Afghanistan — Lifting the Veil, The Seoul Times, CNN Special Investigations Unit Documentary

August 13, 2007

Asia-Pacific
Afghanistan — Lifting the Veil
CNN Special Investigations Unit Documentary

Hijab, more specifically the Burqa, has been enforced in Afghanistan since the Taliban took over major parts of the country in 1996 following years of civil war. The Burqa covers the entire body, head and face.

Six years after CNN broadcast the groundbreaking and award-winning documentary “Beneath the Veil,” the international network returns to Afghanistan and discovers that women still face dangerous and harsh living conditions even after the U.S. and coalition forces invaded the country following the September 11th attacks.
In AFGHANISTAN – LIFTING THE VEIL celebrated journalist and filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy criss-crosses the impoverished country, meets with ordinary Afghans and witnesses firsthand the struggles women face in a nation trying to rebuild amid continued war, corruption and chaos. Obaid-Chinoy learns that stalled foreign aid, repressive clerics and a dysfunctional government stymie progress.
Despite Afghanistan’s new democracy, little appears to have changed for the better, particularly for women. Six years after the Taliban was overthrown, many women are still forced by their husbands and families to wear burqas. Only two out of five Afghan girls attend school and since most women lack the skills and training to work, begging is often the only option even for a bleak life.
With such limited options, many women have chosen a devastating route of escape from their brutal oppression: self-immolation. Obaid-Chinoy speaks with suicide survivors in hospitals to try to understand what drives them to such desperate actions as setting themselves on fire. In a country of nearly 32 million, more than one million are widows – a consequence of 20 years of wars and conflict. Without husbands, the widows are essentially condemned to a life of abject poverty. Even married women do not appear to fare much better. In a culture in which most marriages are arranged and young girls are often sold into marriage by their early teen years, women are frequently doomed to lives of abuse by their husbands and in-laws.

But Obaid-Chinoy does find some faint signs of hope as well. In the northern town of Taloqan, she finds a girls’ school which seems to embody the promise of the “new Afghanistan.” A fiercely courageous teacher, who once risked her life to teach girls in secret, now teaches in a modest facility that educates 4,000 girls. Despite this progress, the school has not received the aid it needs to build new classrooms and the girls say they face strong resistance to study at home.
In 2001, Beneath the Veil introduced viewers to one family devastated by the Taliban. The father had been kidnapped, the mother executed and their young daughters were left alone in a house with Taliban fighters for days. Obaid-Chinoy returns six years later to find out how the father and two daughters have fared since liberation, finding a mixed message of Afghanistan’s pain and progress.
In a nearby village, Obaid-Chinoy speaks with a cleric who also speaks hopefully. He tells her that despite the crushing poverty, he is optimistic for the reconstruction of his war-ravaged village – perhaps a health center might open someday and more food may become available for the people.
Obaid-Chinoy concludes: “I have found joy and hope in places I least expected it, but I have also learned that progress is slow. Afghanistan’s problems were not fixed by the invasion … hanging in the balance, are the future of Afghanistan and the lives of its people, people desperate for peace … and for hope.”

Checking In On Last Year’s 10, The Toronto Star

August 13, 2007

It’s been a dynamic 12 months for alumni of the Star’s annual ‘to watch’ list

LESLIE SCRIVENER
FEATURE WRITER

Films made, books published, deals brokered, Olympic dreams in sight: 2007 was a very good year for the accomplished Torontonians the Sunday Star profiled a year ago in its “10 to watch” feature.
For some it was a year of dazzling births. In June, Janice Price ushered in the inaugural Luminato festival, an annual, 10-day celebration of the arts. Mo Johnston, manager of Toronto FC, helped set off a local explosion of soccer mania with sold-out games and devoted fans at the shiny new BMO Field at Exhibition Place.
“It was really, oh, amazing,” says Luminato CEO Price, 51, thinking back on 2007, which she calls “the fastest year of my life.” After working in New York and Philadelphia, she returned to her hometown to run the $12-million festival.
“It completely opened my eyes, that there really is an appetite for this kind of event.”

The past year also brought recognition to three of our 2007 nominees who work in the arts.
About 12 months ago, Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, a documentary filmmaker, was heading to Afghanistan to do a film on women five years after the U.S. invasion. This year, that film, Lifting the Veil, was broadcast in Canada, the U.S., Britain and Australia.
“In some cases, women’s lives have become a lot worse,” she said on the phone recently from Karachi, where she was preparing to cover Pakistan’s parliamentary elections for The New York Times website and PBS (before the turmoil following the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto). Though an unprecedented number of women have been elected to the Afghan parliament, they have virtually no power, she says. “They are icons for the West to see.”
Still, there are glimmers of hope. More girls are being educated, though often their fathers disapprove, she notes. “… People in the West think that Afghanistan is well on its way to recovery. One of the wake-up calls is that women who were promised rights and freedoms still do not have them.”
Obaid-Chinoy, 29, also won the Broadcast Journalist of the year award from the One World Broadcasting Trust, which promotes filmmaking about developing areas. Her next film will be on the vanishing middle class in Iraq.
Artist Shary Boyle is back in Canada after a six-month residency in London, part of the Canada Council International Studio Program, which culminated in a September exhibition at a venue called Space in the U.K. capital. The piece she created was a new development, she says, combining overhead projections of her performance work with floating sculptures. Her subject was the effect of colonization “forces that change the world.”
Boyle, 35, was also an Ontario finalist for the $50,000 Sobey Art Award for a Canadian artist under 40. “Even though I didn’t get the award, there was a lot of buzz about it,” she says. Boyle was has been working on a monograph of her work called Otherworld Uprising, to be published early in 2008.
There was also buzz last year about playwright and poet Jonathan Garfinkel’s new book and first work of literary non-fiction, Ambivalence: Crossing the Israel/Palestinian Divide, which had set off a publishers’ bidding war. Ambivalence tells of his life in Toronto and his journey to Israel to search for a house where Palestinians and Israelis were believed to live together peacefully. “For me the story ends up speaking about so much more than the Middle East,” says Garfinkel, 34.
“There’s a longing for home, what it means to have a home, questions of identity and culture, and what it is we long and hope for.” He’s now working on a novel based on his experiences in the former Soviet republics.
The end of the year brought good news to one of Canada’s top wrestlers, Ohenewa Akuffo, 28 , who only two weeks ago qualified for Canada’s Olympic team. Though the Brampton native had won the championship at the Canada Cup in June, she didn’t improve her second-place standing at the Pan American Games in Brazil the following month, and failed to win a medal at the World Championships in China in September. “It was a little depressing, and I didn’t want that disappointment to carry through the rest of the year.”
Her goal is clear: the summer Olympics. “That’s all I think about. I’ve been thinking about it for four years.”
Toronto police inspector Peter Yuen, the highest-ranking Chinese Canadian police officer in Ontario, was often in the news in 2007. As the duty inspector who filled in for the chief of police after regular business hours, he was frequently called in to comment on Toronto homicides. “I was privy to many human tragedies,” he recalls. Earlier this month Yuen, 43, was reassigned to 55 Division, where he is second in command.
“A lot of people think policing is chasing cars and shootings. My style is to stress that to be a police officer in 2007 and beyond, you have to have customer service – be professional and be compassionate.”
Yuen also started a master’s degree in organizational leadership at the University of Guelph, doing course work online. His thesis may upset the police establishment, he says. “I believe Canadian police organizations should look at non-police officers for the position of chief-of-police. We’re too traditional.”

Finally, Zainab Taiyeb, whose experience selling Rogers telecommunications services door-to-door transformed her into a workers’ rights activist, was out of the country and not available for an interview. Taiyeb, 44, is chair of the board of directors of the Toronto Workers’ Action Centre. Says Deena Ladd, co-ordinator of the centre, “It’s important to have people directly affected by bad working conditions play a leadership role in our organization.”

I am Pakistani

August 12, 2007

[ Madeeha Syed ]…printed matter

‘I am Pakistani’
August 12th, 2007

sharmeen1.jpgWith her Mac on one side and a host of notebooks and papers on the table in front of her, Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, journalist and independent film-maker (Reinventing the Taliban and the upcoming The Promise — A journey through Afghanistan) invites me to sit on her ‘see-saw’ sofa in the house she grew up in. She is energetic, loud, open and most importantly, she’s on a mission. Teaming up with a group of individuals, she’s formed the Citizens Archive of Pakistan (CAP) and they’re on a mission to do exactly that — archive the history of Pakistan in whatever way or form possible. And communicate it as well.

Some of the paintings on display include six life-sized murals based on every decade in Pakistan’s history; the photography is predominantly a contemporary look by prominent photographer on Pakistan itself. The documentaries includes those based on the last days of Lord Mountbatten as the viceroy of pre-Partition India, how different film-makers view Partition and also a documentary examining the social and political issues predominant such as poverty and inflation as well as the remnants of the British rule over South Asia: the bureaucracy.

Sheema Kirmani along with Tehreek-i-Niswan presented a play yesterday based on Lahore in 1947 on an immigrant family coming to stay at an allotted haveli, seemingly vacated, after Partition only to discover that the matriarch of the previous household continued to inhabit it. The dialogues had been taken from the poet, Nasir Kazmi’s original letters and writings and the story line itself was based on an actual incident that had taken place.

Talking about how the CAP formed, Sharmeen says, “Last year in the summers, I was having a discussion about Pakistan: its history, where we are and where we are headed. I realised that there was no place where you could absorb Pakistan’s history,” adding that there was a lack of national identity that the common Pakistani has, she mentioned that “we are lost as people.” Hence the idea of creating a platform through which one could know Pakistan, where it came from, who were the people who chose to support its formation along with the stages through which the country has progressed, both culturally and historically, took birth.

Realising that the project itself was too big for her to handle on her own, she brought together, in her own words, “a group of mad, creative but ambitious individuals.” These individuals happen to be Sarah Taher Khan (CEO Radio1 FM91), Omar Rahim, Amean Jan Muahmmad (photographer), Durriya Kazi (HoD Visual Arts, Karachi University), Minal Rahimtoola, Sabeen Mahmud (COO b.i.t.s.) and Altaf Qureshi (lawyer).

“We don’t give the general public any form of entertainment that requires them to use their brain cells,” says Sharmeen, talking about the content of the festival itself. “The partition of 1947 was a traumatic experience and remembering it gives a sense of how Pakistan came into existence. And who were the people who made it happen.” According to Sharmeen a lot of the photographs and material used in the festival had been donated to them by ‘like-minded indivduals’, also including some of the documentaries. “Looking at them you realise: we were civilised as a nation,” she says, observing thus after going through some of the photographs, “and now in some cases, it’s become so bad, it’s unrecognisable”. Talking about the murals exhibited in the festival, based on Pakistan’s history she say “that tidbit of history will be more alive than by just reading it in textbooks.”

An interesting aspect of the festival is that it is completely free of cost. From the exhibitions, plays, documentaries to the open discussions, street-theatre and musical performances, this is an event that costs the attendee nothing. At the minimum it requires that one simply to attend or as in the case of “closed events” pick their passes up early since they will be given out at a first-come, first-serve basis. It doesn’t end here, to ensure that people do not have a reason not to come, CAP has taken care of transporting interested individuals to the venue as well: “There will be free buses available on the 10th and the 14th — the two holidays — from 11am to 8pm, every two hours, back and forth from Nipa Chowrangi, Society Office near the Quaid’s Mausoleum and the Korangi Chowk,” says Sharmeen. “We don’t want to give people an excuse for not coming,” she adds.

Every person working for the festival has done so willingly and without expecting any monetary benefits in return. Perhaps a first in the history of the Karachi Arts Council, but they have provided the venue free-of-cost as well. Even the logo which had been designed by Khizra Munir from Interflow to the vocal booths provided by Radio1 FM91 has been done pro bono.

Speaking of the future of CAP and what it hopes to achieve, Sharmeen says: “A lot of this work will be electronically available on our websites. My hope is that next year we’ll be doing something different along those same lines. We’re hoping that old buildings in Karachi that we can either have donated to us or given to a trust so that we can build a museum. I imagine in 10 years’ time that this will be the place where people will give lectures and talks,” she adds about what they have currently collected so far that “everything that is being received is going to the museum. Till then we’ll look for a temporary place to house them.”

At the end of it all, more important than whatever goes on in the Shanakht Festival itself is what people will take home with them — a sense of renewed identity and a stronger sense of belonging and connection to the country they belong to as well as a desire to help bring it forward into the future. There aren’t many individuals willing to take time out and work for the enlightenment and betterment of the society itself, let alone doing it without expecting any materialistic benefit — CAP happen to be some of those ‘creative, mad but ambitious individuals’ who are doing precisely that. And it is important because: “We need to celebrate 60 years of Pakistan. I have walked across the border to Afghanistan and Iran and I have seen the other side,” says Sharmeen, adding that “while we have what we have, we need to learn to appreciate it and move forward.”

I am Pakistani - dawn.com

August 11, 2007

‘I am Pakistani’

By Madeeha Syed

With her Mac on one side and a host of notebooks and papers on the table in front of her, Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, journalist and independent film-maker (Reinventing the Taliban and the upcoming The Promise — A journey through Afghanistan) invites me to sit on her ‘see-saw’ sofa in the house she grew up in. She is energetic, loud, open and most importantly, she’s on a mission. Teaming up with a group of individuals, she’s formed the Citizens Archive of Pakistan (CAP) and they’re on a mission to do exactly that — archive the history of Pakistan in whatever way or form possible. And communicate it as well.

Sharmeen’s baby, CAP’s first project is the Shanakht Festival which has already gone underway from August 11 and will continue till August 14 — Pakistan’s Independence Day. The first of its kind, Shanakht aims to explore our identity as a nation collectively and individually as citizens of this country through a series of readings, photography and painting exhibitions, plays, interactive discussions, documentaries and performances. Some of the paintings on display include six life-sized murals based on every decade in Pakistan’s history; the photography is predominantly a contemporary look by prominent photographer on Pakistan itself. The documentaries includes those based on the last days of Lord Mountbatten as the viceroy of pre-Partition India, how different film-makers view Partition and also a documentary examining the social and political issues predominant such as poverty and inflation as well as the remnants of the British rule over South Asia: the bureaucracy.

Sheema Kirmani along with Tehreek-i-Niswan presented a play yesterday based on Lahore in 1947 on an immigrant family coming to stay at an allotted haveli, seemingly vacated, after Partition only to discover that the matriarch of the previous household continued to inhabit it. The dialogues had been taken from the poet, Nasir Kazmi’s original letters and writings and the story line itself was based on an actual incident that had taken place.

Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy’s baby, CAP’s first project is the Shanakht Festival which has gone underway from August 11 and will continue till Independence Day. The first of its kind, Shanakht aims at exploring our identity as a nation collectively and individually as citizens of this country. “We don’t give the general public any form of entertainment that requires them to use their brain cells,” says Sharmeen, “The partition of 1947 was a traumatic experience and remembering it gives a sense of how Pakistan came into existence. And who were the people who made it happen”

Talking about how the CAP formed, Sharmeen says, “Last year in the summers, I was having a discussion about Pakistan: its history, where we are and where we are headed. I realised that there was no place where you could absorb Pakistan’s history,” adding that there was a lack of national identity that the common Pakistani has, she mentioned that “we are lost as people.” Hence the idea of creating a platform through which one could know Pakistan, where it came from, who were the people who chose to support its formation along with the stages through which the country has progressed, both culturally and historically, took birth.

Realising that the project itself was too big for her to handle on her own, she brought together, in her own words, “a group of mad, creative but ambitious individuals.” These individuals happen to be Sarah Taher Khan (CEO Radio1 FM91), Omar Rahim, Amean Jan Muahmmad (photographer), Durriya Kazi (HoD Visual Arts, Karachi University), Minal Rahimtoola, Sabeen Mahmud (COO b.i.t.s.) and Altaf Qureshi (lawyer).

“We don’t give the general public any form of entertainment that requires them to use their brain cells,” says Sharmeen, talking about the content of the festival itself. “The partition of 1947 was a traumatic experience and remembering it gives a sense of how Pakistan came into existence. And who were the people who made it happen.” According to Sharmeen a lot of the photographs and material used in the festival had been donated to them by ‘like-minded indivduals’, also including some of the documentaries. “Looking at them you realise: we were civilised as a nation,” she says, observing thus after going through some of the photographs, “and now in some cases, it’s become so bad, it’s unrecognisable”. Talking about the murals exhibited in the festival, based on Pakistan’s history she say “that tidbit of history will be more alive than by just reading it in textbooks.”

An interesting aspect of the festival is that it is completely free of cost. From the exhibitions, plays, documentaries to the open discussions, street-theatre and musical performances, this is an event that costs the attendee nothing. At the minimum it requires that one simply to attend or as in the case of “closed events” pick their passes up early since they will be given out at a first-come, first-serve basis. It doesn’t end here, to ensure that people do not have a reason not to come, CAP has taken care of transporting interested individuals to the venue as well: “There will be free buses available on the 12th and the 14th — the two holidays — from 11am to 8pm, every two hours, back and forth from Nipa Chowrangi, Society Office near the Quaid’s Mausoleum and the Korangi Chowk,” says Sharmeen. “We don’t want to give people an excuse for not coming,” she adds.

Every person working for the festival has done so willingly and without expecting any monetary benefits in return. Perhaps a first in the history of the Karachi Arts Council, but they have provided the venue free-of-cost as well. Even the logo which had been designed by Khizra Munir from Interflow to the vocal booths provided by Radio1 FM91 has been done pro bono.

Speaking of the future of CAP and what it hopes to achieve, Sharmeen says: “A lot of this work will be electronically available on our websites. My hope is that next year we’ll be doing something different along those same lines. We’re hoping that old buildings in Karachi that we can either have donated to us or given to a trust so that we can build a museum. I imagine in 10 years’ time that this will be the place where people will give lectures and talks,” she adds about what they have currently collected so far that “everything that is being received is going to the museum. Till then we’ll look for a temporary place to house them.”

At the end of it all, more important than whatever goes on in the Shanakht Festival itself is what people will take home with them — a sense of renewed identity and a stronger sense of belonging and connection to the country they belong to as well as a desire to help bring it forward into the future. There aren’t many individuals willing to take time out and work for the enlightenment and betterment of the society itself, let alone doing it without expecting any materialistic benefit — CAP happen to be some of those ‘creative, mad but ambitious individuals’ who are doing precisely that. And it is important because: “We need to celebrate 60 years of Pakistan. I have walked across the border to Afghanistan and Iran and I have seen the other side,” says Sharmeen, adding that “while we have what we have, we need to learn to appreciate it and move forward.”

Speaking of the future of CAP and what it hopes to achieve, Sharmeen says: “A lot of this work will be electronically available on our websites. My hope is that next year we’ll be doing something different along those same lines. We’re hoping that old buildings in Karachi that we can either have donated to us or given to a trust so that we can build a museum. I imagine in 10 years’ time that this will be the place where people will give lectures and talks,” she adds about what they have currently collected so far that “everything that is being received is going to the museum. Till then we’ll look for a temporary place to house them.”At the end of it all, more important than whatever goes on in the Shanakht Festival itself is what people will take home with them — a sense of renewed identity and a stronger sense of belonging and connection to the country they belong to as well as a desire to help bring it forward into the future. There aren’t many individuals willing to take time out and work for the enlightenment and betterment of the society itself, let alone doing it without expecting any materialistic benefit — CAP happen to be some of those ‘creative, mad but ambitious individuals’ who are doing precisely that. And it is important because: “We need to celebrate 60 years of Pakistan. I have walked across the border to Afghanistan and Iran and I have seen the other side,” says Sharmeen, adding that “while we have what we have, we need to learn to appreciate it and move forward.”

August 3, 2007

Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy will be speaking to Julian Worricker on BBC Radio Five Live on Sunday August 5th 2007 about the current situation in Afghanistan.