position that continued military presence is necessary to deny Al Queda a refuge. I presented a different perspective: that the military paradigm of conflicts tied to territory is inappropriate for fighting Al Queda. Global extremist movements are becoming loose distributed collaborations, with high tech communications, and without the need to be tied to particular places, and that there are no Al Queda in Afghanistan, as General Abizaid and others have stated in testimony. I offered this article from War in Context as corroboration. http://tiny.cc/6woI8
Amadeep's discussions are 7:30pm SL time every Friday at: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Otherwhen/4/3/21

Three other 3 Afghanistan meetings in SL, focused on planning educational programs for a better future. The idea comes from Afghani politician Malalai Joya, who is very outspoken regarding the need for Western support to help educate her countrymen. In an article on memri.org, Malalai stated: "'We need genuine help, not an occupation force. We would like them to help us in the fields of education and health... support for liberal democrats in our country rather than warlords, and guaranteeing education for the Afghan people so that they can manage their own affairs." Our thoughts were also influenced by Sonali Kolhatkar of AfghanWomensMission.org as she expresses perspectives on Afghanistan in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqBogn6ikG8&feature=player_embedded#t=80

More information about Malalai Joya and her upcoming book at: http://www.malalaijoya.com/

Interestingly, Texas is nearly the same size and population as Afghanistan. The Texas Education Authority, their public school system, is funded for about US $33 Billion per year, a useful benchmark for an RL program of this scope.

Many interesting points were raised at the Afghan discusssions, a few are included here. Apologies to all those who contributed ideas and were not mentioned here.

Karen Carstensz said "That is what needs to happen, they have to figure out for themselves that they want this,, it really can't be 'imposed' on them.. So, something could really 'happen' from this."

LoCE99C8 Morpork and Ernest Newman both strongly supported the concept of microloans as part of the aide program.

Michele Mrigesh said, " Norman Solomon was just in Afghanistan... http://www.normansolomon.com/

" She reacted to another persons question about Afghan, has much been reconstructed?... "not from what I've heard...Norman Solomon spoke about the graft and corruption yesterday on CPAN here in the US."

Nolligan Nino suggested, "I think it would be more appropriate to look at afghan history in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and how the peace followed after that... how was peace achieved last time and why didn't it last..."

Horia Naxos suggested "with 30 billion dollars/euros , I'd start building simple facilities in Uzbekistan and bring students over there to get them safe from Taliban attacks. otherwise their lives would be endangered." This proposal was discussed and generally opposed by most in attendance because of historical parallels in the treatment of Native American school children.

However, the concept of bringing college age students to Western schools was supported, beginning with this interesting interchange:

toBe Destiny: the concept of bringing kids out of the country to other countries for education is being developed as a form of long term soft power
Eupalinos Ugajin: hello... was just reading this : The way he's headed on Afghanistan, Barack Obama is threatened with a quagmire that could bog down his presidency. here : http://spedr.com/4qvy1
any1 Gynoid: Western administered schools... could be let's say... part of a bigger Afghan educational system
toBe Destiny: i agree any1
Horia Naxos: indeed
any1 Gynoid: soft power.. great idea!
Horia Naxos: yep

These Afghan discussions were proposing visionary solutions for the country, setting a lot of diplomatic, logistic, and political issues aside temporarily. The emerging solution includes a visionary concept for primary and secondary educational institutions, combined schools and sustainable farms that would be replicated throughout Afghanistan, and integrated with the Afghan public school system, overseen by Western universities, with funding from foreign aid and philanthropy (Picture 6). As in other South East Asian countries, students would compete for enrollments. With the university connection, graduates would be assured of matriculation to Western schools for college or graduate degree programs, with public service commitments in Afghanistan upon graduation.

Parts of the educational vision for Afghan are being built in SL. Picture 7 is a photograph of a new SL building under construction, being built by Brena Benoir and Iam Kazyanenko. It is intended to be part of an exhibition during November 2009 to help raise aweness of Afghan issues and the release of Malalai Joya's first book:  "A Woman Among Warlords." The exhibit will be hosted at Peace Park in SL and sponsored by Desmond Susanti. Peace Park is at: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Berard/16/11/22

I wanted to get a larger perspective and find out how people in the SL Islamic community felt about Afghan issues. I talked with my famous artist friend Lona Shan, whom I met through the Twilight's Peace group and galleries in SL. Lona offered her immediate support and advice to our SL initiative. In Picture 5, I traveled to the Virtual Hajj in SL, there I met Noorah Haalan and several others. We had a pleasant discussion sitting at the base of the SL Kaba that touched on the last day of Ramadan, Afghanistan, teaching, and many other topics. Noolah teaches classes about the religion of Islam at "Ummah of Noor" at:http://slurl.com/secondlife/Oases/214/105/23

-- Any Gynoid reporting for CNN iReports. Please contact any1gynoid (at) gmail.com with story leads.