Radio Free Afghanistan – Saad Mohseni
Thursday, 17 October 2024Will I ever escape from Afghanistan? I recently put a little money into an organisation which is still trying to do something useful for female education in the country. Tell us why you’re doing this, they said, and I wrote ‘I seem to be unable to get away from Afghanistan, even crossing Asia the track of my flight might go directly over the country, I’ll be just 10 vertical km from the place I have explored at ground level. And I constantly bump into people who have been there, who have an abiding interest in the place.’ So supporting them was a tiny way to hope that one day Afghanistan and its people will see happier days.
In fact just a few days earlier I came very close to Afghanistan, flying from London to Delhi with Air India my flight skirted around the country, almost touching Afghanistan as it flew south over Pakistan. When I looked on FlightRadar24, however, other flights were, once again, crossing Afghanistan directly. Subsequently Air India has also been flying right over Afghanistan, joining KLM, Singapore Airlines, Finnair and other airlines tracking that direct route.
◄ While I was in London recently Maureen and I had dinner with Saad Mohseni, the visionary founder of Afghan media empire Moby Communications and the power behind Tolo News. If you want to know more about what he accomplished during the years from his post-Taliban return to Afghanistan to his departure with the Taliban’s return to power in 2021 then turn to his recently published book Radio Free Afghanistan. Despite the fact that Saad cannot visit the country Moby continues to operate in Kabul and from elsewhere in the region.
For more on my own interest in Afghanistan check my 2021 blog about the skies over Afghanistan during the Taliban takeover or my 2017 blog about the amazing Nancy Hatch Dupree and her classic guidebook to Aghanistan, a copy of An Historical Guide to Afghanistan has a proud place on the guidebook shelf beside me as I write this.
