The perfect soldier

If I look back into my ripe years (in my case a bit too ripe, almost spoiled years…), the collapse of Yugoslavia was one of the biggest turning points in my life. Maybe it was then, when all of this was happening, I really didn’t realize how big of a consequence this would leave in me. I was not in the group of neoliberal, office independency followers, who already knew in those times (and also planned!) how that situation would all turn around and end. For them to take our certificates in some kind of legal accordance, to be selling all kinds of successful and unsuccessful companies, and then live off the money in some fancy European capitals in tax havens. But me, I thought about totally different problems in those times. I thought about the fighting menace of the inhabitants of all the old republican lands, about the suffering and misfortune that happened just a few kilometres away, and mostly about how a human being is capable of doing something so horrible to one another. Deep down, I was completely devastated about the countless mine fields, which are still left out there till today in countless fields around the Balkans. So, soon after the war ended, I started to work together with the ITF, a foundation for establishing human safety, which was dealing with gathering resources and leading projects to help dig up the mines and help prevent further mine filed victims. Together, we travelled to quite a big portion of the world, and mostly in the Balkans, but also in Albania, Lebanon, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kong, and many more. From the start of our work together, things were crystal clear. All the photographs, which we needed for our campaign, publications, exhibitions or brochures, were my gift, in short, my work, which I have done for over a decade (and with the utmost pleasure!) was free and without any  financial fees whatsoever. And this time we travelled to Afghanistan, where the ITF-members are present through their projects, for over 4 years and counting.

 

 

When I walked 14 years ago through Kabul, there was not a single place that was not accessible or could be looked at from afar, at least. One of the wars just ended and it looked like things would turn out for the better. Not ideal, but still… Well, but they didn't turn out better! Not in the least… Each year that followed the safety precautions in Afghanistan got worse and worse, and the terror worked as the main source for communication. The tribal and religious disputes, bomb attacks, abductions, murders and other criminal acts of the sort, were mixed together with the political interest and wishes for power and greed, money and wealth. The embassies constantly forbid their own people to enter the city and were refused free passage in or out, for instance, employees of the American embassy are not allowed to drive in their cars anymore, but they have to be flown from one part of Kabul to the other via helicopter. By the way, Kabul is one of the cities, which has the biggest number of mine fields from all of the worlds capitals. Some of the Westerners, which stayed here for many reasons, almost never went to walk through the streets. They look out of their thick glass from the windows of their land cruisers, meet in living complexes for foreigners full of fear and neatly get payed their extra fees for their dangerous work. And their work is really dangerous…  Just a few days after I arrived in Afghanistan, they shot a Spanish physiotherapist, Loren Perez, who was working in the Red Cross centre in Mazar-e-Sharif. She was shot by one of her own patients in a wheelchair, who was treated there for over 20 years. Why? Nobody remembers anymore… A few days they bombed and threw grenades down on the Kabul airport, and the government proclaimed a total block for foreigners moving around the city, a so called “white alarm”. Some shooting and explosions later and everything was over, and the city went its ways like it always did, as if nothing happened. And the result? Some shot Taliban and an unknown number of dead and injured Afghanistan civilians, which are not worth anything anyway. Collateral damage, nothing more…  Things like this became boring routine and all the aggressive news is soon forgotten, in a few hours or maybe in a few days max. The journalists don’t think about this situation too much, because they know, something even worse will happen tomorrow, which they can use to fill up some hours of their news broadcasts around the world. And even this almost nobody is watching anymore, because it is happening in lands, which are long forgotten and lost. And life for the Kabul inhabitants goes on, mercilessly, and their city is turning more and more into a fortress each year. Far up in the sky, helium filled balloons are flying through the air, 24 hours a day, equipped with special security cameras which overlook the whole city, the roads in the centre are pressed against concrete walls, covered in 5 or 6 meters high barricades made out of stone and steel and covered with barb wires.

 

If we think a bit and ask ourselves, how a perfect soldier would be, we would probably come to the same conclusions. First of all, they would have to be reaaaaaly cheap, they should never sleep (or, God forbid!) think or act out of their own will, they should never get older, nor eat or drink, be on guard 24/7, they would have to be merciless to every enemy they meet, no matter their religious views, age or gender. Sound utopic? Well, it’s not! Such perfect soldiers exist for quite some years now and they are called Mines. Actually there is a whole family of them; land mines, antitank mines, anti-armour mines, surprise mines, underwater mines, and many more I could write down. I especially hate land mines, which are well hidden under the surface and can wait for over a decade till they finally show themselves only when somebody steps on them. Sometimes they are forgotten where they are places and who they should even be against, but they still wait in silence, and wait… Many times they wait for a small shepherd to come by with his flock, who cares for his sheep and his little sister, who happily runs beside him.

 

It is evaluated that in Afghanistan, in the last 10 years alone, there have been place over 10 million of mines, and under the earth itself countless of unexploded mines called NUS, which are old relics of fought wars, which are seemingly never-ending. Of course, these numbers are drastically sinking, because of many humanitarian rights groups, which deal with the disposal of such hidden mines and thanks to thousands of determined helpers, their numbers are getting fewer, but still… And so I have made photographs of the de-mining process in Herat, an almost Iran border lying city, in the north province of Mazar-e-Sheriff and around Kabul, where the mines are disposed in the many countless forgotten war fields, which nobody even keeps track of anymore. A lot of mines are still left from the times of the Soviet occupational wars and the fights between the various Mujahedeen groups, which fought to the death so many times, after the Soviets left their lands. For those, who are not so knowledgeable of this history, a quick reminder; the uncourt Soviet war started in 1979 and lasted till the beginning of the 90s. That means almost 40 years of steady and ongoing wars, who are still payed for by countless victims till this day. And the victims of other explosives in Afghanistan are many… An estimated 190 victims a month (!!!), 5% of these being soldiers, and other being civilians. And it is exactly for these civilian victims that we offer so much attention, because boring statistical numbers, although they are so high, don’t and can’t measure an individual’s suffering and pain.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

P.S. These photographs are going to be used in the project, which is informing the mass public about gathering donor funds and resources, which are almost the only way to de-mine such war-struck lands as it is and for our good deeds to continue on.