What Afghanistan of the past can teach Brazil of today

Journalism took me to several countries, never to Afghanistan. Afghanistan, in a way, got me into journalism. At that time in college, I had enrolled in another course, but I decided at the end of the first year that I wanted to study communication.

One of the essay questions on the test to enter journalism was this: “Cite and comment on an event that in your opinion has been poorly covered by the press”. Bingo.

A few days ago, that ‘gut’ (in journalistic jargon we use that word to refer to a column on the page) wouldn’t get out of my head. And it was about her that I spoke on the test – and most likely thanks to her I passed.

In one of the largest magazines in the country, the space dedicated to the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan was a gut. A piece of nothing. Back then, information circulated between newspapers, magazines and TV and kind of disappeared the next day. He saw, he saw, he didn’t see, he didn’t see. And it seemed that no one had seen the size of the barbarity.

A band of armed men, religious radicals, imposing medieval customs in a country of strategic position: the middle of the world (also known as Middle East).

The biggest victims were, of course, women and children. Among other things, they were forbidden to study and work, listen to music and even laugh out loud. You don’t even have to go far to understand the effect of this on Afghan society: extreme poverty, rampant violence, almost widespread illiteracy.

Anyone who lived there knows what led to the rise to power of the Taliban. Cradle of Al-Qaeda, the terrorist network behind the attack on the Twin Towers, in 2003 the country was invaded by western forces, mainly American.

Until that gut, I basically didn’t know anything about Afghanistan. From then on, I started to watch all the movies I could about the country or with actors from there – the most recent one was Stone of Patienceby Atiq Rahimi, which was nominated for an Oscar in 2013 as best foreign language film.

I read books whose plots were set in Afghan society. Currently I walk up and down with A Little Tea House in Kabul (Leya Editora), by Deborah Rodriguez.

Also best seller author The Kabul Beauty Salon: The Secret World of Afghan Women (next on my list), Deborah arrived in the country in May 2002 and helped found the Kabul School of Beauty. There she taught the Afghan women trades related to female vanity, even though she was in a devastated place.

I think that my little obsession with knowing more about Afghanistan comes mainly from the curiosity that moves any journalist. But it’s also an attempt to humanize a world that is so, so different, it feels like another planet. An attempt to find what we have in common with the women beneath the burqas. Who are they?

The other day, a good friend shared photos on her Facebook profile that showed the country in the 1960s and 1970s. They were taken by an American professor and have been posted on the internet for some time. They are shocking.

At that time, you could see girls in skirts and sleeveless blouses walking around Kabul. Young people gathered to drink tea and sing in the middle of the street. The roads were clean, although some poverty is already visible. Looking at the images, simply no one could ever guess what the Afghanistan of the 21st century would look like.

These photos are proof that every throwback is possible. I think of that when I hear or see some of the nonsense that happens in our country these days. It seems that the Brazil where I was born was taken over by a hatred that is shamelessly expressed, as if it had the right to attack anyone and anything.

In fact, it seems that today’s Brazil is no longer the country where I grew up, even though I grew up in it full of problems – yes, they were always here, they were not only revealed after the invention of the internet. Still, there’s something odd, something worse when it comes to morals. And I’m not talking about politicians, I’m talking about us. We, the common people.

Who are these citizens who give themselves the right to express their racism by humiliating two black women on the networks (I am referring to the case of Cristiane Damasceno, which occurred in May, and that of Maria Julia Coutinho, from Rede Globo, recently)? Who are the citizens who stone people they think don’t deserve to live (the case of Rafael Damasceno, 14 years old)?

Who are these citizens who give themselves the right to tie a man to a pole and lynch him to death, as happened in Maranhão? What will happen if more and more people decide to take the law into their own hands, as in this case? Who will protect them when another vigilante decides it’s their turn?

More than anything, the photographs of Afghan society send us a clear message: freedom is a conquered value, which must be guarded day by day, and barbarism is a threat that is always on the lookout. We’re never safe enough to the point where it’s impossible to miss one and dive headfirst into the other.