Wild Country; Seeds; The Real Thing; Gallery Earth

Michael Ubaldi, June 13, 2005.

Two months ago we learned of the challenge and allure Afghanistan's mountain ranges hold for many climbers. A man whose life is spent on steep, elemental inclines has been to the silk road's rugged Wakhan Corridor and back, with one four-mile peak surmounted and one breathtaking story to tell.

Agronomics will help bring Afghanistan out of its economic and environmental desolation; internationally supervised husbandry ventures range from a return of the beloved pistachio tree to common crops like carrots, wheat, lentils, apples and — from an enterprising professional in California — soybeans:

Steven Kwon believes soybeans can save the people of Afghanistan, and he's doing something about it. Kwon works by day as a senior nutrition scientist for Nestle USA. He also runs Nutrition Education International, a nonprofit organization he started in 2003 to help reduce mortality rates in Afghanistan. ...Last year, his group cultivated soybeans on five acres in Mazar-e Sharif, Afghanistan's main northern city. The crop also was planted in a dozen other provinces in April. Kwon says that if the harvest is bountiful in October, Afghan leaders would test the plants in all 32 provinces.

In these days of rebirth, Afghanistan's greening is the most symbolic — and moving.

Despite its place on a fifth-column website and its author's inability to distinguish between fact and leftist-Ba'athist propaganda thoroughly repudiated in the first weeks of 2003 post-Saddam Iraq, this article on Afghanistan's national collection of sumptuous Bactrian artifacts is a gratifying continuation of the story that has been developing since last November. A National Geographic fellow and University of Pennsylvania research associate recently spoke at UCLA of the first moments of discovery and appraisal as he stood alongside Afghan officials in a Kabul Central Bank vault:

[Fredrik] Hiebert views these recovered antiquities as proof of a distinct Central Asian identity midway between the eastern and western outposts of the Silk Route.
"These objects from China, India, Egypt, Rome, Greece and ancient Afghan cultures represent a Silk Route melting pot," he enthused. "Having handled each of these pieces, I see a tremendous similarity, such as evidenced in hundreds and hundreds of appliqu�s made from one mold, that indicate a unique culture emerged in Afghanistan."

Hiebert hopes the rest of the world will have a chance to see these protected antiquities�and not only for their beauty. "A tour through the world�s most respected museums," he explained, "would help to raise revenues to build a state-of-the-art national museum to keep these objects safe in perpetuity."

Such a tour would certainly go far in accomplishing an objective of Afghan President Hamed Karzai, who recently attended a Washington confluence of cultural and artistic interests. Unsightly and depictive as they have been, Afghanistan's last three decades spent under Russian, native and Islamist totalitarianism are dwarfed by the country's broader ancient and intermediate history — and eclipsed by Afghanistan's brightening future.

After the Taliban were deposed, Afghanistan's contemporary artists rose immediately and set to work. Neither creativity nor devotion relented under tyranny, evident in continent-spanning success:

Two artists from Afghanistan were chosen by a panel of five Taiwan judges from among the contestants in the Venice Bienniale International Art Exhibition as winners of the first Taiwan Award over the weekend. Linda Abdul and Rahim Walizada were each awarded a trophy made out of a brick produced in Taiwan 200 years ago and a cash prize of US$20,000 by Tchen Yu-chiou, secretary-general of Taiwan's National Cultural Association. Abdul, who is an Afghan refugee, had to choke back tears when she accepted the prize from Tchen.

Tchen went on to extol the "globalization" of national artistry. Thanks to the internet and citizen media, worldwide expression is eminently possible.