Hello Globies!

June 1st is our next meeting. A timely and interesting topic; Afghanistan.
We will NOT have a July meeting due to all of our summer travel plans
and the July 4th holiday. Hope to see you June 1st.

See below for a glimpse into Jason's adventure in Afghanistan.

Travels in Afghanistan August 2000 and August 2001 by Jason Florio When
I journeyed to the Taliban controlled region of Afghanistan in August
2000 it was by default. I was on my way to Kashmir when I got a call to
join a journalist colleague who said, “This [Afghanistan] is where
it is happening”. In August 2001 my Afghan journey to the North eastern
region was fuelled by a need to complete a picture of a divided country.
The North eastern area of the country under the control of the Northern
Alliance (who opposed the Taliban,) was a Shangri-la compared to the Taliban
held region where I constantly felt a great sense of general and personal
paranoia (I was arrested by the Taliban Vice and Virtue police for taking
pictures of a football match, and then being accused of spying by their
military). I wanted to experience Afghan life without the confines of
the extreme Deoband form of Islam practiced by the Taliban.

My first attempt to cross into the Northern Alliance region (2001) from
Pakistan by horseback, disguised as an Afghan woman in a head to toe burqa
failed. After subsequent weeks of waiting. I finally made it in after
landing a flight on an Russian made Northern Alliance helicopter crossing
from Tajikistan into the Panjshir valley, the lair of the legendary “Lion
of the Panjshir”, Commander Massoud. This idyllic valley is the gateway
to the north, and who ever controls it controls the region. Being allowed
to roam freely and shoot photographs without the constant monitoring of
the Taliban was liberating. Working closely with the Afghan Ministry of
Foreign affairs, I was granted permission to photograph on the front line
at Bagram as well as deep in the Panjshir valley where multi-national
Taliban POW's were held. In addition, I also photographed girls'
schools (non-existent in Taliban territory) and fighters en route to the
front line.

While waiting for the Massoud interview I was promised by the Ministry
upon my arrival, I headed deep into the mountains with five Kalashnikov
carrying mujahideen fighters to find the Kuchi nomads. After twenty-two
years of fighting in the country, their life style had changed very little.
They were still camel-riding transients who showed they were virtually
immune to the effects of the war by crossing through the frontline without
hindrance from either side. The Kuchi we encountered greeted us with open
arms, until one of them thought I was trying to photograph his wife. We
were then asked politely to leave in the form of a group of young nomads
palming rocks at us. Before heading to the sandy wastelands of the northwest
and eventually onto our UN flight back to Islamabad, we finally were granted
audience with Massoud, “The Lion of the Panjshir” met us in
his fortified bunker office and gave us forty -five minutes to interview
and photograph him.

Within a week of returning to NYC on Sept the 5th, commander Massound
would be assassinated by Al Qaeda operatives posing as journalist, and
the attacks in the US would indelibly link the US and Afghanistan, finally
giving the Afghan “Silent Majority” a world voice.

New York meetings are held
at The Wings Theater, 154 Christopher Street (btw Greenwich St and Washington
St), to the right of Crunch Fitness, in the Archive on the first Saturday
of each month. Meetings start promptly at 4:00pm and end at 5:30pm. $10.00
for non-members, $8.00 for members.