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AFGHANISTAN LOOKS AT ITSELF
A EurasiaNet Photo Essay by Ivan Sigal: 2/15/02
The Taliban were successful in destroying both access to
information and the means to produce it as part of their mechanism
of authoritarian rule. As with the destruction of the system
of education, as with the banning of many cultural activities,
so with media. The Taliban reduced newspapers to a bare minimum
of staff and length, junked television, and drastically reduced
radio broadcasting. Many broadcasters and journalists fled
to neighboring countries, or further abroad, and many will
not return.
The Taliban systematically took apart communications. As
Nasrine Gross, director of Afghan Women and Education, notes:
"The Taliban wanted to create a failed state, and the
first thing they did was break down communication paths. These
need to be reinstated in all areas of life, including of course
media."
In the wake of the Taliban's departure, Afghanistan has begun
once more to look at itself, through lenses of its antiquated
TV cameras, through tentative stabs at restarting and rebuilding
theatre, through cinema and through photographers wielding
homemade portrait cameras on the streets of Kabul.
Regardless of a lack of access to knowledge and resources,
many Afghans are incredibly motivated to receive information,
to get involved in media on both a local and international
level. This is clearly evident in the dozens of one-room shops
constructing homemade satellite dishes, the homemade TV antennas
adorning many roofs, the dozens of volunteers working in existing
media and the hundreds of people fighting for cinema tickets.
There is a hunger for information in Afghanistan.
Such hunger is evident as well in the support for a new openness
by the Karzai administration, in its willingness to support
private newspapers and journals, its stated willingness to
allow private printing presses and eventually private and
community broadcast outlets.
However, there remain serious limits both to the reach and
the effect of Afghanistan's new media, both in Kabul and throughout
the country. Lack of access to technology, knowledge and power
sources all limit access to media. Hafiz Mansour, director
of TV/Radio Kabul, says that his first priority for broadcasting
is to reinstate national radio coverage. At present, existing
radio and TV stations in Kabul, Jalalabad, Herat, Mazar e
Sharif, Taloqan, Kunduz and elsewhere have no practical mechanism
to share information, even to talk to one another. They cover
local issues for a local audience. Even if Kabul does reestablish
national reach, feedback loops to get information from the
regions to the center will not likely exist in the near future.
Finally, while Afghanistan's new media is the sign of a revitalized
society, it is just one of many communication paths that need
to be restored and reinforced for dialogue to replace violence
as the medium for settling disputes. As Ali Sayeed Mohammed,
a third-year journalism student at Kabul University said,
"educated people may think and want this, but the majority
of people in Afghanistan are not educated, and heavily armed.
And regardless of the words of the elite, they will resolve
their conflicts with violence."
Ivan Sigal visited Afghanistan in early 2002. While he was
there he took these photos,
documenting the many ways that post-Taliban Afghanistan is
looking at itself.
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Posted February 15, 2002 © Eurasianet
http://www.eurasianet.org
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