On Tuesday May 15, the Choate student body congregated for its last special program of the year, an exciting evening with journalist and documentarian Saira Shah.
Reverend Trister, Head of Campus Ministry, commenced the program by reciting Shah’s official biography. “Shah was named British ‘Television Reporter of the Year’ in 2002,” said Trister. In addition, she has received global acknowledgment for her two documentaries about Afghanistan, titled “Beneath The Veil” and “Unholy War.” Trister continued, “The films have won three Royal Television Society Awards, two Emmys, a BAFTA, a Peabody and numerous other awards.”
Saira Shah is a British freelance journalist. She was born into an Afghan family, and first visited Afghanistan at the age of 21 to work there as a freelance journalist for three years. While in Afghanistan for the first time, Shah covered the guerilla war against the Soviet occupants. On Tuesday night, Shah described many of her experiences in Afghanistan.
Saira Shah’s father motivated her to go to Afghanistan. She explained, “My father was from Afghanistan and he always described [Afghanistan] to me as the most wonderful place in the world.” Growing up in England, Shah began to fantasize about going to Afghanistan while attending a private high school similar to Choate. “I always was planning on how to get away,” said Shah.
Before Shah began to narrate her experiences in Afghanistan, she explained the message she wished to convey to the Choate community; she exclaimed, “If you got a crazy plan and everyone thinks you are completely mad and should not do it, just go and do it!” Shah credited her success in her documentaries to this liberal mentality.
Shah began her journey to Afghanistan by being smuggled in from Pakistan. She convinced a few Afghan men to take her to the front line of combat. While traveling to the combat zone, she crossed a traditional Afghan village. There was “no Western influence in this village except for a small Western pharmacy,” Shah said. She climbed up a flight of stairs to the pharmacist’s house, and was stunned to find “an absolutely beautiful fourteenth century picture.” Shah quickly connected with the pharmacist’s wife, who became intrigued by Shah’s stories of the West. However, Saira Shah and the group of Afghan men reluctantly were forced to depart the village and continue their journey.
In order to reach their destination, Shah and the men needed to cross a snowy mountain range. The group was “fighting through the snow” when they decided to turn around and wait until spring when the snow would be melted. The group had nothing to eat except “bloody sheep fat,” Shah stated. While descending, they encountered a herder with a goat. Shah bought the goat and as the travelers were strolling down the mountain, they were ambushed. Shah described the chaos: “The soldiers had been watching us for a while until we were deep into their territory, and these things started falling in every direction!” The group narrowly escaped the bullets of the soldiers, and finally had their feast.
Shah also explained the purpose and experiences in her second visit to her father’s homeland. She explained, “I was working for Britain’s Channel Four News in 2000, and I wanted to make a documentary.” Shah traveled back to Afghanistan, with little luck. The ministry quickly banned her from filming anything in the country, and she was forced to find an alternate method of filming her documentary.
Shah decided to enter the country alone with secret cameras. She explained, “The BBC got a special unit for making secret cameras, like the ones in James Bond.” Shah went back into Afghanistan and joined an underground RAWA feminist organization, an extremely radical feminist group. Shah exclaimed, “They were scary, as scary as the Taliban.” Shah documented the activities of this radical feminist group.
Shah witnessed public executions by the Taliban, and documented the troubles of three Afghan girls whose mothers had been killed by the Taliban. Shah also spoke with medical workers. Shah stated, “There were many rules for women doctors not to work. The patients were mainly women in this hospital, who were starving and were completely abandoned in horrible conditions.” Shah compiled her work from her second visit to Afghanistan, and produced Beneath the Veil, her first documentary, which premiered in 2001. Shah concluded her presentation by explaining how the Taliban received too much attention while the Afghans didn’t receive enough at the same time. She stated, “This was quite disastrous for the country.” The audience appreciatively gave Saira Shah a standing ovation after she finished her speech.
