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taylormcneil's review
adventurous
informative
slow-paced
5.0
In the summer of 1984, as the Soviet war in Afghanistan was dragging into its fourth year, Peregrine Hodson set off from Peshawar, Pakistan, in the company of a small group of mujaheddin making their way on foot to their home base in Nahrin, in northeastern Afghanistan. He hoped to write about the little-reported war; speaking Dari, one of the main languages in the country, he could blend in easier than the average Western journalist. His account is one of the best of the early years of that country’s ongoing wars, which were set off by the late 1979 Soviet invasion. This is a deeply personal account, as we meet Afghans on their own terms, not as stereotypes but as individuals, almost all poor and yet filled with hospitality for the stranger from abroad, even if many have little idea of exactly where Hodson’s native England is. These men—women are always absent—almost always talk religion, and Hodson is struck by the fervor of their religiosity, of a type, he says, that Europe hasn’t seen for 500 years. What’s especially striking are those who say it’s not just the Russians they are fighting: they are seeking to throw off the yolk of all non-believers, America included. The internecine fighting that plagues Afghanistan is on view: one group of mujaheddin rob the Jamiat Islami group Hodson is traveling with, and the suspicions between villagers for those from a village across the valley are deeply embedded. Hodson makes his way to the Panjshir Valley, and narrowly escapes Soviet bombing runs and battles. His descriptions are all too vivid: first the helicopters come, followed closely by jets dropping bombs, which invariably destroy houses, schools, and mosques, killing mostly women and children. The casual killing from a distance made me think: this is exactly how Iraqis and Afghans feel when U.S. bombers and drones attack them,too. Weakened by malaria and hepatitis, Hodson makes his way to the safety of Nuristan, manages to cross the mountains of the Hindu Kush, and finally comes to the final pass just before approaching the Pakistan border “under a sickle moon, towards the rising sun.”
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