As the American broadcast continues to get weary of the Afghan War, and every day brings a new depressing development, our hearts — the hearts of us Afghans — are broken ever so slightly. There are daily more deaths, more schools demolished, more suicide bombers and more government corruption. Then, there are tales about drugs and Sharia law being implemented in Taliban-proscribed territories. Twisting these to inform the broadcast are foreign journalists and pundits. They churn out tales about my people that are excellent to read, but are unfair and unbalanced and even biased against Afghans.
Half a world away, I keep yearning for a day when I can turn on the TV, thrash to CNN, FOX, MSNBC or CBS and see a discussion about Afghans where they really question an Afghan. Day after day I wait, but in vain. I run through articles published about my people in the Washington Post and the New York Times to see opinion pieces written by Afghans — but very nearly never see one.
At the least, give me an article in a major Western newspaper where the reporter really goes and talks to an Afghan who can question the political situation in the people. But no, here in the west the news channels have panels of experts who know Afghanistan through books, seminars, classes or an occasional visit, and newspapers interview a pre-prepared Afghan with a colorful character to please your eyes and invoke your curiosity.
Your average media-approved Afghan won’t have a last name. There will be a quip informing you that, “like most Afghans, he doesn’t have a last name.” And there won’t be any women. Forget about the opinion of Afghan women. They are veiled and will never speak to a foreigner — their voices censored by both the Taliban and the Western media. We work for less than a dollar day. Our names permanently include Allah or Mohammed. We have long beards and hopefully a turban around our heads. Did I mention the part where we can’t read and enter? Expectations fulfilled, your average foreign correspondent will question this guy about Afghanistan and seriously expect a well-informed, well-balanced and to the point answer from an run of the mill citizen. Then, they will publish this and inform you about a war that you’ve spent hundreds of billions of dollars on.
Imagine the same thing happening to a tale about an issue here in the US. Imagine the journalist going down deep into the Appalachians, finding someone named Jedidiah or Billy Bob. To fit with the stereotype, he will be cleaning his gun, meeting outside his Church and drinking his moonshine. Imagine the journalist asking this character about hedging derivatives on Wall Street and the latest regulation. Imagine the journalist journeying to Berkeley, finding a stoned guy named Chip or Race meeting in front of his Xbox, and then asking him what he thinks about the health care bill’s provisions regarding Medicare. Is that the prospective American you expect to see in the mainstream media?
Yes, the level of literacy in Afghanistan is low and finding people who have informed opinions is harder relative to America, but, it is not impossible. But it doesn’t look excellent on a tale about Afghanistan to find someone who’s a bank manager or a university student or a doctor. Even a nurse would be enough. But no, the Western media would rather find someone who can tell you practically nothing about what’s going on in Afghanistan. It is a time-saving measure — less talk and shorter articles — but most of all, no hard and complex explanations on the part of the writer.
It is simpler still to ignore Afghan intellectuals who live in the West. Don’t expect to see a discussion about Afghans where they question an Afghan intellectual on news channels. Not even the supposedly unbiased BBC — which some trendy and ‘informed’ Americans tune in to — won’t show you a glimpse of an educated Afghan unless by accident. The community of Afghan social and political analysts in the US is very small — but they are not that hard to find. Yet, you turn on the TV and every discussion about Afghanistan is dominated by American intellectuals’ particular university philosophy paired with their respective channel’s political ideology.
We are rarely questioned about our opinions on how to win the war. Those of us that are questioned any don’t know, don’t care or don’t wish it to be won and our intellectuals aren’t intellectual sufficient to appear on American TV screens. How may possibly someone from Afghanistan possibly know how to win a war being fought inside Afghanistan — even if they have degrees from Western universities? Instead, they question Americans or Britons who have the white or black skin necessary to assure you that they are one of you and not one of us. Olive skin just doesn’t sell these days.
A cheery tree-hugging liberal on MSNBC who is willing to die for world peace will remind you for the umpteenth time that, “That Afghans have permanently distrusted foreigners and kicked them out. The war is a lost cause.” A gruff retired general will tell you in a grave accent on FOX that, “We need more troops to defeat the terrorists, or it’s Armageddon, folks.” You won’t see a tired-looking Afghan professor who will tell you the Afghan side of the tale; whether this war is necessary or how to defeat the terrorists. Because the truth is, we — the people on whose land this war is being fought — don’t really exist in your tales or your TV screens — or presented for comic relief.
Neither does the thought that this war is winnable. Explanations like Pakistan’s blatant harboring of the Taliban, billions of dollars pouring into Taliban pockets from Arab Sheikhs of the Gulf or the warlords who were installed by the Coalition and won’t be gotten rid of aren’t simple or romantic sufficient — people without last names are.
We are a caricature developed to help ease the work of foreign newspapers. They’ll warn you that we don’t know about the world and don’t care. We can’t tell you anything about our people or its problems — forget about extracting a solution from us. That’s why when you reckon of us, you see the image of a terrorist enlisted by the Taliban, a corrupt official working for Hamid Karzai or a poppy farmer sucking on the hukkah — the image faithfully brought to you by the Western media. Abandoning us will be simple in a year or two for there is no sympathy for us.
How may possibly you have sympathy for the small girl who’s being paid a chance to go to school but has no one in her family left alive to help her with homework? How may possibly you have sympathy for a widow who’s lost her husband and sons below a barrage of rockets fired by the Russians, the Mujahideen or maybe the Taliban — who knows? How may possibly you have sympathy for the small boys who are watching the World Cup in South Africa and cheer, but have no legs to play football on the street? How may possibly you, when our fathers — according to your media – are out to kill you with bullets, send heroin to your children and blow up your high-rises.
At a time when your media was supposed to tell you that your blood and sacrifice has indeed helped Afghanistan and that we are thankful to you, they told you otherwise. We don’t like you — they say — and don’t want your help. We are ungrateful ardent murderers who are just dying to kill you — they warn. Our picture has been so skewed that you won’t even admit us if we walked amongst you. I won’t be surprised if you reckon that we have fangs and blood dripping from our mouths and are just waiting to bite your jugular.
This is who we are to you. And now that our war is becoming a liability, prepare yourself to hear this phrase more and more: “No conqueror has ever tamed this harsh and proud land.” You will never have any thought how tired we are of this god-forsaken war that has ruined generations of our childish and ancient. Or how many tears we shed daily over our misery because that’s not romantic at all and is entirely predictable. We will remain to you a mysterious and feared land that needs to be left alone to cannibalize itself — proudly — with quite a lot of help from our neighbor to the East and billions in oil money from the Arabs states in the Gulf. This image cannot be altered.
This does not change the fact that our voices are there. They are of gratitude to you for trying to give us a chance to live with dignity. But you won’t hear our voices. Nor will you see our faces — save for some National Geographic documentary about a long-forgotten Afghan refugee girl. Instead, you see fanatics with guns. You see illegal drug manufacturers. You may even get lucky and see the lavish lifestyle of a warlord. But we — the children of the unending Afghan War — won’t be among them. If only you may possibly hear us.
But you won’t. We were forgotten for the first time the same day Ronald Reagan won the Cold War ‘without firing a shot’ — thanks to an very nearly unmemorable part played by us where we fought the Soviet Union with our bear hands and lost two million of our brothers and sisters. But before we are forgotten over again, know this — we have last names.
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