Good Morning Afghanistan

Waseem Mahmood, Julia Dillon

• Publisher: Eye Press
• Year: 2010
• eBook ISBN: 9781908646668
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Journalist Biographies

Waseem Mahmood lost almost everything when his brother broke a confidence and filed a story in the world's highest circulating tabloid newspaper, the News of the World.He fearedhe would never work in broadcast media again, and history intervened with the events of 9/11, the attack on Afghanistan, and the fall of the Taliban. Headed by Mahmood, a group of local and foreign journalists responded to the events by producing a radio program based in Kabul to disseminate much-needed and, for the first time, uncensored information to the country's people. What they end up providing is hope for a devastated land and a voice for a people long smothered by oppression. Told with searing honesty, this is a story of struggle, cruelty, and courage populated by ordinary people who risk their lives for freedom.

The Road to Kabul

We are more than the sum of our knowledge.

We are the products of our imagination.

Ferdi Serim

What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?

Mahatma Gandhi

Copenhagen

October 10th, 2001

The plane began its descent to Copenhagen’s Kastrup Airport. I put down the file of papers that I had been trying to work on during the flight and looked out of the window at the familiar geometrical patterns of the Danish landscape unfolding below. I hate to admit that subconsciously my attention for most of the flight had been fixed on a Mediterranean-looking passenger sitting across the aisle from me and that I had suffered discernable palpitations each time the poor guy got up to use the toilet or get anything out of the overhead locker. Another hundred pairs of anxious eyes had also followed his every move. Such was the mood of the post 9/11 environment that suspicion and mistrust amongst fellow travellers was on a knife-edge. In the US a captain had offloaded a respectable Indian doctor with whom the other passengers had refused to travel.

Even in the cool, air-conditioned climate on board the aircraft, nervous sweat was making the shirt cling to my back. My stomach reeled from the sickness I had felt for most of the flight.

Events had moved swiftly after 11 September. Two days after the attacks, President Bush emerged from a meeting with his key military advisers at Camp David and told the American people: ‘Everyone who wears the uniform should get ready. We’re at war.’ Bush had gone on to warn the grieving nation to brace themselves for a long and bloody conflict. ‘I will not settle for a token act. Our response must be sweeping, sustained and effective. This act will not stand.’ He swore that there would be full and proper vengeance for the atrocities that had violated the very heart of America. ‘We will find those who did it. We will smoke them out of their holes, we’ll get them running, and we’ll bring them to justice.’

The exodus from Afghanistan had begun the day after the attacks had taken place in America. In a land without television where no one had actually seen the footage of the two hijacked planes crashing into the World Trade Centre, nobody had any doubts that the US was about to launch attacks on their country – and that these reprisals, when they came, would be devastating. Even Afghans, for whom war and conflict was a way of life, now feared worse.

Residents in the more affluent districts of Kabul started packing their bags and began to leave the city. Battle-hardened men no longer possessing the will for yet another fight padlocked the gates to their homes and drove off in battered Toyota pick-up trucks towards the Khyber Pass, to the safety that they believed lay beyond the mountainous border with Pakistan. Women hidden underneath billowing blue burkas were packed into the back of the trucks beside the few possessions that the men took with them. The crying of children, too young to understand the spectre of death that hung above them, combined with the spluttering of ancient engines to create the cacophony of a frightened nation in flight. Those who remained behind began barricading their already battered homes for yet another onslaught. Fuel and food supplies, already in short supply because of sanctions, began to run out very quickly. Many lives were lost in the fighting that broke out in the streets over a few litres of diesel oil.

The Afghan people’s fears were justified. A few days later, President Bush addressed Congress with a firm warning for their rulers, ‘The Taliban must act and act immediately. They will hand over the terrorists or they will share in their fate.’ With British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, standing by his side, the President continued, ‘Our grief has turned to anger and anger to resolution. The hour is coming when America will act.’ Congress stood and gave the President a standing ovation that went on for what seemed like an eternity.

The mood within the Taliban regime remained equally resolute. Mullah Omar, the one-eyed fanatic who led the Taliban, addressed the Afghan people over Radio Shariat with passionate vitriol. ‘Don’t be cowards. Every Muslim should be ready for holy war and take strength from their faith in Islam. Paradise awaits those who find martyrdom in the fight against the Great Infidel.’

On the evening of 7 October President Bush appeared on national television. ‘On my orders, the United States military has begun strikes against al-Qaeda terrorist training camps and military installations of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. More than two weeks ago, I gave Taliban leaders a series of clear and specific demands…. None of these demands were met. And now, the Taliban will pay a price…. At the same time, the oppressed people of Afghanistan will know the generosity of America and our allies. As we strike military targets, we will also drop food, medicine and supplies to the starving and suffering men and women and children of Afghanistan. The United States of America is a friend to the Afghan people.’

I sent a mobile text message to John the moment I disembarked from the plane at Copenhagen: ‘Touch and go @ times, but made it 2 CPH in 1 piece. Will call U after meeting. WM’.

The single spotlight blinded me as the curtain parted and I stood on the stage facing the audience. I could sense my classmates sitting in dark anonymity just a few feet away, but from where I was and with the light shining directly in my eyes, I could not see anybody beyond the footlights. The perspiration trickled down my forehead into my eyes streaking the little grease paint make up that I had reluctantly used. My hands felt clammy and my knees had trouble supporting my weight. My stomach began to churn and I felt rather sick. Surely there was something wrong; this could not be what acting and performing was all about. Why had I chosen this profession?

I repositioned the cheap plastic chair in a way so that the back of it faced the front of stage; I then sat, straddling it as one would a horse, with my elbows on the back rest and my chin resting on my hands. I looked intently into the dark void, waited for a few beats and began.

‘Now is the winter of our discontent

Made glorious summer by this sun of York.’

The first lines out of the way, I began to relax a little and decided to let Shakespeare’s writing do the hard work. All I had to do was to make sure I remembered the words, a great feat in itself.

Just then someone sitting in the audience on the studio balcony coughed, reminding me that proud parents were also present at this performance. My parents, however, had not come to see me perform – but then, they had never come to see me perform, not in the primary school nativity, not in school plays, not in school concerts, not tonight – never. Alas, I was destined to tread the boards of my glittering – stage career without the support of my family in the wings.

In that instant, I understood Richard; I understood the bitterness towards his family that was manifesting itself through the scene. At that moment, I wanted to be Richard – his solutions seemed so much more pragmatic than my lame acceptance of the situation.

The applause took me somewhat by surprise and broke the spell; no longer Richard in a London street, I was back in Sutton Cold field College of Further Education Drama Studio performing to an audience that did not include my parents.

As I came off stage John Murray’s bulk blocked my exit. I tried to dodge him but felt his hand on my shoulder, stopping me. He looked totally absurd dressed as a 1930s American gangster holding a mocked-up wooden Tommy gun under one arm and with an oversized fedora on his head. He was chewing on what looked like a cigar poking out from the side of his mouth.

‘Yes?’

‘Sublime. Intense Stanislavski performance. Minimalist Brechtian staging – loved it….’

With that he turned and swaggered onto the stage to begin his contribution to the evening: a performance of ‘Macbeth’ set in 1930s American gangland delivered in a pseudo Italian-American accent.

This critique of my performance from John was the longest conversation we had had since the start of college several months ago. But where the hell had he learnt of Stanislavski, living in Castle Vale? I can’t imagine that the works of nineteenth-century Russian writers were the major topic of discussion at the Artful Dodger public house on his council estate.

As the first year of college reached the final semester, John and I had managed, for most of the time, to maintain a diplomatic détente that Henry Kissinger would have been proud of. We simply kept out of each other’s way. However, all this was to change during the Easter holidays when fate set our stars, till then in respectively divergent orbits, on an irrevocable collision course.

Holidays in second-generation Asian homes were strange affairs. We never went anywhere or did anything interesting as our neighbours’ children always seemed to be doing. Holidays for me were a diet of daytime television and playing cricket ‘up the park’ with other Asian kids in the neighbourhood who were in the same position. During this particular Easter break, my parents, as always, were at their respective work places, making the most of the overtime that was available during the holidays when their colleagues took time off to be with their families.

I was just watching Bagpuss putting the toys back to sleep when the phone rang. It was Anne-Marie Greene, a girl from the drama course and the only person there that I was remotely close to. Much to the chagrin of others in the group, in particular John Murray, we always sat together in classes and always chose to work with one another for group exercises. Anne-Marie Greene was without doubt the most beautiful girl in our class if not the whole college. She was trained as a dancer and had already carved herself a budding career as a model. Looking at her, it was not difficult to see why. She was quite tall with naturally blonde hair almost down to the small of her back, dazzling green eyes and a very-seventies-in-vogue Twiggy figure. She knew that her legs were her best feature and did everything she could to accentuate them – her jeans looked as if they had been sprayed on. But more than anything else it was her smile that captivated everybody.

Anne-Marie’s voice sounded frantic on the phone – she and John had just managed to have a major fracas with the three others in the group that they had been working together with for their drama practical exam. John had felt that the others were not taking the assignment as seriously as they should have been, and when one of them had wanted to leave rehearsals early for a tennis class, John had hit the roof. Apparently, Anne-Marie had had to physically restrain him from rearranging little Geoffrey-with-a-G’s smug face. The nice Sutton kids, who saw drama as a nice hobby and not as a vocation, had unilaterally decided that they could not work with an uncouth slob like John and had walked out in a huff. This left John and Anne-Marie with five days to come up with an alternative exam piece. I calmed Anne-Marie down as much as I could over the phone and told her that I would be with her as soon as I could get there, reassuring her that between us we would sort it out.

As soon as I walked into the drama studio, Anne-Marie rushed over, gave me a tight hug and started babbling nineteen to the dozen. I hardly heard a word she said because my eyes were fixed on John Murray who was standing behind her. I had spent most of the time on the journey to college trying to pre-empt his reaction when he saw me, since I was sure that he had been press-ganged by Anne-Marie into calling me for help.

Much to my surprise, he offered me his hand and said, ‘Thanks, mate, for coming in and helping us out.’

‘That’s okay. Until Annie called, watching Bag puss had been the highlight of my da.’

He laughed. ‘So that’s where you pick up your acting techniques!’

John had flown in to spend the weekend with me in Stratford, ostensibly to provide his qualified input to the strategy paper on a humanitarian radio service for Afghanistan that I had been working on, the one I was going to be presenting to the Danish Foreign Ministry for funding. But in reality, as a good friend, he had taken the first opportunity that his work schedule had allowed to come and provide the moral support that he knew I needed. He was aware that I had not told anyone in my family of the greater significance of my cancelled trip to America. This was a conscious decision; I felt that my ability to continue to work in international development, already a sore point, would have been heavily curtailed if Farah or the boys had known the truth.

Trying to keep the semblance of normality, I had taken the whole family, together with John, to the Royal Shakespeare Company to see Julius Caesar on the Saturday evening, after which we had had dinner at the Thespian Restaurant, a strange name for an Indian restaurant and surprisingly the only place that appeared to be open in Stratford for post-theatre meals.

On the Sunday, John and I managed to escape from the family under the pretence of a working lunch and had spent most of the day sitting together on the banks on the River Avon watching the last of the summer tourists enjoying the delights of Shakespeare’s home town; old couples trying to recapture the magic of their courting days; young teenagers enjoying stolen moments away from the grind of urban living; youthful fillies in diaphanous summer dresses – potential conquests a few years ago, now totally out of our league; toddlers feeding the geese and swans on the river oblivious to the hallowed significance of the ground they were standing on. All this, combined with endless cups of frothing cappuccinos and delightful paninis at Cox’s Yard, had made for a quintessential English afternoon, something that was now totally foreign to the realities of our recent lives. Many of our salad days as drama students had been spent at this very spot discussing the finer points of Mr Shakespeare’s work, but now John and I found our lives helplessly adrift; a once familiar world was becoming increasingly alien and in its place an unnatural world was becoming uncomfortably real. Discussions of Taliban, collateral damage, surgical strikes and flak jackets that John and I engaged in that afternoon seemed so much at odds with our surroundings. The theatres we now referred to were theatres of war where different sorts of dramas were enacted – dramas where not all the players survived long enough to take the final curtain call.

I had been going through a major crisis of conscience since the attacks on September 11^th. John knew it. I needed to talk and he needed to listen. He had always been my sounding board and at that moment more than any time in my life I needed him to say the right words. I didn’t know what the right words were, but I knew for a fact that no matter what, John would say them.

‘John, do you think what we do really matters? What we saw on TV – all that suffering, the horror – how can we ever begin to imagine that what we do makes a difference? In the end, it’s all selfishness, isn’t it?’

‘I don’t know, Waseem. There are no answers, are there? We just have to be who we are – and that is goodness. The terrorists don’t like us for being who we are. But will that stop us from being who we want to be – I don’t think so. Maybe being ordinary is the very essence of goodness. Maybe when we pursue our little projects, our desires, we are perpetuating goodness – and it is this goodness that these murderers want to destroy.’ John looked over at me intently. ‘Where is all this doubt suddenly coming from, Waseem?’

I turned my gaze from the river to look John long in the eye.

‘Maybe guilt, John, guilt….’

For once, I think that I had actually floored John Murray. ‘Guilt?’

A wave of torment washed over me and I knew that John could sense it. I heaved a deep sigh and steadied myself. ‘Guilt – because when I didn’t show up on flight 77, they gave the seat to someone else. I was even assigned a seat number – 34G. Some poor soul sat on my seat and went down with the plane when it should have been me. Me, John – me!’ My eyes began to well up, ‘Is what ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• September 9th, 2001
• September 11th, 2001
• The Road to Kabul
• Good Morning Afghanistan
• Epilogue
• Afghan Miscellany
• Glossary
• Map
• Suggested Further Reading
• Author’s Notes