David Kline (dkline) Mon Dec 3 '01 (10:07) 26 lines The New York Times article below on the first woman to register at Kabul University in 5 years -- a college that had 3,500 female students befgore the Taliban came to power -- is a very moving look at the status of women in this ar-ravaged country. A brief excerpt: __________________________ Escorted by her father into the chancellery building of Kabul University at 8:40 this morning, Farida Afzali, 21, had no idea she was walking into history. She reacted to the half- dozen staring men the way she would have in the past. She bowed her head and looked at the floor. When a question was shouted, she let her father answer. "Yes," he said, beaming and granting her permission to give an interview. "You should speak bravely and courageously." For the next hour, Ms. Afzali talked about what it was like to be the first woman in five years to register for classes at Kabul University. ` __________________________ When you read the full article, you'll know why I feel that with women like Ms. Afzali around, Afghanistan's future is bound to be bright. See the full article at: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/02/international/asia/02SCHO.html?searchpv=past7days Here's a very powerful story, also from the New York Times (with powerful pictures as well), on the newly-reborn lives of several Kabul residents in the weeks since the Taliban were overthrown. One is a woman surgeon, back at work after 5 years. Another a business,man, who saved 50 precious National Gallery paintings from destruction by the Taliban. Here are the opening grafs of the story: __________________________ KABUL, Afghanistan, Dec. 1 -- Dr. Nazifa Tabibzada cut into the abdomen of someone named Abdul last week. It was a routine procedure for a reliable surgeon, remarkable only because she had not operated on a man in five years. Under the austere restraints of the Taliban, men and women were not permitted to mingle, even if one was under anesthesia. Sabir Latifi, a businessman, also passed a threshold. Opening a cache in his home, he brought out 50 paintings that had been stolen from a storage room in the National Gallery. He had commissioned the theft after learning that the portraits were to be destroyed. The Taliban considered them sacrilegious. Art was not supposed to depict living things. Aziz Khaznavi, a renowned singer, freed himself from an imposed muteness. He rallied a dozen talented friends, and together they went to their hiding place for their dohls and surunders and other Afghan instruments. Then they breached the forbidden. They made music. And so it continues, three weeks after the Taliban's exodus from Kabul. People are cauterizing the psychic wounds left by the religious police and resuming those parts of their lives outlawed by an uncompromising vision of Islamic purity. Joy may be too strong a word for the common mood in Afghanistan's capital, for there is wariness of the future... ____________________________ [Note -- here's one of the photo captions for the story: "Musicians from Afghanistan Radio and Television who work with the singer Aziz Khaznavi tried out their instruments on Friday in Kabul. The instruments had been hidden during the years of Taliban rule."] For the full, incredible story, see: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/02/international/asia/02KABU.html?searchpv=past7 days

David Kline (dkline) Tue Dec 4 '01 (09:56) 63 lines Wonderful article in the NY Times (again), this time about the younger generation of Northern Alliance leaders who openly state that they will dump Rabbani if they have to in order to build a real peace. An excerpt: "At his news conference, Mr. Rabbani ruled out any role for the exiled king, Mohammad Zahir Shah, who is seen by many as a possible unifying figure, scoffing that royalty was extinct 'like dinosaurs.' He has all but rejected an international peacekeeping force, saying it should be limited to no more than 200 troops, and he has insisted that further discussions should be held here "But diplomats here said that the other members of the alliance were 'eager to make progress,' and that Mr. Rabbani's delaying tactics might be aimed at simply assuring himself some kind of high post in the future government. "'We will go around him,' a leading moderate in the Northern Alliance said tonight, expressing a willingness to sideline Mr. Rabbani. "We are willing to go ahead without him.'" The article further discusses the influence this younger generation of leaders -- Yunis Quanooni, Abdullah Abdullah, Muhammad Fahim -- have already head on shaping the fragile peace in Kabul and elsewhere. Another excerpt: "The greatest triumph thus far of the younger technocrats is that their takeover of Kabul from the Taliban was almost entirely orderly, without the looting and vengeance that is traditional here, or the cruel factional and ethnic killings that marked their last stay here. "'The mujahedeen have learned a very good lesson from their previous mistakes,' said Fiazullah Jalal, a professor of international relations at Kabul University. 'Their behavior is very good with the people.' "Indeed, instead of the blood bath that many people here expected, the capital is peaceful -- if at times chaotic -- as crowds swarm through the ramshackle street markets, piled high with fresh oranges and assorted machinery. There are relatively few guns in sight, restricted mostly to guards around government buildings and the commandeered villas of commanders. Traffic policemen in huge, swooping caps wave vainly at speeding, weaving buses and trucks. "This is largely the work of Interior Minister Qanooni and the local military commander, Bismullah Khan, who weeks before the takevover created a police academy to train officers -- not soldiers -- to keep order and laid plans that only a small number of General Khan's troops would actually secure the city, while most would be sent to bases. "Within days, Mr. Qanooni issued an order that soldiers would not be allowed to carry their weapons on the street. The concept is unheard of in this bellicose country and left some chagrined troopers without their beloved Kalashnikovs. "'Yunis Qanooni, he is a young person who has a good idea for the future of Afghanistan,' said Nassim Gul Tutakhail, an assistant professor of biology at the university. Full article at: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/04/international/asia/04KABU.html?searchpv=nytToday