 Good evening and a very warm welcome to the British Library. To all of you who are here in San Pancras and to our listeners and viewers online, a very warm welcome to all of you. I am Luisa Elena Mengoni, Head of the Asian and African Collections here at the British Library. And I am delighted to introduce this event this evening and welcome our two guests, Shama Hamid Rais and David Loin, who will be in conversation this evening for around 45 minutes. And then there will be opportunities to ask questions from the audience, as well as if you're interested to send your questions on the chat online. As a way of introduction, I would say Shama Hamid Rais is from Afghanistan, he opened his bookshop in 1974 in Kabul. And the bookshop, thanks for the wide range of books available, has become a sort of cultural venue and really part of the intellectual life in Kabul for many years. It has been open for almost five decades. It is still open and obviously it has gone through quite a number of changes, social and political changes in the country. And I understand there is also an online platform that still is very active and where you can purchase books. David Loin is a journalist and author and also a foreign correspondent for the BBC. And his third book, The Long War, the Inside Story of American Afghanistan since 1911, was published in 2021 and will be available also for purchase, if you like. As well as Shama Hamid Rais book will be available for audiences here. Before we start this conversation I thought it would be interesting for you to know that the British Library has a vast and diverse collection from and related to Afghanistan that is available through our reading rooms. A vast number of archival resources are part of the East India Company and the India Office records that covered the period from the 17th to the 20th century. From the very first Anglo-Afghan relationship dated to the 70th century to the administration of the British delegation in Kabul in the mid-20th century. So it's quite a long history. And these are complemented by private papers, by individuals, administrators, officials, doctors, et cetera, who were posted in Afghanistan or who were traveling across the country. In addition to the records we also have the India Office Library that has a manuscript in Persian, in Pashto, and with some rare and unique editions that are also a complement to the collection that originally was held at the British Museum Library and then it came to the British Library in 1973. In addition to archives and manuscripts, we also have a collection of prints, photographs, and drawings again related to Afghanistan. And there are a number of sketches, drawings, and photographs that were made over a number of years again by individuals who were posted in Afghanistan or traveling across the country. And all these resources are, if you are interested, can be checked online through our collection guides but also, of course, through the reading rooms. So if you are not a member and a reader of the British Library, it is a good occasion to start. So without any further ado, I will now hand over to our two guests. And please join me in welcoming them to this evening's event. Thank you very much. Well, thank you very much, Louisa. And Louisa and her wonderful staff gave Shah and I a tour of some of the best of their manuscripts, including an early 16th century illustrated manuscript of the Babunama. And believe me, it's a wonderful collection. So thank you very much for that. And thank you for coming this evening. Many of you will know George Orwell's Ideal Pub, the description of George Orwell's Ideal Pub, The Moon Under Water, a place that didn't actually exist. I can describe to you a bookshop that is the ideal bookshop that is not a fantasy, not in my imagination because I've actually been there. And it's Char M books in Carville. It is the most extraordinary sort of Aladdin's cave of books about Afghanistan, about Persia, about South Asia. Going back, some of them going back, again, well back to periods covered here by the British Library. Upstairs in a secret sort of hidden compartment, there are first editions of books going back to the middle of the 19th century when the British explorers were going there, which are sold with char cells quite properly to British and American visitors. Who can manage to find them in his shop for a very large amount of money and good for him. And then through the shop, through this cavern of corridors, is this extraordinary collection of books, but including modern books in Persian and Pashto. And this is a man dedicated to the education of modern Afghanistan. I was in there once looking through his wonderful collection of books and found in the corridor a couple of men in turbines who were boxing up text books for schools in remote rural Helmand province in the south of the country, which had been ordered by these shops. And believe me, it's just a wonderful collection. On the walls, there are lots of editions of stamps published by the Soviets when they were there in the 1980s. There are reprinted posters, again, of the British period and of maps from an early time. And I defy anyone to go into that shop and tell me there's another book shop in the world with anything like the quality. But Charles now had to leave the country. Perhaps we could talk about your personal story and the refugee life in a minute. But why don't we start with how you're running your business now? Because you're managing remarkably from a refugee life to actually keep the book shop going. Thank you very much for your good words and user showing me and telling me about 150 title of books in Pashto. It was amazing for me because we have very few books on Pashto and patterns in the Pashto language is the only language the British has have been written, the grammar of this language. So it was amazing for me when I saw a few titles there. And I started my business in 1974 when I was graduated from Kabul University as a civil engineer. And my family had construction companies and they worked as a construction dealers. And they were very happy that I am educated as a civil engineer and they are the contractors and working as a construction dealers. So a combination of engineers from themselves and they will get more money. At first day, I was introduced as engineer in Ministry of Power and Electricity. They told me your salary will be 2,750 Afghanis. And 500 extra because you have a master's degree in engineering because we read five years, not four years as a license graduate. So I thought with myself at that time it was around $60 per month. I thought it's too little money for me. And my family, my uncles, they said an engineer doesn't need any salary because every item in the company is yours. You have steel, you have wood, you have gravel, you have bricks, everything. I said no. The first paragraph in my textbook, introduction into engineering, there was written an engineer as a scientist and a scientist is not an engineer. So I am a scientist, I am a wise man, I am a wisdom, I am a man with wisdom. It's very hard to steal, to be thief of the state. So I left at the first day the engineering work and started thinking what to do to establish my career. So I decided after one year to open a bookshop. And during this one year, everyone came to my father and telling him that you're sorry your son is mad and lost his mental because he left such a profitable job as an engineer. And so sometimes they came to my father to give him his support for his sorrows and grief. So when I opened the bookshop, all my relatives became 100% sure that I am really a mad man. And the book business is very bad. Actually at that time, Afghans from the 1960s, just emerging as a modern country because new intellectual, very honest, very good trained Afghan students who studied in the United States in the 60s and also in European countries in India, in Japan, they came back to Afghanistan, very talented engineers, very talented diplomats, very talented historians. Afghanistan for a small country like Afghanistan, it was enough they have good intellectual around himself. But unfortunately during the Dawood regime, we introduced the first republic in Afghanistan. First years it was very good that people welcomed these new changes. Actually because it was extraordinary, very poor country, they introduced a republic regime for their people. And Dawood was also very talented to work very well. Unfortunately on illnesses in Afghanistan, the ethnic violence is very high. And the Pashtun tribe, they tried their domination around the whole country, they always talk about the majority. Actually it's not true because when we are a nation, the majority and minorities doesn't have a meaning in the republic. And the republic was declined at the last two years. He associated very important and patriotic Afghan intellectuals like Maywanwal, like many others, and imprisoned them. So those intellectuals who were educated, they flew back, started flying back to the United States. And so they remained as a professor. They became very old nowadays and there are a number of them, you know, they came and migrated to the United States and here in the United Kingdom, in the European countries, most of them back to the United States. And the intellectual market was very bad for bookshop. But I opened another type of bookstores. When I opened this bookstore, I visited the government bookshop. They had published a series of books about the history, about the culture, in a very low quality book, but it was very important books. So I went to the bookshops and asked them, do you have books on Afghanistan, like Snapping Dogs? Just everywhere I go and I sniff, I'm very surprised at myself. When I go in a bookshop, I understand that that corner, probably there is a book on Afghanistan, I go in there. They said, yes, we have a series of books, which was the, but title, you never sold a copy in five or six years. He showed me history of table shop running, history of Ahmad shop running and business. We had 500 copies, still have 490 copies. And 10 years we have only sold 10 days. I asked them if I buy all of them at cash. How much discount you will give me? They said we will give you 80% discount if you buy it. I purchased all books from the governmental bookshops and unearthed, like mines, the books from the back boxes they kept in their cellars. So I brought those books in my bookshop. Why did you think that if they hadn't been sold in their bookshops, they were going to be sold in yours? Because the bookstores one by one was closing every day. And they changed their bookshops, they were very good, famous bookstores. In the port of their bookshop they sold crockery, house kitchenware and some cameras and some radios. So in a sense you were the man who brought bookselling to Kabul in a modern sense. But just to go back to my first, how are you able to keep it going now in 2022? I mean that's a bit of a challenge, isn't it? Now I'm much experienced and I have modern facilities. My bookshop is at my pocket. In my mobile phone I can contact my bookstore every day. Every minute I contact them and we have good connection with our customers. And my sons in Canada, in Europe, my daughters, my sons in Europe, in Canada, they are supporting me, they are working. You're able to sell online I think as well. Yes, because we have rare books which is not available. During the coronavirus, approximately every day I published a new book, I reprinted a new book, which is not available every day. In two years I published 650 copies, titles of books, rare books. I reprinted, reproduced facsimile editions of original books which was available in Library of Congress. They donated a series of those books and I reprinted them because it's very hard for Afghans to travel to New York, to Washington, D.C., and to read those books. So it's really easy for them. They can't pay a little money after original copy for their investigations and this. You told me an extraordinary story and I would just share it with the audience here about giving books to bus drivers to take them around the country so people can explain how that works. It's very interesting. When I opened my bookshop, I didn't import books from outside Afghans under the first years, five years. I wrote banners in many places, posters in Kabul City. We buy your libraries and books from their private libraries. So every day they brought for me a big pile of books and I was buying them at a low price. And after five years, I found that my business is going down and it's not good. So I thought I found out that the high ranking Afghans, VIP Afghans like ministers, head of the organizations, they never come to my bookshop here in the downtown. So I thought I went to Continental Hotel one day. I thought let me open a bookshop here. When I opened that bookshop, it was amazing. Suddenly, I got lots of money, lots of fame, lots of contacts, lots of people, diplomats, even ministers of foreign affairs from many countries came visiting Afghanistan. They had a seminar or a conference in Continental Hotel because it has a beautiful ballroom and a beautiful lobby at the Continental Hotel and they came to my bookstore for a few minutes when they had a break and they came to my bookstore and saw there's an extraordinary bookshop there. So it was amazing. So then when I taught, I am the only important books for Afghan students, medical books, engineering books, books on management, computer science and these things. In other large cities, there's no large bookshops and when those small booksellers come from Mazar-e-Sharif or from other province to Kabul city, they charge a lot of profit to them. One thing I will tell Mr. Dahud, I say that I still expensive things, books expensive, very expensive, it's true. I sold to foreigners very expensive, maybe 10 times more than its ordinary price, but I explained to every individual, I explained to every individual, my foreign friends, that I subsidized books for Afghans, they were very poor and books is a merchandise trade. It needs money, the paper price goes high, the printing cost is very high, labor, everything. So the Afghans cannot afford to buy books. A large medical book price was $20 and my small book was about 95 page pocket edition, was $25. So comparing with this and when someone tell me that how you become that successful best bookseller, I said because of money. I didn't steal the money from the pocket of customers, but it was my art of business that I had opportunity to sell very high because this huge work, when you want to do huge business, I was not supported from a country or from another organization, even from the government. I never got any support, but it was the money that helped me to be in this position. So when I saw this situation, I purchased a Mercedes-Benz bus, a large one, 303 model, and removed the seats and installed the shelves on the both side and loaded the bus with lots of books. And because the compartment in the bus for luggage, I put the curtains and folding discs I purchased from the market and a tent. Everywhere I would travel, I made a camp there, a very large camp for there and the students, I went to the camp on those universities and made a camp there for books of there and the students came and purchased their needs at very low price, not very high. So I was very lucky, 80% of books I have imported for Afghan students and 20% all other booksellers, 80% most mainly I imported from UK, from United States, from India, from Pakistan, from Iran, from everywhere I imported books and that. But that was the mobile? Mobile books, I'm coming to your question. Because you had this very interesting relationship with bus drivers, didn't you? Yeah, I'm coming to this. When this project was failed, so I gave an advertising on Facebook, at that time Facebook and Messenger chat was, and it's very, very low quality, but anyhow I sent them that message that if you want to buy books, you can order your books and we can send to bus between two cities, from Kabul to Mazhar, to Herot, to Kandahar, Helmand, even Warrzum countries, they were bus services. So you weren't sending a bus, you were using the order? Yeah, I thought they would charge me money, but when I made a 5kg package and gave it to the bus driver, usually they traveled early in the morning, four o'clock or three o'clock in the morning, midnight in Afghanistan time, and my employee went with a 5kg to bus with a few hundred Afghanis to give the bus driver to transport this package to the students. And the students, I was very surprised, the bus driver never took the money, they were illiterate drivers, they never have been to school, but they said when my man explained to them, this is for an Afghan student in Mazhar Sharif, and he purchased this one, can you deliver? He said, okay, I will deliver at three, it's a really small package, two or three small packages, five kgs or 10 kgs, we don't charge money. Very few cases they charge a little money, but mostly they never charge money. And then the bus drivers would bring the money back from the students when they were going to school? When the bus driver came to the station and the customer went to the station and pick up the package and paid the money, the price of the book to the driver, and the driver next day came to Kabul and we collected the money from them. So it was very successful for a while. And when we established our website, so it was much easier for Afghan students to order online and even there is no credit card system in Afghanistan, the Sylvia problem, lots of problems, but they paid the money to do bus drivers and have. And I never paid charity, the cost of my money because I'm a rich man, very rich man, very good. And unfortunately now I'm not rich because my account has been frozen in Kabul and my online sale goes to my bank account and anyway, every year I send message to remote schools in Afghanistan and called the school master to come to my bookshop with a letter from the Ministry of Education and with a team of their teachers and I gave them $4,000 every year, $4,000 credit to select books from my vast bookshop and it was very useful everywhere I was paying just last year when the Taliban came, we gave to orphanage shelter for Afghan girls, histories from different languages, Pashto, Pashtian, Uzbekia, and it was very good for them. They purchased this books. Can I ask about the state of, I mean, lots of people here since August the 15th last year, the fall of Kabul, the terrible shock of the swift fall of Kabul last year, also people will have read about the closure of girls' schools and the difficulty of people in Afghanistan and just to give you one statistic, in Afghanistan at the sort of A level stage at the end of high school, there's an exam called the Kankor which every student in the country takes so they can grade the entire students of Afghanistan in one year and in the last 10 years, before the fall of Kabul last year, there were a mixture of girls and boys in the top 10 and in two of the last 10 years, it was girls who were at the top of the Kankor list, the most intelligent students in Afghanistan, as it were, in that year. Well, now last week the Kankor results were issued and there isn't a single girl in the top 10, just as a sort of symbol of how, you know, things have changed quite rapidly, even at that senior level and of course we know girls further down and not really getting proper education. I mean, you've been someone who has spread educational ideas in Afghanistan over the last 30, 40 years through so many wars, through the Russians, the Civil War, the Taliban last time and now the last 20 years of conflict under the Americans. What's it like now? I mean, in terms of getting books out, in terms of Afghan intellectual life, in terms of education? The closure of schools, especially for girls, are not optimistic if the Taliban release and let them go to school. But I don't believe they can learn anything. The most important thing is that they can learn and the most important thing is that what curriculum they should provide for schools. It's very important. And do you see that as under threat? It's very big threat. It's very big threat. If the school is closed, it's much better than if they open the schools with their own curriculum because at least now the pressure of the world is very big and high on Taliban. If they open the school and the world recognize them because they have, and the curriculum is changed in favor of Taliban because it's very horrible, very dangerous for the future of Afghanistan because they actually engrave an ideology in their brain of the Afghan generation, coming generation, just the suicide bombers or just the Taliban and how to pray, how to go to Thailand and which verse of the Quran you should read when going to Thailand. So these things are very dangerous. It's not, I'm not optimistic and I don't agree. Just a few months before the head of Afghan film was weeping and crying that Taliban has closed Afghan film and we are very sorry for this. And I told in the show that during the millions of dollars coming to Afghanistan, during the democracy you've got lots of Scott, what they call the prize, golden prizes from, well, I forgot the word now. Scott, when they get a word from- when they fell asleep. Oscar, Oscar, Oscar, Oscar, Oscar. Oscar, Oscar. I said how many Oscars we got in 20 years for Afghan film? Just they were useless. We don't have any film. They never produced a film. About Afghanistan, Afghanistan has lots of good things as Mr. David Lines said, there were talents that you should demonstrate those talents. And Afghans saw us, lots of misery and misfortunes, what movie did you make? And now you're crying and weeping that the Taliban has closed the cinema and the movie and these things. You mean they lost the opportunity when they had it and they didn't really take it? They did nothing, golden opportunity, yeah. And the school is the same, if they opened the school for Afghan students and it's airful, it's better to be closed. You said to me earlier on today, being a bookseller in Kabul with independent thoughts, it's very hard to survive. And you obviously decided you've been imprisoned by the Russians before, I think. You were in Afghanistan during the last time the Taliban were in power. This time you felt you had to leave, that refugee life, all for as it is, was better than the life you were living in Kabul. Could you talk us through that decision? Because I mean, the shock of people who've lost their country and it's hard to imagine really. And I know some Afghans who've been transplanted twice, they came to Europe last year and then they couldn't get asylum and then they've gone to Canada, they're moving your whole family across two continents having lost your country. Sort of unimaginable. You're still in an asylum hotel, I think. I have two wives, the people say you are two, which wife you love most. Actually, I have three wives and my favourite wife is the books. And my real wives are very jealous with the books. I spent most of my life in Kabul with books and working to separate the knowledge because the only thing can save us as an Afghan and also save the world because now the consequences of war is feeling in the UK, in the United States and all over the world. This dirty war is very dangerous. As much as I separate knowledge and books, this is very useful for them. As you said, I was very brave during my book selling. During the Mujahideen government, during the civil war, in my bookstore in Continental Hotel, I had many, many translations of books have been written by foreigners in Urdu, in English, in German, in French. I had all books from everywhere. Even Mr. David Lyne's books was in my bookstore. And the partial edition is also with us. And I had in the collection, there was a book, How to Solve Your Sexual Problems in Partial Language. One of the ministers at that time came and go around, see and browsing the shelves and came back and pick up that book and came to the counter to pay and asked me how was your business. I told him I have 99 titles from 100 on Afghan politics, How to Solve Afghan Problems and one sexual problems and the men who should read the politicians, they have their sexual problems. And what was his answer? He was very madly angry and I was scared, very badly scared. And he put back the book and went out and after a few minutes he came back and said, you're right, which book you recommend. So I was very happy at that. And so this is one example. I always, one day I remember three diplomats from Saudi Arabia came to my bookshop. Mrs. Osnazai's thought was also sitting beside me. She was... The Norwegian... She wrote the... Yeah, the Norwegian... Caused all sorts of trouble. Yeah, yeah. I told to those Arab diplomats with their Arab customs, can I ask you a question? He said yes. Can you promise to not become angry? He said no, we will never angry. And they gave their hands. You can ask questions. I showed him from the window of my bookshop, this huge university is made by Russian polytechnic university in the downtown, in the skirts of Continental Hotel Mountain. This is built by Russian and Kabul University is built by American and also a very modern Istaklal High School attached with the Raya Palace built by French and another school by Germans in Ariana Hotel near Wazirak Var Khan. And the poor Indian made the children's hospital, Indra Gandhi Hospital in Afghanistan. And again, the Chinese made a very large hospital in Kandahar and many other countries. Why we as an Afghan Muslims have nothing from Saudi Arabia? It was a very sharp criticize to the ambassador of Saudi Arabia in Afghanistan. He said we help lots of Afghans but I say as an intellectual I see nothing there. So my job was to send the message to the high ranking people to the first and it was very successful. And the minister who purchased how to solve the sexual problem, I told him don't worry, it won't be a Clinton has a sexual scandal. Yeah, I mean of course Saudi Arabia, you have got Saudi Arabia has given you something, it's given you Wahabi ideology. Just dated some dates, dated some dates. All they've given you is ideology, which the Taliban are ensuring in Afghanistan. Even we don't have a great mosque like Faisal mosque in Islamabad, a very large made by Saudi Arabia. We never have such things in Afghanistan and Kabul. So this was a job I was doing. It was not only a bookseller but also to send the message to the important people. And I was a watchman during all 50 years. I visited lots of spies. I visited lots of good people. I visited lots of very, very good sympathetic foreign friends. I visited Osama bin Laden in Continental Hotel. I visited Hamid Gul, ISI chief in Continental Hotel. And I was eyewitness with all regimes because mainly I was staying in Kabul and doing business and how do you see the future of Afghanistan? And perhaps, you know, what can we do? I mean you mentioned the military intervention and of course no one from the west is going to be involved in a military intervention in Afghanistan. But what, I mean if you were advising the American government, the British government, the French government, the governments that sort of care about Afghanistan in the west, what would you say? I think they should, American and British people in Europe and they should solve their own problem first because they are faced lots of problems because war is very expensive. Now the war is in Europe, a dangerous war. They are talking about nuclear bombs. They are talking about dirty bombs and they are talking about recession. Do you think the Taliban have the capacity to ignore us in a way because of our problems, because they see, you know, Trump, Biden, the sort of weakness in America, they see, you know, a certain dysfunction in this country, you know, three prime ministers a year, you know, all that sort of thing? The Taliban, as an Afghan, they are intelligent in their own Afghan way and they have been educated in Pakistan, in Madrasas and they taught the cheating diplomacy from ISIL, from Pakistanis. They are very, very talented how to cheat the United States and make them fool to do their own. I remember when Hamid Gul made some mistakes and the United States government was criticizing Hamid Gul. Hamid Gul was the Pakistani spy who originally was one of the founders of the Taliban in the 1980s. The next day he appeared with the Nekthai, suited very luxury like Americans in Europe and he was talking. I said, look at this man. Mainly he wore a pack hole like Mujahideen, appeared with Westcott and now with Nekthai he wants to cheat again in the United States. I told a joke to Mr. David Lange just a few minutes before. Mr. David Lange was telling that I am able to teach a donkey singing songs. So this news separated to the ear of Amir Temur Lane and Amir Temur called Mr. David Lange. Timur Lane is Timur Lane. Yeah, yeah. I'm the empire of Central Asia and Temur at the time around 700 years before. I don't know exactly the exact date. And he called Mora Nasreddin how? You can't teach a donkey, is it true? He said yes, it's true. I need a very big bag of gold and then a very young and good-brained donkey and then number three I need 10 years of time. Amir Temur was fooled and he gave him 10 years time. And he gave him the bag of gold. The bag of gold and with a very good high quality donkey he came in luxury clothes to his village. His village men saw Mora Nasreddin as very rich and he has a very expensive, like lamb who's in car, donkey. And they came to his house and said, how have you become so rich? He said that this is the story. They said Amir Temur is very dangerous. He will skin up your body. You take off your skin. He is very dangerous. It's impossible for you to teach a donkey to sing song. And Amir Temur said, Mora Nasreddin said, you are stupid. In 10 years, I have 10 years time, either I will die or the donkey or Amir Temur. All contracts with Taliban, with Pakistan is exactly based on this story. Because in the United States, the presidency time is only four years. If they are lucky, they can continue another four years. And after Bush, Obama will not ask about the contract have been signed between Karzai or between that. And Trump signed contract with Taliban in the middle of the negotiation and talks. Trump was not on the power. Yeah, well, perhaps it was Afghanistan's problem that President Biden did honour that contract beyond the administration and pulled the troops out so quickly last summer. I want to bring the audience in with some questions, which I'm sure are here. I should just say Shah M, as I will always call him since it's the bookshop, has his book, which is a repost to the bookseller of Kabul. It's a sort of dream-like book about his experiences living with a Norwegian journalist, in a sense. It's sort of the other side of the story. Any hands? Have we got a microphone somewhere? Any thoughts from the audience? I'm going to give people a chance to... Or we'll carry on chatting. We'll carry on chatting, but catch my eye and we'll... Yes, there's one there. Hi, Shah. I just wonder, what's your dream to do with books? If you could do anything with books in the world, what's your dream to see for kind of the world with books? Well, it's... Sometimes I think that... They call me bookseller of Kabul. Actually, I'm book lover. I cannot leave this. I can't leave both of my wives, but I never can leave my books. I never. I love it. Because I found definition for the book after 50 years. What is a book? We have individual brains, your brain, my brain, Boris Johnson brain, and Prophet Jesus and Muhammad brain. We have one human brain, and the book is simply gate to the human brain. If you open a book, actually, we open a door, a window to the human brain, and human brain have capacity to answer all our questions and solve all our problems. This is the definition of book. I will never leave it, because it's the only way to get inside the human brain and solve our questions. Now, here's a question a friend asked me last week. Why we cannot solve very small problems like in Ukraine? Why we couldn't solve? You say the brain, human brain, have solution for everything, but I say the people who enter in the brain, they are very unqualified, very, very unqualified, and they cannot have the capacity to go there. And the people who understand the solution, no one listens to them. So that's a political problem. The space behind your question is, what's your dream with books? If you could do anything with books, with given all the money available and the political will, what would it be? No, I'm not that rich as well, but I'm rich of books, not rich of money. I live all my life very simply. I don't have a dream to build a vampire for myself. I have a dream to provide opportunity to the people to read, to see and find their solution for their problems. Especially in Afghanistan, we have lots of problems, ethnic problems, economic problems, everything. And the only way we can overcome those problems is the books to read. What's it like living without them? I mean, you're here in an asylum seekers hotel and you say, you run your business with this, which is fine, but what's it like not being in the Aladdin's cave? You must miss it. No, I don't miss it. I'm not too far from my books every day. When I'm here in the library, it was a great dream for me. Like the lover's tale, Leili Majnun. And Leili was a daughter of an empire, a king, and Majnun was mad and fallen in love with that. When I'm in the British library, actually, I'm with my lover, Alice. And here I feel very, very good and very close. And every day I'm reading books, I'm talking with people, and I'm guiding people, and I'm very active in Afghan media. I have good discussions with them and very good shows. And just one show I made, and I explained the main problem of Afghanistan. And over 200,000 viewers viewed this show in one week, just in one week. I am with books. So the main problem of Afghanistan, what's the main solution for Afghanistan? As I told you, when the solution is in Washington, D.C. and Europe and NATO forces, when they solve their problem, probably Afghanistan will very soon the changes will appear. You saw when the Taliban, at the first stage, when the first stage Taliban was toppled and was defeated, it was only few days, few weeks. And again, because the world decided to do this. Problem in Afghanistan is not an Afghan problem. It's a problem in old geopolitics. We had great game one, which is passed, and now we are in great game two. Again, we should give another 100,000 lives lost. During 20 years, more than 10,000 European and American soldiers have been killed and more than 20,000 have been injured. But for Afghanistan, it was very big mess. Over 100,000 have been killed. Over 500,000 disabled and injured. Over a million people were affected by this war. And many people have lost their homes in their country. There's one here and then one at the back. So one here first. And then you, sir. Shah, you've now been an asylum seeker in this country for about a year. It's very restrictive. I see your daughters managed to visit you today. But when you get an asylum, when you become a refugee, what are you going to do then? What will you do when you're free to make your own choices and determine your own life? It depends. When the problems in the UK have been solved, then my problem will be solved easily. They have lots of problems now facing with Ukraine and refugees and other. And more than one year I have been here, I have received nothing from the home office. I'm waiting. When I receive their decision, it's positive. So definitely I will open a Afghan study center in London and also a bookshop in London. Probably it will be the worst, largest bookstore from many, many languages. I have the capacity because I've collected over 20,000 title of books on Afghanistan in many languages. I have the capacity to open such a bookshop in London. And this is my dream. And also my family reconciled with my third wife and camped to me and around me. I have a large family, nine children and three daughters-in-laws and four grandchildren. One at the back. It's a wonderful idea and I'm sure you'll do it. Hello everyone. I want you to do it back in Kabul. My name is Shazia. I'm also an Afghan. I just want to know as you have been selling books for many years as you know better that how Afghans love to learn and to get education. Could you please a bit explain that because I know that some people may they think that Afghan people don't have interest with education and with learnings, which is wrong. Could you tell me about that because you have seen so many people that they have came to your bookshop and for buying books and you have talked with so many people in Afghanistan and you know better that how Afghans are thirsty for education and for learning. Could you just allow me to explain my question in Dari as well? No, I talk your line. Okay, please. When you asked me this question, I remember a story, a real story. There was a man from Stewart, Zerland, his name was Peter Stoker. He was the head of ICRC and same question he asked me how Afghans have interest in reading or not and I told him what do you think he gave me a story. Actually this story I have been told by one of my relatives there was an illiterate Afghan chief and Zabal province, South Eastern province of Afghanistan and he was illiterate. He never have been in school and a delegate of nine foreigners and one Afghan translator wanted to visit this chief and asked either the aid from United Nations coming here properly and distributed justicefully or not and this chief called him you are welcome, you can come to my house and we will talk when he came. You know when the guest room and the provinces in the town and the village there is the mallics and the chiefs have like me many children and many wives they have and the crowd on the door side they were standing when the foreigners came and called one of his men from the door side door and he came and said something to his hair and he went and brought 11 cans of Pepsi and the chief told the man put each one can of Pepsi in front of each guest and one cup of Pepsi in front of translator and one cup of Pepsi in front of me and they distributed 11 cans of Pepsi and when the first question was asked from that Afghan chief either the aid is coming properly and distributed justicefully or not he said yes you are very satisfied as the chief I am very very satisfied with your aid and the delegate asked can you explain how he said yes just exactly like the cans of Pepsi when you send 11 cans of Pepsi nine is for yourself back one for Afghan translator and one for me because I am a chief and the rest of the people Afghan they say the color of the Pepsi can of the Pepsi blue and red lines and they don't know the test inside so this is the most intelligent answer for crafted United Nations aid program especially in Afghanistan and world-torn countries but it doesn't quite answer the question as to why do you ask I am coming to the question you also explained and the Afghans are very very talented I purchased a set of books when Pakistan and Afghanistan I am explaining because it's a very important question thank you very much for that question a little bit in detail I purchased a set of books Shah Jahan Omar the history of Shah Jahan Empire of Mughal in India and the introduction of every new book I find I read the introduction the author of this book was Saleh Muhammad Kambu and the man who wrote the introduction he was explaining who is Kambu the meaning of Kambu is less smell or less perfume something like this and he had found what is the poem agar khattur rajal of that as he say yaki avgandu kambu sayyum baszata kashmiri if there is the lack of leadership good leadership please avoid contacting these three ethnics one Afghans and the patterns the second kambu the third baszata kashmiri that's kandu kashmiri so this poem means that Afghans are the most intelligent people the best people in the world if they have good leadership and Afghans are the worst people of the world if they don't have good leadership when the problem in our leadership in our society is solved Afghans are very, very intelligent we have talented number six talent in the Microsoft in the internet, in the computer science is an Afghan he is a Canadian Afghan his name is Abdul Hay one of our relatives and Nurahman Lewal is an Afghan pattern who has amazing inventions in computer science there are lots of Afghans they love books they read books even the patterns they love books they have translated 8,000 points of shah-nami for the ocean to Pashto 150 years before but unfortunately we don't have good leadership one at the front sorry, there's a microphone there if you wait for that, thank you first of all, I'd like to apologise on behalf of my country for the terrible devastation and destruction we've brought in Afghanistan not in my name I hasten to add most people in the country but it's absolutely appalling most of us are very ashamed of what's happened but my question is are there any books that you refuse to sell or will not sell? good question many religious books I refuse of sold those books though they had good market one was about the paradise, heaven and hell they give very, very dirty explanation of heaven and Islam and religious and this and that and that I'd never say it but according to your questions your country was very good in a way there were many structures in Pakistan and India but also in Afghanistan they wrote the grammar of Pashto language of most difficult language by Robert T. and by others and a team of ethnographers a team of even they studied the births of Afghanistan they created a huge number of literature about Afghanistan about our country and other books I never found to be bad all of them were good I have a wide selection of books written by the British forces there's a curious obsession in South Asia in India and Pakistan and indeed in Afghanistan in the street markets one of the most popular titles is Mein Kampf Hitler's message to his people do you stock Mein Kampf? No never I don't believe I am a very liberal Muslim I love books and philosophy of Islamic civilization like have you seen like Rumi like this they are very different I talked with you before there was a compulsory column of every madrasa from four South Asian countries Malaysia, Indonesia, India to Turkey, Central Asia everywhere there was five treasures and those books have been taught for centuries and madrasas religious clergy if they didn't finish read those books they never got their certificate those books were Saadi's books Saadi you know Saadi is the manifest of United Nations it has been engraved in many languages in the United Nations hall that humanity is like a body the hand is Afghan the finger is an Afghan the head is an American and if a small part of your finger is pain all your body will feel the pain so this not only produced clergy with religious thoughts but also with wisdom of humanity and honesty and love of the human being because Rumi book was the second one and Haji Abdul Ansari was the third one and five books I forgot the fifth one you know because Rumi loved those books are no longer taught six years when they took out some features are completely changed and replaced with the thoughts of Iqwan al-Muslimin from Egypt, Wahhabis, from Saudi Arabia and Usama Ben Laden's master Abdullah Ezam books was replaced and that course and the madrasa sort of thinking now the Taliban they are students of fundamentalist and stream as tourism teachers they have so many people of those authors would certainly have encountered Rumi probably as a poet and regard him are you able now under the Taliban in control in Afghanistan to sell for example Rumi and lay in your bookshop no it's not permitted to sell them they call even the partial language they are against partial language on the news you hear every time that they remove even the sign words of the hospitals from the universities when it's written in partial they remove it and replace it with partial and partial language is very very poor in literature the value of languages are same in English or partial it's the same for their own people their mother language they call it mother language which is very holy but the capacity and quality is different partial language is language of a very large civilization Rumi says burn Kaaba and Madina and never pray do this this just keep faith in your heart and love others love people he teaches love and wisdom but if you had Rumi in the front window the Taliban would come and take it out fortunately they don't understand they cannot read in my bookshop when they are in royal palace now when they come out first they see Afghanistan Bank which is full of dollars and this sign attract them and they cannot understand there is a bookshop and they have been so long question long answer to the sort of banned books question I'm going to ask Dowd at the back who's my former BBC colleague to come in talk about educated Afghans he's got a PhD what do you think of Afghanistan now and the answer to some of these questions about education is going forward and Shahrem's contribution to your country well thank you David for your question I think Mr Shah answered most of the questions I just wanted to mention a couple of points about Afghanistan in the past it was an empire many times in the past so there was culture there was civilization most of the cities in Afghanistan today were capitals of regional empires Ghazni was the capital of Ghaznavid empire Ghor again another province of Afghanistan was the capital of Ghori empire and Kandahar was the capital of the Durrani empire so again Kabul was a great center of civilization and culture there were educational centers there were madrasas Balkh was one of the biggest centers of Buddhism in the past Kandahar civilization before Islam came to that region emerged in what is now eastern Afghanistan and actually it was the center of Mahayana Buddhism and before that Zoroastrianism so there are many layers history and culture and civilization so once a great cultural civilizational hub I hesitate to say what happened without giving you about an hour to answer it so the geographical location made it important so it made Afghanistan is the center of civilization and culture and a major center of education again Sufism many of the great Sufis of the Muslim world were from Afghanistan you mentioned Rumi Maulana Jalaluddin Balkhi Rumi he was born in Balkh in north Afghanistan Khwaja Abdul Ansari again another great Sufi of Islam is buried in Herat the greatest Sufi of South Asia Khwaja Muhyiddin Chishti who is buried in India in Ajmir was from Chisht in Herat and Ibrahim Ibn Adam was again from Balkh Afghanistan one of the greatest Sufis of Islam many poets from Ghazni but how nowadays is education and book selling going to be able to turn back so that some Afghans can see some of this extraordinary culture given how much their life has been coarsened by the current government the ironies as you said earlier that Afghanistan was destroyed many times so they rebuilt their lives and came so it's very unusual that over the past two centuries three superpowers of the world invaded Afghanistan it didn't happen anywhere in the world so the British Empire Soviet Union NATO and the US so all of these great powers fought in Afghanistan within a short span of time and that's why Afghanistan is unique when it comes to geography when it comes to location it's a curse and it's also a blessing so whenever there is an opportunity whenever there was an opportunity people rebuild their lives look at the past 20 years when people found opportunity there were universities within just few years I mean you were there you saw 20 years ago there were just a couple of universities so within 10-15 years there were more than 20 universities so if there is opportunity people want to get education and people will tell you stories I mean you have been to many villages in Afghanistan about great scholars whose shrines are visited by people who books are saying are remembered by people and they mention them in their gatherings so the point is that it can regain their status but it needs peace and stability are you optimistic Shah? I'm very optimistic because everything has a capacity can the world resist on all these recessions and crisis and problems can United States people agree with their government and British people agree with their governments that to continue war and start the third world war which will be very dangerous I think everything I'm very optimistic will not happen in future bad things and very soon we will have good news about solution of problems and Middle East and Afghanistan because we should be Afghan owned this too because now it is very close to the boiling point and 100 degree is the lost stage to boil and we are very close Can I ask you a last question and then we will stop and sell books and have a drink and all the rest of it which is a conceptual one really I wonder if we can ever understand I'm struck talking to you for an hour about how many questions you answer with a story teaching a donkey to sing with a story there is a very imaginative poetic cultural history as we heard from Dowd and I think I saw Americans over the last 20 years who are very procedural and transactional in the way that British are actually going in very straight and saying 1, 2, 3 this is what I want and of course we go to Afghan meetings and they can go on for several hours and the ask is actually while you are putting your coat on you don't quite know why you are in the room and then as you leave just by the way and you have heard lots of stories along the way and of course symbolic tales of the 11 cans of Pepsi and all that a very great abiding image of aid in a sense I suppose my question is can we ever sort of get on can we understand each other given our quite linear transactional relationship with the world I think we have lots of understanding since 20 years I found there were lots of good foreigners they were supporting Afghanistan from the bottom of their hearts and they worked a lot they created lots of good things in Afghanistan one of their example was the Aina institute for free journalism it was established with the assistance of Ahmadisheed from Pakistan result from Iran and Edward Gerardit from UK and many French people and they gave hand together and trained and gave graduation for very very talented Afghans one of those Afghans was my brother who was assassinated with his family wife and two children in 2014 in Serena hotel and Haroon Najafizada they are very very talented people it was the world I think will never forget these things and with the people of world in Afghanistan we have lots of mutual interest and we have understanding very clearly unfortunately the top the problem is on the top few people like I told the history of Timur Lan who captured this rival king when they brought the rival king to him he had one eye and he laughed very loudly when he fall down from his horseback laughing and said look at this creature like a sly fox he is most of the destiny of millions of people and I disabled with one leg and he disabled with one eye we decide on the destiny of millions just few people are deciding what the destiny is well let's hope we can get some different ones in the future quite soon we'll stop there and my book The Long War which tells the story of the last 20 years is available on a QR code and it will be delivered online for free as I understand and Shah has sensibly enough brought a bag of books with him so they can be physically sold but otherwise I'll just say thank you very much to Shah thank you very much thank you very much thank you so much for that wonderful speech I would just like to say how affecting it is to welcome someone into the British Library who's led such an extraordinary life and been such an advocate for books and for literacy I hope you'll all show your appreciation by buying the book which is available here it's a cash only £10 it's a very good bargain and we have a cash point in the British Library so you have no excuse and David of course has an extremely distinguished and experienced journalist of the BBC his book is outstanding and that's also available in the ether so you just need to point your phones at that QR code and it will be delivered to you free one last clap for our brilliant speakers thank you so much thank you very much thank you let's move from the British Library that gave me this opportunity to talk with you and it's a very big honour for me today is an unforgettable day for me thank you so much for this thank you so much