[Reader-list] Once upon a time in Afghanistan

[Inder Salim]

Link for old pics of Afghan women  at page's bottom:



Forget about the power that, according to Mao, flows from the Barrels of Guns!

A lot more power actually flows through the matte black barrels of
Lenses. Camera lenses!  And this is a power that flows a lot more
silently and, most of the time, it works it magic very subtly.

Very rarely do pictures explode on the media scene like the now
infamous cover picture on the August 9th issue of Time magazine. Very
rarely do pictures present us with such a questionable and ‘teachable’
Moment about Photography and its political  uses.  Rarely do
photographs become such a powerful peg for discussions that go on and
on. Discussions that need to go on because we have to understand,
dissect and discuss the spaces that Photography occupies in
contemporary society. Spaces that are hardly any different from the
times when photography was a medium controlled by the Political and
Secret Department of a British colonial Government. Photography, we
have to remember, was invented at a time when colonialism was at its
height and made photography a major player in the Colonial Game.
British Army cadets, who were to be posted in the Colonies, were
specially taught photography. And as the many captains and colonels
amongst the list of 19th century photographers prove, they used it
well.

Photography is a powerful language, a valuable Voice of Authority for
Authorities. One has to understand how it is used. A “Writing with
Light”- Photo Graphy is becoming more powerful than any other human
language. It is more than just the world’s first universally
understood language, one that needs no translators and appears to have
no word language limitations because it is a technology driven by
newer and newer technologies which give it a reach and power that no
language ever had.

The endless flow of camera constructed pictures is, today,
increasingly constructing our social and political landscape.
Constructing us, actually, by manipulating the mental spaces that we
live in. Defining our Drishti - our perception and very sense of self
! There are, after all, more photographs shot every year than there
are bricks in the world. And photography, in its different, camera
lens based, avatars (film and television, for example) is what makes
us what we are -who we are manufactured to be.

Cameras construct our worlds in ways that word oriented languages did
not because the visual language they present us with is perceived to
have credibility, a visusal veracity and a connection to objective
truth that words did not. Pictures are becoming the bricks that
construct our contemporary, increasingly visual world. A world that
can no longer just ban the making of pictures as it once did or tried
to do. A world in which technologies drive the move away from the Word
driven and language riven cultures towards  vast visual  Information
Landscapes that are increasingly becoming part of  a real, war driven,
information wars . Wars that are, says the Project for a New American
Century, about Full Spectrum Domination.

  Domination that is blatant about not allowing any challenges
–‘military, economic or cultural”. Domination that seeks ‘control of
all international commons including Space and Cyberspace, Culture not
excluded ’. Domination that is driven by never ending Wars that see
whole societies as a battlefield. A battlefield where - in the
language of the US Marines’ ‘Fourth generation Warfare’ – “ the action
will occur concurrently- throughout all participants depth , including
their society as a cultural and not just as physical entity”.
Special” Human Terrain teams” now working alongside the American Armed
Forces handle the cultural domination. These anthropologists,
ethnographers etc are uniformed cultural warriors. They are, very
problematically, working in battlefields to better understand and
subvert cultures and peoples. Humanity is now, just a Terrain to be
controlled. As a Major Ralph Peters, of the US Military put it   “The
de facto role of the US armed forces will be to keep the world safe
for our economy and open to our cultural assault.”

It is against this background of militrarised ‘perception management’
and cultural control that one needs to look at the Time magazine
cover. It was its founder, after all, who first projected the idea of
the 20th century as ‘An American Centrury’!  Henry Luce used his media
empire to project his agenda.  Time, Fortune, Life and even the March
of Time  film series served to mediate his Synarchist ideas of
corporate control of political power.  That he was a member of Yale
University’s secretive Skull and Bones society like so many other
prominent American leaders, only adds to ones suspicions of the hidden
agendas of hidden hands.

Interestingly enough, Luce first used the term ‘American Century’ in a
publication that is iconic in its use of photography. The words
appeared in a 1941, Life magazine editorial. The celebrated manifesto
began "The American Century". Henry R. Luce made the case for American
global leadership when he urged his country men to "accept
wholeheartedly our duty to exert upon the world the full impact of our
influence for such purposes as we see fit and by such means as we see
fit."

Born in China, (a country which has interesting links to both
Synarchism and the Skull and Bones Society) he was the son of an
American missionary and wanted the United States to be more missionary
in the global and universal projection of its power beyond its
territories. Go beyond territorial control, into the control of ideas
and ideologies

It is the fact that he foresaw the power of photography in doing that
and foregrounded it in his publications that interests and intrigues
me.  I am not surprised that “Time’ _ the first Magazine he founded -
is still used (and uses photography)  to push  the ideas of a New
American Century promoted by 21st century Synarchists like Dick Cheney
. No Wikileaks, digital world, challenge to mainstream, corporate
media is to be allowed, or go unchallenged.  Not in these days of
information wars and their clear cut ideas on “Perception Management”.
The introduction in the August 9th   issue of   Time by the editor,
Richard Stengel, makes it very clear that the magazine was aiming to
counter the information leaked by Wikileaks on the uncontrollable
World Wide Web.
"The much publicized release of classified documents by WikiLeaks has
already ratcheted up the debate about the war. Our story and the
haunting cover image by the distinguished South African photographer
Jodi Bieber are meant to contribute to that debate. We do not run this
story or show this image either in support of the U.S. war effort or
in opposition to it. We do it to illuminate what is actually happening
on the ground. As lawmakers and citizens begin to sort through the
information about the war and make up their minds, our job is to
provide context and perspective on one of the most difficult foreign
policy issues of our time. What you see in these pictures and our
story is something that you cannot find in those 91,000 documents: a
combination of emotional truth and insight into the way life is lived
in that difficult land and the consequences of the important decisions
that lie ahead."
The cover photograph offers an insight, but it is an insight into the
workings of Corporate Media.  It is definitely not about any truth -
emotional or otherwise.  It is, for all practical purposes, a
political poster that you pay for. The accompanying text about “What
Happens if We Leave Afghanistan” is a statement and not a question.
It is a statement about staying on militarily, and it ignores the fact
that Bibi Aisha’s mutilation occurred last year, at a time when the
American led forces had been in the country for nearly nine years and
with their own puppet government in place. Had intervened in, decades
earlier, to actually create the Taliban. A government that hardly
gives women any real space in the new Sharia ruled Islamic Republic
that exists under American largese.  Reports by Afghan and Womens’
Human Right groups actually show, from the times of the Taliban, an
increase in the violence against women.
The cover photograph itself is a cynical attempt to photograph a
desired future. It closely echoes the Steve McCurry photograph of
another young Afghan girl on the cover of another American magazine.
That ‘National Geographic’ cover represented the sad state of
Afghanistan under Soviet occupation. This is one actually about life
in Afghanistan after decades of American intervention and a decade of
actual occupation.
Both the covers, interestingly enough, presented young and good
looking women. Ones that a western audience would be comfortable with.
Ones the women in the west could connect with more easily. It is after
all, they who are the actual targets of the propaganda. They and the
lobbying they represent. Lobbying that is seen as necessary to keep
the other international, partner armies in Afghanistan.
It is an earlier WikiLeaks document which makes that agenda clear.
The CIA’s  “Red Cell Special Memorandum: Afghanistan: Sustaining West
European Support for the NATO-led Mission- Why Counting on Apathy
Might Not Be Enough” presents a plan for a propaganda war designed to
shore up  declining public support in Germany and France. Support for
a continued war in Afghanistan.
The memo is classified as ‘Confidential/No Foreign Nationals’ and
presents a well thought out plan for the targeted manipulation of
public opinion in the two NATO ally countries. Winning hearts and
minds! This time in Europe and in America
The fall of the Dutch government on the issue of Dutch troops in
Afghanistan, worried the CIA. They became worried about repeat events
in the countries that have the third and fourth largest troop
contingents to the ISAF mission and proposed PR strategies that
focused on pressure points that had been identified within these
countries. For France it was the sympathy of the public for Afghan
refugees and women. For Germany it was the fear of the consequences of
defeat (drugs, more refugees, terrorism) as well as Germany’s standing
in NATO.
The CIA report had clear bullet points. Power points, actually! They
are about reinforcing Power.
•	"Public Apathy Enables Leaders To Ignore Voters"
•	"...But Casualties Could Precipitate Backlash"
•	"Tailoring Messaging Could Forestall or At Least Contain Backlash"
The CIA thought that "Appeals by President Obama and Afghan Women
Might Gain Traction" and very clearly stated that “Afghan women could
serve as ideal messengers in humanizing the ISAF role in combating the
Taliban because of women's ability to speak personally and credibly
about their experiences under the Taliban, their aspirations for the
future, and their fears of a Taliban victory. Outreach initiatives
that create media opportunities for Afghan women to share their
stories with French, German, and other European women could help to
overcome pervasive scepticism among women in Western Europe toward the
ISAF mission...
The ‘media opportunities for Afghan women’ became a simple
oppurtunistic use of Afghan women. They and their bodies fitted
seamlessly into the old orientalist discourses about western,
humanising and civilizing missions. Missions meant to liberate
oriental women them from their savage and cruel men.  This is about
white knights in shining steel or modern camouflage armour rescuing
dusky, eastern damsels in eternal distress.  Distress that photography
was successfully used to stress in the beautifully lit and textured
colour of a magazine cover reduced to a campaign poster for more war.
More occupation of more oriental lands in the name of exotic oriental
women. That the real prizes were and are natural resources is not
worthy of mention except when those resources might be seen by a
western audience, to pay for western wars. Like the Iraqi oil was
supposed to pay for the Iraq war.
Jodi Bieber did a great job - aesthetically speaking. The cover
portrait could be a professional fashion shoot!  And the mainstream
media jumped in to push her and their own messages about the need to
fight on.  They asked no serious questions about how empathy, the
photograph evoked, was used to promote antipathy. To promote more war
and further the occupation of a suddenly mineral and oil rich
Afghanistan. There were no questions about  the price that the
civilian population of Afghanistan, including women and children were
paying in lives cut horribly  short by wars that go on and on and seem
to be designed to do just that in an unending war on  a tactic that
the weak use  to resist stronger occupiers of  their resource rich
lands . Who is terrorising whom, one wonders. And why?
Two interviews with Bieber that I heard on BBC and CNN, were focused
in foregrounding her as a now famous photographer. A  South African
photographer, now based in London she was projected as a white,
concerned woman photographer empathising with her Afghan sisters even
as she (and they, the media themselves) ignored the privacy concerns
of her subjects - women for whom purdah may actually be more than just
a dictate by the terrible Taliban. The women who had to continue
living their lives in the very badlands of Afghanistan she was showing
up as evil and dangerous.
I remember that ‘privacy concerns of victims’ were and are still used
to prevent the release of photographs of tortured Iraqis in Abu
Ghraib. And even when the pictures were used the faces were carefully
blurred out.  That concern for privacy and the blurring to hide the
identity of Bibi Aisha was not necessary for the Time cover, it seems.
Dropping the family name while putting her on the cover of a magazine
that sells millions of copies is no real attempt to protect her
identity. Concern for the’ rights of victims’ matters when it might
show up the ugly face of American occupation but doesn’t when it is
the other side that is sought to be demonised.  The  real story of the
mutilation is not important either. Later stories that checked out the
Time story found that Aisha’s father in law had done the deed and then
got a sanction for it from village elders . It had not been ordered by
any Taliban Commander, as the Time story insisted.
Afghanistan becomes “ a broken 13th century country  for the British
Defense Secretary . A country full of “barbarians with 1200 AD
mentality” for Erik Prince, the CEO of the infamous  mercenary
Blackwater ( now Xe) . What is wiped out of memory is shown by a
collection of photographs from the Kabul of the mid 20th century.
Recently republished in ‘Foreign Policy’ along with an essay by a
Mohammed Qayoumi who lived there then, they present a conveniently
forgotten Afghanistan. A country where women could wear western skirts
and have bobbed haircuts as they attended universities and trained as
doctors and nurses.
There is more to people than just the ugly western stereotypes the
Time cover tries to reinforce and create anew. The freedom loving
Mujhaideen heroes of the Soviet era are now Talibanised as barbaric
terrorists. Terrorists cannot be “humanised” even in photographs that
the world will see.   I am reminded of the Red Cross photographs of
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (wearing a white robe, sporting a long salt and
pepper beard and sitting serenely) that were seen as dangerous by a
former Research Director of the Combating Terrorism Centre in the US
Military Academy at West Point. Jarret Barchman  said ‘whats
problematic for me is  it (the Photograph) really humanises the guy”.
The dangerous Other is now not even supposed to be seen as a Human.
The history of photography, especially in American wars is an
intriguing history. It is a story more mistold than properly told. It
is a story of careful control. A control that began after the Vietnam
war which, the Pentagon believes, was lost because of the freedom and
unhindered access that photographers had in Vietnam and photographs
got to the media at home.  Since then, photographers and even
journalists have a limited (if any) access to American battle fields.
One is now embedded into an in-bed -with intimacy that makes dangerous
disclosures difficult. Images that are released and printed go through
a careful culling by self censoring photographers and the editors at
home. Editors who act as censors and become the controllers of what
the world is allowed to see.  No dead bodies of American soldiers. Not
even in flag draped coffins. Rights to privacy of dead soldiers and
their families was the official Bush excuse when,  actually, no one
wanted a repeat of Mogadishu where pictures of dead American soldiers
being dragged through the streets had forced an American withdrawal.
 I wonder at how easily photography is used as a political weapon even
as the medium itself is denied any political space or purpose.
Photography, after the Second World War and McCarthyism, was
consciously pushed into the sanitised spaces of Art galleries and
Museums away from its past as a concerned, conscience pricking tool.
We were told by institutional gate keepers like the Museum of Modern
Art in New York that Photography was only about itself. It was an Art
form that was about navel gazing photographers and about flattened
formalist fields. Photography was not supposed to exist outside its
own frame.   It was not a medium that could be a window looking out on
to the world’s uglier face – holding up a mirror to it.  Photography
was to be a Mirror for a photographer to look into- see and explore
his subjective self – express himself as an Artist.  An artist who
never ever read what Roland Barthes says about one of the best ways of
destroying the power of photography.   Making it a Fine Art. But that
is another story!
SATISH SHARMA
Link for old pics of Afghan women
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/05/27/once_upon_a_time_in_afghanistan?page=0,1