In Flight Entertainment ....

Watched a GREAT inflight doco … The Afghan Ladies’ Driving School. If you have not seen in, do so NOW, do not wait. It is wonderful ~ happy, sad, exciting, interesting, uplifting, tragic and frustrating. With everything that’s going on in the world, it’s a reminder that broad sweeps of history is actually about the triumphs and tragedies of the lives of individual women and men. The doco, a BBC production, begins on a light note, with the narrator, Sean Langan, enjoying the funny weirdness of a driving school for women, staffed entirely by male ex-Taliban members.

Light hearted (and light handed in his approach), Langan obviously has a great affection for the people he interviews, some of whom he met when he was covering the bitter fighting which saw the ousting of the Taliban. At the same time some aspects of life in Afghanistan are frustrating and obviously challenging for an Englishman. I mean, let’s face it ~ the Brits talk about honour, valour and Eton, but we know the real reason for the struggles and triumphs of the thin red line as they forged an Empire was to introduce queuing to all nations.

So you can imagine Langan’s bemusement at the idea of traffic lights which are installed with fanfare but never turned on. In a way, these lights become, for him and the viewer, a kind of symbol of things in the ‘new’ Afghanistan.

Between meeting the women students of Mamazoi’s Driving School, the men who are teaching them and pursuing the Kabul city traffic department about the lights, Langan has an interesting insight into human relations in this very conservative traditional culture. Backgrounding the story is the then-upcoming Afghan parliamentary election, which is generating huge excitement, some cynicism and much hope. It will see the first time women will be permitted to vote, an event rare enough even for the men of Afghanistan. In fact, a quarter of all parliamentary seats have been allocated for women.

The owner of the women’s driving school, Mr Mamazoi is standing for parliament, putting on a brave campaign with his allotted visual symbol ~ two light bulbs. He’s pleased to get this symbol, because he feels it stands for progress. It’s at his election night planning dinner that things in this documentary so filled with humour and goodwill, start to get a little dark. Mamazoi has invited his supporters to a feast to plan his election day strategy, women as well as men. He’s a man with an eye to the future and recognises that women will be part of that future in ways that won’t easily be dismissed. Nevertheless, it’s Afghanistan, and the men sit at one long table, with food, drinks and loads of papers, fun, laughter and conversation, and the women sit at another table with the children ~ a much more serious table, full of earnest ambitions for improving the rights of Afghan women, but lacking so much as a pitcher of water.

As Mamazoi listens respectfully to his male guests, urges them to enjoy his hospitality and explains his goals and ambitions, one tends to forget the smaller table in the corner, where the silently unfed and unwatered female campaign workers calm fractious children and wait patiently until every last male guest has been feted and farewelled, before Mamazoi comes over, barks a few general orders at them, doesn’t say thanks and quickly departs. Possibly just Mamazoi’s way? Maybe, but it is so unnoticed, so accepted without comment or question, that the viewer suspects such a situation is very typical indeed. Yet the women remain undaunted in their determination to play a part in creating a new political landscape, and know that without them, Afghanistan can never be released from its past. They are hopeful for the future ~ and yet resigned to being treated badly and dismissively.

Suddenly, some of the earlier parts of the doco seem less cute and amusing.

The ex-Taliban driving instructors joking that one of their number will not allow his wife to attend the school seems less casual banter and more like the truth at the core of the jest.

The driving instructor praising one female student as the best driver he has ever come across, male or female, contrasts frighteningly with the same instructor yelling at two women students for laughing, and later angrily telling his colleague that the women’s laughter made him realise they were no more than animals. The sadness on the women’s faces as they comply with his order to stop laughing, and later talk with the narrator in English while the less educated instructor barks that they must translate so he knows they are not talking about him …

The smiling young women saying they won’t marry but will care for their parents, offering ~ with embarrassed downward glances and apologetic half smiles ~ the oh-so-secondary hope for an independent life, is not just the idle chatter of a Dolly reading teen ~ these are grown women who know that to marry will mean being always subject to the will of another, in even the simplest ways. Like learning to drive.

Yet even with the burden that this discrimination against half its population places on Afghanistan, there is so much to admire here. It’s easy to see how Langan loves these people. One woman tells that during the days of the Taliban, she and a colleague ran an illegal school for girls, but were kept from arrest by neighbours who used bells to provide warnings of approaching raids. An ex-Taliban man explains that his views have changed as the heat of his passion for the cause has cooled, and says a middle way must be found. Even sharp thinking Mr Mamazoi decides electioneering is less important than lunch.

A truly enthralling documentary, and well worth seeing.

You can find out more about it here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/documentaries/features/afghan-driving-school.shtml