12 posts about Afghanistan on this blog
Thursday 14 October 2010, 20:52
Back in 1960 the travel writer James Morris went to Afghanistan. He watched American and Soviet diplomats jockeying for influence, both convinced they could persuade the Afghans to support them in the Cold War.
But, wrote Morris, the world the diplomats entered was a strange one:
While the Afghan climate...
Read more about MR PINK, MR WHITE AND BOTTOM
Thursday 8 July 2010, 18:33
TERABYTES AFGHANISTAN
I have just got my hands on something wonderful and precious. It is five computer drives containing the unedited rushes of everything shot by the BBC in Afghanistan over the last thirty years.
It fills 18 terabytes of space.
It has been put together by Phil Goodwin who has worked...
Thursday 27 May 2010, 20:08
1-2-3-4 - WHAT ARE WE FIGHTING FOR?
On November the 4th last year Paula Loyd, a cultural anthroplogist attached to the US army, was interviewing an Afghan man in a small village in southern Afghanistan.
As she asked him about fuel prices he suddenly poured petrol over her from a jug he was holding. He...
Monday 5 April 2010, 20:12
THE WEIRD WORLD OF WAZIRISTAN
There is a growing sense in the West that we no longer know what we are fighting for in Afghanistan. The question that is almost never asked is what they are fighting for? What do the Taliban want?
We are told that we are fighting to prevent terrorist attacks in Europe...
Friday 29 January 2010, 16:06
ILLUSTRIOUS CORPSES - PART ONE
Afghanistan didn't just defeat the Soviet army. It reached out and corrupted and corroded the Soviet Union's faith in itself. Above all it destroyed what was left of the dream that communism was the future universal model for the world.
The fascinating question now is whether...
Thursday 17 December 2009, 14:54
Blue Peter seems to have had rather an obsession with Afghanistan in the 1970s - not only did they take some Afghan hounds to see the King of Afghanistan when he came to visit the Queen of England, but in Christmas 1976 they found an Afghan hound that could sing. You have to watch the whole thing through...
Read more about Afghanistan Christmas Special: Hound of Hope and Glory
Friday 4 December 2009, 15:49
PART SIX - THE WAR ON POP
In November 1975 the first rock festival was held in Afghanistan. It was in the gymnasium of Kabul University. Everyone was very excited, especially as the headliners were one of Afghanistan's two prog-rock bands - The Stars.
And the Stars were excited because they had been...
Friday 13 November 2009, 16:24
PART FIVE - INTERCONTINENTAL
The King of Afghanistan was called Mohammed Zahir Shah. He believed in modernity.
His family had ruled the country for over 150 years and he was driven everywhere in a black chevrolet.
Zahir Shah loved to show off how modern his country was. The key place was the Kabul...
Wednesday 28 October 2009, 17:13
The more you dig into the history of the West's relationship to Afghanistan, the stranger and more complicated it gets.
In 1978 a group of Afghan marxists overthrew the royal family who had ruled Afghanistan for 150 years. They set out to turn Afghanistan into a modern socialist utopia but it quickly...
Tuesday 13 October 2009, 16:55
PART THREE - THE LOST HISTORY OF HELMAND
When you look at footage of the fighting in Helmand today everyone assumes it is being played out against an ancient background of villages and fields built over the centuries.
This is not true. If you look beyond the soldiers, and into the distance, what you...
Friday 25 September 2009, 19:19
In early 1970s the Italian conceptual artist, Alighiero e Boetti often visited the hotel he had bought in Kabul, Number One Hotel. By 1972 it was being used not just by Boetti's friends but by more and more western travellers.
All around them in Kabul revolutionary forces were...
Friday 25 September 2009, 19:19
In early 1970s the Italian conceptual artist, Alighiero e Boetti often visited the hotel he had bought in Kabul, Number One Hotel. By 1972 it was being used not just by Boetti's friends but by more and more western travellers.
All around them in Kabul revolutionary forces were...
This is a website expressing my personal views – through a selection of opinionated observations and arguments. I’ll be including stories I like, ideas I find fascinating, work in progress and a selection of material from the BBC archives.
Stay updated with the latest posts from the blog.
Subscribe using:
