The Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand's *Dateline* magazine
Hammered by five years of Taliban propaganda, Afghans are now searching for truth in the airwaves and pages of their crippled media.
Copyright by Richard S. Ehrlich
Developing Press
Afghan Journalism
Second Quarter 2002
by Richard S. Ehrlich
Kabul University's new journalism students have been hearing about freedom of the press for the first time from professors who are no longer muzzled.
"During Taliban time, there were some people who worked like teachers here at Kabul University, but they taught only Muslim culture and science," said Hedayatullah Wafa, a journalism department professor.
"They always propagated their ideas. They did not want liberty. They always wanted the students to be like mullahs [Muslim prayer leaders]," Mr. Wafa said in an interview.
"We could not speak about liberty or liberalism. We had to say what the mullahs said and repeat what they have been saying for the past 1,400 years.
"They could not understand life in the 21st century. They always spoke of the 14th or 15th century."
News under the Taliban appeared in publications such as Sharia Weekly, which reported the world through the prism of sharia -- ancient laws drawn from the Muslim holy book, the Koran.
"Sharia Weekly said Osama bin Laden is our guest and if Afghan people like our guests we defend them.
"They reported that America is our great enemy, and said America helped us during our war against the Soviet Union but now America doesn't like Osama bin Laden, so we don't like America.
"Personally, I couldn't believe this because I am not a dogmatist. I studied journalism and taught and wrote some books about liberty and freedom and America.
"But the Taliban always talked about paradise," Mr. Wafa said.
Kabul Times also put out a weekly edition, alongside newspapers such as Anis, or Friend, and Hewad, which translates as Nation.
"When I read these newspapers, it was below standard," the journalism professor said.
"For me, there were no good articles. Always it was: 'Mr. Mullah said these remarks'.
"Our students wanted to study, but some liked the Taliban. Most didn't like the Taliban but they also said they liked them.
"We had very few possibilities to teach journalism. We taught theory and sometimes we corrected their work, or we had a lecture about some articles or we told them about themes and commentaries. Then I would see what they wrote.
"There was no television during the Taliban time," Mr. Wafa said.
The Taliban banned all pictures of people and animals -- including videos, movies, photographs, paintings, statues and other images -- because the Taliban insisted only God could create or represent life.
Pictures of vegetation were permitted.
After the Taliban abandoned Kabul in November 2001, Kabul's television and radio stations started broadcasting news, music and other formerly forbidden programs.
The U.S., Italy, Iran and other nations are now helping Afghanistan's media with equipment, programming and tutorials.
"Before the Taliban, we could show some photographs of people and read some foreign articles and use American books. But the Taliban said, 'You cannot tell the students anything about America or about the friends of America.
"Earlier, I read the New York Times and the International Herald Tribune and other foreign magazines but we didn't have any possibility of showing these to our students," Mr. Wafa said.
Today, the journalism department brought in big changes for its first post-Taliban class, which began in February 2002.
"Now we hope to show our students films, magazines and other media and have some press conferences," Mr. Wafa said.
"We hope some professors will come from America and other countries to say something to our students.
"Our library didn't have contact with America for many years, and we didn't get any American newspapers or magazines, but we hope we can now."
The journalism professor discovered freedom of the press through a circuitous route.
"I studied at Karl Marx University in Leipzig [East Germany] in 1987 where I got my masters in journalism," Mr. Wafa said.
Kabul University has more than a dozen journalism teachers, including some who learned their craft under the sponsorship of the former Soviet Union which occupied Afghanistan from 1979-89.
"We had only 180 students during the Taliban, but now we hope to have 300 to 400 students," Mr. Wafa said.
"I want journalism universities in America to help our faculty and invite our teachers to learn and give us some courses, so we can meet other professors and change our thinking."
Afghan journalists, meanwhile, are organizing a union to "ensure freedom of speech and press" and other basic rights.
"The Afghan Journalists Union (AJU), an independent organization for uniting and securing the basic rights of our journalists, will resume its activities in the near future," an AJU statement said.
"After the occupation of Kabul by the Taliban, the Afghan Journalists Union was dissolved and its property and technology in the central office were confiscated and looted by the Taliban."
*****************************************
email: animists *at* yahoo *dot* com
Richard S. Ehrlich is a Bangkok-based journalist who has reported news from Asia since 1978, is co-author of the non-fiction book of investigative journalism, "HELLO MY BIG BIG HONEY!" -- Love Letters to Bangkok Bar Girls and Their Revealing Interviews.
His web page is
http://www.oocities.org/asia_correspondent