November 2008
Issue No. 417
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Afghanistan on the edge
And the West acting like it knows best... again. Isn’t it time we listened to Afghans, asks Vanessa Baird?
Losing Afghans
How to lose friends and alienate people, by Kabul defence journalist, Khabaryal.
A brief history of Afghanistan
The fighting, the pain and the hunger for change
Beyond the burqa
Sex, dating and the struggle for modernity, by Zuhra Bahman.
Afghanistan - The Facts
The basics, conflict, aid & social equality in Afghanistan.
The blight of impunity
Human rights activist Horia Mosadiq takes her Government to task.
Theatre of justice
Drama is helping victims, writes Hadi Ogal.
Hearts and minds
Afghan views on WHAM – a key strategy of the coalition forces’ war against the Taliban. Pictures from AINA’s gallery.
Where has the money gone?
Abdul Basir on the missing aid billions.
The Opium Bank
A canny village woman talks to Zuhra Bahman.
Action and worth reading on Afghanistan
Groups, contacts and resources.
News, views, and & voices
Special Feature
Pedal power
When it comes to the future, the car simply can't compete. Chris Webb charts the comeback of the people's best friend – the humble bicycle. And you can even make one out of bamboo.
Bamboo bikes
Bamboo is so tough and so plentiful it’s used for construction scaffolding all aver Asia. So why not use it to build bikes? It seemed like a good idea to design maestro Craig Calfee and to the Earth Institute at Columbia University in New York City. The two have teamed up to build better bikes for poor Africans in rural areas and stimulate the local bicycle industry in a number of African countries. The NI talked to Bamboo Bike Project co-ordinator and Columbia scientist David Ho.
Letter from Cairo
The lightest touch
From brandished bottoms to a difficult death, Maria Golia plays nurse for her neighbours.
Currents
Death camps
UN negligence is killing child refugees in Kosovo
Fair trade magic
Women profit from new ways of doing business
Votes for women
For the first time ever women will outnumber men in a national parliament.
Money talks
China uses free trade to dominate Tibetans
Speechmarks
Bertrand Russell
(1872-1970), British philosopher and pacifist
Seriously...
A 2008 US Election Hijinks
True tales of a mixed-up world
Worldbeaters
Alan Greenspan
Looking for someone to blame for the collapse of capitalism as we have known and hated it? Alan Greenspan is as good a target as any.
Mixed Media - Music
Everything that Happens Will Happen Today
The second album by David Byrne and Brian Eno
In the House of Mirrors
New instrumental album by Hector Zazou and Swara
Mixed Media - Books
9/11 Contradictions
25 contradictions about that day in New York by David Ray Griffin
A Certain Woman
Winner of the best novel prize at Cairo International Book Fair, Hala El Badry writes about her life as an Arabic woman.
A River Called Time
The fourth novel of Mozambican author Mia Couto
Mixed Media - Film
Hunger
A horrific and unforgettable film about the 1981 Bobby Sands hunger strike directed and co-written by Steve McQueen
Good Dick
An off-beat LA-based comedy as a solitary, hostile young woman with a porn addiction. Written and directed by Marianna Palka
Big Bad World
Big Bad World 417 - Goodbye Dubyameister
Polyp says a fond farewell to the Dubyameister
View from Havana
Waiting in line
The special Cuban art of queuing dissected by Leonardo Padura Fuentes.
Essay
A meltdown primer
Radical insight and explanation from Waldon Bello.
Country Profile
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from
THIS MONTH'S EDITOR
‘Good. You’re doing the obvious thing,’ said Zuhra Bahman, one of the contributors to this month’s New Internationalist.
The ‘obvious thing’ in question was getting the main theme – on Afghanistan – written and illustrated by Afghans. I was pleased that she was pleased – but still a little worried by the logistics.
Thirty years of armed conflict – yes, Afghanistan’s turmoil began two decades before the Twin Towers fell – has not fostered a rich and vibrant tradition of journalism in the country. Grinding poverty, warlord violence and Taliban strictures denied even the most basic education to large swathes of the population – especially women and girls. Today, press freedom supposedly prevails but the case of young reporter Sayed Parwez Kaambakhsh, who is appealing against a death sentence for downloading material relating to women’s rights, suggests otherwise.
The writers featured here are not to be silenced or intimidated, however. They have provided perspectives that are immediate and insightful; subtle, complex and brave. So have the photographers. Nearly all the pictures were taken by people trained in the remarkable home-grown Aina Photojournalism Institute in Kabul. Some had never held a camera before the institute was established eight years ago. Today they are producing first-rate imagery which is being sold around the world through the Kabul-based AINA Photo Agency/Afghanistan.
Harder to sell these days is the disastrous model of capitalism that flourished under the watch of Alan Greenspan, head of the US Federal Reserve Board between 1987 and 2006. No single person is responsible for the current global crisis but Greenspan was the neocons’ economic guru and he could have read the writing on the wall had he chosen to. All of which makes him an appropriate target for this month’s Worldbeater. Meanwhile, for any nouveau pauvre city banker thinking of trading in the Porsche or the 4x4, we recommend our Special Feature – it’s all about the humble bicycle. Perhaps the ‘bamboo bike’ would suit?
Vanessa Baird for the
New Internationalist Co-operative
vanessab@newint.org
Special thanks to Abdul Basir of the British and Irish Agencies Afghanistan Group for his editorial advice, patience and readiness to make his contacts network buzz for this month’s main theme.
