Face

Photographer Steve McArin became famous in 1985. On the June cover of National Geographic magazine, his random picture was printed in the Nazir -Bagh Afghan refugee camp near Peshavar - a portrait of a girl unknown green -eyed in a torn red scarf. It was this nameless girl for many years that became the face of war in Afghanistan.

When Steve got to the refugee camp in 1984, he was allowed to take pictures in the classroom, including in the girl. Another possibility for a male photographer could not have fallen: in the world of Pashtunov to be photographed women is not allowed to photograph women. And children - please. He shot dozens of films. Then it never occurred to him to record the names of these children.

Soviet photographers also had thousands of pictures of the same Afghan girls and boys. Any photographer who now dares to go to Afghanistan or Pakistan has a whole collection of these beautiful people. In 1985, the editor chose one from a heap of pictures. And this picture won that war: the Soviet propaganda machine could not contrast the girl with this green -eyed girl.

Since then, many have attributed this victory to themselves. All except the photographer of Steve McCari. But a good journalist differs in that it does not give up on the mercy of the winning side or the winning propaganda car. Steve Mackerry went to Pakistan again in 2002, when the Americans already bombed the same Afghan mountains and valleys. He went to the same refugee camp, filled with new fugitives. He showed the cover of the old magazine to the old-time teachers. And, for his luck, there were people who remembered this girl. They remembered her name - Sharbat Gula - and prompted where to look for her.

And then Steve found her in Torah-Bor. At that time she was about 30 years old, she had three children and her husband. She never learned to read and did not know anything about how famous her face was and how many articles about her merciless gaze were written. She did not recognize the fact that now a certain Suhela led, an American from Saudia, founded the foundation of her name in order to fight for the rights of women - victims of gender violence under the rule of Islamic fundamentalists. Of course, neither the Charbat nor its children received a penny from the means of this fund.

With the permission of her husband, Sharbat Gula raised Burka, picked up a magazine with her children's portrait and looked sternly at the lens with her green eyes. And then she told reporters through the translator that she and her family with the Talibians lived well - better than under bombing. That she would like her children to learn to read. And that she survived because it was the will of God. And the journalists wrote all this in detail, because they did not give up their propaganda car.

I remembered this story when a Pakistani journalist sent me a photo of a tiny girl with an amputated leg. This girl from the village on the border with Afghanistan, where American aviation has been bombing a terror nest for five in a row. What other covers do this world need so that the face of his victories ceases to be childish?

09/14/2008 The material was published in the newspaper No. 174 of 09/15/2008.