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    Passage to Afghanistan
    Passage to Afghanistan
    Passage to Afghanistan
    Ebook102 pages16 minutes

    Passage to Afghanistan

    By Peter Bussian

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    In 2001, the Taliban approved Peter Bussian’s request to photograph Afghanistan, asking him to show the world the true Afghanistan,” and for the past fifteen years, he’s followed through on his promise to do so. In total, Bussian has spent nearly four years on the ground in Afghanistan, traveling there as both a photojournalist and with aid organizations such as the United Nations.

    In this entrancing volume, Bussian presents 150 photographs of what he calls the land that time forgot.” His captivating images feature everything from jaw-dropping landscapesjagged mountains, desolate deserts, broad planes, and lush valleysto its passionate peopleKabul street vendors and donkey cart drivers, devout Muslims, and displaced refugees.

    A fascinating introduction gives perspective on the special allure of the landa place whose mystery was described by great poets, such as Rumi and Kipling, and that today is grounded in the fierce independence of its people, a physical and mental toughness that survives, even thrives, despite forty years of uninterrupted wars, and great famines.

    Side-by-side with the photographs are enlightening captions to give context to the compelling, memorable images. As a compilation, this is one of the most significant visual volumes of our time. While the world is at war with terrorism, Afghanistan, for many, represents the start of it all: the home of the terrorists behind 9/11 and the physical center of where America began its war on terrorism. To understand what we are up against and what follows Western intervention, here, at last, is a visual gateway: a portal to a significant, but little-understand land.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSkyhorse
    Release dateNov 29, 2016
    ISBN9781510708143
    Passage to Afghanistan
    Author

    Peter Bussian

    Peter Bussian is an award-winning documentary photographer, filmmaker, and creative consultant who has spent more than twenty years working in developing countries for organizations such as the United Nations, the United States Agency for International Development, the Department for International Development (UK), and nongovernmental organizations. Since 2001, he has spent the equivalent of nearly five years in Afghanistan, traveling there over a fifteen-year period, and he has worked in other post-conflict countries in the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa, often collaborating with local artists and media creators. His photographs have been published by the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Condé Nast Traveler, O, The Oprah Magazine, Paris Match, El Palacio, and elsewhere, and exhibited in domestic and international galleries. Bussian has also created documentary films and written narrative screenplays. His photography book Passage to Afghanistan was published in 2016. Bussian spent most of his childhood in Colorado and has lived in New York City for the past twenty-five years.

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      Book preview

      Passage to Afghanistan - Peter Bussian

      Introduction

      I always dreamed of going to Afghanistan—and in May 2001, world events finally conspired to get me there. As a professional photographer and an explorer by nature, I had already traveled and worked in some of the world’s most dangerous and remote places. Because of the romanticized vision I had of Afghanistan—induced by influences as disparate as the writings of Rumi and Kipling, photographs I had seen, and its occasional appearance in the nightly news—Afghanistan beckoned loudly. Back then so little was known about Afghanistan in the West and I wanted to know what life was like on the ground. I wanted to see its deserts, mountains, and cities, and meet real Afghans. I would end up spending much of the next fifteen years there, photographing the land, exploring its terrain, and getting to know its people firsthand.

      My first trip to Afghanistan did not disappoint. I was on assignment for the International Rescue Committee (IRC), a New York-based humanitarian aid organization that I had been photographing for in other war-torn countries, most recently in Kosovo and Bosnia. The IRC had asked me to photograph displaced Afghans in the refugee camps in Pakistan and to go into Afghanistan if I was somehow able to get permission from the Taliban, who ruled it at the time. I jumped at the opportunity and after photographing the camps in Pakistan for several weeks, the Taliban amazingly approved my request to photograph Afghanistan. The reason for the approval was twofold: the Taliban wanted me to portray them in a positive light to help counter the negative worldwide publicity they received after destroying the massive ancient Buddha statues in Bamyan Province, which they’d deemed idolatrous; and because many members of the Taliban had positive feelings about the IRC because they had learned English in IRC supported schools.

      A Taliban-approved permission to enter and photograph Afghanistan was very rare. When I was handed my visa in the Pakistani city of Peshawar (the Pashtun city where millions of Afghan

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