my latest comment on afghan radio and journalistm

my latest interview with BBC about audience participation in local afghan radio station and journalist security in the light of Perviz case.

BBC podcast_click here

بازداشت یک شهروند بریتانوی به اتهام فریبکاری

یک شهروند بریتانوی،رئیس شرکت تبلیغاتی" گروپ "،امروز به اتهام فریبکاری وعدم  پرداخت پول های مردم، بازداشت گردید .

ظاهرأ، رئیس شرکت تبلیغاتی گروپ که در ساحه وزیراکبرخان دست به فریب  کاری     می زد. کارمندان شرکت گروپ شاکی شده و ادعا کرده اند که انتونی رئیس شرکت صدو یازده هزاردالرامریکایی پول  معاشات آنان نپرداخته است.

انتونی رئیس شرکت گروپ   تعدادی از افغان ها را در بخش های مختلف استخدام نموده بود وطی سه ماه معاشات آنهارا   نیز نپرداخته بود ومی خواست از کشور  فرارنماید که به اثر شکایت کارمندان آن شرکت ،نامبرده     از شاهراه    کابل – جلال آباد  دستگیر    گردید.

  انتونی     شرکت تبلیغاتی   "گروپ "را در یک خانه کرایی واقع وزیر اکبرخان بازنموده بود،که کرایه خانه ، پول   تیل فروشان وپرده دوزان شهر کابل را   نیز نپرداخته   بود.

Afghan Film Festival in Edinburgh

There is going to be an afghan film festival in Edinburgh toward the end of February, the aim is to show a new face of Afghanistan. One which has not been familiar to UK audience, the idea is to bring creativity and fun from Afghanistan. But I don’t see anything creative when I look at the festival program. It’s the same old boring stuff. Taliban, Osama, Kandahar, misery and various stories of a haunted nation. Why should osama or Kandahar always represent Afghanistan. Even if we try to show another face. It’s because the festival organisers didn’t know how to look behind barmak and Rahimi to find new faces of Afghanistan. Let me explain why.

I didn’t dare to call film an industry in Afghanistan, because Afghan film is not an industry, the word industry implicates a distinguished process of production, distribution and screening. It doesn’t exist in Afghanistan, for the obvious reason of economy to support it. but a point to ponder up on is, do we need an established market which has the purchase power and interested in afghan film or a successful industry can create a market. I believe if good business skills are combined with artistic expression then film and video products could be sold. The problem is that we don’t have film makers who could think about the audience, and to be able to think about the ways to make afghans interested in their films. That is a starting point, once audience is interested then you can sell to them.

The film makers are interested in themselves. They are interested about what they think and then they market it internationally. Film in Afghanistan is a notion of arty farty recreation which introduces Afghanistan to clandestine audience, seemingly abroad. Osama won a golden globe award while its merely known to few people in Afghanistan. Whether osama was good enough to win the award than its competitors is a different issue which I will write about in the next post.

I don’t call film an art in Afghanistan because it’s not an art. Art is mass and art is creative. Film industry in Afghanistan is in the hands of few. There is a definite monopoly which I will come back to later.

A few people like seddiq barmak and attiq Rahimi and some others are renowned as film makers. They are happy to be famous and that is the end. There is no notion of bringing up  and supporting a generation of film makers in the hope to invest in creativity. The renown filmmakers think they are the ultimate symbol of creativity. I see this as a bad practice but I wish it was only limited to their lack of vision and misunderstanding of the meaning of Art. They create an entry barrier for the young film makers, by default and merely because they exist. There are dozens of young and energetic film makers around Afghanistan which are struggling with their ideas. Some I know has even produced films. But the reason their films are not getting publicity is because of monopolists like attiq Rahimi and seddiq barmak. I believe that young film makers are equally creative as barmak or Rahimi, if not more. But they will never get the attention. Among them their might be people to change this creative talent into a marketable art which could support them invest in film making and create more films. the situation resembles a bit like the film makers in Edinburgh and Glasgow. Are they talented? Yes of course they are. But do they make any money. NO. Hollywood does, Hollywood producers make the money because they have a good distribution system. But they are not more creative than Edinburgh and Glasgow filmmakers. I give this example because of the festival in Edinburgh.

I think a great fun project would be to network the young film makers and try to market their products. Encourage creativity and enable them to get access to festivals such as Edinburgh.

I don’t think I have been real constructive. I think we should go behind the blame game and look into ways of turning film into a vibrant sector. I know many people who does that but work need to be done at different levels. Creative enough is not good, the film needs to reach out and go to different markets.     

kill the journalist to undermine the media

The key justification of western and their military wing, NATO, presence in Afghanistan is bringing democracy. Neither Afghans nor westerners believe in hunting down 9/11 suspects anyore but rather saving Karzai from definite collapse in the hands of Taliban and their alikes nesting inside the regime.

The story of Parvez Kambaskhsh reminds us where Afghanistan is actually standing. Parviz a 23 years old journalist was detained three months ago. The allegations are downloading an article written by an Iranian scholar that allegedly contains Anti Islamic sentiments. the accused was sentenced to death by hanging by primary court of Balkh. Neither the accused have been given the chance nor has the advocate been appointed to exercise his/her rights to defence.

Mawlawi Shams has reportedly said that ‘he has insulted Islam and it can’t be tolerated’. Mawlawi Shams, a religious figure, has the power to make significant decisions which are unconstitutional and undemocratic. This power is vested in him by the government. This is a power game, Karzai government has been critical of media for awhile, this incident allowed the religious scholar to rampage a journalist. In big picture it shows where power lies and where Karzai can rely. Parviz is a victim of the politics game. Media has a voice in the Afghan society, media feeds values into the power system. This game is about whose voices are heard and whose voices are marginalised. media has made a lot of noise after the Taliban, far more than mullahs and Karzai government don’t want the power to go out of the classical circles into the hands of ordinary people. Mullahs and religion is a good tool to sanction unwanted groups which are perceived banal and dangerous. 

The notion of freedom of expression and freedom of thought is that society can produce an objective and verifiable measure of meaning for media content as well as production. This is impossible to achieve if fanaticism rules. Fundamentalists ignores the issue of perspective and denies the textual meaning of media content. Polysemy and diversity in the meaning of media content and allowing individual thought and interpretation is not only the characteristic of advanced western democracy. Media content of many Islamic countries could be interpreted variously; as long as fundamentalism, in its primitive form, is not the social ruler. Fundamentalists can tolerate media content and messages as long as it creates noise; media content could be tolerated by fundamentalists if it serves their power politics purpose. A good example is Taliban not only tolerating but working with media. Karzai regime is made of fundamentalists which are not much different than Taliban in character and media is no more serving their power politics purposes, unlike the Taliban. A fundamentalist vision of society is served by creating a culture of code-governed meaning which is not susceptible to rational reconstruction, as a matter of fact fundamentalism is an opponent of any reconstruction. We witnessed this vision under Taliban rule. However, historically speaking the fundamentalists and fanatic warlords of Karzai government have failed to create such a society because they were too corrupt to maintain any social order and eventually resulting in the emergence of Taliban.