There is a degree of shallowness to this video. In 1963 James Michener wrote a novel in an example of “does fiction imitate life or life fiction?”, in which the postulation of Soviet intervention to stop the barbarity of Afghan life was forwarded…long before some supposed nefarious CIA strategy.
James Michener’s “Caravans” published in 1963.
(The scene of this novel is the Kingdom of Afghanistan in 1946)
{Preceding paragraphs describes a woman stoned to death for adultery}
“Why don’t they stop it?” I demanded angrily.
“If they tried to stop it, Miller Sahib, the men you watched today and their brothers in the hills would storm Kabul and kill you and me and Moheb Khan and the king, too.”
“Impossible!” I cried.
“They have done so in the past,” Nur insisted, “In Kabul we have perhaps two thousand educated Afghans who know that things like this must end. In Kandahar maybe five hundred. But in Ghazni none. We’re outnumbered twelve million madmen to three thousand…perhaps five thousand. I’m not sorry you saw the execution, Miller Sahib. You’ll understand my country better.”
“Will things go on like this indefinitely?” I asked.
“No,” Nur said firmly. “Across the Oxus people just like us used to behave the way you saw today. Public executions supervised by mullahs were common in places like Samarkand. But the Communists from Moscow and Kiev said they had to stop. The chaderi was outlawed. Women were freed. Miller, we have ten years to halt these terrible things. If we don’t…Russia’s going to come down and stop them for us.”
“Does the government realize this?”
“Of course. Do you thing men like Shah Khan are stupid? The government knows it. But twelve million citizens don’t.” Nur rose and stamped impatiently about the room, picking his way through our scattered gear. “Don’t you understand the problems that face a man like me? Right now in Ghazni, a few hours’ journey from Kabul, every man who participated in that stoning fully expects to continue doing so for the rest of his life. If you told them tonight that you were going to halt all this, they would kill you.”
There is a degree of shallowness to this video. In 1963 James Michener wrote a novel in an example of “does fiction imitate life or life fiction?”, in which the postulation of Soviet intervention to stop the barbarity of Afghan life was forwarded…long before some supposed nefarious CIA strategy.
James Michener’s “Caravans” published in 1963.
(The scene of this novel is the Kingdom of Afghanistan in 1946)
{Preceding paragraphs describes a woman stoned to death for adultery}
“Why don’t they stop it?” I demanded angrily.
“If they tried to stop it, Miller Sahib, the men you watched today and their brothers in the hills would storm Kabul and kill you and me and Moheb Khan and the king, too.”
“Impossible!” I cried.
“They have done so in the past,” Nur insisted, “In Kabul we have perhaps two thousand educated Afghans who know that things like this must end. In Kandahar maybe five hundred. But in Ghazni none. We’re outnumbered twelve million madmen to three thousand…perhaps five thousand. I’m not sorry you saw the execution, Miller Sahib. You’ll understand my country better.”
“Will things go on like this indefinitely?” I asked.
“No,” Nur said firmly. “Across the Oxus people just like us used to behave the way you saw today. Public executions supervised by mullahs were common in places like Samarkand. But the Communists from Moscow and Kiev said they had to stop. The chaderi was outlawed. Women were freed. Miller, we have ten years to halt these terrible things. If we don’t…Russia’s going to come down and stop them for us.”
“Does the government realize this?”
“Of course. Do you thing men like Shah Khan are stupid? The government knows it. But twelve million citizens don’t.” Nur rose and stamped impatiently about the room, picking his way through our scattered gear. “Don’t you understand the problems that face a man like me? Right now in Ghazni, a few hours’ journey from Kabul, every man who participated in that stoning fully expects to continue doing so for the rest of his life. If you told them tonight that you were going to halt all this, they would kill you.”