October 17, 2024 • 44 mins
Saad Mohseni hadn't seen Afghanistan since he was a kid. But when America swept in to scatter the Taliban in the early 2000s, Mohseni felt a calling to return to rebuild his beloved homeland. This is the story of how Mohseni and his three siblings took a chance launching a radio station-- a Quixotic venture that quickly blossomed into a television empire-- and the ways that he and his family helped beam music, culture and the scaffolding of a fragile democracy into people's homes.
Interview based on Saad's beautiful new memoir Radio Free Afghanistan. Available at bookstores everywhere.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
You're listening to Part Time Genius, a production of Kaleidoscope
and iHeartRadio. Hey there, podcast listeners, Welcome to Part Time Genius.
It's Mongish Heatiguler here. Your friend Mango Will is not
here today in studio. Instead, I'm doing an interview with
(00:24):
my good pal Sad Moseani. He's the author of a
memoir called Radio Free Afghanistan. He's the founder of a
radio station there called Armand FM and a TV station
in Afghanistan called Tolo. He's been on the Time one
hundred he has a lengthy, lengthy resume. He is a
media savant, someone who's helped bring music and culture back
(00:47):
to Afghanistan in a post Taliban period after the fall
of Afghanistan. And he's someone that I watched tirelessly working
the phones after the fall of Afghanistan, making trip to
Downing Street and the White House to help so many
people in crisis to get planes there, to secure seats
(01:07):
on planes so that his employees and friends and anyone
he knew could get out. He's just a gem of
a person and I'm thrilled to have him on the show.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Let's dive in.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm here with my good
pal Sad Mussani, and I'm so excited to introduce him
to you. Sod has a new book out, a memoir
called Radio Free Afghanistan. Sad, thank you for joining me here.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Thank you, thank you. It's good to have friends in
high places like yourself.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
I don't know about high places your praises. So let's
talk a little bit about your background, because you have
this incredible story of growing up in different countries. It's
obviously comes from a hard place. But tell me about
where you were brought up and then how you end
up going to places like Tokyo and Australia.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Well, I was born in London, son of an Afghan diplomat,
on Saint George's Day at Saint George's Hospital, and then
when I was about three, we moved back to Afghanistan.
As a matter of fact, my parents drove from Europe
all the way to Afghanistan. Oh wow, Well, I mean,
people forget how safe and stable the region was in
(02:39):
the sixties.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
And what a popular trip that was right for every
sort of hippie. Take a couple of cameras and trade
them in for money and take the overland tour.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Yeah, my parents. I think there was a convoy of
three or four families, but it was not unusual for
people to drive right across Europe and vice versa. And
when I was about seven, we moved to Pakistan, where
my father again was serving at the embassy. The diplomatic kids,
you always have two three years outside, then you go
(03:09):
back again. When I was twelve, my father was posted
to the embassy in Tokyo, and while we were living
in Japan, the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. My father had to
resign his post, and when I was sixteen, we immigrated
to Australia. This is junior high school and high school,
and as I became an adult, I was a NAUSI.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Tell me about what Afghanistan meant to you as refugees,
and like how you pictured it.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Well, we left Afghanistan when I was twelve, so I
have vivid memories of my childhood, whether it was my
grandfather's orchard.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
And you write about the colors too, right, like the
purples and.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
The you know, everything was so bright. I always thought
it was my imagination, but the soil is so fertile
and everything can grow there. For us, those memories sustained
us for a long time. But the important thing, you
know is, perhaps with your family, your father decided one day,
I'm going to immigrate to the US and we're not
coming back. But for us, my father never uttered those words.
(04:11):
We immigrated to Australia out of necessity and it didn't
seem permanent, so we never had closure. We always felt
we would go back, because as diplomatic kids, you always
do go back. So we were always looking for that
opportunity to return. And you know, we were presented with
a chance to go back in late two thousand and
(04:32):
one when the Americans top of the Taliban regime.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
So tell me about actually getting back to Afghanistan. In
the book, you talk about Terminal two in Dubai being
this place that was shabby but a place that you
come to love.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Yeah, it was like you know the bar scene from
the Star Wars film. You know, all types of characters
and the outfits and turbans and hats, and I'll never
forget the gate opening and the these guys entered wearing
loafers and the cravats and blazers and they looked at us,
you know, the Afghans and the Pakistanis and the Central
(05:09):
Asians and the Iraqis, and they were horrified. They just
wouldn't move for about thirty eight seconds. The wonderful thing
about Dubai is that it is the gateway for all
these difficult places. I mean, Dubai has become a fashionable
place to go to now, but in those days it
really served the neighboring countries and it was a hub.
(05:31):
So we had to fly into Carbo by Dubai. You
still have to fly into Kabo by Dubai. The first
flight was actually very difficult to get on because they
only had like one flight every couple of days and
it was completely solidly booke time and we had to
go and schmooze a whole bunch of people to be
able to get those tickets, which we did. But entering
(05:52):
the Afghan airspace was quite an emotional moment because so
many people had longed to return and this flight and
those days there would allow people to smoke, so there
was a smoke in the air, kids screaming, and the
only thing that was missing was like farm animals, you know,
which you do get on some flights in Central Asia.
(06:14):
But it was an interesting moment because when the pilot
announced that we've entered the Afghan airspace. Everyone went very quiet.
There was an emotional moment for.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
All, and.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Then the plane landed and some people were kissing the
ground and some others were praying, and you not partly
because they survived the Ariana flight. I mean that in
itself was a relief. But to be back home. You know.
I don't know if you know much about Carble, but
it's about two thousand meters above sea. The air is crisp,
the skies are always bright and blue, and its surrounded
(06:47):
by snowcapped hills. It's quite dramatic and when you come
out of the aircraft, it hits you.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
It's remarkable. Now, in the book, you mentioned you still
have a memory of the streets and navigating your way around.
How is it that you retained all that well memory?
Speaker 2 (07:02):
I mean, I think we never remember from when we
were three straight to when you're like in your thirties, right,
So it's borrowed, right, You just passed it on, you know,
year after year after year. So I think the roads
that I was familiar with were just me in my head,
(07:23):
driving in the backseat of my father's car from A
to B to C to D So I kept on
passing those memories on until I got back.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
You know, there's this extraordinary story in the book about
your father trying to recover your childhood home from this mujahi.
After you guys return and a lot of influential people
sort of offer to help and just take the house
away from the guy and return it to your father.
But even though it takes years and years, he insists
on going through the courts and the justice system.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
What did that mean to you, Well, it gave him
something to do, which I think is important for every person. Yeah,
so I think he loved, you know, the pursuits to speak.
But also I think his thinking was that we have
returned to end thuggery and you know, warlordism. If we
go down this route, we will become those people. So
(08:13):
I think it was important for him not to not
to actually do what that individual had done, which was
to take our house by force.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Yeah, now, talk me through what had happened in the
Taliban period in terms of like the disappearance of music
and the way women were treated, Like what was the
Afghanistan you were returning to.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Well, just to give you an idea in the seventies,
Afghanistan was going through this transition, so a lot of
tourists visiting people are exposed to foreign traditions, foreign ways,
and there was a great deal of tolerance, and we
had this sort of renaissance with music and culture and
so forth. But what happened in the nineteen eighties was
that the Communists were in charge, and if you recall,
(08:56):
for the Communists, culture was really important. Sports and culture, right,
they were good at you know, every look the Chinese
and the Soviets did very very well. So they pushed
a lot of things imposed on people, you know, dancing
on stage and you know, the sort of communist style.
So people who were fighting the Soviets, the Mujahideen and
(09:20):
the Taliban are an extension of the Mujadin, were very
resistant to anything that they saw as foreign imposed education, music, culture,
dancing and so forth. So in the early nineties, when
the first Mujahideen maujahidin one point oh took over, there
(09:41):
were some bands. I don't think music was totally silenced,
but they were a lot more restrictive than the previous government,
which was sort of a communist lefty government. When the
Taliban followed, which was sort of Majordin two point zero,
they completely banned anything that related to entertainment, television set
that's where executed television was banned. There was a state
(10:04):
radio broadcast which was allowed, but there were no women
speaking of the radio. There was only hard news and
religious chants. And then of course when we went back,
you know, the environment was conducive to launching the sort
of business that we launched, but people were still traumatized
by the nineteen nineties, so it took a little bit
(10:25):
for people to, you know, relax. But you know, people
need music, people need entertainment. We forget how important is
this for us.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
I know, the brutality of the way that cassette tapes
were pulled apart and instruments burned and all all these
things that we take for granted disappearing, and this country
that's left in silence is stunning. You talk about how
when you returned it was almost like a land of zombies.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Yeah, because people really didn't have much to do. Everything
had been taken away from them. Music, entertained, restaurants, theater, cinemas,
even socializing in a park, going on a picnic. It
was impossible in those.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
Days, so Initially you think about the amen trade. You're
thinking about maybe phone books. I think at one point,
how is it that you land on media?
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Well, I was in Carble with my brother's side. We
were going from you know, office ministry to ministry, meeting
people and you know, trying to figure out what can
we do that would keep us involved in Afghanistan. The
Minister for Information and Culture was a friend of my
dad's from the seventies who then suggested to us to
secure a radio license. And I asked the question, I said,
(11:40):
is it even possible? He said, well, technically yes, because
post Taliban defeat it was agreed that we would have
free media and so forth. So then I embarked on
this thing to get a license, and I was going
from office to office carrying at dossier and folders and
getting kicked out of people's offices because no one could
believe that you can get a license. We eventually did,
(12:01):
and we cleared the way for everyone else that followed
because in the months and years that followed, hundreds of
TV and radio licenses were issued by the state. So,
you know, getting a license was hard, but we also
needed funding, and although we had agreed to put some
money towards this venture. We needed more, and luckily a
friend of ours called Ahmed Rashid, a Pakistani writer who
(12:24):
had just written this book on the Taliban, which was
now a New York Times bestseller. I had met with
the USAID administrator Andrew Nazios, and I had mentioned in
passing these young kids, and we were young in those days,
were looking to do this thing in Afghanistan, and it's like,
we'll support them. It was a two hundred and twenty
thousand dollars grant and that allowed us to set up
(12:45):
this business. And it was sort of a Hail Mary
pass of sorts because there was no commercial market. There
was not much advertising. We had no experience in the
radio business. You couldn't find experienced media people. So we
embarked on this business not really thinking it through a
lot of ways. It was an accidental business.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
You know. You mentioned Tom Freston, who had lived in
Afghansanva was one of the founders of MTV. And you
think about MTV as this hothouse of culture, right, like
this place where people loved hanging out and just like
all these incredible ideas, but people who didn't know how
to make TV and people who didn't even like TV
but just wanted the spirit of mischief and youth and
(13:25):
excitement to permeate the TV screens, which it did. And
you feel that in the early Saturday night Live or
like College Humor or various sites. And when I read
the descriptions of Arman coming together and like all these
people sleeping on a makeshift house where you're building a
studio and you've called a friend from Australia, and it's
(13:46):
like this craziness of not knowing what you're doing and
this absolute belief that you can do it, like this
naivity that is just infectious. It's really wonderful.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Well, I think that in life you have to remain naive, yeah,
and not grows cynical. I think that's the key. And
you know, our friend Tom Freston, who's in the seventies,
continues to remain curious and open to ideas and new things.
So I think that's going to be the formula to
launching a business like this. I think the other thing
(14:18):
which we you know, looking back, was that we always
gave people the opportunity. If someone had a silly idea,
we felt, well, why not give it a try?
Speaker 1 (14:27):
I remember hearing Jamie McGrath, who is also at the
early days of MTV also one of the creative sparks.
They're saying, Oh, we don't have a director for this,
why don't we let Beth do it? You know, like
this idea that like, oh, give them a shot, they're smart,
give them the opportunity. And it feels like, you know,
you're pulling your cousin in. You're pulling in like these
(14:49):
people who except for one person who seems to have
some radio background, Masud, like everyone else seems sort of
fresh to this. But before we talked about some of
that stuff, like, I think one thing that resonated when
I was reading your book is that so many people
looking at Afghanistan see this culture that they feel is monolithic,
(15:09):
and actually it's so diverse, like over different hills, the
different languages spoken, and you have this blank canvas with
which you can shape a country. You can put new
entertainment out there, you can do whatever you want with
these airwaves, and you make a conscious decision to both
broadcast in multiple languages and bring women on air, which
(15:31):
is revolutionary, right, So, like, how did you come up
with these ideas and how much conviction did you have
in them?
Speaker 2 (15:38):
Well, I mean, you know, having women on radio is
you know, you don't have to be a rocket scientist.
You don't have to be a part time genius to
have a woman on the radio. Right, why would people
not want to hear a male and female DJ just chatting,
you know, talking about music or their lives. And it
was just it was so obvious.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
But it feels like such culture shock, right. It was.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
Yes, it was having a male and female DJ in
a studio. Initially it was jarring for a lot of listeners,
and I would say almost bordering on unacceptable. But how
quickly that was adopted also tells you something else, that
you can facilitate social change by just exposing people to
(16:26):
something and within it, you know, a few weeks people realize, hey,
this is fun. I like listening to this, you know,
I like the bands, I like the characters, I like
the chemistry. And then, of course every other radio station
was copying our format, even with music. We had just
arrived from Australia who were playing Kylie Minog and some
Aussie bands, and no one liked that type of music.
(16:46):
But they loved Bollywood music, or they like Turkish music,
or they liked Shakira or Ricky Martin for example, but
you know, a bit spicier. But it's always about trying
different things and letting the listener and eventually the viewer
decided as to what they ultimately want.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
But that immediate nature with which this radio station took
off is incredible to me. And also there is this
internal conflict that you hear from people right like they're
calling you to tell you how you can't have music
on the radio and how it doesn't make sense. But
then they'll request the Venga Boys.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Yeah, it's like wildfire.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
I mean we were in sort of test phase and
I went away for a couple of weeks. Well they
got the signal.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
Right.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
My brother rang me within a couple of days and said,
you got to get back. Everyone's listening to this radio station.
I said it's impossible. And I rang around, and everyone's
listening to this radio station because it was so unique.
There was this particular religious leader and he saw me.
He said, are you behind this radio station? I said, yes, sir,
he said, he said, I cannot believe that you air
(17:51):
those types of programs. He said, for example, for this,
you know, we have this radio program called Hop and
he said, Hop, you've got this girl, and just making
up some names. Mariam on a Monday was wearing this
tight black top, and then on Tuesday Fozzila was wearing
this pink dress. And then he named all the different
(18:12):
pass and he described what they were wearing in such
great detail. But of course I joked, you shouldn't be
listening to that intensely, sir.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
We'll be back with more from Sad Mussni right after
this break. Welcome back to Part Time Genius, where we're
talking to Sad Mussene about his wonderful memoir Radio Free Afghanistan. So, Sad,
(18:46):
in the beginning, how much resistance were you getting from
these religious clerics and community, et cetera.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
Quite a lot, actually quite a lot. We were lucky
that the government wasn't quite strong enough to Shatrastan. The
Internet community was present and they're funding the government. In
those days, we were still you know, this was the
honeymoon period after the fall of the Taliban, So we
benefited from this lack of couision within the state itself
(19:18):
and we had enough allies and it was sort of
fragmented government and it was great for us. Because you know,
we cemented our position as a media group. But it
was difficult. I mean, we had protests outside our offices,
we had threats, and of course we were not just
doing entertainment. We were also doing news and recoverying things
like corruption or extra judicial killings and so forth. So
(19:40):
it wasn't enough that we were annoying them with our
cultural programs, but also our political programs are pretty hard hitting.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
But even your cultural programs end up being political, right,
like this incredible morning show that happens on the radio.
You're calling out politicians on it and standing out front
of outside of potholes until they get fixed and things
like that. But really lively, it's perhaps in the dna
of the folks who work for us in terms of
speaking truth to power and pushing the boundaries. Of course,
(20:10):
this environment today is much you know, much more challenging.
And then we were lucky that we attracted a lot
of talent. But also you stopped broadcasting in a way
that was overly polite or overly elegant, like you changed
the way that radio was presented.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
Yeah, I mean I had to appear on the radio myself,
and there a pseudonym, so that everyone else could relax
because as soon as I left, they would go back
to a formal form of communicating with each other. But
when I was there and I was just like chatting
to them, they sort of relaxed a little. I think
in the English language it's a bit difficult. But you know,
in the book I've talked about, you know, communicating in
(20:51):
the Shakespearean English on a program that focused on younger Afghans.
It just just made no sense at all.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
So, yes, we made.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
It more casual, but a lot of people felt that
we were dumbing things down, which wasn't the case. But
then it took off again. People had the option of
listening to a more formal, serious radio program or listening
to us, and.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
Yeah, they voted with their time right.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Ultimately, this is what happens in free societies. People get
to choose.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
Now, three years into armand the radio station, which really
means hope, right, and you decide to veer into TV.
Why why do you think you can take on TV?
Speaker 2 (21:35):
Well, as I joked with someone at the time, was
that I didn't think that we had enough problems with
the radio station. Listen, you know, amplify those problems. You
can well, it was a natural progression for us. You know,
we felt we had the pool of talent, we had
the expertise because you can remember when we first landed
(21:55):
in Afghanistan, there was nothing, you know, so we had
to learn to fix transmitters. We could generators. My brothers
were always on the hill trying to fix things on
the font Italy and they were the manufacturers for our
transmission equipment. We had to bring in trainers from Australia.
We had to train these DJs and producers and so forth,
and I had to sit behind the editing suite editing
(22:15):
programs in those days. So we thought, well, we have
some capacity now, why not do television, And we launched
Tolo TV, which means Sunrise and October of two thousand
and four, just before the presidential elections. That was everything
we had experienced with radio Times five. You know, it
was just far more controversial because you know, television footage
(22:39):
hits you very hard, especially if you don't like free media,
and so a lot of radio people transition to television
and there are synergies between the two, of course, so
it makes a lot of sense. And then we continue
to expand that side of the business as well. We
set up a second and then a third TV network,
(23:00):
We set up another radio network, and then we have
dozens and dozens of digital platforms and brands as well.
So it's a fairly diverse media group now and employees
like four or five hundred people.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
That's pretty incredible. In the early days of radio, the
way you write about it, it's almost like there's an
open mic and studio and people can come through and
just talk and whoever is excited to be on the
radio does. And I'm curious did that translate into the
TV station as well? Like how experimental were you with
the early TV stuff?
Speaker 2 (23:32):
I mean I used to like wake up in the
morning and say, hey, what are we going to have
on today? And almost like what are you going to
face for breakfast? Exactly because what we did was normally
you plan to establish a television station, you know, creating programs,
acquiring programs, the pipeline in terms of content, getting everything
lined up, it's a two year process. And so I said, oh,
(23:55):
what about six months? I said, how about four months?
Something along those lines, And you know, I caught my
brother's ide, who always says, you a bite more than
you can chew than chew like crazy. It was a
bit like that for us in the early earlier. So
we then were in a position to launch this TV stage,
and except we didn't have much content, so we had
to come up with all these, like let's call it
(24:16):
interesting ideas of creating a lot of content with a
limited budget. For example, we had this program called Taxi,
and the idea was the host would go and sit
next to the taxi driver and then there'd be a
camera guy filming the whole thing, and then he talked
about his life and passengers and experience, and it was
(24:36):
going to be like twenty or twenty one minutes and
including out a little bit thirty minutes. And then we
had all sorts of issues because we told the camera
guy to fix the camera inside the thing, but he
would refuse to do that. So he would lie on
the bonnet in front of the cab, which is fine
if the CAB's doing like three miles an hour, but
then this cab driver sometimes get excited and would go
(24:59):
like forty mile and and on two three occasions this
guy fell off the vehicle, hurting himself slightly, and so
we had all sorts of issues like that. With these
sort of early production ideas, but eventually we got it right.
Eventually we bought the content we wanted to buy and
we dubbed them and we produced local shows. But we
(25:22):
realized how difficult this is to produce television content, and we
learned on the job basically.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
And you were pulling in like soap operas from Turkey
and initially India India as well, right, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
The first soap opera we had, which was so you know,
was perhaps the most popular show we've ever had, is
Kimki sas Bahi, which was a star television program. It's
about this this ridiculous relationship between her mother in law
and her daughter in law, you know, scheming mother in
law trying to ruin the life of this young woman.
(25:56):
And of course a lot of Afghans could identify with that,
because who doesn't have an evil mind?
Speaker 1 (26:01):
Well, I would like to say on radio, I don't,
but but I know it's funny because in that same
period in India when all the cable stuff came in,
they brought Santa Barbara and before that, I think like
the Maha Barad and stuff like that. People would tune
in every Sunday or whatever. But when Santa Barbara came, like,
(26:24):
people wouldn't leave their house the next day because they
just didn't understand that, like soap operas don't really progress.
They thought there was something big happening the next day
and whatever. But it took no time for Indians to
copy that format and then dramatize it in the most
ridiculous and you know, phenomenal ways.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
So we were lucky that because we tried everything. For example,
we tried Japanese because you know, we lived in Tokyo.
We took Japanese drama series. And we were also lucky
because a lot of embassies would come to us and say,
would you like a Samurai drama series? Say, oh yeah,
we'll take that, thank you. And the Koreans gave us
a lot of content to take and dub. And that's
when we discovered how attractive and how compelling Korean dramas were.
(27:06):
Koreans are extraordinary storytellers. So we had this opportunity of
testing different formats and different genres and different shows from
different continents, so to speak.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
Yeah, and really showcasing the world to people who lived
a sort of provincial life before that.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
Absolutely, so a Hafcans were exposed music wise to all
types of music and television wise also to all types
of formats and shows.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
So one of the stories that I don't think is
in your book but I love is that you brought
the writer of Pretty Woman over to help brainstorm with people.
Can you talk about that little Yeah, someone.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Has suggested them, so we contacted them and lo and
beheldy shows up. So we had these workshops. So it
was a reality TV show that we asked viewers to
submit their application if they wanted to be a part
of this workshop, and a whole bunch of people applied,
handful were chosen, and then they worked with this guy,
j Floorton to learn how to write a show and
(28:07):
how to produce a show, and the group we end
up identifying some extraordinary talent. But he was an interesting
character and he worked very closely with would be filmmakers
and of course in the evenings we'd take him out
for dinner and he tell us stories about Hollywood and
Pretty Woman and all the juicy stuff that I can't
even repeat here, But it was based on a true
story Pretty Woman. Really.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
Yes, we'll be back with sad Morsini right after this break,
(28:49):
welcome back to Part Time Genius, where I'm in studio
with Sad Morsni. I think one of the things that
really impressed on me when you had said it was
that America was obviously in Afghanistan for twenty years, right,
and there are these generations that have kind of now
been forgotten but really got to experience a totally different world.
(29:11):
What sort of youth movements did you see, What sort
of music, style of arts or things emerged from this period.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
We had this show called Afghanista, which if you watched
the early seasons, I mean, the lack of talent in
that country was very obvious and it was all painful
to listen to some of these people attempt to sing.
But within a couple of seasons, I mean some real
talent emerged, not just in terms of ability to sing,
but to compose. People could play different instruments all of
(29:39):
a sudden, and we had an orchestra that was state
funded that you know, they could play Western instruments. So
the transition was very So what probably other countries experience
over decades, it was condensed into like two or three years.
So then there was this vibrant music scene and so
many kids interested in performing and singing and collaborating and
(30:01):
so forth. And you know, for a while, you think
you're managing things because you think I've got the biggest broadcaster,
or I've got the biggest radio station, We've got a
music label, and you're sort of in the driver's seat.
But then eventually it becomes too big, and that moment
is actually quite gratifying because now it's very organic. It's
all over the place, and there's a lot of talent
(30:25):
out there. And Afghanistan is a young country even now
today median ages eighteen and a half or something, But
in those early years to see that transition happen was
very exciting.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
Yeah, and that show, which is like an American idol
of Afghanistan, Like I think your sister Wachma and your
brother proposed it, right, the idea of trying it out.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
Yeah, so we thought we should have a music talent show,
and so they sort of figured out if we can
take an existing format or just create a format for ourselves,
we felt at the time, and we were right actually,
because we later on we tried to.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
You tried to do The Voice, The Voice.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
Which lasted a couple of season wasn't as successful, so
we created this format for Afghanistan, which immediately was a hit.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
The scenes are like people are hooking up TVs and
villagers to like generators and car engines and stuff just
to watch and like the crowds, and the show ends
up teaching people to vote. It's remarkable how quickly it
sort of blossoms.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
Yeah, we had like millions of people voting via text,
which was not cheap. I mean, you know, people had
to spend money, and this is a impoverished country, and
people were launching campaigns for their supporters to vote for them.
So it was like an elections campaign with posters and
people going around villages saying you got to vote for
this character. And it was exciting and daunting. And then
(31:51):
of course we had to deal with the nutcases who
were attempting to blow us up because we're promoting a
music show.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
And you actually did teach people vote because people had
never had a voice before, and so suddenly they're using
their phones and they're they're getting to speak up on
issues that they never have and you end up with
like a woman who ends up winning. You end up
with old people voting for rappers on stage I mean,
the amount of progress is incredible. But as you talk
about the resistance to this show, can you describe a
(32:21):
little bit about the regions of Afghanistan and what like
Herat is like, or Kandahar these other like places, and
what the makeup of the country is, because I don't
think a lot of people understand the sort of landscape
in a way.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
Well, the south and the East, they're predominantly passion so
perhaps more traditional and conservative. Heyrot, although it's a person
speaking city, but they're still conservative. Mazara here from the north,
mostly persons speaking, but most of our cities are fairly mixed.
You have people of different athnicities. People have beenter married
for hundreds of years, so we don't have exclusive areas,
(32:57):
and every area you'll have some minorities members of the
minorities that reside in those cities, and Central Afghanistan is
perhaps a little more tolerant of these things. We had
a lot of issues in Herat, in particular. There's a
chapter in the book there's this sort of quite a
(33:18):
charismatic cleric that mobilized a lot of people against the show,
but he was death set against these auditions being filmed
in Hero art and then the book. You know, the
solution eventually was to do the airport. The condestin showed
up and they did the auditions, then they flew out.
(33:39):
So they always found ways of dealing with these challenges.
But yeah, I mean it's funny because you know, you
look at it now and I asked myself, this question,
is with this obsession about controlling people's personal lives, whether
manner or woman should wear, what a manner of woman
should listen to, by the way you see it here
(34:00):
in the Western.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
Yeah, it's not just restrained that idea.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
It's kind of women's body or whatever you hear about
these debates in the US. I think a sign of
civilization is tolerance, and that's one of the things that
we focused on. Always know how to be intellectually humble,
how to listen to the other side, to tolerate other
people's points of views. I think that's good to quick
people if you can with these skill sets or these tools.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
I think one of the saddest things is there's an
awful scene of US suicide bombing. Can you talk about
that and how that affected your staff.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
We ran with the story in mid twenty fifteen, which
we had to correct later in the evening. But at
the time, the Taliban felt that media in general was
unfair to them, unfairly targeting the Taliban. We were not
maintaining the balance, which I don't agree with. But that
story became the catalyst or their excuse to targeted us,
(35:00):
and they ssued sort of a fatwell of sorts against us.
And of course, you know, Afghanistan is a tough neighborhood.
The government was adamant that we could protect us. But
one day, when the bus was taking employees back home
left the office and what was on its way to
(35:20):
the western part of the city, a taxi filled with
the explosives rammed into its side and as a result
killed seven of our employees and injured fifteen, some permanently. Actually,
and I was in Bombay at the time on business,
and actually it was on the news. We were covering
(35:42):
the story, but not realizing it was our own bus.
So one of the producers called me up and said, listen,
I'm calling some of these people. I can't reach them.
You know, God forbid. Do you think it could be
our bus? I said, well, I don't know. Let's look
in to this. Situations like that it's not that clear cut,
(36:03):
you know, you don't have ambulances showing up. People just
come in and they do what they can to help.
So some are taken to hospital A, some are taken
to hospital B, and some hospitals are full of people
so they can't take any more patients. So eventually all
our people, at least thirty individuals were taken to various hospitals,
(36:25):
and you know, the task of going there, identifying them
and so forth was an online exercise. I took the
first flight back to Dubai and then from Dubai back
to Carbul and by the time on land in the morning,
we had an idea in terms of the fatalities. But
it was a very very difficult few days. It was
to meet their families to comfort them. It's difficult to
(36:52):
talk to a mother or a father or a sibling,
their loved one. And for them, it wasn't just losing
a child. For the lot of them, These children their
soul providers, you know, dealing with what we should do next.
But most of them were very determined, Adam, and that
they should continue and you know, we must persist. But
(37:13):
everyone was very emotional. It was a very, very very
difficult period for everyone. For me, perhaps the most difficult
seventy two hours of my life. But it doesn't become
easier because when you go and revisit those days, you
sometimes think was it all worth it? I mean, you know,
(37:34):
I can't say what certainly if it was.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
It's so heartbreaking knowing the stories of those people who
were young and came to office and loved their work
so much, you know, And then I know you've talked
about like how you weren't sure whether you should close
up shop, and the fact that this army of people
(37:59):
who loved me media are they're ready to keep broadcasting
and they want to be led forward, and they want
to keep fighting for their country, and there's something so
sad and beautiful about it. But I know that the
story gets harder and harder where the Taliban takes over
a couple that the government flees, and having watched you
(38:20):
deal with trying to secure safety for people, I was
there the day before you rushed off to the White
House to talk to people. It's just what you've done
is remarkable. But talk about how you kept pushing through.
I mean, like it feels like in the book, the
first chapter is about how you're trying to figure out
(38:41):
how to produce TV with increasing threats from the Taliban.
Speaker 2 (38:46):
Well, we were there to report on the country's first elections.
We were there to report on the government's progress. We
were there to report on the government's corruption. We were
there to report on the insurgency and how quickly the
government was becoming unpopular. We were there to report on
civilian killings and deaths and drone attacks and so forth.
(39:09):
We were there to report on the fall of the government,
the present fleeing. We were there to report in the
Taliban's ascendancy in their takeover the city. So we seem
to be there every step of the way, and you
have to somehow detach yourself from you know, you have
to do your job. I'm talking about the news organization
(39:30):
that they are doing the best they can reporting on facts,
not just in terms of informing Afghans of what's going on,
but also informing people outside. It sounds like two thousand
and two, two thousand and three, where you have hundreds
of reporters all over Kabo or Rasni or Jalalaba or Kandahar.
Today on a handful of people dare visit the country
because there's no interest outside Afghanistan. Afghanistan has become the
(39:54):
forgotten war as it was in the nineties. So we
do what we can, and I mentioned some of this morning.
You know, it's wonderful to have the likes of Meneral
Streeps say certain things about Afghan women or others, but
platitudes are not enough. You know, we need practical steps taken.
You know, half the country is on the verge of starvation.
(40:16):
We have food and security that impacts twenty two million people.
If you look at modern nutrition numbers, it impacts three
and a half million kids. A third of households are
not fully insulated, they're exposed to the elements. Clean water
is not available to like seventy percent of the population,
and so on and so on. So we got to
always balance. You know, we have the political dilemmas and challenges,
(40:39):
we have the humanitarian situation, and forty million people still
live in that country. They still have hopes and aspirations.
Speaker 1 (40:47):
And you're still feeding those hopes and aspirations both through
tutoring programs, right, but also you're talking about bringing back
Afghan star.
Speaker 2 (40:56):
Well, I think if we do that, it will be
an online version of course, one of our companies produces
a lot of music that's available online, which still a
lot of people consume, so people have that option. I
think in the twenty first century you cannot confine people
to a cave. I think that's important in terms of education.
Our young girls and boys don't have access to good education.
(41:20):
I mean, girls beyond grade six have zero education. But
even the boys, when they can go to the school,
the quality of the schooling is not particularly good because
a lot of teachers are fled, we don't have access
to textbooks. So we're using our television outlets where still
millions of people watch these programs every single day, to
(41:40):
create education programs which are interesting, engaging use of muppets
and graphics and animation and so forth. And the results
are extraordinary. We've evaluated kids' performances. We're talking about greades
doubling if they watch the program, if they have access
(42:01):
to WhatsApp to during it triples. So you know, from
not learning mathematics ad all to learning it well is
the byproduct of these TV programs. So I think it's
probably one of the most consequential things we've done.
Speaker 1 (42:16):
It's really stunning and the whole book is just a
remarkable story Radio Free Afghanistan. You should go pick it up.
But I think one of the most affecting lines to
me was in the dedication that you tell your children
thank you for sharing you with Afghanistan, and I think
that what you've done for the country is remarkable. Thank you,
(42:40):
Thank you so much for being here with me. That's
it for today's Part Time Genius. Thank you so much
for listening. If you're interested in the book, it's called
Radio Free Afghanistan by my good friend Sad Mussini. I
hope you check it out. But that's going to do
it for today's episode. We'll be back with a brand
new show next week with Will as well well, but
(43:01):
from Mary, Gabe, Dylan and myself. Thank you so much
for listening. Part Time Genius is a production of Kaleidoscope
and iHeartRadio. This show is hosted by Will Pearson and
(43:24):
Me Mongais Heartikler and research by our good pal Mary
Philip Sandy. Today's episode was engineered and produced by the
wonderful Dylan Fagan with support from Tyler Klang. The show
is executive produced for iHeart by Katrina Norbel and Ali Perry.
With social media support from Sasha Gay, trustee Dara Potts
and Viney Shorey. For more podcasts from Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio,
(43:48):
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows. Oh
You're listening to Part Time Genius, a production of Kaleidoscope
and iHeartRadio. Hey there, podcast listeners, Welcome to Part Time Genius.
It's Mongish Heatiguler here. Your friend Mango Will is not
here today in studio. Instead, I'm doing an interview with
(00:24):
my good pal Sad Moseani. He's the author of a
memoir called Radio Free Afghanistan. He's the founder of a
radio station there called Armand FM and a TV station
in Afghanistan called Tolo. He's been on the Time one
hundred he has a lengthy, lengthy resume. He is a
media savant, someone who's helped bring music and culture back
(00:47):
to Afghanistan in a post Taliban period after the fall
of Afghanistan. And he's someone that I watched tirelessly working
the phones after the fall of Afghanistan, making trip to
Downing Street and the White House to help so many
people in crisis to get planes there, to secure seats
(01:07):
on planes so that his employees and friends and anyone
he knew could get out. He's just a gem of
a person and I'm thrilled to have him on the show.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Let's dive in.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm here with my good
pal Sad Mussani, and I'm so excited to introduce him
to you. Sod has a new book out, a memoir
called Radio Free Afghanistan. Sad, thank you for joining me here.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Thank you, thank you. It's good to have friends in
high places like yourself.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
I don't know about high places your praises. So let's
talk a little bit about your background, because you have
this incredible story of growing up in different countries. It's
obviously comes from a hard place. But tell me about
where you were brought up and then how you end
up going to places like Tokyo and Australia.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Well, I was born in London, son of an Afghan diplomat,
on Saint George's Day at Saint George's Hospital, and then
when I was about three, we moved back to Afghanistan.
As a matter of fact, my parents drove from Europe
all the way to Afghanistan. Oh wow, Well, I mean,
people forget how safe and stable the region was in
(02:39):
the sixties.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
And what a popular trip that was right for every
sort of hippie. Take a couple of cameras and trade
them in for money and take the overland tour.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Yeah, my parents. I think there was a convoy of
three or four families, but it was not unusual for
people to drive right across Europe and vice versa. And
when I was about seven, we moved to Pakistan, where
my father again was serving at the embassy. The diplomatic kids,
you always have two three years outside, then you go
(03:09):
back again. When I was twelve, my father was posted
to the embassy in Tokyo, and while we were living
in Japan, the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. My father had to
resign his post, and when I was sixteen, we immigrated
to Australia. This is junior high school and high school,
and as I became an adult, I was a NAUSI.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Tell me about what Afghanistan meant to you as refugees,
and like how you pictured it.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Well, we left Afghanistan when I was twelve, so I
have vivid memories of my childhood, whether it was my
grandfather's orchard.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
And you write about the colors too, right, like the
purples and.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
The you know, everything was so bright. I always thought
it was my imagination, but the soil is so fertile
and everything can grow there. For us, those memories sustained
us for a long time. But the important thing, you
know is, perhaps with your family, your father decided one day,
I'm going to immigrate to the US and we're not
coming back. But for us, my father never uttered those words.
(04:11):
We immigrated to Australia out of necessity and it didn't
seem permanent, so we never had closure. We always felt
we would go back, because as diplomatic kids, you always
do go back. So we were always looking for that
opportunity to return. And you know, we were presented with
a chance to go back in late two thousand and
(04:32):
one when the Americans top of the Taliban regime.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
So tell me about actually getting back to Afghanistan. In
the book, you talk about Terminal two in Dubai being
this place that was shabby but a place that you
come to love.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Yeah, it was like you know the bar scene from
the Star Wars film. You know, all types of characters
and the outfits and turbans and hats, and I'll never
forget the gate opening and the these guys entered wearing
loafers and the cravats and blazers and they looked at us,
you know, the Afghans and the Pakistanis and the Central
(05:09):
Asians and the Iraqis, and they were horrified. They just
wouldn't move for about thirty eight seconds. The wonderful thing
about Dubai is that it is the gateway for all
these difficult places. I mean, Dubai has become a fashionable
place to go to now, but in those days it
really served the neighboring countries and it was a hub.
(05:31):
So we had to fly into Carbo by Dubai. You
still have to fly into Kabo by Dubai. The first
flight was actually very difficult to get on because they
only had like one flight every couple of days and
it was completely solidly booke time and we had to
go and schmooze a whole bunch of people to be
able to get those tickets, which we did. But entering
(05:52):
the Afghan airspace was quite an emotional moment because so
many people had longed to return and this flight and
those days there would allow people to smoke, so there
was a smoke in the air, kids screaming, and the
only thing that was missing was like farm animals, you know,
which you do get on some flights in Central Asia.
(06:14):
But it was an interesting moment because when the pilot
announced that we've entered the Afghan airspace. Everyone went very quiet.
There was an emotional moment for.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
All, and.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Then the plane landed and some people were kissing the
ground and some others were praying, and you not partly
because they survived the Ariana flight. I mean that in
itself was a relief. But to be back home. You know.
I don't know if you know much about Carble, but
it's about two thousand meters above sea. The air is crisp,
the skies are always bright and blue, and its surrounded
(06:47):
by snowcapped hills. It's quite dramatic and when you come
out of the aircraft, it hits you.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
It's remarkable. Now, in the book, you mentioned you still
have a memory of the streets and navigating your way around.
How is it that you retained all that well memory?
Speaker 2 (07:02):
I mean, I think we never remember from when we
were three straight to when you're like in your thirties, right,
So it's borrowed, right, You just passed it on, you know,
year after year after year. So I think the roads
that I was familiar with were just me in my head,
(07:23):
driving in the backseat of my father's car from A
to B to C to D So I kept on
passing those memories on until I got back.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
You know, there's this extraordinary story in the book about
your father trying to recover your childhood home from this mujahi.
After you guys return and a lot of influential people
sort of offer to help and just take the house
away from the guy and return it to your father.
But even though it takes years and years, he insists
on going through the courts and the justice system.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
What did that mean to you, Well, it gave him
something to do, which I think is important for every person. Yeah,
so I think he loved, you know, the pursuits to speak.
But also I think his thinking was that we have
returned to end thuggery and you know, warlordism. If we
go down this route, we will become those people. So
(08:13):
I think it was important for him not to not
to actually do what that individual had done, which was
to take our house by force.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Yeah, now, talk me through what had happened in the
Taliban period in terms of like the disappearance of music
and the way women were treated, Like what was the
Afghanistan you were returning to.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Well, just to give you an idea in the seventies,
Afghanistan was going through this transition, so a lot of
tourists visiting people are exposed to foreign traditions, foreign ways,
and there was a great deal of tolerance, and we
had this sort of renaissance with music and culture and
so forth. But what happened in the nineteen eighties was
that the Communists were in charge, and if you recall,
(08:56):
for the Communists, culture was really important. Sports and culture, right,
they were good at you know, every look the Chinese
and the Soviets did very very well. So they pushed
a lot of things imposed on people, you know, dancing
on stage and you know, the sort of communist style.
So people who were fighting the Soviets, the Mujahideen and
(09:20):
the Taliban are an extension of the Mujadin, were very
resistant to anything that they saw as foreign imposed education, music, culture,
dancing and so forth. So in the early nineties, when
the first Mujahideen maujahidin one point oh took over, there
(09:41):
were some bands. I don't think music was totally silenced,
but they were a lot more restrictive than the previous government,
which was sort of a communist lefty government. When the
Taliban followed, which was sort of Majordin two point zero,
they completely banned anything that related to entertainment, television set
that's where executed television was banned. There was a state
(10:04):
radio broadcast which was allowed, but there were no women
speaking of the radio. There was only hard news and
religious chants. And then of course when we went back,
you know, the environment was conducive to launching the sort
of business that we launched, but people were still traumatized
by the nineteen nineties, so it took a little bit
(10:25):
for people to, you know, relax. But you know, people
need music, people need entertainment. We forget how important is
this for us.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
I know, the brutality of the way that cassette tapes
were pulled apart and instruments burned and all all these
things that we take for granted disappearing, and this country
that's left in silence is stunning. You talk about how
when you returned it was almost like a land of zombies.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Yeah, because people really didn't have much to do. Everything
had been taken away from them. Music, entertained, restaurants, theater, cinemas,
even socializing in a park, going on a picnic. It
was impossible in those.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
Days, so Initially you think about the amen trade. You're
thinking about maybe phone books. I think at one point,
how is it that you land on media?
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Well, I was in Carble with my brother's side. We
were going from you know, office ministry to ministry, meeting
people and you know, trying to figure out what can
we do that would keep us involved in Afghanistan. The
Minister for Information and Culture was a friend of my
dad's from the seventies who then suggested to us to
secure a radio license. And I asked the question, I said,
(11:40):
is it even possible? He said, well, technically yes, because
post Taliban defeat it was agreed that we would have
free media and so forth. So then I embarked on
this thing to get a license, and I was going
from office to office carrying at dossier and folders and
getting kicked out of people's offices because no one could
believe that you can get a license. We eventually did,
(12:01):
and we cleared the way for everyone else that followed
because in the months and years that followed, hundreds of
TV and radio licenses were issued by the state. So,
you know, getting a license was hard, but we also
needed funding, and although we had agreed to put some
money towards this venture. We needed more, and luckily a
friend of ours called Ahmed Rashid, a Pakistani writer who
(12:24):
had just written this book on the Taliban, which was
now a New York Times bestseller. I had met with
the USAID administrator Andrew Nazios, and I had mentioned in
passing these young kids, and we were young in those days,
were looking to do this thing in Afghanistan, and it's like,
we'll support them. It was a two hundred and twenty
thousand dollars grant and that allowed us to set up
(12:45):
this business. And it was sort of a Hail Mary
pass of sorts because there was no commercial market. There
was not much advertising. We had no experience in the
radio business. You couldn't find experienced media people. So we
embarked on this business not really thinking it through a
lot of ways. It was an accidental business.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
You know. You mentioned Tom Freston, who had lived in
Afghansanva was one of the founders of MTV. And you
think about MTV as this hothouse of culture, right, like
this place where people loved hanging out and just like
all these incredible ideas, but people who didn't know how
to make TV and people who didn't even like TV
but just wanted the spirit of mischief and youth and
(13:25):
excitement to permeate the TV screens, which it did. And
you feel that in the early Saturday night Live or
like College Humor or various sites. And when I read
the descriptions of Arman coming together and like all these
people sleeping on a makeshift house where you're building a
studio and you've called a friend from Australia, and it's
(13:46):
like this craziness of not knowing what you're doing and
this absolute belief that you can do it, like this
naivity that is just infectious. It's really wonderful.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Well, I think that in life you have to remain naive, yeah,
and not grows cynical. I think that's the key. And
you know, our friend Tom Freston, who's in the seventies,
continues to remain curious and open to ideas and new things.
So I think that's going to be the formula to
launching a business like this. I think the other thing
(14:18):
which we you know, looking back, was that we always
gave people the opportunity. If someone had a silly idea,
we felt, well, why not give it a try?
Speaker 1 (14:27):
I remember hearing Jamie McGrath, who is also at the
early days of MTV also one of the creative sparks.
They're saying, Oh, we don't have a director for this,
why don't we let Beth do it? You know, like
this idea that like, oh, give them a shot, they're smart,
give them the opportunity. And it feels like, you know,
you're pulling your cousin in. You're pulling in like these
(14:49):
people who except for one person who seems to have
some radio background, Masud, like everyone else seems sort of
fresh to this. But before we talked about some of
that stuff, like, I think one thing that resonated when
I was reading your book is that so many people
looking at Afghanistan see this culture that they feel is monolithic,
(15:09):
and actually it's so diverse, like over different hills, the
different languages spoken, and you have this blank canvas with
which you can shape a country. You can put new
entertainment out there, you can do whatever you want with
these airwaves, and you make a conscious decision to both
broadcast in multiple languages and bring women on air, which
(15:31):
is revolutionary, right, So, like, how did you come up
with these ideas and how much conviction did you have
in them?
Speaker 2 (15:38):
Well, I mean, you know, having women on radio is
you know, you don't have to be a rocket scientist.
You don't have to be a part time genius to
have a woman on the radio. Right, why would people
not want to hear a male and female DJ just chatting,
you know, talking about music or their lives. And it
was just it was so obvious.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
But it feels like such culture shock, right. It was.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
Yes, it was having a male and female DJ in
a studio. Initially it was jarring for a lot of listeners,
and I would say almost bordering on unacceptable. But how
quickly that was adopted also tells you something else, that
you can facilitate social change by just exposing people to
(16:26):
something and within it, you know, a few weeks people realize, hey,
this is fun. I like listening to this, you know,
I like the bands, I like the characters, I like
the chemistry. And then, of course every other radio station
was copying our format, even with music. We had just
arrived from Australia who were playing Kylie Minog and some
Aussie bands, and no one liked that type of music.
(16:46):
But they loved Bollywood music, or they like Turkish music,
or they liked Shakira or Ricky Martin for example, but
you know, a bit spicier. But it's always about trying
different things and letting the listener and eventually the viewer
decided as to what they ultimately want.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
But that immediate nature with which this radio station took
off is incredible to me. And also there is this
internal conflict that you hear from people right like they're
calling you to tell you how you can't have music
on the radio and how it doesn't make sense. But
then they'll request the Venga Boys.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Yeah, it's like wildfire.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
I mean we were in sort of test phase and
I went away for a couple of weeks. Well they
got the signal.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
Right.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
My brother rang me within a couple of days and said,
you got to get back. Everyone's listening to this radio station.
I said it's impossible. And I rang around, and everyone's
listening to this radio station because it was so unique.
There was this particular religious leader and he saw me.
He said, are you behind this radio station? I said, yes, sir,
he said, he said, I cannot believe that you air
(17:51):
those types of programs. He said, for example, for this,
you know, we have this radio program called Hop and
he said, Hop, you've got this girl, and just making
up some names. Mariam on a Monday was wearing this
tight black top, and then on Tuesday Fozzila was wearing
this pink dress. And then he named all the different
(18:12):
pass and he described what they were wearing in such
great detail. But of course I joked, you shouldn't be
listening to that intensely, sir.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
We'll be back with more from Sad Mussni right after
this break. Welcome back to Part Time Genius, where we're
talking to Sad Mussene about his wonderful memoir Radio Free Afghanistan. So, Sad,
(18:46):
in the beginning, how much resistance were you getting from
these religious clerics and community, et cetera.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
Quite a lot, actually quite a lot. We were lucky
that the government wasn't quite strong enough to Shatrastan. The
Internet community was present and they're funding the government. In
those days, we were still you know, this was the
honeymoon period after the fall of the Taliban, So we
benefited from this lack of couision within the state itself
(19:18):
and we had enough allies and it was sort of
fragmented government and it was great for us. Because you know,
we cemented our position as a media group. But it
was difficult. I mean, we had protests outside our offices,
we had threats, and of course we were not just
doing entertainment. We were also doing news and recoverying things
like corruption or extra judicial killings and so forth. So
(19:40):
it wasn't enough that we were annoying them with our
cultural programs, but also our political programs are pretty hard hitting.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
But even your cultural programs end up being political, right,
like this incredible morning show that happens on the radio.
You're calling out politicians on it and standing out front
of outside of potholes until they get fixed and things
like that. But really lively, it's perhaps in the dna
of the folks who work for us in terms of
speaking truth to power and pushing the boundaries. Of course,
(20:10):
this environment today is much you know, much more challenging.
And then we were lucky that we attracted a lot
of talent. But also you stopped broadcasting in a way
that was overly polite or overly elegant, like you changed
the way that radio was presented.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
Yeah, I mean I had to appear on the radio myself,
and there a pseudonym, so that everyone else could relax
because as soon as I left, they would go back
to a formal form of communicating with each other. But
when I was there and I was just like chatting
to them, they sort of relaxed a little. I think
in the English language it's a bit difficult. But you know,
in the book I've talked about, you know, communicating in
(20:51):
the Shakespearean English on a program that focused on younger Afghans.
It just just made no sense at all.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
So, yes, we made.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
It more casual, but a lot of people felt that
we were dumbing things down, which wasn't the case. But
then it took off again. People had the option of
listening to a more formal, serious radio program or listening
to us, and.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
Yeah, they voted with their time right.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Ultimately, this is what happens in free societies. People get
to choose.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
Now, three years into armand the radio station, which really
means hope, right, and you decide to veer into TV.
Why why do you think you can take on TV?
Speaker 2 (21:35):
Well, as I joked with someone at the time, was
that I didn't think that we had enough problems with
the radio station. Listen, you know, amplify those problems. You
can well, it was a natural progression for us. You know,
we felt we had the pool of talent, we had
the expertise because you can remember when we first landed
(21:55):
in Afghanistan, there was nothing, you know, so we had
to learn to fix transmitters. We could generators. My brothers
were always on the hill trying to fix things on
the font Italy and they were the manufacturers for our
transmission equipment. We had to bring in trainers from Australia.
We had to train these DJs and producers and so forth,
and I had to sit behind the editing suite editing
(22:15):
programs in those days. So we thought, well, we have
some capacity now, why not do television, And we launched
Tolo TV, which means Sunrise and October of two thousand
and four, just before the presidential elections. That was everything
we had experienced with radio Times five. You know, it
was just far more controversial because you know, television footage
(22:39):
hits you very hard, especially if you don't like free media,
and so a lot of radio people transition to television
and there are synergies between the two, of course, so
it makes a lot of sense. And then we continue
to expand that side of the business as well. We
set up a second and then a third TV network,
(23:00):
We set up another radio network, and then we have
dozens and dozens of digital platforms and brands as well.
So it's a fairly diverse media group now and employees
like four or five hundred people.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
That's pretty incredible. In the early days of radio, the
way you write about it, it's almost like there's an
open mic and studio and people can come through and
just talk and whoever is excited to be on the
radio does. And I'm curious did that translate into the
TV station as well? Like how experimental were you with
the early TV stuff?
Speaker 2 (23:32):
I mean I used to like wake up in the
morning and say, hey, what are we going to have
on today? And almost like what are you going to
face for breakfast? Exactly because what we did was normally
you plan to establish a television station, you know, creating programs,
acquiring programs, the pipeline in terms of content, getting everything
lined up, it's a two year process. And so I said, oh,
(23:55):
what about six months? I said, how about four months?
Something along those lines, And you know, I caught my
brother's ide, who always says, you a bite more than
you can chew than chew like crazy. It was a
bit like that for us in the early earlier. So
we then were in a position to launch this TV stage,
and except we didn't have much content, so we had
to come up with all these, like let's call it
(24:16):
interesting ideas of creating a lot of content with a
limited budget. For example, we had this program called Taxi,
and the idea was the host would go and sit
next to the taxi driver and then there'd be a
camera guy filming the whole thing, and then he talked
about his life and passengers and experience, and it was
(24:36):
going to be like twenty or twenty one minutes and
including out a little bit thirty minutes. And then we
had all sorts of issues because we told the camera
guy to fix the camera inside the thing, but he
would refuse to do that. So he would lie on
the bonnet in front of the cab, which is fine
if the CAB's doing like three miles an hour, but
then this cab driver sometimes get excited and would go
(24:59):
like forty mile and and on two three occasions this
guy fell off the vehicle, hurting himself slightly, and so
we had all sorts of issues like that. With these
sort of early production ideas, but eventually we got it right.
Eventually we bought the content we wanted to buy and
we dubbed them and we produced local shows. But we
(25:22):
realized how difficult this is to produce television content, and we
learned on the job basically.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
And you were pulling in like soap operas from Turkey
and initially India India as well, right, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
The first soap opera we had, which was so you know,
was perhaps the most popular show we've ever had, is
Kimki sas Bahi, which was a star television program. It's
about this this ridiculous relationship between her mother in law
and her daughter in law, you know, scheming mother in
law trying to ruin the life of this young woman.
(25:56):
And of course a lot of Afghans could identify with that,
because who doesn't have an evil mind?
Speaker 1 (26:01):
Well, I would like to say on radio, I don't,
but but I know it's funny because in that same
period in India when all the cable stuff came in,
they brought Santa Barbara and before that, I think like
the Maha Barad and stuff like that. People would tune
in every Sunday or whatever. But when Santa Barbara came, like,
(26:24):
people wouldn't leave their house the next day because they
just didn't understand that, like soap operas don't really progress.
They thought there was something big happening the next day
and whatever. But it took no time for Indians to
copy that format and then dramatize it in the most
ridiculous and you know, phenomenal ways.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
So we were lucky that because we tried everything. For example,
we tried Japanese because you know, we lived in Tokyo.
We took Japanese drama series. And we were also lucky
because a lot of embassies would come to us and say,
would you like a Samurai drama series? Say, oh yeah,
we'll take that, thank you. And the Koreans gave us
a lot of content to take and dub. And that's
when we discovered how attractive and how compelling Korean dramas were.
(27:06):
Koreans are extraordinary storytellers. So we had this opportunity of
testing different formats and different genres and different shows from
different continents, so to speak.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
Yeah, and really showcasing the world to people who lived
a sort of provincial life before that.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
Absolutely, so a Hafcans were exposed music wise to all
types of music and television wise also to all types
of formats and shows.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
So one of the stories that I don't think is
in your book but I love is that you brought
the writer of Pretty Woman over to help brainstorm with people.
Can you talk about that little Yeah, someone.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Has suggested them, so we contacted them and lo and
beheldy shows up. So we had these workshops. So it
was a reality TV show that we asked viewers to
submit their application if they wanted to be a part
of this workshop, and a whole bunch of people applied,
handful were chosen, and then they worked with this guy,
j Floorton to learn how to write a show and
(28:07):
how to produce a show, and the group we end
up identifying some extraordinary talent. But he was an interesting
character and he worked very closely with would be filmmakers
and of course in the evenings we'd take him out
for dinner and he tell us stories about Hollywood and
Pretty Woman and all the juicy stuff that I can't
even repeat here, But it was based on a true
story Pretty Woman. Really.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
Yes, we'll be back with sad Morsini right after this break,
(28:49):
welcome back to Part Time Genius, where I'm in studio
with Sad Morsni. I think one of the things that
really impressed on me when you had said it was
that America was obviously in Afghanistan for twenty years, right,
and there are these generations that have kind of now
been forgotten but really got to experience a totally different world.
(29:11):
What sort of youth movements did you see, What sort
of music, style of arts or things emerged from this period.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
We had this show called Afghanista, which if you watched
the early seasons, I mean, the lack of talent in
that country was very obvious and it was all painful
to listen to some of these people attempt to sing.
But within a couple of seasons, I mean some real
talent emerged, not just in terms of ability to sing,
but to compose. People could play different instruments all of
(29:39):
a sudden, and we had an orchestra that was state
funded that you know, they could play Western instruments. So
the transition was very So what probably other countries experience
over decades, it was condensed into like two or three years.
So then there was this vibrant music scene and so
many kids interested in performing and singing and collaborating and
(30:01):
so forth. And you know, for a while, you think
you're managing things because you think I've got the biggest broadcaster,
or I've got the biggest radio station, We've got a
music label, and you're sort of in the driver's seat.
But then eventually it becomes too big, and that moment
is actually quite gratifying because now it's very organic. It's
all over the place, and there's a lot of talent
(30:25):
out there. And Afghanistan is a young country even now
today median ages eighteen and a half or something, But
in those early years to see that transition happen was
very exciting.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
Yeah, and that show, which is like an American idol
of Afghanistan, Like I think your sister Wachma and your
brother proposed it, right, the idea of trying it out.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
Yeah, so we thought we should have a music talent show,
and so they sort of figured out if we can
take an existing format or just create a format for ourselves,
we felt at the time, and we were right actually,
because we later on we tried to.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
You tried to do The Voice, The Voice.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
Which lasted a couple of season wasn't as successful, so
we created this format for Afghanistan, which immediately was a hit.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
The scenes are like people are hooking up TVs and
villagers to like generators and car engines and stuff just
to watch and like the crowds, and the show ends
up teaching people to vote. It's remarkable how quickly it
sort of blossoms.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
Yeah, we had like millions of people voting via text,
which was not cheap. I mean, you know, people had
to spend money, and this is a impoverished country, and
people were launching campaigns for their supporters to vote for them.
So it was like an elections campaign with posters and
people going around villages saying you got to vote for
this character. And it was exciting and daunting. And then
(31:51):
of course we had to deal with the nutcases who
were attempting to blow us up because we're promoting a
music show.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
And you actually did teach people vote because people had
never had a voice before, and so suddenly they're using
their phones and they're they're getting to speak up on
issues that they never have and you end up with
like a woman who ends up winning. You end up
with old people voting for rappers on stage I mean,
the amount of progress is incredible. But as you talk
about the resistance to this show, can you describe a
(32:21):
little bit about the regions of Afghanistan and what like
Herat is like, or Kandahar these other like places, and
what the makeup of the country is, because I don't
think a lot of people understand the sort of landscape
in a way.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
Well, the south and the East, they're predominantly passion so
perhaps more traditional and conservative. Heyrot, although it's a person
speaking city, but they're still conservative. Mazara here from the north,
mostly persons speaking, but most of our cities are fairly mixed.
You have people of different athnicities. People have beenter married
for hundreds of years, so we don't have exclusive areas,
(32:57):
and every area you'll have some minorities members of the
minorities that reside in those cities, and Central Afghanistan is
perhaps a little more tolerant of these things. We had
a lot of issues in Herat, in particular. There's a
chapter in the book there's this sort of quite a
(33:18):
charismatic cleric that mobilized a lot of people against the show,
but he was death set against these auditions being filmed
in Hero art and then the book. You know, the
solution eventually was to do the airport. The condestin showed
up and they did the auditions, then they flew out.
(33:39):
So they always found ways of dealing with these challenges.
But yeah, I mean it's funny because you know, you
look at it now and I asked myself, this question,
is with this obsession about controlling people's personal lives, whether
manner or woman should wear, what a manner of woman
should listen to, by the way you see it here
(34:00):
in the Western.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
Yeah, it's not just restrained that idea.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
It's kind of women's body or whatever you hear about
these debates in the US. I think a sign of
civilization is tolerance, and that's one of the things that
we focused on. Always know how to be intellectually humble,
how to listen to the other side, to tolerate other
people's points of views. I think that's good to quick
people if you can with these skill sets or these tools.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
I think one of the saddest things is there's an
awful scene of US suicide bombing. Can you talk about
that and how that affected your staff.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
We ran with the story in mid twenty fifteen, which
we had to correct later in the evening. But at
the time, the Taliban felt that media in general was
unfair to them, unfairly targeting the Taliban. We were not
maintaining the balance, which I don't agree with. But that
story became the catalyst or their excuse to targeted us,
(35:00):
and they ssued sort of a fatwell of sorts against us.
And of course, you know, Afghanistan is a tough neighborhood.
The government was adamant that we could protect us. But
one day, when the bus was taking employees back home
left the office and what was on its way to
(35:20):
the western part of the city, a taxi filled with
the explosives rammed into its side and as a result
killed seven of our employees and injured fifteen, some permanently. Actually,
and I was in Bombay at the time on business,
and actually it was on the news. We were covering
(35:42):
the story, but not realizing it was our own bus.
So one of the producers called me up and said, listen,
I'm calling some of these people. I can't reach them.
You know, God forbid. Do you think it could be
our bus? I said, well, I don't know. Let's look
in to this. Situations like that it's not that clear cut,
(36:03):
you know, you don't have ambulances showing up. People just
come in and they do what they can to help.
So some are taken to hospital A, some are taken
to hospital B, and some hospitals are full of people
so they can't take any more patients. So eventually all
our people, at least thirty individuals were taken to various hospitals,
(36:25):
and you know, the task of going there, identifying them
and so forth was an online exercise. I took the
first flight back to Dubai and then from Dubai back
to Carbul and by the time on land in the morning,
we had an idea in terms of the fatalities. But
it was a very very difficult few days. It was
to meet their families to comfort them. It's difficult to
(36:52):
talk to a mother or a father or a sibling,
their loved one. And for them, it wasn't just losing
a child. For the lot of them, These children their
soul providers, you know, dealing with what we should do next.
But most of them were very determined, Adam, and that
they should continue and you know, we must persist. But
(37:13):
everyone was very emotional. It was a very, very very
difficult period for everyone. For me, perhaps the most difficult
seventy two hours of my life. But it doesn't become
easier because when you go and revisit those days, you
sometimes think was it all worth it? I mean, you know,
(37:34):
I can't say what certainly if it was.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
It's so heartbreaking knowing the stories of those people who
were young and came to office and loved their work
so much, you know, And then I know you've talked
about like how you weren't sure whether you should close
up shop, and the fact that this army of people
(37:59):
who loved me media are they're ready to keep broadcasting
and they want to be led forward, and they want
to keep fighting for their country, and there's something so
sad and beautiful about it. But I know that the
story gets harder and harder where the Taliban takes over
a couple that the government flees, and having watched you
(38:20):
deal with trying to secure safety for people, I was
there the day before you rushed off to the White
House to talk to people. It's just what you've done
is remarkable. But talk about how you kept pushing through.
I mean, like it feels like in the book, the
first chapter is about how you're trying to figure out
(38:41):
how to produce TV with increasing threats from the Taliban.
Speaker 2 (38:46):
Well, we were there to report on the country's first elections.
We were there to report on the government's progress. We
were there to report on the government's corruption. We were
there to report on the insurgency and how quickly the
government was becoming unpopular. We were there to report on
civilian killings and deaths and drone attacks and so forth.
(39:09):
We were there to report on the fall of the government,
the present fleeing. We were there to report in the
Taliban's ascendancy in their takeover the city. So we seem
to be there every step of the way, and you
have to somehow detach yourself from you know, you have
to do your job. I'm talking about the news organization
(39:30):
that they are doing the best they can reporting on facts,
not just in terms of informing Afghans of what's going on,
but also informing people outside. It sounds like two thousand
and two, two thousand and three, where you have hundreds
of reporters all over Kabo or Rasni or Jalalaba or Kandahar.
Today on a handful of people dare visit the country
because there's no interest outside Afghanistan. Afghanistan has become the
(39:54):
forgotten war as it was in the nineties. So we
do what we can, and I mentioned some of this morning.
You know, it's wonderful to have the likes of Meneral
Streeps say certain things about Afghan women or others, but
platitudes are not enough. You know, we need practical steps taken.
You know, half the country is on the verge of starvation.
(40:16):
We have food and security that impacts twenty two million people.
If you look at modern nutrition numbers, it impacts three
and a half million kids. A third of households are
not fully insulated, they're exposed to the elements. Clean water
is not available to like seventy percent of the population,
and so on and so on. So we got to
always balance. You know, we have the political dilemmas and challenges,
(40:39):
we have the humanitarian situation, and forty million people still
live in that country. They still have hopes and aspirations.
Speaker 1 (40:47):
And you're still feeding those hopes and aspirations both through
tutoring programs, right, but also you're talking about bringing back
Afghan star.
Speaker 2 (40:56):
Well, I think if we do that, it will be
an online version of course, one of our companies produces
a lot of music that's available online, which still a
lot of people consume, so people have that option. I
think in the twenty first century you cannot confine people
to a cave. I think that's important in terms of education.
Our young girls and boys don't have access to good education.
(41:20):
I mean, girls beyond grade six have zero education. But
even the boys, when they can go to the school,
the quality of the schooling is not particularly good because
a lot of teachers are fled, we don't have access
to textbooks. So we're using our television outlets where still
millions of people watch these programs every single day, to
(41:40):
create education programs which are interesting, engaging use of muppets
and graphics and animation and so forth. And the results
are extraordinary. We've evaluated kids' performances. We're talking about greades
doubling if they watch the program, if they have access
(42:01):
to WhatsApp to during it triples. So you know, from
not learning mathematics ad all to learning it well is
the byproduct of these TV programs. So I think it's
probably one of the most consequential things we've done.
Speaker 1 (42:16):
It's really stunning and the whole book is just a
remarkable story Radio Free Afghanistan. You should go pick it up.
But I think one of the most affecting lines to
me was in the dedication that you tell your children
thank you for sharing you with Afghanistan, and I think
that what you've done for the country is remarkable. Thank you,
(42:40):
Thank you so much for being here with me. That's
it for today's Part Time Genius. Thank you so much
for listening. If you're interested in the book, it's called
Radio Free Afghanistan by my good friend Sad Mussini. I
hope you check it out. But that's going to do
it for today's episode. We'll be back with a brand
new show next week with Will as well well, but
(43:01):
from Mary, Gabe, Dylan and myself. Thank you so much
for listening. Part Time Genius is a production of Kaleidoscope
and iHeartRadio. This show is hosted by Will Pearson and
(43:24):
Me Mongais Heartikler and research by our good pal Mary
Philip Sandy. Today's episode was engineered and produced by the
wonderful Dylan Fagan with support from Tyler Klang. The show
is executive produced for iHeart by Katrina Norbel and Ali Perry.
With social media support from Sasha Gay, trustee Dara Potts
and Viney Shorey. For more podcasts from Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio,
(43:48):
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows. Oh
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