Afghanistan Rising

Critical Now: This is the day and this is the hour
UNFREEZE AFGHANISTAN 
Clare Daly on the sickening double standards of our time 
The bird whisperer of Karachi 

My name is Diarmuid Brannick from Dublin, Ireland. In  2019 I started this project.

This website https://women-vs-warlords.com/ which was very generously created and donated by German company Denkwerk shows how the project began. Over the course of 3 years and a trip to Kabul in 2020 my thinking, approach and understanding has changed dramatically.

Dialogue of the deaf
Interviewing Professor Julie Billaud (author of the brilliant: Kabul Carnival) after the trip to Afghanistan was a significant and illuminating experience.  

In this interview Julie explained "Colonial Feminism" but most potently for me was her description of the"Dialogue of the deaf"

"...one illustration of that is this expectation that many western feminists have (of Afghan women) to be able to, as a woman, to be completely independent to be able to take decisions for herself, which is something most Afghan women cannot relate to... they find us (western women) very lonely and feel pity for our lack of social connections"

As just one clear example
of my ineptitude I had never given any credence to this concept. I eventually came to understand and envy how family and community orientated (for good and bad) Afghans were.  And in turn appreciate how important working in groups was, how important considering family and community was in general and in my own personal decision making was. 

Essentially as more and more time passed working on this, for a myriad of reasons I could not sustain the original premise or sustain or justify the second premise of a focus on a single individual: Malalai Joya.  It did not feel right, it did not feel useful.

Unknown to myself I was just another clueless idiot, out of my depth, peddling cliches, void of any real understanding and useless to the cause of justice and peace in Afghanistan. 

Now that the "Women vs Warlords" concept is redundant - This project seeks to weave a sentient thread through those understandings of the past 3 years....and produce something that will, I hope, contribute, even if only in the smallest of ways to a peaceful Afghanistan where all ethnicity's, and all people have the opportunity to live side by side in peace. In sha Allah. 

Afghanistan Rising consists of 
* A Series of Interviews - Available here (will be continuously updated)
Professor Julie Billaud Kabul Carnival 
Atefa Ibrahimi  Liberty Book Club 
Andy Worthington The Guantanamo Files 
Gretchen Peters Seeds of Terror 
Fazelminallah Qazizai Night Letters 
Rodrigo Guim  In The Name of My People 
Nora Bateson Second Order Cybernetics and Peace 

* Music - Available Here (will be continuously updated)
Hunting the Wren sung by Ghawgha Taban 
The Time Has Come sung by Ghawgha Taban 
Abu Ghraib instrumental performed by Marci 

* Original Poetry - Available Soon
* A Short Film -  (in production)



Afghanistan - Beautiful Beyond Words
From snow-capped mountains to dry arid desert, to alpine forests and megalithic rivers. Afghanistan is the quintessence of beauty.
The "stan" in the word Afghanistan means place of or land of.
More than 20 different languages are spoken in the land of the Afghans, it is a kaleidoscopic melting pot of countless ethnicities and tribes. Over a trillion dollars worth of minerals lay buried beneath its surface. Hundreds of thousands of hectares of Poppy fields flourish above ground, it is the main strategic corridor between the rich oil fields of Turkmenistan and the Indian ocean.
For over 40 years it has bled, cried and sweated under the relentless wraith of war.

 And now...
A new phase has begun...

Team

Diarmuid Brannick - Co-ordinator

Charlee Avis - Editor

Tim Hood - Camera Operator, DOP

Tim Hood, Director of Photography, has a superb eye for the visual story and natural ability of capturing moments in History. Tim has an innate ability to conceptualize a director’s written narrative or the ‘chaos of the moment’ and transform it into a visual tale.

Tim’s sense of adventure and thirst for documenting has led him to travel widely, filming across the globe in Azerbaijan, India, Israel and the West Bank, Belarus and Hong Kong.

Tim has extensive experience working in both the television and film industry. He has shot features, shorts, commercials, music videos and live performances, news, current affairs and sports and finally what is closest to his heart, documentaries, for a variety of clients including: RTE, TV3, TG4, BBC, NBC, CTN Canada, SKY NEWS, TSR, TSI, DRS Switzerland, TF1 and CANAL PLUS France, RAI Italy, Sky NZ, Channel 4, ITV, HBO, National Geographic UK and BBC National History.

Tim has a natural flare for capturing unforgettable moments in history and this skill is clearly showcased in his coverage of Barack Obama’s visit to Ireland and in his footage of the Queen of England’s speech during her state visit to Ireland in 2011.

In recent times, Tim equipped with his own Steadicam Rig is a well known member of world renowned film crews in Ireland has shot “Rig 45” (Distributors – Viaplay Sweden and ITV UK) in 2018 and “Cold Courage” (Finnish Irish Co-produced Drama) in 2019.

Tim has always veered towards the documentary style of visual narrative. Lately, Tim’s passion for the environment, human rights and giving a voice to the vulnerable in our society has lead him in the direction of documentary film making.

Tim is HEFAT (Hostile Environment and Advanced First Aid Training) certified

Jake Mobbs – Consultant Editor