One American woman’s personal battle to turn back the tide on the Taliban

Sonia Nassery Cole visits the Children's Hospital in Kabul, Afghanistan. (Iqbal Ahmad)

Sonia Nassery Cole commands a room no matter what the size, and it’s for a good cause.

Cole, who has both Afghan and American citizenship, is founder and CEO of the Afghanistan World Foundation (AWF). The non-profit organization works to assist the humanitarian needs of Afghans and rebuild their country. AWF was founded in the wake of 9/11 in 2002, but its roots go back to the 1980s when Cole became a vocal advocate for her home country. She started by writing a letter to then-President Ronald Reagan to ask for his help.

“I never dreamed that he wouldn’t answer my letter,” says Ms. Cole, recalling her first step into what has become a lifetime of advocating on behalf of those who have no voice.

But Reagan did respond, and invited the young refugee to the White House. She organized congressional testimony to arm legendary Afghan rebel commander Ahmad Massoud and his Northern Alliance Freedom Fighters. Massoud, who was later assassinated, was nicknamed the lion of Afghanistan. He called Cole his “lioness” for her work and spirit on behalf of their country. It’s a nickname she has lived up to, and then some.

Cole is as unfailingly polite as she is incomparably passionate about rebuilding Afghanistan from decades of war and the poison grip of the Taliban. And she knows how to be genuinely charming when describing deadly serious situations.

Case in point was a recent screening and presentation in New York City of a documentary she produced about an 8 year-old Afghan boy who is the sole income-earner in his family, called “The Bread Winner”. Cole surprised the audience by stepping out from behind the podium to give a heartfelt explanation of the story behind the making of the documentary.

But if Ms. Cole has mastered the art of charming an audience, she also knows how to keep the focus on the urgent situation in Afghanistan.

“The country is falling apart because of the Taliban,” said Ms. Cole during the presentation.

READ THE FULL STORY HERE

A noteworthy group of photojournalists gathered at photo agency VII’s Brooklyn studio last week. The small group represented some of the cream of photojournalists that had gathered in NYC for the recent New York Photo Festival. Among them were Gary Knight and Ashley Gilbertson.

Photography legend Gary Knight in front of one his photographs for dispatches journal. (Genevieve Long for The Epoch Times)

Also on hand was Tim Hetherington, whose notable photo installation “Sleeping Soldiers” is causing quite a stir in the photography world. The installation is notable because of the incredibly creative way it approaches depicting the war in Afghanistan. 3 panels show images of sleeping American soldiers in Afghanistan, overlayed with video and still images. There is then an eerie related soundtrack of helicopters, gunshots, explosions, and crying men.

A recent display of Tim Hetherington's "Sleeping Soldiers" photo installation. (Brian Rose/www.brianrose.com)

“Sleeping Soldiers” is a shocking look at the war in Afghanistan and the impact it has had on American soldiers. To watch it literally feels like being in the middle of a restless, hellish nightmare.

At this point, Hetherington won’t put the installation online for viewing, but other examples of his work can be seen on his website. A launch of his new book, “Long Story Bit by Bit: Liberia 2003-2007” will also be held in Brooklyn, New York on June 4. More details available here.

Last week, award-winning journalist Amira Hass was arrested after returning from four months of reporting in the Palestinian Authority. Hass, who reports for Ha’aretz newspaper, was not held long after being arrested, but her case highlights a major problem for journalists in the region: access. Or lack of. It’s illegal for Israeli journalists to go to the Palestinian Authority areas to do their jobs.

According to a release from Reporters Without Borders on Hass’s case:

Reporters Without Borders condemns Israeli newspaper reporter Amira Hass’s arrest at the Erez border crossing yesterday as she returned to Israel after spending four months in the Gaza Strip reporting for the Tel Aviv-based daily Haaretz in violation of a military ban on Israeli citizens visiting the Palestinian Territories.

“Her arrest is disturbing,” Reporters Without Borders said. “Hass clearly violated Israeli law by residing in the Gaza Strip for four months, but Israel’s blanket ban on Israeli citizens entering the occupied Palestinian Territories obstructs the work of its journalists and violates press freedom.”

Hass told Reporters Without Borders that the Israeli police arrested her at about 4 p.m. yesterday as she was leaving the Gaza Strip on a charge of “illegally entering enemy state.” With her lawyer and the newspaper’s deputy editor present, she was questioned for three hours but limited her answers to confirming her identity.

She said she was finally released on condition that she would not try to reenter the Gaza Strip by any means or route. But she added that “the ban is only valid for 30 days.”

Hass entered the Gaza Strip by the southern Rafah border crossing at her newspaper’s request four months ago and wrote many stories about the impact of Israel’s Operation Cast Lead (from 27 December to 18 January) on the territory’s population.

The question remains of how the people of Israel can gain access to news about their neighbors—their lives are intertwined on some level. Hass’s case is only the most recent chapter in an ongoing struggle for press access in the region.

Just yesterday, New York City was the target of a failed terrorist plot. It’s a jarring reminder that terrorists are still out there, thinking about how to do Americans harm.

For inquiring minds who want information from an authoritative voice on terrorism, take a look at The Shadowland Journal. The blog includes postings and writings of Christopher Dickey, a veteran journalist who has authored six books, notably his most recent work, “Securing the City: Inside America’s Best Counterterrorism Force-The NYPD”.

In light of May 20’s arrest of would-be terrorists in New York (through an FBI and NYPD sting operation), Dickey’s book is especially timely. It describes, in great detail and through painstaking research, how the NYPD is one of the world’s best weapons in the fight against terrorism.

Dickey is also Paris bureau chief of Newsweek magazine. His perspective is a valuable one in understanding how the war on terror is being fought right here in New York City.

There are few photos of the Iraq war as poignant and iconic as that of Marine Lance Corporal James Blake Miller. The photo, known as the “Marlboro Marine”, was taken by Los Angeles Times photojournalist Luis Sinco.

The war-weary Marine with a cigarette dangling from his mouth in  the battle of Fallujah in 2004 is more than an American face far from home. At some level, although it was taken nearly five years ago, it embodies the weariness of the American people and their military–set adrift in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now, more than ever, they are two conflicts that seem to have no end, no solution, no happy road out.

Sinco’s photograph, and his personal connection with Lance Corporal Miller, gave birth to a series of engaging and at times breathtaking pictures that, when woven together, create a picture of a life after. After war, after killing, after trying to go back and realizing nothing will ever be the same.

A slideshow of Sinco’s photographs of Miller, post-Iraq, can be found here.

U.S. President Barack Obama reversed a significant decision this past week. He decided to go back on his promise to release photographs of detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan that were taken a few years ago. The popular sentiment among the more conservative-minded might be that Obama is well within his right as Commander-in-Chief to do what he considers in the interest of national security. On the surface this does appear to be a sound argument for the reversed decision.

But dig a little deeper, and the logic that national security and our troops are being protected by thwarting the publication of said photos is actually a hairline crack in the foundation of free speech. And it’s the type of decision that can weaken a democracy.

In 1798, Thomas Jefferson said:

“One of the amendments to the Constitution… expressly declares that ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press,’ thereby guarding in the same sentence and under the same words, the freedom of religion, of speech, and of the press; insomuch that whatever violates either throws down the sanctuary which covers the others.”

The freedom to think, speak, and believe freely is a great source of strength for Americans. But it can also be a great challenge. We are given explicit protection to be free, but no explicit instructions how to use that freedom. Therein lies the genius of the founding fathers’ conclusion in the Declaration of Independence that government must draw it’s “just powers from the consent of the governed”. A consenting citizenry must be an informed citizenry, otherwise it will always be at odds over what exactly it is consenting to.

Photos of detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan, for this very reason, should be released. The world, not just Americans, learned in the worst way that what goes on overseas in dark prison cells in the name of the United States makes the citizens of the United States linked to those events by association. Abu Grahib. Guantanamo. Black sites in Europe. The world will never know the extent of suffering that has been inflicted, only the imagined possibilities based on pieces of the story.

During a press briefing in Washington on May 13, President Obama’s Press Secretary Robert Gibbs made the basic point in the President’s argument to a fiesty press corps confounded by Obama’s decision.

Gibbs’s response, in part:

“The President believes that the existence of the photos themselves doesn’t actually add to the understanding that detainee abuse happened, was investigated, that actions were taken by those that did indeed or might have undertaken potential abuse of detainees, and that those cases were all dating back to finishing in 2004. The President doesn’t believe the release of photos surrounding that investigation does anything to illuminate the existence of that investigation, only to provide some portion of sensationalism.”

One reporter responded with the essential rebuttal:

“But, Robert, is that really his role to decide whether or not it illuminates?”

Beyond the borders of the United States, there is an entire world that might also be interested in seeing these photographs. Whether they would try to use them for harm is impossible to know. Whether people within the borders of the U.S. might use them as political ammunition is also impossible to know.The media doesn’t always get it right, but fear of “sensationalism” is no excuse for the federal government to reach for a muzzle.

That reporter in the White House press briefing had it right–it is not President Obama’s role to decide whether or not the photographs illuminate the story. In fact, woe to the politician who treads on the public’s access to information. In a story like this, where the interests of how human beings were treated in the name of the United States is at stake, the photos will likely surface one way or another. The wise choice for politicians, president or otherwise, is to not stand in the way of that certainty and the public’s right to know.

The Japan Society of New York will be hosting an as-advertised “sold out” event tonight, May 12 with the author of The Blue Sweater, Jacqueline Novogratz.

According to the Japan Society, the gist of the event’s focus is:

Imagine a world where everyone has access to water, housing, health services and energy. That is the goal of Jacqueline Novogratz, a member of the U.S.-Japan Innovators Network. In 2001, Novogratz started Acumen Fund, a non-profit global venture fund that uses entrepreneurial approaches to solve global poverty. Join us in celebrating the launch of her new book The Blue Sweater, which follows her transformation from a young idealistic woman working in Africa to one of today’s most inspiring social entrepreneurs.

For more information about Novogratz, you can visit her website at www.thebluesweater.com.

The crisis in western Pakistan has heavily dominated the news in the past week, and rightly so. But there’s a huge hole in the story–the media is not allowed to go to the wild Swat Valley region where much of this story is happening.

So, the media and people paying attention to this important story have been forced to rely on two major sources of information: the United Nations and the Pakistani government.

It’s hard to decide what the worst part of this scenario is–either that it’s  close to impossible for journalists to independently verify the facts, or that the international media is becoming the defacto mouthpieces for the Pakistani government and the UN.

The UN’s slant is heavy-handed on refugee numbers, death, and the situation of civilians who have escaped the violence in Swat but are living on the edge of survival. The Pakistani government’s verbage (repeated by the media) is swaggering, kitchy, and sometimes downright bizarre, and there’s a heavy slant on military successes and the toll of militants killed.

Case in point is a story yesterday by the French newswire AFP:

“Ground forces shelled strongholds in the Swat valley, where around 4,000 Taliban are believed to be battling for control of the former ski resort in the northwest, once popular with Westerners but now devastated by violence.

Interior Minister Rehman Malik said more than 700 militants had been killed in the northwest region as the military announced Monday that 52 “miscreants” died in exchanges of fire over the last 24 hours in Swat.”

Journalists, particularly foreign correspondents, are used to being in the middle of dangerous situations. That’s their job–to be on the scene and report back what they are seeing firsthand. The situation in the Swat Valley is extraordinarly dangerous, and the region is often called “lawless” under normal circumstances. Swat, and the rather porous border region it shares with Afghanistan, is considered by some to be a haven for the Taliban. But that’ shouldn’t be accepted as a reason to bar journalists from going there to report the news.

Part of the story here could be that the Pakistani government is basically controlling the spin on the action side, and the UN is controlling the spin on the humanitarian crisis side. All we can know for certain is that until journalists are given more access, the public will be only getting a small piece of the picture.

Farida Nekzad is a passionate and determined Afghan journalist who lives and works in Kabul, Afghanistan. Nekzad, who is incidentally also a woman, has been working as a journalist for more than 10 years, most recently with Pajhwok Afghan News. She resigned from Pajhwok earlier this year to start her own media center for women in Afghanistan.

Nekzad, like many journalists in Afghanistan, has faced dire threats, harassment and roadblocks in the course of reporting the news. She takes a special interest in issues that are considered taboo, but which have a heavy impact on Afghan society. Nekzad believes that by talking about such issues in the press, a conversation about Afghan’s social issues can begin–and the evils she reports, at the very least, will not go unspoken.

After months of trying to track her down, I spoke with Nekzad in Kabul in the wee hours of a March morning by phone from New York. Always a gracious lady, Nekzad shared with me her vision for her work and the future of journalists in Afghanistan.

You can read a feature-length story about Nekzad and other female journalists in Pakistan and Afghanistan in this month’s issue of Quill magazine here.

Interview with Farida Nekzad, Pajhwok Afghan News on March 17, 2009

How is the Situation for Women Journalists in Afghanistan?

“Now for women because of the Taliban, particularly women journalists, they are facing difficulty. The international community, international organizations are working for women journalists. At the beginning they gave attention and a lot and cooperation and tried to protect them. But unfortunately now the organizations who protect women are not doing their jobs. That is why women journalists have problems and are facing pressure.”

What Kinds of Problems are Women Journalists in Afghanistan Facing?

“They have one problem in Afghanistan. Women are limited to work as journalists, violence against women is increasing in different provinces, even in Kabul. Different journalists are taking pressure, like kidnapping, warnings, and it’s difficult for them to work.

“We [also] have a religious system, the average knowledge of education in Afghanistan is very low. The idea of the man is that it’s difficult to accept a woman as journalist. We have warlords, we have definite positions, they are in power and they don’t want to work for society. Even they don’t accept the presence of women in society.”

What is a Specific Danger Journalists in Afghanistan Face?

“Journalists want people to know about the reality. The warlords and people who are in power will kidnap. People cannot express their problems because they [the warlords] have guns, they have power, they don’t accept the law—they have their own laws.”

What about Women Journalists?

“Mostly for now when we lose journalists it’s related to warlords. Even women who have been educated in university, this is a problem. They don’t want women to work as journalists. They don’t women to work outside the home. For the Taliban, according to the Sharia of Islam (interpretive law of Islam), they think women don’t have the right to work with men.”

What Has it Been Like for You?

“About 10 years I have been working as a journalist. It was my dream, I thought maybe I could do that. At that time I saw mostly women in Afghanistan were in the corner of issues. So I thought we should talk about women, about the problems of women, about Afghan women, about the violence, I wanted to talk about human rights and women’s rights. It was my dream to work as a journalisit.”

Has it Been an Uphill Battle?

“As women manager (editor at Pajhwok Afghan News), my journalists who work with me, they lack information and we don’t have any way to get information. Unfortunately if we want to get information, it takes a while and it remains incomplete.”

What has the Focus of Your Work Been?

“I trained about 200 journalists, all women inside Afghanistan in Kabul. We train for different publications and news agencies. Photographers, writers.”

Why Did You Resign as an Editor with Pajhwok Afghan News?

“I am one of the founders of Pajhwok, [but] I’m trying to start my own work for the protection of journalists and start my own organization. I want to start with media protection for all women journalists, sharing ideas, giving more chance for their progress and promoition. One big problem we have is more protesction, more stability. Because I have experience as a news editor, as a manager, I managed all of the news for five years, and I have the experience of management, and that is why I am interested to teach [other] women.”

What will the Focus of Your Media Center Be?

“I don’t want to work just for short term. There are people who work for a while, they disapper. I want to work for long term. And it should be a big chance for the promotion and progress of women. Afghan women are also able to work hard and seriously.”

What are Some Threats and Problems You’ve Faced?

“When I went to Pajhwok (Afghan News) and became a manager and stopped writing, it was more difficult because we had some problems with the men under me. In Afghanistan men will never accept a woman as a leader. Women involved with me in that organization and I talked about the freedom of press, freedom of organization–that kind of issue is important for me. [For safety reasons] we changed mobile numbers, email. Even right now, the police tell me I should stop talking. So I have problems. But I don’t think about myself, I just think I should work.”

How Can the Outside World Understand What’s Happening in Afghanistan?

“One thing I mention in panel discussions and interviews, is you should come to Afghanistan. Still we are not free, we are under pressure, we cannot go ahead. It’s a big problem to have just one woman journalist.”