Yvonne Ridley – An Unexpected Flight to Pakistan A Tale #1
AI: Summary ©
The speaker describes a crashage in a towers of the World Trade Center and describes a woman who had a bullet in her head. She talks about the controversy surrounding the surprising surprise of the surprising crashage and the need for hospitable behavior. She also talks about a woman who was trained as a doctor and had a bullet in her head.
AI: Summary ©
I was actually on my way to the
departure lounge when my news editor called and
said change of plan, go to Pakistan.
Out there that is the World Trade Center
and we have unconfirmed reports this morning that
a plane has crashed into one of the
towers of the World Trade Center.
I was on my way to New York
because that's where the story was, the collapse
of the Twin Towers, the terror attack, the
attack on the Pentagon.
I was actually on my way to the
departure lounge when my news editor called and
said change of plan, go to Pakistan.
Well, I had no knowledge of Pakistan other
than what I'd seen on TV and that
was very limited.
Other than the famous cricketer Imran Khan, you
nothing about Pakistan and I was very reluctant
but I went.
About 3,000 journalists within that week arrived
in Islamabad and it was quite an incredible
experience waiting for the war to start while
the war of words unfolded between Washington, London.
Islamabad was playing a key role through General
Pervez Musharraf.
At that particular time I was in Pakistan
when he addressed the nation to say whether
Pakistan exactly where its position was going to
be.
Pakistan has taken a considered decision to be
a part of the coalition, to be with
the United States, to fight terrorism in all
its forms wherever it exists.
And it was quite clear at that point
he had a metaphorical gun to his head
from America and he had to react accordingly.
I'm very competitive.
I don't like sitting being spoon fed and
so I wanted to get a story that
nobody else had got.
And to my mind that was going into
Afghanistan and it wasn't my editor's idea.
They were very much against it initially but
I was determined to go into Afghanistan to
find out from ordinary people what is life
like under the Taliban.
Is it the most brutal evil regime in
the world?
That's what George Bush and Tony Blair were
saying.
But of course if you're going to bomb
a country you can't drop bombs on nice
people.
So you have to demonize them first.
I wore the all enveloping blue burqa and
went in with a couple of guides and
if we had been challenged they would have
said that I was deaf and dumb and
not able to respond.
So that was the cover story that we
went and we went in.
The first place we visited was Jalalabad and
I sat on the edge of the marketplace
while the guides went off and bought provisions.
I was able to observe life in Jalalabad
and then we went into a village a
couple of miles away called Karma.
That day the Taliban spiritual leader who had
already kicked out all of the western media
from Afghanistan, he released an edict just that
morning to say anyone helping a westerner during
this time of escalating tension would be arrested.
So I was taken into a room of
a house and sat there while they decided
what they were going to do.
And of course Afghans have this overwhelming need
and drive to be hospitable and so very
soon they forgot the burning issue of you
know are we in danger but they wanted
to know more about me and did I
want some tea, did I want something to
eat and within a few minutes I was
able to dispel some of the myths which
still pervade today about the Taliban.
I met a young girl who was training
to be a doctor and I said to
her I didn't think that women were educated
in Afghanistan.
Throughout the next 11 days I learned quite
a bit about the people of Afghanistan through
the people on the ground who I'd met
in the village and subsequently when I was
captured through the Taliban.