Girl with one roller-blade
Over the last 4 years working in Afghanistan, Bette Dam has learned a few things. During her time embedded with the Dutch military in Uruzgan she learned that this was no way to do journalism. Researching and observing the behavior of the other international forces she learned of the counter-productive posturing and refusal to learn from the past. Moreover, as a journalist, she has learned the challenges of getting people in the west to pay attention and think critically about reports coming from Afghanistan.
As the kites flew high overhead one fine afternoon in Kabul, we sat down to discuss this and more.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/documentaries/2010/07/100721_world_stories.shtml
This was mentioned by Bette, Rustam Qobil of the BBC Uzbek Service has produced a disturbing documentary about the Bachbaze tradition of using young boys as dancers and for sexual abuse. Strange how this exists side by side with Islamic teaching.
this has to be fought Islamic society if it had not been in the stone age
Thanks Andrew.. its actually discussed at length with an Afghan friend in the next podcast. Very strange and hard to believe that such a thing goes on.
You sound like an early 20th Century imperialist–”How can the gross savages be civilized?” Are you going to invade China too? There’s lots of injustices and nasty practices in China that would offend an educated westerner too. Meanwhile, the reality of the Afghanistan occupation is much more accurately symbolized by the “kill team” atrocities than it is by anything any do-gooder NGOs are doing. In fact I think the well intentioned liberal NGO types who rush into occupied territory behind the US Army are just as bad as the death squads. Yeah, we can’t leave so little girls can go to school! That’s what the worst, most evil Bush neocons said too. You’re all the same.
Hang on I need to go back in the audio and listen for when I said the words ”How can the gross savages be civilized?”
I do want to help little girls go to school and I think its a worthy goal.
Good for you. At least you’re honest about it. Because army death squads are a necessary condition of you being there, civilizing the Afghans and learning them about voting, blogging, and not buggering little boys and letting little girls go to school. Your worthy goals are definitely worth a few drone-made piles of smoking corpses. Bush, Cheney and McCrystal are right there with you. Hope you really learn ‘em good, cuz the Afghans are certainly paying for it!!
Jesus H.
No more uppers for you.