The girls of Kabul
Mechanism. This is the word that caught my attention when I first read the script that Reto Albertalli sent me after his second trip to Afghanistan. The word mechanism is apparently unrelated to the sphere of bodies and souls and is referable, due to its etimology, to the world of technology. It is a word familiar to the Swiss, as it is closely linked to the king of mechanisms – the watch – and to the social and institutional “device” earmarking Switzerland, and somewhat envied abroad.
In Reto Albertalli’s letter however, the word mechanism refers to all those ordinary men and women condemned to be disposable pawns, extras destined to remain in the background of a big political, economical and military scheme; but at the same time, they easily become raw material, ready to be sacrificed, humiliated and insulted, mere tools of coercion and intimidation used to achieve higher and superior objectives, at any cost.
Date: 2012
Country: Afghanistan
Series: The girls of Kabul
Context: Personal Project
