Original subtitles

(soft music)

Wow, what a beautiful land I have.

Beautiful sky like a hanging ocean.

Look at the mountain touching the sky.

Look at the rivers so fast, so nice.

Wow, God has given us so much beauty.

What a land.

(calming music)

Living in Kabul was so romantic.

We were happy in Kabul.

Cinemas, restaurants, hotels.

It was better than Europe I guess.

It was a lot of tourists traveling with the long hair,

and the hippie style clothes.

And they were going to the historical places

and that we have.

(calming music)

I have a dream to have my country back.

Would you think that's too much, that's too big?

(calming music)

This is the story of a land

as beautiful as it is cursed.

A country trapped in war for so long.

Few can remember how it all began, or why.

Money, power, religion?

No one has a clear answer.

What went wrong in Afghanistan?

This rugged land remains a mystery.

It is in the heart of Asia,

surrounded by ancient civilizations.

Yet for centuries, Afghans remain isolated,

hidden behind their faint towering mountains.

Divided into tribes,

they were a united mainly by their Islamic faith

and their fierce desire for independence.

Many conquerors and great armies invaded this nation,

from Alexander the Great, to the British Empire,

but they all faced the legendary resistance of the Afghans.

In the '60s, one man tried to change everything,

King Zahir Shah.

He had a dream to modernize the country.

He installed democracy,

and opened up the nation to the world.

In his business-like office

at the Royal Palace, Mohammed Zahir Shah

lays aside the pump of royalty

and devotes himself to affairs of state,

with the direct simplicity

of any wise modern chief executive.

His wife, Queen Humaira,

was a modern first lady.

She dared to appear in public without a veil,

shocking many in this conservative Islamic country.

(Homayoun speaking foreign language)

The king traveled abroad,

and took inspirations from the leaders he met.

It was the time of the Cold War,

and the world was divided in two blocks.

But King Zahir did his best to keep Afghanistan independent.

(Homayoun speaking foreign language)

Not far from Kabul at Sarawbi,

a core of European engineers have been brought in

to harness the river there,

so that Kabul may have more electric light and power.

Thanks to its neutrality,

Afghanistan was able to attract financial help

from both sides.

The Americans built dams in the south,

while Soviet engineers built bridges, roads, and tunnels

across Afghanistan.

The country was no longer isolated.

(upbeat music)

Kabul came to resemble a European capital.

Afghan children could learn French, German, and English.

Boys and girls were together until 12th grade.

So we were playing together,

there was basketball ground, there was volleyball ground,

there was football ground.

Honestly, I was focusing on my studies,

but I was quite, how to say, I was a little naughty.

I would say we were going to cinemas

we were skipping some classes.

(upbeat music)

Well, we have two or three senior theaters.

In the beginning, there was no translation.

And we were watching, and loved it.

But films like Ben-Hur, like Dr. Zhivago.

Oh my goodness so easily they say, "I love you".

But for us, it was just on the ground,

make heart and with an arrow,

and you know some drops of blood coming down,

and then the girl was coming and say, accepting or not.

But there, "I love you".

Wow.

Kabul was a totally a different place.

I would say it was a modern city with lots of restaurants,

jazz music, life.

Inside, whenever the door was open,

two things I remember.

First, the big, loud live jazz sound music,

which was playing live.

Plus lots of smoke, people over there inside of that room

was been smoking a lot.

You can't believe, and even you can imagine

it was better than Europe I guess.

Most people will not realize that Afghanistan back then

produces brandy or wine, right here in Kabul.

The Intercon had a wonderful swimming pool.

On the top floor, it had the best nightclub.

For an Islamic country of that era,

we were probably the most open-minded of the area.

(upbeat music)

Then came in the tourist era.

The country was now accessible,

and the first tourists arrived.

Most of them were hippies.

On their way to India, they stopped here

to discover an exotic culture, and taste the local hashish.

And it was a lot of tourists

coming to different parts of the country.

They were traveling with the local bus,

with their long hair, and the hippie style clothes.

And they were going to the historical places

and that we have.

To Bamyan to see the Buddhas, and to Herat.

(upbeat music)

From America, from Germany, from Italy, from France,

from these European countries, they were coming.

There were hippies and non-hippies.

Of course, some of them having hashish,

and smoking weed, which we didn't like it.

My mother was always saying that be careful.

(woman speaking foreign language)

(man speaking foreign language)

(woman speaking foreign language)

Beautiful girls.

Oh, we boys even were just looking at,

oh my goodness golden hair, blue eyes.

Of course, little bit, you know, weird clothes.

But anyway, we boys, especially younger generation,

they could see it.

And in no time they found that boys had longer hair.

Instead of the tourists following us,

we were following the tourists.

(narrator speaking foreign language)

When I was in 12th grade in high school,

one thing, good thing happened to me.

I became a Miss Afghanistan in 1972.

(classical music)

One class of the society called us Westernized people,

because we dress like Western people,

we live like Western people,

and we were listening to their music.

We thought this is way of life for us.

Truth is, Kabul and its fashionable elite

were living in a bubble.

In the far off provinces where 80% of Afghans lived,

the situation was very different.

Poor and illiterate, rural Afghans

followed ancient cultural traditions.

Women were segregated and could be bought for marriage.

Religion was the ultimate authority.

A lot of the Afghans,

or the 40 odd families that run this country,

majority of them acted

like British aristocrats, unfortunately.

They were great for the cities,

but they really annoyed the villages.

Elite class of Afghanistan,

they were not thinking about

what is gonna happen in the country.

We were sort of sleeping those days,

and we didn't see the reality unfortunately,

because of our class differences.

(Homayoun speaking foreign language)

The Muslim clergy was uncomfortable

with the changes the king had brought to the nation.

Democracy and women's rights were distant concepts to them.

Many of those living in the provinces

shared the same concerns,

and some felt left behind,

excluded from the privileges of the elite.

(Gulbuddin speaking foreign language)

The Soviet Union

was not just building bridges for Afghanistan.

Young officers were trained by the Soviet army,

and the best students were invited to Moscow.

Many of them returned home with a new ideology.

By the end of the '60s,

students across the world were sharing revolutionary ideas.

Turmoil was everywhere and Afghanistan was no exception.

(crowds rioting)

(Homayoun speaking foreign language)

New ideas, and new ideologies,

and we were young boys and hearing from Lenin, who is he?

The students are standing.

What else in Czechoslovakia, there is a big revolution.

What about out of Latin America and Spain

and different countries?

What is that?

The world is changing.

What we should do, fasten your seat belt.

In terms of women movement, it was all over.

Afghanistan also got that kind of ideas.

I had to marry in order to go to university.

But honestly, I think that,

now I think that we were already feminist

without knowing the word of "feminist".

My husband was teaching at the university.

From the beginning,

I told him that I cannot be an obedient wife.

So I can be a good friend

and we have to have 50% rights both of us.

So we really had 50%, and we were famous within the family

that when the family were seeing us,

they were saying, how is that a 50%?

The Afghan communists

preached equality between all men and women.

They dream of a socialist revolution.

(Farid speaking foreign language)

The communist ideology

was at odds with the Muslim faith.

It denied the existence of God.

And for Afghans, that was simply unacceptable.

(Gulbuddin speaking foreign language)

(crowds protesting)

The university had become a powder keg.

As in many Western countries,

opposing political ideologies clashed on the streets.

In Kabul, students were split into two rival factions,

the communists on one side, the Islamists on the other.

(Farid speaking foreign language)

(Gulbuddin speaking foreign language)

Afghans in the countryside

had bigger problems.

A long drought had ravaged their land.

Thousands starved to death,

and the king did very little to help them.

King Zahir's popularity was in tatters.

Some started to plot against him.

(dramatic music)

On Tuesday, July 17th, 1973, while the king was in Italy,

the monarchy ended with a military coup.

Army officers trained in the USSR turned against King Zahir.

His cousin and former prime minister, Daoud Khan,

formed an uneasy alliance with the communist party

and became the country's first president.

A republic was proclaimed.

The new regime

has the backing of Afghanistan's small, powerful army.

And that in turn is supplied and equipped

by the Soviet Union.

The heavy weapons come from the Red Army.

(fighter jets flying)

I remember that we were in the university when the,

some noises were started.

We, I personally, and all of the people in Kabul,

we never heard them, the jet fighters' noise.

(narrator speaking foreign language)

The king was forced into exile.

The monarchy's end opened an era of political turmoil

that has lasted until today.

When President Daoud did the coup in 1973,

the next morning, people were sort of happy.

They thought, okay, because President Daoud took power,

well change will come, the country will develop,

everything will change.

President Daoud Khan promised social reforms

on multiple fronts.

For instance, he would take land from owners

and give it to peasants.

(Daoud speaking foreign language)

(calming music)

In the same years,

Afghan women became more vocal

in claiming their own rights and autonomy.

(woman speaking foreign language)

(Sima speaking foreign language)

(woman speaking foreign language)

(Sima speaking foreign language)

(woman speaking foreign language)

In 1975 when they announced

the International Day for Women, 8th of March,

I got a present from my fiance on that for that reason.

So it was somehow we start to say that it is,

it should be more equality between men and women,

and there should not be discrimination.

Daoud Khan proved to be

an authoritarian president.

Suspicious to the edge of paranoia,

he persecuted the Islamists who disliked his reforms

and he's alliance with communists.

(Gulbuddin speaking foreign language)

(Farid speaking foreign language)

Daoud Khan ruled the country

with an iron fist.

He suspended the constitution.

Demonstrations were forbidden.

Islamic activists were arrested.

Some of them escaped to Pakistan,

and prepared an insurgency.

(Gulbuddin speaking foreign language)

This revolution is an Islamic revolution,

and it has its special ends and goals,

which is to establish an Islamic,

a pure Islamic system in Afghanistan,

freedom of Afghanistan, and liberation of Afghanistan.

The Islamic movement was blaming

like the calmness that they are saying this,

and they were blaming.

You know, this blaming game

between left and right political ideology

was a start from the very beginning,

which is both of them were extremely immature.

Immature to lead the country, immature to guide the people,

immature to keep the great value of national unity

among the people.

In a few short years,

Daoud Khan had made himself powerful enemies.

First, the Islamists and the landowners,

now the communists and the mighty USSR.

In a visit to Moscow, Daoud Khan made the fateful decision

to break ties with the USSR.

The Soviet leader, Brezhnev,

wanted to take advantage of the coup

to extend his influence in Kabul.

But Daoud Khan refused.

A true of Afghan,

he was too proud to take orders from abroad.

Back in Afghanistan,

Daoud Khan signed what amounted to his own death sentence.

He ordered the arrest of the same communist leaders

who had helped them overthrow the king.

The assassination in jail of a leftist intellectual

triggered a new coup.

Kabul was a small circle.

It was 200,000 people, and from 200,000 people,

maybe 500 of them were involved in these kinds of things.

If you were part of that circle,

you could easily tell that things were coming to an end.

In April, 1978, supported by the army,

the Afghan communists seized power.

Overnight they slaughtered Daoud Khan

and 23 members of his family.

They called it the April Revolution.

(narrator speaking foreign language)

Tanks loyal to young communist army officers

now guard the palace where President Daoud,

the last of the Afghan royal family ruled.

Inside, he and his family,

including his young grandchildren were shot dead

when his palace guard lost their courageous battle

to defend him.

(Hamayoun speaking foreign language)

I came to the Ministry of Culture, I was working there.

When I saw that everybody was running

and I said, "Where are you going?"

And they told me, "You don't know?

"The coup that had happen.

"See the palace, there's a fire in the palace."

Five o'clock in the morning,

the radio announced that President Daoud was killed

with all his family.

And that was a tragedy for all of us.

I cry a lot to tell you the truth.

I cry, my father was so sad.

My brothers, because first of all,

we knew all President Daoud.

And second, he was killed with all his family,

his daughters, his grandchildren,

his sons, his wife, you know?

Feeling, that in very near future,

Daoud knew something against us.

Our colleagues were obliged to fight back

and he and with some of his family members were destroyed.

(crowds cheering)

This was the new president, Taraki,

and this, his Prime Minister, Amin.

Together, they tried to transform Afghanistan

into a socialist country.

They enforced land reforms and confiscated property.

They made education obligatory for girls.

Women now had full rights.

They were free to study, to work, and choose their husbands.

(woman speaking foreign language)

To implement their changes,

Taraki and Amin used Stalinist methods.

They exterminated all opposition, even from the left wing.

Islamists were the major targets of oppression.

Mosques were closed, the veil banned in public spaces.

For a conservative Islamic country,

it was all too much too soon.

Afghanistan was headed toward the abyss.

That was the most brutal time of the history

in the country.

Thousands of people from all walk of life

was taken and disappeared.

(Gulbuddin speaking foreign language)

For a communist, the best Muslim

was the one who was killed.

Thousands who lost their lives in Afghanistan.

Young boys and girls from all over.

Prison was just full.

Every day killing.

Killing of someone,

and excused that he's a Muslim was easy.

Kill him.

My family, family of my wife lost 16 members,

including her father in one night,

shotted by the communists.

You think probably somebody knock at your door

and tell you you're next, you go to prison, you know?

And you don't know why.

I remember when I was just only on a fourth grade

and I was like almost nine years old girl.

And there was a kind of propaganda,

that if you pray, they will arrest you at school.

That was unbelievable that if you pray, you will go to jail.

My husband was a normal teacher in the science faculty.

They came to our house and took my husband.

They knock our door and they came in,

and it was a group of people who were leaded by his student.

And he never came.

Never, I never heard from him.

(crowds applauding)

(Homayoun speaking foreign language)

In March of 1979,

the Islamists decided to take the streets

against the communist government.

They gathered weapons from soldiers

who had defected from the army.

Their leaders came back from Pakistan.

An uprising began.

(Gulbuddin speaking foreign language)

(crowds chanting in foreign language)

Today it might be us, but tomorrow it will be you.

You will suffer just as much as we have.

(crowds chanting)

(crowds chanting in foreign language)

(Gulbuddin speaking foreign language)

The government in Kabul was crumbling.

Taraki asked Moscow for help with the insurgency,

unaware that his chief enemy was his own right hand.

In autumn, 1979, Amin did something that shocked everyone.

He ordered the assassination of Taraki.

He wanted power for himself.

Once he became president, Amin even commissioned a film

in which he acted as the real father of the revolution.

Afghanistan was out of control

and close to falling into the hands of the Islamists.

(Gulbuddin speaking foreign language)

In Moscow, the Soviet leaders worry.

They fear the Islamist revolution

will prevail in Afghanistan,

like it had in Iran earlier that year.

Afraid of repercussions back home

where 50 million Muslims lived,

and certain that the Americans

would exploit the Afghan chaos, Brezhnev decided to act.

In December, 1979, Soviet troops entered Kabul.

Their mission was to kill President Amin and restore order.

Soviet troops have been arriving

at increasing numbers since early December.

Then on Christmas Eve, the arrivals increased dramatically.

For two days and nights,

Soviet planes landed at Kabul airport,

bringing an airborne division of around 6,000 men.

Helicopters too, landed in front of the astonished gaze

of airport passengers.

It was a whole week when planes were coming nonstop.

There was noise in the Kabul sky.

(patriotic music)

(Valery speaking foreign language)

(crowds cheering)

As a goodwill gesture toward Afghans,

the Soviets released all political prisoners.

People in Kabul rushed to the prison

to reunite with their relatives.

Word had spread

the Soviet military is releasing political prisoners

detained by President Amin.

Soon, crowds were streaming in from all directions.

Everyone was a friend or relative of a detainee,

and their numbers gave ample evidence

of the severity of the former president's rule.

In fact, it's estimated

that as many as 10,000 political prisoners

were released in a single day.

Among the joy though, there was tragedy

for those who didn't find the relative they sought.

For this woman, it was her husband.

(woman yelling in distress)

(Sima sighs)

(reporter speaking in foreign language)

(man speaking in foreign language)

(reporter speaking in foreign language)

(man speaking in foreign language)

(reporter speaking in foreign language)

(man speaking in foreign language)

(reporter speaking in foreign language)

(man speaking in foreign language)

(reporter speaking in foreign language)

(man speaking in foreign language)

At first, Afghans tolerated

the Soviet presence.

But soon they realized the troops

had no plans to leave the country.

They had come to stay.

Afghans could not accept a foreign occupation.

Like their ancestors, they weren't afraid of making a stand

against the invaders.

(crowds protesting)

There was a lot of protest,

including the protest that I participated personally,

and my sister participated.

Where a lot of people came to the street

and a lot of people were shouting "Allahu Akbar" at night.

It was three nights that the whole,

you would feel that the whole city is moving,

because it was,

everybody was on top of the roof

and they were shouting "Allahu Akbar".

(crowds protesting)

We saw Soviet soldier on the street,

and this was too much for the people of Afghanistan.

In that time, you know, really?

I said, no, it's time for me to leave this country.

This is not my country anymore.

It was a very hard decision.

I never wanted to leave Afghanistan.

I loved Afghanistan.

But the wind of war changed everything.

(Gulbuddin speaking foreign language)

I was doing my PhD in India,

and I was so happy that I will do my PhD

and I will be called Dr. Masood Khalili,

in my family, the first.

One evening, I received a call.

What you do, son?

I am doing my PhD, Dad,

and I'll be called Dr. Masood Khalili.

Did you hear that the communists took over?

Yes.

While your people are fighting for freedom,

you do your PhD?

Do you love your land?

Yes.

Your home?

Yes.

And that occupation?

Yes.

No son, join your people.

Fight for freedom.

Get your PhD from the mountains of Afghanistan,

from the university of people.

After a week, I was in the mountains.

Thanked my father,

that he told me to join the liberation war,

and I helped my people when I was young.

I loved this country when I was seven,

and I love this country when I'm 70.

Love does not need logic, it needs sacrifice.

(soft music)