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Message from Kabul
When his message came, the Taliban had just fled, Northern Alliance soldiers had taken over his village, and everybody rushed to barbers to cut off their beards and to nearby holes and hiding spots to dig up their Walkmen, VCRs, TVs, CD players, and -- in Junis's case -- his ancient Commodore, one of four in the village. Cafes had popped up all over, with impromptu dances and parties everywhere.
Junis's e-mail -- routed to Kabul, then Islamabad, then London -- was a reminder that there are civil liberties, and then there are civil liberties. Computers had been banned under penalty of death by the Taliban (except for the Taliban themselves), along with music and TV. Junis, a computer geek obsessed with Linux, had first e-mailed me years ago while I was writing for Hotwired. He was genial and obsessed with American culture. He loved martial arts movies, anything to do with Star Wars, and rap. He was perhaps the Taliban's prime kind of target. (Now he's furiously trying to download movies he's missed and is mesmerized by open source and Slashdot.)
"I could still see the dust of the pick-up trucks carrying the Taliban out of my village," he wrote, "and some friends and I went and dug up the boards of a chicken coop where I had hid the computer. They might have beaten or killed us if they'd found it. It was forbidden, although they used computers all of the time." He claims American commandos are skulking around dressed as Northern Alliance tribesmen.
Junis describes life under the Taliban as brutal, terrifying and profoundly boring. What the people in his town -- especially the kids -- missed most was music, posters of Indian and American movie stars (he'd kept his own decaying poster of Madonna), and American TV. Junis missed the fast-changing Web and sees, he says, that he has fallen "forever behind," and that programming is more complex than ever. But at least "Baywatch," which everyone in his town acutely missed, is back, and there's already a lot of talk about "Survivor." Junis predicts "Temptation Island" will be the number one show in Afghanistan within a month.
If the world needed another demonstration of America's most powerful weapon -- not bombs or special forces but pop culture -- it got it again this week. People all over the planet fuss about whether this healthy and democratic or corrupting and dehumanizing, but people's love for American techno-toys, TV shows, music and movies is breathaking. Watching TV pictures of tribesman on horseback, it's easy to forget that technology reached deep into this culture as well. Junis says phone service around Kabul remains spotty, but reporters, U.N. workers and foreign soldiers are wiring up. He's already made his way to some sex sites, and wishes he had a printer.
There are many computers in Afghanistan, Junis said, many in clusters in cities like Kabul and Kandahar (news reports have frequently mentioned that Bin-Laden's organization used both e-mail and encrypted files to communicate). Computer geeks are already hooking up with one another all over the country; Junis isn't the only Afghan e-mailing these days. He says other coders and gamers hid their PC's as well. Meanwhile, he's especially eager to get his hands on the Apple iPod, and has been drooling over the Apple website site since he got back online. And some things, of course, never change. "I thought they were going to get Microsoft," he wrote. "I guess not."
A decade ago, when East Berlin teenagers stormed the Wall and crossed over into West Berlin, the first thing many of them did was rush to music stores to buy tapes and CD's they'd been secretly, illegally listening to for years.
The Taliban worked to create the antithesis of the American world, one without technology, computing, the Net, music, or any vestige of popular culture (not to mention women's rights, elections, a free press or any religion except fundamentalist Islam. Junis said people in his town risked their lives repeatedly, not to fight the Taliban, but to try and listen to CD's and watch videos smuggled in from Pakistan, watched in the dark under blankets and in cellars. It seems the outcome was inevitable.
yeah I wondered about that too.
Maybe it's an Amiga, although my mental picture was a dusty C-64, tape drive and 300 bps modem.
So let me get this straight - your friend was catching up with movies on a Commodore?
Still, interesting story.
I reckon one of those could play movies.
Best Slashdot Co
They certainly were that repressive. But think about how Americans would react if a fundamentalist government seized power, banning computers, music and TV. Surely there would be a mass hiding of equipment against the day when the government fell.
I must say though, it makes me feel a little sick that the first thing the Afghans will see when they brush the soil from the TVs will be Jerry Springer, Temptation Island and MTV...
Of course, as nice as this sounds, the story is a little strange - I was under the impression there were almost no remaining international phone lines and that electricity was probably out in many of these areas, so I am a bit suspicious. But what do I know, maybe he has a generator and maybe the international phone lines are back up. Also the line about trying to download movies is definitely suspicious. At 9600 baud perhaps? OK, give them the benefit of the doubt, 28.8k. Doesn't sound too believable to me.
So I think this submission is either a bit of a hoax or a bit exaggerated, but it still is a nice sentiment even if the specifics are not true. And hopefully there is a guy somewhere in Afghanistan digging up his old Commodore.
Apart from the fact that he's supposedly saying that he's "downloading movies" on a commodore (ie a machine with little or no hard drive and no processing power to decode div-x's, with modems that are so antiquated that even downloading a 20meg divx would probably take a few weeks... no wonder he's furious...), it all sounds... I don't know... fake is probably the word.
As for digging up all the forbidden stuff as soon while they could still see the dust from the trucks of the talibans, that is just plain unbelievable. I doubt anyone who's just lived under such an oppressive regime would take that risk. What if they forgot something and drive back up to get it? Just because the trucks have driven away doesn't mean they're gone for good.
I would think that people living under oppressive regimes develop a sort of natural paranoia as a survival mechanism... my father who lived most of his life in communist Romania still has it twenty years after fleeing the country... I find it surprising that afghans would lose it in minutes...
Daniel
I agree. Not only that, but Katz is milking the war in Afghanastan again.
There hasn't been enough time for the "little village" to be sent new computers, and how does he even know how to connect to the internet? Dial into his local IP? Junoweb?
Next question. What, in gods name, does this have to do with slashdot? News for nerds?
I hate to flame/troll whatever, but I read this comment last Katz article, and I'm starting to agree with it...
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
The people of Afghanistan don't have televisions, they don't have music, and they don't have telephones... but they have e-mail access one day after the Northern Alliance "liberates" the city? And, coincidentally, he likes Open Source and Slashdot? What???
I'm sorry, but I just can't honestly believe this story to be true without some kind of third-party verification. And even then, I'd still be skeptical. It just doesn't sound legit to me...
So the top three TV shows mentioned in the story ("acutely missed" is the phrase connected to one of them) are Baywatch, Survivor, and Temptation Island?
Three shows based on the concept of manly men frolicking with scantily-clad women, and in the latter two, premised on the assumption that all humans are conniving backstabbers, and that relationships cannot last in the face of lust, respectively.
And we're trying to convince the Middle East that America is a just and moral nation? Ya ha ha, whatever.
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
For better or for worse, this once again proves that once Pandora's box is open you can't shut it, no matter how hard you try.
Having lived in Africa, I've seen firsthand how quickly, frighteningly so, things can change during a coup d'etat. People whose constraints have been mostly external for some time, lose control very quickly when those constraints are lifted, but within a few days things settle down and they regain their internal control/balance.
a few things that REALLY make me think that Katz either made this crap up, or is the victim of a VERY poorly fabricated hoax:
1 - I know it's been said already, but it bears repeating...how does one download MOVIES on an "ancient commodore"? And furthermore, how does one play them?
2 - When you're living in Afghanistan, who do you call to get internet access?
3 - If the guy's using that "ancient commodore", what would prompt him to salivate over an IPod? First of all, it's doubtful that he would have ever acquired even a single MP3 file, let alone enough to fill an IPod. Oh, and Commodores didn't have firewire back in my day. Seems like the guy would be more likely to lust after a 2-year old Athlon system and a broadband connection rather than an IPod.
I'm sure I'm not the only one who noticed this pile of absolute rubbish. Katz should be sent over to Kabul to investigate the situation himself.
Yep. I didn't want to be the one to say it, because I fear the mighty, mighty hand of Pro-Katz moderation, but the entire article smells like fiction.
"He just dug out his commodore, one of the only 4 in the village, and now he's pirating movies and is "mesmerized" by open source and slashdot."
I mean, you'd figure that anyone who can get a gnutella client working from a warzone has heard of linux before.
Didn't the Taliban STRICTLY regulate technology? The Taliban thought the Internet was evil, after all, and outlawed it. So I find it HIGHLY suspicious that someone managed to start up an ISP in the middle of this war, and that someone else out there is more concerned about getting on Slashdot than staying alive and eating, which is what 99% of the Afghani population is probably concerned with.
This was bullshit. Sorry, but it *can't* be legit.
"Mod, mod, mod...and another troll bites the dust."
It seems you've lost a lot of freedom recently - I haven't seen anyone march. Besides do you seriously believe a group of disorganized people with handguns an rifles is actually a match for the US army - one of the most modern and best trained armies in the world? Didn't work terribly well for the Taliban just now, did it?
Um.. If the guys a programmer, what has he been doing since 1995? Working for the Taliban? Or just scratching out code in the dirt? I'm sorry it sounds like BS to me.
You are counting too much on your press. Afghan women are not at all opressed, what you see is tribes (I know it because your media shows Pakistan like that too and I know most Pakistani women are more free than any US women can dream of.)
In US there are more women than men, but they are still treated as a minority. And it was not the case in Afghanistan and Kabul did actually have a pretty advanced culture.
It was Russians (the new U.S. Ally) who are responsible for all this.
And for God.s sake dont listne to this Katz idiot
Hate to break it to you, but just such a government is trying to seize power and ban computers, music, and TV - at least, when used to express anything they disagree with (which is most of the time) or when their sponsors haven't been paid off to their satisfaction. Fortunately, they haven't been able to get their act completely together yet, and some in the government remain dedicated to to principles on which America was founded.
If he is using a Commodore, obviously money is not freely flowing out of his pockets. Then it states "Meanwhile, he's especially eager to get his hands on the Apple iPod" ...that ipod is around 300 USD...AND it only works with an Apple computer. You schuur the email you received was legit, Jon?
So have a good drown as you go down, all alone, dragged down by the stone.
We'd all love to read it.
[mod this up if you agree -- I'm at the cap anyway, so I'm not KW'ing]
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
I admit, after reading the first few lines and knowing that there are all sorts of stupid Sept 11 and Afganistan hoax emails going around, I was skeptical. But a lot of the criticism here ignores what Katz wrote.
a forwarded e-mail from Junis
routed to Kabul, then Islamabad, then London
Ok, so the people who said "How did he get Katz's email address!" didn't read that it was forwarded to John from someone in London.
Junis, a computer geek obsessed with Linux, had first e-mailed me years ago while I was writing for Hotwired
And it seems to me that the folks suggesting this is just another typical internet chain-email hoax missed the part where Junis had written to Katz before! Come on people. Just because you don't personally know anyone in Kabul, Islamabad, or London doesn't mean that a well known journalist (and he is well known, and respected, in geek journalist circles) wouldn't have enough connections to get an interesting email from someone in a newsworthy place.
Could it all be made up as a device for another article overusing the phrases "geek", "open-source", and other buzz-words about the pervasiveness of the net and the radical societal shifts brought about by the rise of the geeks? Sure.
Could the government be hiding evidence of alien landings at Roswell and poisoning our water with mind-control flouride so we won't notice the UN's silent black helicoptors when they come to impose the oppressive new world order and take our guns away? Um...sure.
Too many people want to validate conspiracy theories instead of debating the ideas Katz brings up.
- StaticLimit
John says: "Junis, a computer geek obsessed with Linux, had first e-mailed me years ago while I was writing for Hotwired."
.af domain then yes, you could be suspicious, but if John has known this guy for years then he's in a better position to judge than we are.
If you got a random email from someone you've never heard of from a
Baz
I don't believe this for a moment. I hope Katz is above simply fabricating something like this, but I have no idea why he would just 'describe' the letter rather then reposting it here so we can all see for ourselves.
And as others mentioned, you can't download movies to a commodore, it just wont happen And he wouldn't have been able to do 'modern' programming on it for a long time. While I have heard reports of video stories and movie theaters opening back up, they're more likely to renting Indian and Pakistani films. Although I'm sure some people go for the American ones as well.
And comments about the iPod and Macs? Yeh, right. This sounds like more of a katzian fantasy to me. How would he even hear about the thing? And why would he want it rather then more reasonable mp3 players. After all, on a pure modem link he isn't going to be able to download movies.
And unless the northern alliance has managed to get DSL installed in the past few days, he isn't going to be downloading movies no matter what computer he has.
Katz if you have an journalistic credibility, post the actual message.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
"Mankind is my business, and yours too. Enslave someone *anywhere*, and I have the moral right to stop you. Morality does not stop at national borders. "
What you and I call "enslavement", Afghans call "respect". Anyway, you can't even stop me from "enslaving" my wife if I lived next door to you, as long as I don't break any laws. How can you expect to Americanize these people halfway across the globe? Moral right? What does that even mean on a global scale? You have no rights not given to you by your nation of residence. If you live in Afghanistan, and you are a woman, you live like an Afghan woman. If you live in America, you get to sit and watch.
"It's not like all of Afghanistan sat down and agreed, 'OK, women stay at home, don't get schooling, and have to wear burqas.'"
You mean that there was no election, right? So what? There has never been an election in Saudi Arabia either. Democracy is not for everyone. Just ask China. Notice we're not doing shit about how they treat their women. That's because we'd get our democratic asses handed to us if we tried. As soon as you become a Muslim you accept that women are to be treated differently. It's a vital part of their beliefs. Although not as extreme, all 1 billion of the world's Muslims behave this way. You want to go ask them to stop? Be my guest.
If you fall off a building, go real limp, because maybe you'll look like a dummy and people will be like hey, free dummy
Fiction is fiction, and by itself, that's fine. What's really wrong with this picture is that Jon Katz is using ficiton to justify a point about how great popular culture is. If the story is false, then the point is moot.
He's trying to download movies on a Commodore?
Commodore is (was) a company, not a model. He didn't specify whether it was a C64, or Amiga 4000, either of which could be considered "ancient," however the Ami4k (Or even 2000) is quite capable of web browsing and playing movies.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Demand. Well-educated people are naturally drawn to Blue areas, and ignore the "opportunities" available in the cheaper Red ones. It's very much a cultural type of thing. Well-educated people also tend to have bucks, so housing prices are bid up big-time.
The huge downside, of course, is that only the Blues that are wildly successful have even what might be considered a middle-class lifestyle in Red-land. I think this may be why many Blues have leftist voting records; they don't think of themselves as rich, even though technically they have lots more money than the rest of the country. I'm personally conservative because I deeply resent the government's share of my income, in view of the exceptionally poor quality of most government services. Because we have a progressive tax structure, "rich" blues who still can't afford a half-decent house are penalized more than Reds who can.
The sophisticated stuff does cost lots of money, but you can avoid it if you want, so that's not the total answer.
As Daniel (the anonymous coward below this post) said, it's harder to buy stuff in the Red zone; you can't get ballet tickets, and you can't get fantastic ethnic foods. Those things balloon Blue budgets beyond all reason. In Redworld, you are more or less forced to live within your means.
This is, of course, exactly why Blues are highly unlikely to venture into Redworld and be happy; we need (or think we need) that urban cornucopia of stuff.
D
This, however, should be the last straw. Please, pull John Katz off Slashdot. This story is ridiculous to the point of being scary. Katz has made an ass of himself - don't let him do the same thing to the site.
This post will probably be modded down so as to sanitize the discussion (Off topic or Flamebait is anything that constructively criticizes Slashdot, along with the rest of the troll content), and so will many other that are trying to make a valid point. But just remember one thing:
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
People all over the planet fuss about whether this healthy and democratic or corrupting and dehumanizing,
American culture is all of those things.
The tidal wave of American culture is frightening and Borg like.
As long as it is seen this way, reactionary forces will gain support from the many who watch with despair as traditional culture and values developed over many centuries are replaced within a generation with what comes over satellite television from America.
It's too bad we're incapable of giving the Afghans freedom, democracy and human rights without simultaneously injecting a huge dose of consumerism laced with appeals to lust and violence.
Oh well, I suppose I can't fault the rest of the world for falling into the same traps that my fellow Americans have for decades. Don't like it? Don't watch it.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
They have the technology to follow me around from a satellite if they want, but why would they? They've got bigger fish to fry.
... DOH!
That's the point, with new technology they can fry all the fish. Traffic analysis, vacuum cleaner information gathering. Collect them all, and let the database sort them out.
Here's the kind of thing that could happen: Intellegence could find out that I've gotten copies made at BestCopy in Toronto (credit card) which was connected with Bin Laden, Bonk! My security risk karma gets a +1. So more automatic tests get run. Maybe I made a phone call to the next-door neighbour of a gun-runner, Bonk! I've mentioned gun-powder on Usenet, Bonk! I associate with the notorious Keith Henson, charged with threatening $cientology with weapons of mass-distruction, Bonk! And so it goes... Wider and wider searches that find possible and maybe connections.
The trouble with systems that collect everything is that there will be a temptation to automatically create profiles, and if it's not done right, some innocent person's security risk karma could max out -- and we're weakening the rules on innocent until proven guilty.
Sounds it sounds paranoid, but security agencies are paranoid by nature, and have to look at possibles and maybes.
If you want an excellent look at what a paranoid "knows everything" system would be like, the best I've read is Sam Hall by Poul Anderson. Hard to find short story, but well worth the search!
Luckly I paid cash at BestCopy so they'll never know
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
It's ridiculous that Katz should take this at face value, or that /. editors would pass this on without comment. The minor effort required to check even one of the outlandish "facts" in this piece would have been worth some effort.
This is really sad. I've been after Katz to look at his journalistic basics since the day he decided that ABC TV was "wrong" when they used a hidden camera, wielded by a paid undercover operative, to show Red Lion supermarkets selling rotten meat.
He claimed that it was "unethical" to get a job at Red Lion with a falsified job app, even if you already knew potentially lethal poison was being sold to people.
At the time he was celebrating a decision (later overturned) that would have hog-tied such investigative practices.
He doesn't understand the basic debt that a journalist owes his readers, and probably never will. One can only hopes that he takes this embarassment as a lesson.
I survived the Dick Cheney Presidency 7 to 9 AM 7-21-07
It may not be any business of yours, but I'm making it my business. You can try to stop me, but you won't do so with words.
If your only issue is whether the people in these places want change, that's an easy question to answer: they do, go visit one of these countries sometime and ask.
If you were truly correct that the people in these societies liked the conditions they lived under, it would be a different matter. The fact is, though, most of them don't; however, brutal police states, corrupt governments, and lack of resources stops most of them from doing anything about it.
I've travelled and lived in Africa, and travelled in the Middle East, and what you often see is similar to what used to happen in the Soviet Union: people do the things people do anyway, if they can get away with it, but they do it underground and at serious risk to their lives and freedom. You may not care about this, but having lived in environments like this, I do.
And, despite your belief that "putting our nose in somebody else's business" got us into this, one can make a credible argument for the opposite being true: the U.S. has remained too hands-off in its foreign policy, only getting involved when it has a clear, direct strategic interest in a particular situation. The reasons for this foreign policy date back to World War II and Vietnam. However, this may not be in the the US's own interest. It means that from the point of view of people in other countries, US involvement is capricious and unpredictable, leading to resentment when the US does or doesn't get involved in a situation where others think it should or shouldn't.
A policy based more clearly on things like human rights interest could actually go a long way towards improving America's reputation in the rest of the world, and would not necessarily cost significantly more money, since America could certainly get international backing and cooperation for such a policy.
It's not as simple as that. Do you have the right to e.g. punish someone that thinks he/she is doing the right thing, no matter what organisation, religion or culture that person belongs to?
You don't have the right to force someone to do (or don't do) something unless that other person "agrees" (has the same cultural, religious or ethnic backround, or lives in the same country and abides to the same laws).
I think things like for example the U.N. declaration of the human rights are good things, but some other things don't simply have global validity. You take them for granted, like double glased windows, central heating, universities without fees, and taking your shoes off when going indoors (I'm a Swede), but everyone else does not. You can't enforce things like that, not even the U.N. declaration of human rights, on anyone.
Enforcing a way of life upon someone is wrong. It is a violation of the integrity of the other person. It is denying everything that the other person is.
I'm not saying it's wrong to stop people hurting each other. I'm saying it's way wrong to call it your moral right to do so, because morality is not global.
And don't forget: The conflict in Aghanistan exists because of American foreign policy, because of economics, because of oil. Prove me wrong.
5000 people is a small prise to pay to ensure that ones interests in the middle east are not jeopardised. Don't come talking about moral, because moral is nothing.
It's 11pm, do you know what your deamons are up to?
They found oil in Kazakhastan you trollop. The Kazakhs do not want it routed through Russia as the Russians will steal some oil if it is piped in through their land. The US governmnet wants it piped through, guess where? Afghanistan. They found alot of oil too. It is a much larger oil deposit than any other country has.
I'd be willing to bet that the U.S. forces in Kabul have seriously increased the amount of Internet Accessibility in the general area - I KNOW for a FACT, that there had been relatively widespread internet access in *.AF in the time of the gulf war, as I had several contacts in that area, during that point in time.
It's likely that the U.S. forces have restored access to the area in a relatively short period of time - even the military boys like the Internet.
"Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/