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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.
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
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)
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."
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!
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.
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."
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'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?