Student Profile
Vitals:
Name: Mir Akhgar
Graduation Year: 2010
Hometown: Afghanistan
Major: Political Science and Law
Weekend Activity:
Mir Akhgar is a sophomore currently majoring in Political Science and Law. Born in Afghanistan, he came to Manhattanville on a scholarship through the Seeds of Peace organization. Seeds of Peace is an organization dedicated to empowering young leaders from regions of conflict with the leadership skills required to advance reconciliation and coexistence. Mir Akhgar was attracted to Manhattanville’s large international student population. As an extremely important part of his overall collegiate experience, Mir found this diversity to be a vehicle to learning in and outside of the classroom.
“When you meet people from different cultures it is like a class,” he explained. “You can learn a lot from people which you would not learn from books. When I was back home I didn’t have a chance to meet people from different cultures and religions. I was too into myself. I never thought we were similar. The more you get close to people the more you realize that you really are similar no matter where you are from. We are all human beings.”
Through interaction Mir hopes to change the average American’s view of the Afghan people. He thinks that Americans only get the “CNN perspective” of bombings, killings and invasions in his native land.
“If you talk to me you will get a different perspective because Afghanistan is not just about bombings, it has a rich culture,” he said. “We have everything. When it comes to the media they only focus on the negative.”
In this same idea, Mir says that people in Afghanistan only get that same false perceptive of Americans. He says they believe that Americans are just invaders since the media portrays Americans in a negative light. “When you meet someone personally, you get to know them more and find out about the facts.”
One huge misconception that he hopes to change is that all Afghan people are part of Al-Qaeda.
“We were invaded by Al-Qaeda, we were never part of Al-Qaeda. That is something I want to tell every person – not only in America – but every person in the entire world.”