We are pleased to announce that NPR’s Throughline received a Peabody Award in recognition of its three-part series, Afghanistan : The Center of the World.
It aired 20 years after 9/11 and only weeks after the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan. Other outlets covered this crucial moment from the U.S. viewpoint. Throughline, which won the award for best series, took a different approach and shifted the narrative to focus on Afghanistan and its people.
Too often, Afghanistan’s story is told through the eyes of outsiders who attempted to invade it aEUR”, and failed every time aEUR”, earning it the “Graveyard of Empires” nickname. Part I takes us back in time to see the many civilizations that converged in Afghanistan. This is long before the U.S. became a nation. It combines languages, cultures and visions of what Afghanistan could become. We hear the rich history and poetry of Afghanistan through music, poetry, and radio broadcasts.
Part II focuses on the origins and rise of the Taliban. This episode goes beyond the clichés and explains what traumatic political and historical forces caused the Taliban’s rise and formation. We complicate the story about a group that has been stereotyped by the West through poetry written by Taliban fighters and Afghan women. Drone Wars concludes the series. It focuses on the development of the U.S. military’s most infamous weapon, the predator drone. The drone was meant to represent the new era of precision warfare, a way to win wars with less casualties for both sides. Over the past two decades, Afghans have come to fear drone attacks as a constant threat from the sky above. This episode explores the ways Americans have become disconnected from the human cost of war in Afghanistan.
Who has the right to frame the past? Which stories are important? Throughline’s series Afghanistan: The Center of The World exemplifies this challenge. It challenges viewers to look at the world differently, not just to consider what has happened, but to also examine why. This connects us as human beings who are stuck in the present, the future, and the now.
You can listen to the winning episodes of the Peabody Award-winning series here
