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Metra Media
For the sixth time, the producer asks Mina if she’s sure she wants to proceed with a broadcast. He tells her she doesn’t have
to put herself at risk to report what others are already reporting.
Seated behind the desk with her notes in front of her, Mina tells him he’s welcome to leave if he is concerned about his own
well-being. She says she will understand if he goes. The producer runs both hands through his hair and mutters something incomprehensible.
Mina asks him—dares him—to repeat himself.
“You know, I was speaking out of concern for you, but even if I weren’t, it’s not a crime to think of my own well-being. I
have a wife and young children,” he says.
Mina sets her pen down, lays a hand over it, and presses her lips together. People are quick to remind her that her existence
is of lesser value because she does not have a husband or children. It is a cruel calculus.
“Since my job is all I have, I might as well do it,” she responds tartly.
The producer huffs. He wishes she wasn’t so damned sensitive.
He’s never told her, but he thinks she is one of the smartest and most courageous journalists on the air.
He would be proud to see one of his daughters grow up to be like her—professionally, that is.
(He could not abide the shame of a divorced daughter.)
“Let’s get on with it, then,” he says, and spins a finger in the air to propel them into action. “Camera? Camera!”
The cameraman is distracted, his mind on the urgent phone call his mother received from his fiancée’s family last night. They
drained two thermoses of tea trying to figure out how to handle the demands they firmly but politely made. He swings the round
eye of his camera back to Mina and waits for the countdown.
“Esteemed viewers, welcome again to tonight’s program, where we bring you news from around the country and beyond. I am Mina
Noori of Metra Media.”
The cameraman keeps the camera trained on Mina’s face. His eyes flit to the producer, who watches Mina, his expression grim.
“Despite reassurances from the leaders of the top banks in the country, the economic crisis continues, with account holders trying desperately and all too often unsuccessfully to retrieve their hard-earned savings from bank branches. ATMs are not functioning and there are grave concerns that the currency will be further devalued by the political instability. The acting governor of the national bank has fled the country, but on social media posts, he has stated that since the Taliban are on international sanction lists, the majority of the ten billion dollars of assets, frozen by the United States, will not be accessible to them. Year-end disclosures by the bank listed $362 million in foreign currency cash held at the bank’s central offices and branches, as well as at the presidential palace.
All of these are now controlled by the Taliban.
In addition, the national bank’s vaults located in the presidential palace and central office held nearly $160 million in gold bars and silver coins, a collection of two-thousand-year-old Bactrian gold jewelry and coins.
Nearly twenty-one thousand artifacts that had been presumed lost during the previous era of Taliban rule were recovered from a secret vault in the central bank’s basement in 2003.
The Taliban have not yet indicated how they will handle archaeologic treasures. ”
Mina is quoting numbers the cameraman can hardly fathom. And what will happen to the money he has scraped together over the
past two years? For the past year, he has been saving his wages, because his future in-laws have made clear that a lavish
wedding is required to show their friends and family that their daughter is marrying into a successful and respectable family.
They want to invite three or four hundred of their closest family and friends to celebrate in a grand ballroom with an architectural
ceiling, ornate plaster patterns backlit with LED lights, gilded columns, and dining chairs covered in white cloth with sashes
of green tulle. Though they had agreed to the engagement, they would not permit a nikah until the wedding. It was their way
of ensuring the groom’s family did not try to get away with a cheaper marriage before God only.
He does not blame them. His own parents demanded the same when his sister was getting married, insisting on three arches of
roses for the stage instead of one and for two extra lambs to be slaughtered for the dinner buffet.
But last night, his future mother-in-law had revealed a new plan.
We can have the wedding when the chaos settles, but let’s have a small nikah as soon as possible. This weekend, even. Better
they be married now given the new . . . climate. I’m sure you agree.
Panic is driving decisions these days. Families don’t want their daughters left behind if a groom manages to flee the country.
And this is a terrible time for a young woman to be unmarried.
His mother agreed, of course. In four days’ time, he will sit next to his fiancée, and they will each sign their names to
the marriage contract. They will be husband and wife, no matter who is in charge of the country. But even a small nikah means
getting the immediate family together. His siblings. Her siblings. Their closest aunts and uncles. He has nearly three thousand
dollars in the bank but was only able to get out two hundred when he went to the branch. Maybe he’ll get lucky at the bank
if he goes again. He would hate to ask his brothers for cash.
“And in other news, the Taliban have ordered all women’s shelters to close.
Schools remain closed as well, with children and parents left wondering when they will reopen and whether the Taliban will allow girls to return to school as they seem to have indicated they would during talks with Americans.
But as we’ve noted in previous broadcasts, the U.S.
agreement with the Taliban made no mention of women’s rights, human rights, or ensuring girls had equal rights to education.
The city’s national music institute has also closed, and as can be seen in these photographs, the school’s instruments were destroyed, a signal that the Taliban regime currently occupying the presidential palace is not far removed, ideologically, from the Taliban of the late nineties.
This does not bode well for women and girls, or anyone who believes in freedom of speech and individual rights.
Yesterday, I spoke with young students who went to school only to be turned away on order of the Taliban. ”
Mina looks down as they roll the clip of her interviewing a girl dressed in a black school uniform, a white headscarf tied
primly under her chin. She is sobbing into the camera, her sullen-faced classmates around her.
“What sin have we committed? Why are we being punished?”
The cameraman looks to the producer, thinks of babies. With marriage comes children, sons and daughters. His sisters were
all top students. He cannot imagine keeping a little girl away from a classroom. Maybe he won’t have daughters. Maybe things
will change by the time he has to worry about any of this.
The first Taliban regime lasted five years, a destiny cut short by the military might of the United States and her NATO allies.
But how long will this Taliban regime last now that the world has grown weary of battling them?
You have all the clocks but we have all the time, the Taliban had warned the American generals.
“Dear viewers,” Mina says, and takes a deep breath. It is impossible to report these updates without wondering if this will
be her last time addressing her audience. “This concludes our program for the evening. As always, may God be with you all
and, inshallah, may I come to you tomorrow as the bearer of brighter news.”