My second photostory is about 10 years changes in Afghanistan. This month, Afghanistan marks the 10th anniversary of the start of U.S. and NATO operations to oust the Taliban. The NATO Review asked me to make a photostory to illustrate the biggest changes since 2001.
Please find the photostory on this link "Afghanistan's Story in Pictures."
I am kindly asking you to vote for my pictures which I submitted to a photographic competition entitled: "Why Afghanistan Matters". This conctest is hosted by NATO's Joint Forces Command HQ Brunssum. There are a total of six pictures entered into three categories:
1- People of Afghanistan
2- Beautiful Afghanistan
3- ANSF in action
All pictures are trying to articulate the beauty of the Afghanistan, its people, its culture, its love and humanity and its sacrifice for national security and for a prosperous future for Afghanistan. Your vote will be so valuable and will allow me to enhance my work in photography and empower me with a better vision. I am competing to be the winner in this contest and I promise to take nice pictures if I win the nice camera. That’s why I plead for your vote dear readers.
Please go to the following links, when the page is fully opened, look below the picture and move your mouse on the stars and click, your vote will be saved in one second. You can vote 6 times for 6 pictures. Pictures are in categories:
People of Afghanistan:
1- Child Street Worker (Egg Seller)
2- Colored Beard
3- Shoe Polisher in Kabul
Beautiful Afghanistan
4- Band-e Amir Lake
5- Feeding these birds brings good fortune (Mazar-e-Sharif)
ANSF in action
6- Afghan National Army
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A man in Mazar-e Sharif (northern Afghanistan) who walks into the wind with his son, suddenly a powerful wind tugged him and fell down on the ground, then stood and started to spit blood on his son when he was suffering from pain. I took this picture when they were walking farther down the street.
He is one of those warriors who lost one of his legs in war against Soviet Invasion, today he is begging on the streets alongside of hundreds of others who are effected by war.
The ANA soldiers in front of them shown, are taking care of security measurements of the Nawrooz festival, the fist day of the year.
Nawrooz is historically cheerfully celebrated by Afghan people and also popular in Iran. Actually Nawrooz is a Zoroastian holiday and it originated in northern Afghanistan then spread across the continent by Afghans. Nawrooz is celebrated in a very special way in Afghanistan which tells a lot about its history and Zorosastian, especially about the people while in Iran it is just turned into a cultural event.
Afghan National Sport
Buzkashi, which literally translated means "goat grabbing" is the national sport of Afghanistan. Many historians believe that Buzkashi began with the Turkic-Mongol people, and it is indigenously shared by the people of Northern Afghanistan. There are two main types of Buzkashi, Tudabarai and Qarajai. Tudabarai is relatively simple compared with Qarajai, even though they share similar objectives.
The title may a little surprise you. You may ask yourself, what happened to Nasim that he ended up prison in Berlin. Maybe you will think that he is suspected of something because he comes from a country that provides 95% of opium to the world, and plus, there is a war going on.
I am in Kabul now, this post had to be posted already, but it was missing somewhere my computer. I was invited by the GTZ as a photographer for a photography workshop on November 7 to 14. There were six other photographers from other countries; Jodi Bieber from South Africa, Dörthe Boxberg from Germany, Stefan Erber from Germany, Elena Koktanek from Germany, Michael Tsegaye from Ethiopia, Leonel Vasquez from Colombia and two workshop leaders: Ralf Bäcker and Jörn Neumann from Germany.
Before going to the workshop in Berlin I had been in Italy where i received my freedom of expression award from Information Safety and Freedom (ISF) in Siena.
The workshop subject was “Developing security and security development” the central theme of for 2009 of the GTZ. For one day I was shooting in the main Berlin prison “Justizvollzugsanstalt Tegel”, which contains 1580 prisoners from 62 countries right now. Around 32% of them are foreigners.
It was early morning, when we arrived at the prison. The security guards at the main gate got our passports and in return a coarse card, not easy to bend, was given to us and we were demanded to not lose it, otherwise we couldn’t get out of the prison afterwards.
The doors and windows are built out of rigid steel and concrete structures, strong glasses are used for the windows and soundproofed rooms. Inside the control room are many monitors that show the area where the staff and prisoners are moving around. A burly security man suited in a dark blue suit, with written on his arm and back “Justiz” guided us around inside the prison. We were told not to photograph the prisoners or security guards, nor locks and keys. And we had to empty our pockets from money and electronic devices.
The buildings inside are surrounded by a barbed wire fence and in each corner cameras are controlling your steps. We were given two hours inside the prison, by the security guard who was with us. Me and my German colleague Elena definitely had to be clever to use our time as well as possible. Elena was excited to see the inside of the prison, me too. It was very important for me to see the prison in Berlin and to compare it to the Pul-e-Charkhi prison in Kabul. It's a large prison in Afghanistan. I visited Pul-e-Charkhi prison and remember pretty well how horrible it was.
Now, I found myself in the biggest prison in Germany. I was looking for the meaning of Sicherheit inside the prison, in the Berlin streets, in the city with its skyscrapers and well dressed people with luxurious cars moving and people 'petting' with their best friends, which is not normal in Afghanistan and other Islamic states.
I had to find out now what Sicherheit means in this country, for the Berliners, for the people who work and earn money to live, for those who hope to have a shelter where to spend the night, for the many who survive.
This time Berlin became very interesting for me, but how to figure out its looks? I like this city, but how can I find myself if I would live there for a day? With this workshop I learned a lot, and also from the people who I met in the streets, at their work, and also the beggars who smiled at us.
The 44 years old security guard Rafael Galejew, who originally comes from Georgia, accompanied us. He works in the Justizvollzugsanstalt Tegel prison since 1994. Rafael carried a bunch of large keys. One was bigger than the others and I joked by calling it “the king key”. Yes it was a real special one, because he could open any door with it.
Entering the first building of the prison, and looking up to the walls painted yellow doesn’t give a sense of being be happy. "But for a prisoner" said Rafel, "yellow is a happy color". Doors are numbered together with their prisoner names. The stairs, door, and windows are netted with steel girders. While I tried to take pictures Rafael told me to not picture the prisoners. To have him trust me I showed my pictures to him every now and then and told him to do so as well after our tour. That made him happy and he told me he trusted me.
Time was running and we had to go to the next building, moving from the short term punishment prison to the lifelong imprisonments building. The 8 floors building contains over 300 prisoners who committed murder or similar crimes.
Another security guard joined us when we came on the fifth floor. We entered a cell of 2x3 meters wide, with a bed, tv, tape recorder, a toilet and lots of pictures of family, children, and relatives hanging on the wall of the prisoner who himself is outside and waving to us. But we can’t respond to him nor take pictures because we had been asked not to talk or get close to the prisoners.
In the entry hall of the building hangs a picture of a priest, the writings on it say that he was killed by the Nazis. Rafael commented, "The Nazis were the enemy of human kind, not only Jews."
I asked Rafael if there are any Afghans in the prison, and he told me that a couple of years ago there were a few, but now they are all released.
They have special meals for the Muslim prisoners, and however, "since 2000 the numbers of prisoners are decreasing" as Rafael described.
The reason for being in the prison and to look for the word of “Sicherheit” was because in the German concept, Sicherheit has no specific meaning. Many use it as 'security' and 'safety' which are not right translations in German.
As photographers from various backgrounds, but all coming from post-war countries, we had to find out the meaning of security in Berlin, where I don’t see police, or military convoys in the streets.
So, what does security really mean for Berliners here? But it is the question and the theme of our workshop photography.
We had to explore the city to find the meaning of security in the German context among Berliners and foreigners living in Berlin.
It was very interesting hearing the meaning of security in so different ways. For some, security is about money, or trust, love, or sex, profession, or travel, while for others it means to find shelter, to be safe.
I just came back from L'Aquila, the capital of Abruzzo region. Today, there was a photo exhibition and one of my Photos was also exhibited among 50 photos from different 
photographers there. The association which called themselves “the Cultural Association “L’Idea di Clèves” was born and developed in the provincial reality of L’Aquila” organizes this competition every year.
This year they had two categories, prize for online competition and the one which jury had to choose among 200 pictures. The photo which was selected by the jury was a red lip and with white face and side red colored. I didn’t understand why the jury selected this picture as the winner as I found lot of great shots there. I have doubt nepotism is so strong and influenced here in Italy.
I am tired, my domain kabuli.net is expired and my kabuli.org is still not working, it was hacked before and a few days before the data moved to a new server but the DNS is not fixed I don’t know why. I wrote several times to the host and technician who is helping me but there is no positive answer. It is not complicated but now it turned to an exigent problem.
Tomorrow, I am traveling to Berlin for a workshop which is organized by GTZ, I will write more about this later.
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This is the picture of our young people, our noble children. I am proud of them, two days working with them i believe they are so strong to stand up against enemy, against Taliban and strangers who are against our nation. I am so glad and proud today to see the National Army of Afghanistan getting so strong. Before Mujaheddin and starting civil war, Afghanistan had the most powerful Army. This is was a threat to neighboring countries. As i see and the interests among people who are joining to army day by day i am sure that they will be strong again.
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A man with his bird in the cage walks to the sunset in graveyard, western part of Kabul
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Today hundreds of these children are in the streets to work and earn money to feed herself and her family. Lots of these children are coming from poor family who lost their parents in the time of war and today they have to afford harsh works to survive. This child is one of them who supports his family by polishing the boots on the streets. She is at the age of 9 who deprived from going to school. As she looks to horizon, we can imagine, she looks her next day which comes the same as yesterday, she is dreaming the horizon of her future live. But her world doesn’t' exceed further than herself and the place surrounded her; the slipper she holds and the tools for polishing she is carrying.
