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The current situation in Afghanistan is only side of a complicated coin that hasn't been thoroughly investigated by the American media, said a group of journalists who discussed the media's role in Afghanistan at a dialogue sponsored by New York City's Asia Society Tuesday night - on the three-month anniversary of the September 11 attacks.
In a program that often turned critical of America's media and foreign policy, three journalists and one poet explored Afghanistan's troubled political history and the myriad of factors - repeatedly unreported by the U.S. media - that led to the terrorists' attacks on September 11. The packed audience nearing 350 listened in awe, often supporting the journalists' views.
"There's an amazing trail that goes back … that's very, very clear [leading to the 9/11 attacks]," said Elizabeth Gould, a freelance producer who, along with her husband Paul Fitzgerald, made the breakthrough 1982 PBS documentary Afghanistan Between Three Worlds. The hour-long film, screened prior to the dialogue, painted a picture of a country fraught with political upheaval and unwanted foreign intervention indicative of today's situation.
Fitzgerald, after much wrangling with the then-Soviet-backed Afghanistan government, was given 11 days to explore Kabul and Jalalabad. But government officials and bodyguards who severely limited his interviews and investigative tactics constantly flanked him. After his documentary was aired, there was a flurry of interest in the West over Afghanistan that soon died down.
"We expected the kind of discussion going on today to be going on in 1981 [when the Soviet Union occupied Afghanistan]," said Gould, who helped produce the documentary. "We are now realizing the price the Afghans - and in turn Americans - had to pay for the global balance of power."
Halima Kazem, a 24-year old Afghan-born journalism student at New York University, deftly portrayed the complex and frustrating position of innocent Afghans caught in the war and detailed factors that led to the crisis. "It's not that the Arab and Afghan world despises modernization - as thought by the United States," said Kazem. "It's that they despise the contradictions in this country's foreign policy and how it adversely affects Middle Eastern countries."
Fitzgerald noted the American media finally has developed a curiosity about Afghanistan in reaction to the September 11 events. "A media that devoured Viet Nam," said Fitzgerald, "that devoured Watergate … it's amazing that nobody was talking about what was going on in [Afghanistan]."
Kazem said though the curiosity is good, it's too little too late. "I admire the curiosity [the American population has about Afghanistan]. I share the curiosity," said Kazem. "But it's not foreign to me. I grew up with the politics in my house and I'm not amazed that the American people are so unaware of my country. There were certain foreign policy decisions made that affected … Afghanistan. And nobody here knew."
There needs to be a greater understanding of how the major news media covers Afghanistan and selects its news, the panelists said. They also noted that broadcast and print media pre-select what would be the big story, which affects public opinion; and though the news outlets are trying hard to present the reports, there's too many stories that are missed.
"Adopting an appreciation for the culture [of Afghanistan] is tantamount to good reporting," Fitzgerald said. "But we take a lot biases in the suitcase with us when we arrive in the hotel for our assignments."
One of the main problems is the media's history of presenting national stories and bypassing the international ones. Kazem, who relies on foreign press like The Hindu for well-rounded international news, said the events of September 11 finally broke down the "Great Wall of China" around the United States. But she is skeptical of how long this interest will last. "International news comes by national interest," Kazem said.
Many things are unreported about Afghanistan, including the fact that the United States nearly recognized the now-defunct Taliban government a few months ago so it could negotiate a deal to build an oil pipeline through Afghanistan, thus bypassing Russia and avoiding costly taxes, Fitzgerald said. "When the attacks against America happened, we all were shocked and grieved. But this was something a lot of people thought might happen - and not because we had intelligence communication."
"In most ways the people who are responsible for this are not the innocent Afghan people themselves," Fitzgerald added.
Gould says the thing Americans must remember now is that the United States is not the rebel country it started out as: "It is an empire and we need to address questions and problems from the outside in."
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