In the context of media monopoly, and the censorship of
network news by the military, alternative media is
scoring some successes. A well-attended event at Los
Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, organized by Nomads
and Residents, brought together three activists who are
using video and the internet to bring about political
and cultural change. The presentation stimulated an
energetic debate among the participants and the
audience about media representation and U.S. actions in
Afghanistan, demonstrating the continued importance of
face-to-face discussions outside of university and
other institutional forums.
Meena Nanji began the evening by showing a pilot for
her documentary about Afghan refugee women in camps in
Northern Pakistan. When asked about her thoughts about
the now well-known documentary, "Beneath the Veil," by
Sarai Shah, she said that the documentary had failed to
provide political and historical context for the
condition of women in Afghanistan. She spoke about the
difficulty for documentary-makers to receive funding or
be distributed (as Shah's piece was by CNN - with
substantial editing) when their work does connect
social realities with political action. She left the
day after the discussion for Pakistan to continue to
work on her project.
Shahid Nadeem, a playwright and TV director from
Pakistan, showed an episode of his series of television
dramas which were shown in Northern Pakistan, in the
ethnic Pashtun region. The episode was based on an
actual account of an honor killing that, surprisingly,
occurred among the professional class. A woman who was
pursuing a divorce from her abusive husband was killed
by her own brother, with her mother and father's
support, in the office of her lawyer. The series has
apparently created an active dialogue among its
audience when it was shown last summer.
Sonali Kolhatkar, part of an organization dedicated to
supporting human rights for Afghan women (Afghan
Women's Mission), discussed the state of the
Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan
(RAWA). A 0-a-head celebrity-studded fundraiser for
RAWA was occurring later that week at Track 16, an art
gallery in Bergamot Station. Kohatkar noted that the
internet was substantially responsible for spreading
the word about RAWA around the world (although she
bemoaned the endless email petitions spawned by an
naïve activist with an inadequate server).