Date: September 15, 2011
Time: 2:00 pm
Place: Brighan House, Assisted Living
341 MT. Auburn Street
Watertown, MA 02472
RSVP at 617-923-7779
Click here for flyer: assisted-living-week-2011
Why Afghanistan?
How well I remember September 11, 2001. Those emotions are as clear to me now as then, even though ten years have passed.
That day, I had scheduled two “Twentieth Century Revisited” shows, covering Pearl Harbor (Years 1938 through 1945), for my TV miniseries. I called all of my panelists Pauline McGuigan, Thomas W, Murphy, Robert O’Neill, James “Zeke” Motherway, Harold Brenner, Elaine Delaney and my director Maureen Jackson to ask if they would be emotionally prepared to tape the show. They agreed to do it and you can see the shows on my website.
Because of this 9-1-1, I began the “Afghanistan Series” for the Mary Lou Bigelow Show at ACTV in Arlington and WinCam in Winchester, MA.
Why my avid interest in Afghanistan?
I lived in Kabul from 1968 to 1972, as the wife of a Pan Am World Airways pilot, who was sent to the country as a training captain for Ariana Afghan Airlines. I have such fond memories of my life there. How I admired the strength and courage of the people of Afghanistan who were are so fiercely independent, yet so welcoming to strangers.
In the following days and weeks after 9-1-1, as we prepared to find the terrorists who had taken refuge in Afghanistan, I realized that the Afghan VOICE was not being heard. I felt compelled to give these wonderful people a forum to tell their own stories. What I was seeing on TV was a harsh land of guns and warfare and no Afghan spokesperson. There were plenty of western “Afghan experts” who spoke ABOUT these people, but few of any Afghans themselves! I realized, too, that Americans really didn’t understand who they were – often confusing them with Arabs or Persians. Who knew about these hardy, resilient Afghan people, who had successfully staved off the English in The Third Anglo-Afghan War with an armistice on 8 August 1919. For the British, the Durand Line was reaffirmed as the political boundary between the Emirate of Afghanistan and British India and the Afghans agreed not to foment trouble on the British side. In the aftermath, the Afghans were able to resume the right to conduct their own foreign affairs as a fully independent state.
The Soviet war in Afghanistan 1979 through Feb 15, 1989 was a nine-year conflict involving the Soviet Union, supporting the Marxist-Leninist government of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan[17] against the Afghan Mujahideen and foreign “Arab–Afghan” volunteers. Once again the Afghans retained their sovereignty.
Along with my Afghanistan Series, I also prepared for a live event:
With the support of Friends of the Winchester Public Library, Winchester Multicultural Network, Winchester Interfaith Council, Winchester and Arlington Rotary Clubs and a thoughtful Winchester woman philanthropist, plans were immediately put into place for a live event. The event was held at McCall Middle School auditorium in Winchester on March 5, 2002. The participants included 18 Afghans and eight Americans (who had been to Afghanistan). Three panels discussed 1) the history, 2) women and children and 3) reconstruction and the future of the country for 400 attendees. Charge d’Affairs Haron Amin, Embassy of Afghanistan, Washington D.C. joined the panel as a surprise speaker. Also, among the distinguished guests were Fozia Karzai Royan, sister of Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai, author-journalists Paul Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Gould www.invisiblehistory.com, and Neamatollah Nojumi, author/scholar and advisor on Central and Southwest Asia.
We taped this event in three parts, which can be seen in the entirety on my website. Najim Azadzoi and I hosted the event. Marcia L. Browne directed.
The show won first place in the National Alliance for Community Media awards.
In September 2002, I joined a group of American engineers, lead by Newton Architect Najim Azadzoi, for a trip to Kabul to attend a major reconstruction conference.
Upon my return, I began work on the documentary, “Return to Afghanistan.” It has only been shown once before at a pre-screening event in Winchester in 2004 and not again until this venu.
I narrate the opening of the film telling how I had gone back to find my Hazara Afghan cook Khyoom and his brother Rojab. This theme was carried throughout, but the film is segmented into parts to focus in on different aspects of the events in Kabul at that time.
As for the perseverance of Afghans, I could name so many people who have contributed to helping the Afghan people in their time of need, but Afghan-American Rotarian Razia Jan is one person that stands out. Her resolve to help young girls in Afghanistan is no short of miraculous. She built the Zabuli Education Center, school for girls, in the village of Deh’Subz and opened its doors in March 2008. Her work, however, is never done. Please help by donating to Razia’s Ray of Hope Foundation at www.raziasrayofhope.org
Open House - Sunday, January 29, 2012 from 11:30 AM to 1:00 PM
