I'll take 15 Khallid and 10 Mursal...

This could have been the title of Chroniques Afghanes, a documentary aired by Radio-Canada last Friday. (you can see a clip here).

Khallid means freedom or liberty and is the name of an independant newspaper and Mursal, a women's magazine, both based in the suburbs of Kaboul... Afghanistan. The storyline is about these newspapers and through them, the population.

Radio-Canada/CBC cost us a bundle, but this is where they shine. Have an hour, it's yours and take the time to explain things. Something commercial television can't.

That being said, how to summarize 3 years in Afghanistan in just one hour? There is that. An hour is an eternity on television, while it's so short lived in reality.

Nonetheless, the documentary is at a slow pace. Enough that you could feel the day to day life. It certainly feels like another world... and the little and big frustration and the ingenious way to side-step them.

It is also a glimpse of Afghan culture and their way of thinking. And a way to make us think about our own culture, and somehow their way to see thing, there's a lot of wisdom in it... that we could borrow, I'd say.

It is about the rise and fall of dreams of a population, after 30 years of war, when the Talibans were overthrown, there were hopes, BIG hopes... and a country in shamble, dreams of reconstruction. A dream that the country would recover, and shine again.

Such dreams were still present in 2004, when Chroniques Afghanes began and when these chronicals end in December 2006, disillusion was getting widespread. The feel of freedom was gradually replaced with fears, and the influence of the Talibans getting omnipresent.

How could it happen? Corruption getting widespread, also broken promises from our own governments, sheer frustration of the local population in part fueld by our complete misunderstanding of Afghanistan of its people, its culture, even its economy... (and of course the *underground* economy) and when you leave it to the military calling the shots, well it's a recipe for disasters...

The documentary arrives at a good time, when our presence in Afghanistan is being questioned, and once again by our Conservative government, *strictly* from a military aspect, mhhhh....

I feel heart broken...