raising awareness

In 2003, just after the allied forces had routed the Taliban from Afghanistan, I joined a group of volunteers from Right To Play to establish a program in Kabul. Their mission was to restore a modicum of decency through sport and play for those children who had been deprived of almost everything. It was, with great foresight, an attempt to stop the re-growth of violence without using the conventional military or humanitarian aid means. Some of the "cliff notes" of that trip, as well as some of the photos, are here. Ultimately, this was an attempt to share the story of Afghanistan told by those who live it every day. More than a decade later, they still feel contemporary. ..."Their portraits are perhaps a good way to narrate what it means to be Afghan in the early twenty-first century, to be living in one of most atrociously poor and dangerous places on earth, in the richest world society on record. In Afghanistan, misery creeps out of every line in the old ma...

This is the first chapter of a series of articles dedicated to Afghanistan, originally written in 2004, edited in 2007 and still poignantly current. This is the story of Afghanistan told by those who live it every day. Their portraits narrate what it means to be Afghan in the early twenty-first century, to be living in one of the most atrociously poor and dangerous places on earth, in the richest world society on record. Afghanistan, years after the Taliban were overturned, is still a country with a ravaged past and an uncertain future. It is not all Afghanistan’s fault. Beside many other factors that make it naturally prone to poverty, Afghanistan has long been sitting on one of the main fault lines between eastern and western blocks. US-backed Mujahiddeen guerrilla and the rule of the USSR finally set the stage for civil war and the Taliban. In many respects, Afghanistan's present is a living legacy of the Cold War, of our own past. Afghanistan is not only a humanitarian ...