Precis

Aspen it is not. No chair lifts means skiers must trudge through knee-deep snow up to the top of the mountain. Local kids fashion skis from roughly hewn chunks of wood. And you can forget about après-ski.

This is skiing Afghanistan-style, in central Bamiyan province, drawcard for a handful of adventurous westerners and a hardy band of locals.

It’s pretty surreal to be here. You just have to stop for a second and appreciate the moment. – Jeff Olson, a snowboarding lawyer from Texas

The skiers know their joy could be short lived. Heavily armed police patrol the ski slopes in a constant reminder of a lurking threat from the Taliban just over the mountains.

So far, the snow-capped ranges that ring Bamiyan have helped to keep the Taliban out. But the Taliban is on the march in the rest of the country, and they have Bamiyan in their sights when the snows thaw.

They’ve been there before. Few could forget their destruction of Bamiyan’s “un-Islamic” 6th century giant Buddhas in 2001 –  1500 years of history obliterated just months before the twin towers fell in New York.

Bamiyan is also the stronghold and ancestral home of the Hazara people, a persecuted minority who are Shia Muslims -- infidels in the eyes of the Sunni Taliban.

I remember three of my uncles – they took them from their shops and lined them up with more than 300 people and shot them. – Hazara man Jawad Lakoo, on life under the Taliban in the 1990s

Now the Hazara of Bamiyan are on edge, wondering when the Taliban will next come after them.

They will start killing Hazara people again, just as they did before. – Hazara woman skier Zakia, 21

Many Hazara are thinking of fleeing, but for now locals and tourists enjoy the distractions of the races at the annual Afghan Ski Challenge. The winner, local mechanic Shah Aqa, savours the moment.

Skiing sends a message of peace and unity. It’s special for Bamiyan. – Shah Aqa

It’s a message that may be lost on the Taliban.

Snowy mountain landscape

Music

00:00

Kids skiing

00:05

Kids hiking up muddy path to ski area

SUPER: Bamiyan, Afghanistan

BENNETT: The snow is patchy. Equipment...? Basic. But the enthusiasm is abundant. Welcome to skiing, Afghan style.

00:14

People downhill skiing -- Afghan ski challenge

SUPER: ON THIN ICE

Reporter: James Bennett

Music

00:30

BENNETT:  In a nation wracked by violence, lies a place that still offers that rarest of commodities – peace.

00:47

Music

00:54

BENNETT:  It’s an hour up and five minutes down in the 6th annual Afghan ski challenge.

01:02

Music

01:10

Olsen climbing to top of ski run

JEFF OLSON: “Absolutely broken. It’s a really tough climb, much harder than I expected”.

01:13

Music

01:21

Finish line

BENNETT: The field comprises a few adventurous westerners with a horde of hardy locals, well acclimatised to the lung tearing kilometre long climb to the top.

01:25

Olson 100%

JEFF OLSON: “It was really funny, you know, struggling up the hill, you know, sucking wind just absolutely dying

01:37

Kids walking uphill

and then you see these little Afghan kids, skis over their shoulders, just breaking trail straight up the mountain and

01:42

Olson 100%

you just have to, you know, chuckle about it”.

01:49

Skiing GVs

Music

01:51

BENNETT: The race was conceived and is still run by European ski enthusiasts working in Kabul. Locals have taken up the challenge with passion, even if there’s still not quite enough donated ski equipment to go around.

01:56

Bennett skis

Music

02:09

Bennett to camera

BENNETT:  “Well that’s all a tremendous amount of fun, a lot of hard work especially having to go up under your own steam. The Governor here wants to put a ski lift in to make that easier and obviously there’s a lot of people here that would be keen for that, but the Taliban are just over these hills and it does all beg the question of whether all of this will be here tomorrow”.

02:19

Kids and adults skiing

Bamiyan is the ancestral home of the Hazara people, a Shia Islam minority making up about 10% of Afghanistan’s population. The Sunni majority Taliban regard them as infidels to be subjugated and massacred.

02:38

The mountains, as high as 5,000 metres, shield them from a resurgent Taliban who await the spring thaw. For now, the Hazara focus on transforming this place into an international adventure tourism venue. But fear of the escalating conflict means that like this year’s snow, foreign visitors are thin on the ground.

03:08

Olson 100%. Super:
JEFF OLSON
Adventure Tourist

JEFF OLSON: “You get here and you kind of forget all that when you just see, you know, people hanging about, having a good time, participating in a ski race. Everybody’s really warm and welcoming and friendly and so it feels very normal actually when you’re here, you know, compared to what you see on the news when you’re away but yeah, I mean you just pause and think and it’s pretty surreal to be here”.

03:39

Olson prepares for ski challenge

BENNETT: Texan lawyer Jeff Olson caught the snowboarding bug a couple of years ago and happened across Afghanistan surfing the web for exotic slopes.

JEFF OLSON: “You know, you see the military guys

04:00

Hazara military security at event

down here and, you know, you think about where you are and what you’re doing and it’s just incredible. You just have to stop

04:18

Olson 100%

and pause for a second and you know appreciate the moment”.

04:23

Guy falls over at finish line

04:26

Hazara military/Skiing GVs

BENNETT: Today at least, these Hazara military guys appear suitably chilled. Attacks here are rare - but the situation in the rest of the country is increasingly grim as the Taliban seize large swathes of countryside.

JEFF OLSON: “You know, you think about, you know, what it is we’re doing here and you know what makes it possible and how quickly it could turn in to be impossible

04:31

Olson 100%

if the situation changes, and just really how delicate the balance, you know, is still in this country.

04:59

Shah Aqa wins trophy

BENNETT: Living fully in the moment the ski crowd celebrates the win of Shah Aqa, a young mechanic from a local village.

CROWD:  [cheers]

05:05

Shah Aqa 100%

SHAH AQA: “Skiing sends a message of peace and unity. It’s special for Bamiyan, because skiing only began here in the last few years”.

05:23

Kids on tank

Music

05:33

Musicians in cafe

05:41

Bamiyan

[see program end for map patch to accompany voice over]

BENNETT: Located on the ancient Silk route, Bamiyan is the capital of Bamiyan Province and lies about 240 km northwest of Kabul.

05:48

Bamiyan streets GV

Music

06:03

Hazaras on streets of Bamiyan

BENNETT:  According to legend, the Hazara descended from Genghis Khan’s Mongol hordes that swept all before them in their conquest of Eurasia. Their distinctively Asian appearance sets them apart from other Afghans. At home that helps them spot the predominantly ethnic Pashtun Taliban that venture out and they’re easy targets for the extremist Sunni insurgents.

06:09

Music

06:34

Scenic Bamiyan shots. Site of destroyed Buddhas

BENNETT:  Long before skiing, the Hazara were custodians of a great treasure, the famed Buddhas of Bamiyan, dating back to the 6th century AD.

06:43

Music

06:55

File footage 2001. Destruction of Buddhas

BENNETT:  1,500 years of history was obliterated when in early 2001, Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers declared the Buddhas to be un-Islamic.

07:00

Present day site

Looming large over Bamiyan today are two gaping reminders of where the great icons of Hazara identity once stood.

07:19

TOUR GUIDE: The lower caves over the years were used for

07:29

Guided tour at site

local people for animal feed, they’d shelter in there and they’d build fires. But some of the high rooms still have plasterwork and some of the paintings from 1,500 years ago”.

07:33

BENNETT: Guided tours of the world’s hot spots are becoming big business, but even for this new breed of adventurers, Afghanistan is regarded as an extreme destination.

07:47

Lisa 100%

“What did your friends think when you said you were off to…”

LISA FUERST: [laughing] “Well I’ve been here before so they weren’t completely shocked. You know, I have some friends who are... they’re like, oh my gosh I wish I could come with you. And other friends who think I’m insane”.

08:04

Lisa on guided tour

BENNETT: On tour with Texan Jeff Olson is New York financial analyst, Lisa Fuerst.

08:17

LISA FUERST: [adventure tourist] “I think there’s a term in the States called “war tourism” or something like that and that’s not what I’m coming for. I mean I have no interest in going around and seeing bombed out cities and seeing people suffering and things like that. Really I’m here to see the beauty and to the extent that I can help tourism grow, you know,

08:25

Lisa 100%

spending my money in places like this I really am happy to do that and enjoy doing that, but no I don’t want to see the unhappy side effects of war. And I know that there are people who do that and that’s just... I don’t... that’s not what I’m here for.

08:39

Buddha site

It’s very sad, it’s very bleak and tourism is a way out, but if you can’t guarantee the safety of tourists and most people

08:53

Lisa 100%

are fearful of Afghanistan, and if you can’t absolutely say yes, you’re going to be safe, and you know, we’re going to drive you around in a two decker bus or something, you know, people aren’t going to come which is very sad because they’re missing a lot”.

09:00

Girl sitting on rock/Girl walking

Music

09:14

BENNETT: Amid the uncertainty, an assertive generation of young women has no intention

09:21

Zakia leaves hotel on bicycle

of returning to the conservative past.

09:26

Zakia rides bicycle

Music

09:36

BENNETT:  21 year old Zakia Dawood is university educated and works as a hotel receptionist and she’s a member of Afghanistan’s female cycling team. All of this is done with both parents’ enthusiastic blessing.

09:42

Music

09:58

ZAKIA DAWOOD: “My family’s open minded – many other Afghan families are narrow minded people. They have some old fashioned thoughts – they don’t allow their daughters to go outside – but our family doesn’t have such thoughts and there is equality between men and women”.

10:05

Zakia and Bennett at Zakia’s home

10:29

BENNETT: Zakia’s family is comfortable by Bamiyan standards. Her father works as a university driver. Brother Mahdi and sisters Reihana and Haniah attend school.

10:54

“Does your father ever cook?”

ZAKIA DAWOOD: “Yes sometimes my father cooks... just eggs. Just simple and easy to cook. When my father cooks, my brother also helps him… to cook dinner.

BENNETT: “So you’re not a very traditional Afghan family”.

ZAKIA DAWOOD: “Yeah, yeah.... no”.

11:09

Mohammed

BENNETT: Though Zakia’s father, Mohammed, is not in the kitchen tonight.

MOHAMMED DAWOOD: “God willing, in future I hope that all my children will be able to study and get higher education”.

11:34

Bennett shares meal with family

BENNETT: Like many Hazara, Mohammed fled to Shia Iran during the civil war of the ‘90s. There he married and started his family. They were encouraged to return ten years ago with the promise of a better life in the new post-Taliban Afghanistan. Now he fears that the very freedom Zakia enjoys, makes her a target.

11:50

MOHAMMED DAWOOD: “Yes, I’m worried, because Pakistan is supporting them

12:20

Mohammed

and some of our neighbouring countries. They don’t want us to have peace. If it gets to that point, Bamiyan people must stand against the Taliban and fight them. If they receive weapons and ammunition, they’ll defend Bamiyan well and stop the Taliban entering”.

12:26

Zakia and Bennett walk

ZAKIA DAWOOD: “It’s hard for me, but that doesn’t mean I should sit at home thinking that the Taliban might get me… kill me.

12:45

Zakia 100%

I always confront these problems and will continue to do so. If I stop struggling against these difficulties, I will be subjugated”.

12:56

Bamiyan people GVs

13:07

Zakia enters women’s cafe

BENNETT: Zakia draws strength from like-minded Hazara women who defy pressure to conform to traditional female roles.

13:16

Zakia greet Najiba

Najiba Noori runs her own handcrafts business and aspires to be a photographer and documentary maker. Fulfilling her dreams means leaving the safety of Bamiyan and making regular road trips to the capital Kabul. But it’s a career path fraught with great risks.

NAJIBA NOORI: “Yes, it is very dangerous.

13:26

Najiba 100%

Once I was travelling from Kabul and I saw the Taliban with my own eyes. Two Talibs checked out our car, but when they saw us all veiled they didn’t say anything.

13:56

Najiba’s photos on laptop

As a woman I’m scared to travel on the road.

14:07

Najiba 100%

There’s a chance that the Taliban or some other group might attack. For me, as a woman I have to protect myself against rape. I’m scared, but I have to be brave and keep going to Kabul – like a man. I must be strong”.

14:12

Checkpoint on road

BENNETT: Steely nerves are essential. Between here and Kabul is now Taliban territory. While international tourists can afford the $200 for a safe flight to Kabul, Hazaras are forced to run the gauntlet down what’s now dubbed the death road.

14:35

The Taliban now compete with the newly arrived Islamic State for power amongst jihadists, each faction seeking to demonstrate their brutality against the Shia Hazara. Last November, in another province, seven Hazara travellers, including a 7 year old girl, were pulled from the vehicle by suspected IS militants and beheaded.

15:03

Bennett to camera at checkpoint

“Well this checkpoint is about half an hour from Bamiyan city and about another half an hour down that way you’ll meet the first Taliban checkpoint. It’s an hour or so if you’re coming in from the Wardak way. For the Hazaras who brave extortion, kidnappings and even beheadings, making it here brings a sense of great relief,

15:31

Border guards conduct searches

but for the border guards who search and patrol this area, it’s a difficult and dangerous job. Not only do they have to keep potential insurgents out, they also have to search for explosives that can be hidden in just about anything.

15:49

Bennett to camera at checkpoint

And that’s perhaps the greatest threat here, is not an all-out assault over the mountains, but an ever increasing campaign of intimidation through bombings”.

16:02

Police Commander Reza Moin at checkpoint

Police Commander Reza Moin and his men seized 350 km of bomb making material last year. They search 500 vehicles which pass through here each day. One car bomb and this gateway to Bamiyan could be breached.

16:11

Command Reza 100%

REZA MOIN: “For the sake of Bamiyan we are prepared to sacrifice our lives so the people can live in peace and security.

16:33

The police security command in Bamiyan is inadequate. We are short of police and we’re requesting the government to send reinforcements so we can secure Bamiyan and the major highways”.

16:41

Scenic views

Music

17:02

Bennett walks with Jawad

BENNETT: Hazara civil rights activist, Jawad Sady Lakoo, says this is a community still traumatised by the recent past

17:08

File footage. Taliban on trucks. Super:
Foreign Correspondent, 1998

First, the Soviet invasion, civil war, then the Taliban takeover in 1990s.

17:17

JAWAD LAKOO: [civil rights activist] “I remember when the Taliban came, most of the people were afraid because the rumour about the Taliban was that they will kill all the kids of Hazaras – or the animals of Hazaras.

17:29

Jawad 100%. Super:
JAWAD LAKOO
Civil rights activist

I remember the burning of the cities, the bazaar and just... the lining up of the people and killing them – massacres like this.

17:43

File footage. Taliban

I remember that

17:51

Jawad/Taliban

three of my uncles they just took them from their shops and lined them up with more than 300 people. Once they shot... just killed them, just fired on them”.

17:58

BENNETT: The Taliban were swept away by the US led coalition in late 2001.

18:12

File footage. New Zealand peacekeeping force

New Zealand soldiers kept the peace in Bamiyan for a decade before leaving in 2013. Now the fighting edges ever closer to the valley.

18:17

Bamiyan GVs

Music/Call to prayer

18:29

BENNETT:  Even by Afghanistan’s standards, Bamiyan is desperately poor. Hazara complained that they never saw the billions of dollars in aid poured into the country after the US led takeover.

18:42

Buddhist monks’ caves

A few hundred metres from where the Buddhas once stood are caves which centuries ago sheltered Buddhist monks.

19:03

Jawad and Bennett walk at caves

JAWAD LAKOO: [to Bennett] There are one thousand two hundred caves in Bamiyan.

BENNETT: Jawad says this is now home for hundreds of families driven off their lands by years of conflict.

19:10

Jawad and Bennett visit Sakina living in cave

JAWAD LAKOO: “James, there are the families who’ve been living for more than a decade here in the caves in Bamiyan, and mostly they’re coming and going. When their situation gets better, they go on to the next place”.

19:23

BENNETT: 18 year old Sakina Ghafar is mother to two small children. She’s struggling to feed them and stay warm while her husband is off looking for work.

19:43

SAKINA GHAFAR: “We came here a year ago and have been living in this cave for three months.

19:54

Sakina

We don’t have anything, no land, no livestock – and decided to come here to Bamiyan to find work. Last year was a little better – but this year, nothing”.

19:59

Sakina lights heater

BENNETT: Jawad says the absence of mains power or running water in a city of 350,000 shows wilful neglect by Kabul.

20:13

Men on motorbike

JAWAD LAKOO: “We cannot deny the discrimination of the central government against the Hazaras, against the Shia. They are thinking that the Bamiyan and

20:28

Jawad

the Hazaras are not on the priority list of the government because they put all their attention and all their resources into the southern and northern parts of Afghanistan”.

20:40

Destroyed Buddha statue site

Music

20:52

BENNETT: There is one more unresolved question – should the Buddhas be rebuilt from these caged pieces of precious rubble?

20:58

Time lapse

Music

21:06

BENNETT:  Last summer, a wealthy Chinese adventure tourist provided

21:12

Laser light show. Super:
“On the Road” documentary

a glimpse of the possible, bankrolling this light show. Advocates argue rebuilding at least one is just as important for Afghanistan as the resurrection of the New York’s ruined World Trade Center site was for America.

21:16

Buddha site

JAWAD LAKOO: “The rebuilding of Buddha niches is the dream of each and every one of the Hazaras because we think the greatest

21:40

Jawad

proof of our identity in our civilisation is the Buddha niches”.

21:51

Buddha site

BENNETT: But that dream is tempered by fear.

JAWAD LAKOO: “One of the questions was that if we start the rebuilding of the Buddha,

21:56

Jawad

the Taliban will tread once again in Bamiyan. Do you have the power to save the Buddha again or not?

22:06

Buddha niche

And it is a threat. We do not want to start building now”.

22:11

Return to ski challenge

Music

22:16

Women’s ski race

BENNETT: Back on the slopes, it’s time for the local Hazara women’s race.

22:25

Zakia takes part in ski race

Zakia’s not only a national cyclist, she’s also a skier and her parents are here to support her.

22:32

Music

22:40

BENNETT:  Amidst the enthusiasm remains the question of what and who lies beyond the horizon.

22:55

Zakia 100%

ZAKIA DAWOOD: “If the international community leaves Afghanistan the Taliban will be back in power for sure and peace will never return to Afghanistan. And they’ll start killing this generation of Hazara people again, just as they did before”.

23:04

Women’s ski race

Music

23:25

BENNETT: Hundreds of thousands of Hazara have already fled abroad, seeking asylum across the globe from Germany to Australia.

23:34

Zakia/Ski race

ZAKIA DAWOOD: “Sometimes I think if the Taliban comes to Bamiyan or if fighting starts again in Bamiyan, I ask myself, what can I do? Should I leave Bamiyan and go to a foreign country?”

23:43

Music

24:03

Najiba/Ski race

NAJIBA NOORI: “I think the Taliban is definitely coming to Bamiyan. And when that day comes they’ll be much stronger. If they come to Bamiyan, this time they’ll come well prepared. And this time they will destroy every single thing in Bamiyan – even what’s left of the Buddhas”.

24:08

Music

24:37

LISA FUERST: “If the Taliban came again, I don’t know that they would survive.

24:45

Lisa/Ski race

That’s crushing. I mean they are warm people. They have so much to give and so much to offer to the world. The culture here, to lose this is just a sin. It would be shameful. Just beyond shameful. We shouldn’t allow that to happen”.

Music

24:48

25:00

Credits

Reporter – James Bennett

Camera/Director – Geoff Lye

Editor – Garth Thomas

Additional vision credit for Buddha light show sequence: “On The Road Team - China”.

Producer – Mark Corcoran

Executive producer – Marianne Leitch

abc.net.au/foreign

© 2016

* map patch

Accompanying v/o: Located on the ancient Silk Route, Bamiyan is the capital of Bamiyan province, and lies about 240 kilometres north west of  Kabul.