NO WAY OUT

There is no Internet in hell. Or in the Taleban cave. Or in the Afghan jail. How do I know? Because I’m there? I wouldn’t be able to post this then. And if I’m not in any of those places? Yeah. Sorry. I made it. And I’m still alive. A triumph? It ought to be. It is! And against all odds. All. In the last 24 hours before take off everysingleone tried to back out and steal away from me and my European profile and my Flag of Danger & Death. In the morning my most faithful native Mahmud called and told me he had forgotten to tell that he was going abroad and had to prepare for his travel. - No! I cried, - you gave me your word! And so he (in a very low an cold voice, as if obeying a white master) agreed to at least show up. And he did. But as he stood in front of the inaccessible iron gate he called me once more and asked if we maybe could talk a little before we would set off for the Bemaru Mountain. Me, him and Reza. I asked the gate guard to let them into the courtyard. And there Mahmud told me that within the last 24 hours he had called a lot of (older) people, “people who know Afghanistan”, and Reza had talked to friends with relations to the police, and every one said that if I wouldn’t be killed or kidnapped or just beaten the white out of my skin, then I would at least and for sure be arrested by the police and thrown into jail. And so would they. And whereas I, as a foreigner, with a back up from my embassy, would sooner or later get out again, no one would know about them, Reza and Mahmud. Alas, they wanted to go home again and spend their holy Friday on the couch. - No! I said, - please, don’t leave me alone with this, I said, - at least go with me to the mountain top and film the very beginning, as we planned, just me and the mountain, you don’t need a permission to film Man and the Mountain, that’s pure nature! Do that, please, and then I’ll ask my Norwegian ally to join us and take over from there, let’s go! I said. And off we went. To the mountain! As we arrived the otherwise deserted top was swarming with natives waiting for a dogs fight to begin. At every single larger object, car, even at the picturesque tank, a big hungered seemingly desperate dog with eyes bloodshot stood tethered, and our Norwegian ally reminded us that last weeks suicide bomb in Kandahar had gone of exactly at a dogs fight and killed more than a hundred. And so he disappeared in the crowd to have a look at it all and maybe ...

At 4 p:m sharp I appear from below a cliff and walk the ridge carrying the flag, just me and the mountain. I pass by the first dogs enthusiasts and they comment on the flag, and then I start descending followed by the camera men. In that very moment my native driver Naimullah turns on the car radio - the local Voice of America - the news speaker announcing that a crowd of 200 plus has set out on a demonstration against the Danes and their Muhammad Caricatures in the Microaryani area of Kabul. And as Microaryani happens to be at the foot of the mountain, the angry crowd will most likely come upon a lonely Dane walking under a strange white flag in less than half an hour. My driver immediately calls our Norwegian ally who is somewhere on the hillside between the Dane and the car. But the Dane walks too fast and struck by his late afternoon laziness the Norwegian gives up, sighing Inshallah, we’ll see! And so the Dane just goes on. And on. And on.

In the early evening our Norwegian ally receives a telephone call from one of his informants - the Blackwater expert. The informant has lunched with a group of international journalists and aid workers living in Kabul. Several, among them an Australian NGO, have received an e-mail from ANSO (the security office in charge of keeping the terror alert on HIGH LEVEL among the NGO’s in Kabul) warning that a Dane is planning to walk through Kabul carrying “a white flag with a bullet-hole(!)”.


But the warning comes to late. I have long since gone.



They almost promised me I would be killed. Kidnapped. At least have that I beaten out of my shit. Finally. At the End of the day. To end all days. And here it is: I. Still. Unstilled. Lonely as ever. Without any reason. And so what? Kabul. Where do I go from here?