It is nevertheless worth considering. The bombing at Shindand is but one problem facing the often neglected west of Afghanistan. Typically thought to be more stable, and more secure, and more prosperous than the rest of the country (it is), Herat nevertheless faces some enormous challenges, starting with the so-called “Tajik Taliban.” As Tim Foxely explains,

The idea that now other ethnic groups are starting to emulate, if not actually join, the Taliban and conduct resistance against the Kabul regime lies somewhere between “a very real cause for concern” and “everybody's worst nightmare”. It evokes the “tipping point” concerns of ISAF commanders past and present that the population might eventually get fed up with tens of thousands of international soldiers charging around dropping bombs on them and a corrupt government that fails to deliver and shift their allegiances elsewhere. The other angle is the very high likelihood that Akbari was sacked from his position for being corrupt or incompetent or both and is therefore having nothing more than a big sulk, Afghan warlord style. As such, it would be a localised and exceptional situation and probably nothing to worry about.

This is an excellent summary of just how difficult it is to determine which problems in Afghanistan require serious consideration and near-panic, and which ones are, for lack of a better term, cyclical variations in a standard conflict pattern.

Kandahar bazaar during Ramadan, courtesy Flickr user Chooyutshing.

This can manifest itself in a couple of ways. Alex Strick van Linschoten, for example, just returned to Kandahar from a few weeks abroad. What has he noticed upon his return?

If there’s one thing two weeks abroad (California and London) does it gives a certain perspective on the things you quickly accept as ‘normal’ when living in Kandahar. If someone would unholster his pistol and place it on the table at Café Nero in London I think they’d have a problem or two, but in Kandahar I don’t blink twice when interviewees or friends come in off the street and lay their AK-47 or even once an RPG next to the wall.

Otherwise the city’s pretty quiet.

Indeed. Further north, Harry Rud wanders through the trash-filled streets of Kabul, and remarks on just how disconnected foreigners can fell when locked inside their armored compounds:

Many foreigners here are not allowed to step foot outside their compounds, have lists of places they can and (more often) cannot go to, and strict rules about how high the walls, how thick the barbed wire, how many armed guards surround them. It is not a situation most want or enjoy. It drives many to distraction. I am lucky to be able to walk a little further, though it gives me no greater feel for the place when I’m too nervous to stop and look around me.

It’s hard to describe the causes of that nervousness. There’s the obvious but unlikely risk of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Then there’s that disconnect; the sense of us and them it breeds, of being so very out of place and watched by an unknown crowd. A bird-like suspicion, to stretch the point.

But this raises the question: just what, exactly, is the West doing in Afghanistan after seven years of occupation? Azar Balkhi notes that in the West, there seems to be mindless panic but no real sense of urgency:

Pakistani Taliban fighters openly flogged two butchers for selling the flesh of animals in the northwestern Swat valley today September 25, and in the same day the Pakistani soldiers fired at American reconnaissance helicopters that were escorting U.S. ground troops along the volatile border Thursday, sparking a five-minute ground battle between the countries.

This is all happening as President Asif Ali Zardari and Hamid Karzai are promising
Washington help in the war on terror and meeting with the top American leaders in New York…

Heavily armed Taliban fighters brought the blindfolded butchers to a crowded market in Kabal sub-district and flogged them in front of a throng of about 200 people. The media was also called by the Taliban to cover the event but there is no any government to stop them.

Which brings us back to where we started: Afghanistan's extreme complexity. The latest meme to be making the rounds of policy offices in London, Washington DC, and Brussels, is negotiating with the Taliban. Christian Bleuer wonders:

* what “Taliban” (Quetta Shura? Local semi-autonomous commanders? Hizb? Haqqanis? Others? all at the same time?)
* and if answer is “Moderate Taliban” then please define who exactly they are.
* don’t you already consider the Afghan government’s reconciliation program to be a form of negotiation?
* do you really not know about the Afghan government communicating/negotiating with insurgents?

All that being said, there remain bright points of life within Afghanistan. Andrea shares just such a moment, and it really cannot be done proper justice through excerpting. It will have to stand on its own.

His personal blog, The Third World View portrays Bangladeshis and Bangladesh in English to a global audience.

Eager to help create more content in Bangla on the web, Rezwan initiated the Lingua website Global Voices in Bangla with fellow translators.

He is also Features Editor on Rising Voices, a Global Voices project that gives micro-grant funding to new blogging projects in some of the most marginalized communities of the world. Here, Rezwan writes about the internet connectivity problems facing REPACTED bloggers in Kenya, the explosive energy of young bloggers in La Loma, Colombia, and shares the beautiful photos taken by Bangladeshi women-bloggers of Nari Jibon.

A scenic sunset at Bangladesh's Cox’s Bazar sea beach by Nari Jibon blogger Nilufa Anne.

Why did you start your personal blog in 2003 and what was the reason you chose to write in English?

I was in Dhaka then, and I read a story in a local newspaper about the famous Iraqi blogger Salam Pax, who was writing an online diary about the Iraq war and the effect it was having on his everyday life. I started reading his blog and also came across some other interesting blogs.

This inspired me to start my own blog sometime in April 2003. At first I could not figure what to write. But I soon found out from the other blogs that there are huge misconceptions about Bangladesh, mainly due to the absence of Bangladeshi voices on the Internet. And I found my focus: topics on Bangladesh and following the Bangladeshi blogosphere.

In those days Bangla Unicode was only in the development stage so I could not blog in Bangla (as the reader had to have the same Bangla software/fonts I used). My focus was to communicate with the world, so English was the ready choice.

How did you first hear about Global Voices?

I probably first came across the site because my blog was being linked by Global Voices. I was already doing small roundups in my blog and guest-blogging in a couple of regional ones.

Then in July 2005 I received a mail from Global Voices co-founder Rebecca MacKinnon : “We find that we've been linking to you quite frequently over at Global Voices and would love to know a little more about you…” She requested me to post on Global Voices.

I was thrilled to write for Global Voices, and the rest is history.

What is your most memorable blogging experience?

I've have a lot of interesting experiences. I remember in April 2004 I traveled to Sri Lanka and blogged about it. I remember how desperate I was to find an Internet-connected PC to upload my pictures and post my daily report. This urge makes one a passionate blogger.

I also get my share of amusements from the comments in my blog posts. I wrote about the national ID card implementation process in Bangladesh, and sometimes I still receive comments from people who have specific queries like “My ID is lost. Please tell me how can I get a new one.”

What persuaded you to start Global Voices in Bangla?

Bangla-blogging is relatively a new phenomenon. It really took off in December 2005 when a Bangla blogging platform was launched, breaking all technical barriers (it's now the largest). Bangla is spoken by 230 million people in the world, but because of absence of a unified Bangla computing platform (unicode) hundreds of Bangla online sites/publications in Bangladesh and India are not searchable and there is really a shortage of quality, Bangla content on the web.

That is why I was interested in translating Global Voices content in my mother tongue. I knew that soon, more and more people would have access to the Internet, and I wanted them to be introduced to blogs around the world in their own language. We have 15 translators on board but only 4-5 are regulars. I hope we we will be able to find additional enthusiastic volunteers to join the team.

The only thing you need to do now to read Bangla fonts is set your browser's character encoding to Unicode (utf8). Earlier you needed to download at least one unicode Bangla font, but now most recent operating systems come with everything pre-installed. Check here if you face problems either typing or reading Bangla fonts (http://bn.globalvoicesonline.org/bangla-settings/).

What have you learned about citizen media through your writing about the Rising Voices projects?

I enjoy following the developments of the various Rising Voices grantees. I come from a developing country myself and can relate to many of the challenges they face, like getting connected to the Internet, or just to be able to sit in front of a computer. I still hear from bloggers back home that sometimes they open a web page, and it takes so much time to load, they can grab a cup of tea and finish it while they wait. But these people are still passionate to blog, and this is true for participants in every Rising Voices project, whether in Madagascar, Kenya or Dhaka. Highlighting their efforts makes me realize more and more, that what we are doing is right.

What do you feel are some of the most important developments in Bangla citizen media in the past year?

The first one was the Bangla blogging platform I discussed above. Now we have 4-5 platforms with thousands of users and many, many readers, and they have a growing competition between them. The blogs on other multilingual platforms like Blogger, Wordpress etc. are also coming up.

Soon a popular Bangla news daily from Bangladesh will be introducing blogging services and others will follow suit. The Bangladeshi government has declared that it will install computers and Internet connections in almost 10,000 schools across the country. I think we will soon see an explosion of blogging in Bangla.

In South Asia as a whole, do you think citizen media has had any impact on people's attitudes or understanding of cultural and political differences?

Yes of course. We had different developments in the blogospheres in those countries but more or less the people have come to know about the power of blogging.

The Pakistani blogosphere has shown their diversity and openness breaking through the stereotypes portrayed in the media. The Indian blogosphere is so huge and its regional language blogosphere are growing to emphasize the country's multicultural, multi ethnic heritage. In Bangladesh, where the traditional media ignore blogs and are more prone to self-censorship to protect themselves, the bloggers have broken all barriers to voice their opinion fearlessly and some journalists now prefer blogs to publish their investigative reporting.

It also is fascinating to get perspectives from the bloggers about the Sri Lanka's ethnic disputes, Nepal's journey towards democracy, Bhutanese culture, and Maldivians opposition to their long serving President.

The traditional media of these countries often follow the politics of acrimony which sometime augment nationalism and hatred between these countries. You just need to look at a common incident (e.g. the border dispute in India and Pakistan) and follow the newspaper coverage of both the countries, and you see how skewed the reports are. The bloggers are bridging the gap by adding a human touch to the issues, and are in fact creating more friends than enemies between those countries.

Photo of Rezwan above, was taken by Jen Brea and is shared under a Creative Commons license.