Some Good News for a Change: Afghanistan’s Pop Idol
The Taliban had banned music and 99% of everything else that is fun. Now, an Afghan version of the “American Idol” called “Afghan Star” has been broadcasted for seven seasons. Millions are watching and voting for their favorite singers by mobile phone. For many this is their first encounter with democracy. A documentary from 2009 follows “the dramatic stories of four contestants as they risk all to become the nation’s favorite singer.”
Watch the latest show from this week:
I am not a fan of these casting shows, which are so popular in the US, Britain, Germany, Afghanistan and elsewhere. They do, however, show our common humanity. It’s good to see how much we have in common, which is easy to forget when newspapers and TV news show us so many atrocities.
It’s great to see the joy this show brings to Afghans, who have lived their entire lives in civil war or under oppression from the Taliban and other warlords.
These shows strengthen Afghans’ common national identity and might even strengthen democratic values.
Finally some good news from Afghanistan for a change.
So much is still going wrong in Afghanistan, that even many supporters of the ISAF mission are having second thoughts and reconsider their previous expressions of support, as did Dorian De Wind on The Moderate Voice:
Take the barbaric — there’s that word again — acts perpetrated against a poor, defenseless 15-year-old girl by her own flesh-and-blood because she refused to go into prostitution.
There have been so many other instances — too many — of similar atrocities and human rights violations, that one sometimes must wonder: Is this what we are spilling our blood for and wasting our treasure for “over there”?
My reaction was: The police arrested the in-laws. They won’t (be able to) do that once we leave. All the bad news we hear from Afghanistan will be worse, if we leave before more progress has been achieved and the transition is sustainable. That’s also something we need to consider.
Afghanistan’s needs a better government than Karzai’s, but the regional and local governments are at least as important as the Kabul government and many require aid and expertise in governance, human rights training, corruption fighting etc. Moreover, we should listen to Afghan civil society.
It is, however, also important to remind ourselves of some of the limited successes we had in Afghanistan: 12 Ways NATO Helped Build a Better Afghanistan
Crossposted from my blog Atlantic Review
4 Responses to “Some Good News for a Change: Afghanistan’s Pop Idol”
Jörg,
Thanks for quoting me and plugging my post.
Since you seem to be so fixated on a person evolving, adjusting, reconsidering a previous position, or totally changing one’s mind let me just (re-)quote what I happened to read somewhere:
“Judgment [critical thinking]: Thinking things through and examining them from all sides; not jumping to conclusions; being able to change one’s mind in light of evidence; weighing all evidence fairly.”
Thank you
Mr. Wolf-
It sounds like the Europeans have quite a job planning and implementing nation building in Afghanistan. Sounds good, keep it up. We’ll be leaving to rebuild our own nation so you have a good day!
Jörg,
The barbaric acts perpetrated against the poor, defenseless 15-year-old girl were just one example of the many other instances of similar atrocities and human rights violations in Afghanistan, and not the only reason for me to reconsider my previous support of our “going-into” Afghanistan after 9/11.
Perhaps for the sake of putting my “second thoughts” into context it may be fair to also quote the following from my post:
“As readers who have followed my writings — some call them rants — for the past few years know, while I have always opposed and condemned our invasion and occupation of Iraq, I have supported our efforts in Afghanistan to catch and punish the perpetrators of 9/11 and, in some measure, to rid Afghanistan of the Taliban.
However, so many of the reports coming out of that country about the government’s corruption, the incompetence of its military and the continuing barbarism by some of its people have made me pause and, yes, reconsider several times recently.”
I also said, and asked:
“Some will say, we are still there because of 9/11. I thought we had killed its mastermind and have decimated al-Qaeda.
Some will say, we are fighting over there for our national security. Show me how.
Some will say we are fighting there to bring some democracy and human rights over there. Are we?”
Yes, I am changing my opinion on our Afghanistan involvement, and not ashamed of it.
I am not a “think tank” just putting out sterile, theoretical policy statements and papers with total academic certitude. I am a person with opinions, faults,some 20 years of military experience, and yes a person who — as times passes and as American and Afghan and allied lives continue to be lost in Afghanistan, and as goals and missions are accomplished or revised, as in Afghanistan — is able to change my mind in light of new factors, evidence and, most of all, reality.
No apologies or explanations on my part for such opinions, and that’s all they are.
There are human rights abuses all over the world, particularly in the poorer parts of Africa. I don’t see us invading Chad.