La Magnifica porta Un Paese chiamato Afghanistan by Duilio Giammaria

 La Magnifica porta

Un Paese chiamato Afghanistan by Duilio Giammaria is a stunning new book published by Marsilio. Duilio Giammaria is a war reporter and in this book focuses the attention on a country he knows very well: Afghanistan. A place that has been conquered by many countries the UK, Russia, United States, the recent dominators. The tale starts remembering Maria Grazia Cutuli an italian reporter dead in a territory between Peshawar and Kabul, Surobi, but there is also the account of a video filmed during the capture of Mastrogiacomo, obtained by the reporter for a good amount of money from two Talibans. The story of the discovery of this video is an adventure!

Gino Strada and its Emergency largely mentioned. Strada created hospitals where everyone are taken under the wings of nurses and doctors without any kind of distinction.

The arrival of Americans, if meant to the Afghanistan after 20 years, yes, a different freedom, gone, once they left, didn't resolve the problematics of a country too complicated for the american vision, muscular and sometimes approssimative. 

The commerce of poppy increased pretty rapidly and without any kind of real temptative of interrupting it. Afghanistan at the moment is the main producer of opium.

A country, this one, where archeological sites are remarkables, as you'll read, and where the past seems to whisper to everyone. Locals are nice, kind, and they love to interact with strangers. It's important to be polite, to be interested to the facts of the people of little villages, participating to sad or happy events, because they simply want and desire it. 

Duilio one day decided to pass for the corridor of Wakhan, the same road done by Marco Polo. Oh, what wonderful anedocts, with Giammaria telling to the reader that observed the most beautiful and magnificient sky plenty of stars one night, but I found fascinating also the food that they consumed. It was impossible to complete that travel and, anyway, maybe it wouldn't have been possible: a new big terroristic attack in Kabul meant to Giammaria a quick return to the capital for reporting. A place, that one, that he found dilaniated and unrecognizable once arrived.

I found hilarious the interview of Rolling Stone with the general McChrystal. Barack Obama removed him immediately after the publication of that piece.

This book is a full immersion in: history past and recent, conflicts and invasions of other countries in this one, archeology, modern history, from the terrorist attack of NYC to the war started by the Americans, for not resolving too much, there is to add, but mainly there is the testimony of one of the most beloved italian war reporters. I didn't know, I confess the multiformity of this country, his population. Everytime I heard the word Afghanistan to me it meant sufferance because I associated the word to war and to me war is the biggest stress existing in this world: a sad country, I thought. Thanks to Giammaria I discovered a mixture of cultures, folk, populations, beautiful fascinating corners and affectionated people with, yes without doubts, a complicated destiny.  

Highly recommended.

Anna Maria Polidori