The New York Times will be dissed a lot. Judith Miller brought up.
Interest in the war in Afghanistan is not very high these days. Coverage of the country, by the New York Times, recently, is by my take very good.
I like the writing by Mujib Mashal in particular. I’ll get to why, below.
Before New Year’s celebrations, two large billboards of First Vice President General Abdul Rashid Dostum had been put up in Mazar-i-Sharif. Supporters of Governor Atta Mohammad Noor took them down.
The resulting battle of the billboards was a big enough event to get multiple newspaper articles.
The new year got off to a rocky start in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-e Sharif when someone tore down towering images of a controversial former warlord and current government official.
On the eve of Norouz, the Persian new year that was celebrated on March 20, many of the billboards featuring Vice President Abdul Rashid Dostum that lined city streets were defaced or ripped down altogether.
Defaced Dostum Billboards Nearly Ruin New Year's In Mazar-e Sharif, Farangis Najibullah, Radio Free Europe
Hundreds of people took to the streets in Mazar-e-Sharif city today amid fears that the rallies could turn violent due to the cause of demonstration.
The protesters are chanting against corruption, use of power, deception, discrimination, and Mafias operating in this province.
This comes as Noor issued a statement late on Monday warning against any provocative moves that would lead to chaos in the city as a result of the removal of Gen. Dostum’s pictures.
Dostum and Noor supporters stage protests in Mazar amid fears of chaos, Ghanizada, Khaama Press
Numbering around 3,000, the protestors, coming from various districts, rallied in Sar-i-Pul City, the provincial capital, and demanded punishment for those who brought down two portraits of the VP in Mazar-i-Sharif on the new year’s night.
A similar protest was held in Aibak, the capital of Samangan province, where thousands of Dostum’s supporters demanded punishment for the individuals who insulted the VP by removing his photos.
Mesharano Jirga or upper house of the parliament on Tuesday stressed the need for defusing tensions raised after the removal of the VP’s portraits.
Thousands of Dostum loyalists rally in north, Pajwok
Dostum and Noor have a lot in common. Both are military commanders that hold considerable political weight in northern Afghanistan and both men took part in the resistance against the Soviet Union, and later, the Taliban.
Dostum is known as a vote bank in elections and Noor as a political ‘king maker‘ due to their broad constituencies.
What separates them is their ethnicity. Noor comes from the Tajik segment of Afghanistan's ethnically diverse population, while Dostum is from the Uzbek minority. And in Afghan politics, ethnicity represents a crucial fault line.
How Afghanistan's Politics of Ethnicity and Honour Play Out on Facebook, Bismellah Alizada, Global Voices
To my tastes, Mujib Mashal and Jawad Sukhanyar, in the New York Times, cover the story best.
The writing uses the conventions of New York Times political coverage, to convey the absurdity and the seriousness of the story, both at the same time. It’s a nice writing trick.
Anonymous officials are quoted. You have to laugh, about stern messages sent to strongmen, anonymously.
A senior official close to President Ashraf Ghani, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the news media, said the president had sent a stern message to his vice president and the governor: If you are in the government, act like statesmen.
Face-Off Between Strongmen Exposes Afghanistan’s Political Rifts, Mujib Mashal and Jawad Sukhanyar, New York Times
A curtain seller is then quoted. I think it's OK to laugh at the curtain-selling detail, coming after the quoting of some faceless high government official about supposed statesmen. The newspaper convention, and how it has been used, is part of why it can be seen as funny.
“All they care about is self-fame and personal interests and in between the poor people have to suffer,” Rahim Shah, 29, who sells curtains in Mazar-i-Sharif, said in a telephone interview.
But what the curtain seller has to say is very serious.
Mr. Shah said business was down on Tuesday and many shops had remained closed out of fear of violence. “My entire life, my hope, is tied to my shop. If anything happens to my shop, I will lose everything.”
It is not the first time that arguments over something as seemingly trivial as a photograph have threatened Afghanistan‘s coalition government, which was brokered by the United States after fraud-strewn elections in 2014.
Damn absurd war.
One time, the United Nations of the world had tried to step in, and stop these two guys from warring in Balkh. There was a history behind why the world should try.
Nevertheless, the posturing has raised fears of a return to the kind of open factional hostilities that, at their worst, drove the country’s disastrous civil war in the 1990s. Militias aligned with the two officials continued to intermittently battle each other until 2003, when the United Nations conducted a disarmament campaign and Mr. Noor consolidated his power as governor of Balkh Province and its lucrative resources.
That United Nations disarmament campaign, though, was really not done very well.