A Harrowing Glimpse Into "Motherland Afghanistan"

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Things are not nearly as cozy in Afghanistan as some quarters would have you believe. Current American military efforts there, though touted by the Administration as a breakthrough for democracy, have done little to better the populace on a day to basis. It's a country that's seen the ravages of war and invasions for more than thirty years, besides being torn by internal cultural divides. And for all the rhetoric about the great strides being made there, precious little has been done to aid its impoverished populace.

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The Independent Lens installment "Motherland Afghanistan", currently airing on PBS, offers a penetrating look into one of the country's most disturbing medical crises. One in seven women in Afghanistan die as a result of complications from childbirth, and the infant mortality rate is the second highest in the world as well, second only to Sierra Leone. This documentary focuses on that disturbing statistic, and the small steps being taken to remedy its tragic implications.

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Afghan-American filmmaker Sedika Mojadidi documents her father, Dr. Qudrat Mohadidi, and his efforts to stem this crisis one small difference at a time. In 2003, nearly two years after the Taliban's fall, Dr. Mohadidi was invited by the U.S. government to help rehabilitate the maternity ward at Rabia Balkhi, in Kabul,. now renamed the Laura Bush Maternity Ward.

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Once there, though, he finds no financial support from the HSS--he gets lots of letters from Tommy Thompson gladhanding his efforts, but that's about it.Promised supplies never come from the U.S. Still, he tries his best to preservere, working with Afghan doctors who are woefully untrained, and in deplorable unsanitary conditions. He eventually leaves in frustration, a victim of beuracracy and apathy on the Afghans' part.

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He returns two years later, this time under the sponsorship of Shuhada, a non-governmental organization (NGO), this time under more proactive, but nonetheless deplorable conditions. Stillborn births, doomed preemis and mothers doomed by ancient cultural practices still take their toll. Progress is being made, but it comes in laborious steps, punctuated with quiet despair and death.

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"Motherland Afghanistan" is an unflinching look at U.S. policy failures at the most fundamental level of its populace, as seen through the eyes of Dr. Mohadidi. Not overtly political, it also examines the cultural and secular differences that continue to impede a solution to the maternal and infant mortality rate that plague the country on a most base level.

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All that being said, "Motherland Afghanistan" emerges as a positive film, serving up a vision of hope, served up one person at a time. Neither America, nor any coalition, is going to save Afghanistan. It's a largely ignored country, except as a poster child for the so called war on terrorism. What this documentary does is paint a dark vision of the plight of Afghan women in the present, while offering a hope that the future for women there may be the key to solving this ongoing, largely ignored crisis.