
Afghanistan in the 1950s and 60s - wsieroci
http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2013/07/afghanistan-in-the-1950s-and-60s/100544/
======
Sharlin
_Keep in mind, when looking at these images, that the average life expectancy
for Afghans born in 1960 was 31, so the vast majority of those pictured have
likely passed on since._

Average life expectancy doesn't really work like that. Your life expectancy
even in a "primitive" culture has always been 60 years or so, give or take a
dozen, _once you survive childhood_. It's the massive infant and child
mortality - the norm everywhere before the 20th century - that drags down
average life expectancies _at birth_.

~~~
speeder
Cannot emphasis this more. Also dangerous professions tend to kill people a
lot.

When I mention the age that several famous romans died when they were not
warriors, people act surprised (Cato the Elder for example died at 85, I
forgot the names, but I even made once a list of senators that died past 90).

Here in Brazil life expectancy is 73 years old, and for example the sole
reason it is not much higher, is traffic accidents (it was calculated that if
pedestrian crossings were strictly enforced for example, this would bump up
our average life expectancy by 3 years!)

~~~
rayiner
Right. Looking at just average life expectancy makes differences in medical
technology seem more dramatic than they are. In the U.S., average life
expectancy at birth has increased from 50 to 76 in the last century (26
years). But remaining life expectancy at age 60 has increased only 7 years,
from 14 more years to 21 more years. Most of the increase is the result of
lower mortality among children, and lower mortality among young adults as the
result of a shift from dangerous factory/mining jobs to service jobs.

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rtpg
It's amazing how much a country can regress due to bullshit pulled by major
powers. While I know that "why can't we all get along" is a tired trope, it
disappoints me that we can't avoid completely halting a nation's progress for
60 years almost.

Like when you hear how India was on track to become a major industrialized
nation until the British decided to turn it into the world's biggest piece of
farmland.

~~~
Tomis02
Let's not forget Iran in the 50s.

~~~
genwin
Yes, and especially that the US toppled its democracy to install a brutal
dictator. The Iran hostage crisis was largely in response to that.

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chrisdevereux
Some context here:
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/2009/09/kabul_city_num...](http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/2009/09/kabul_city_number_one.html)

Great series of blog posts by Adam Curtis on Kabul over the last 50 years. One
of his main ideas is that the war on terror is a sort of accidental
continuation of the Cold War. The huge leftover infrastructure, bureaucracies
and culture needed to do something, so lacking a real enemy, it invented one.

If you buy that at all then Afghanistan is really interesting because it was a
major conflict in the Cold War, and also (obviously) the war on terror. So
current foreign policies and attitudes towards Afghanistan often mirror those
of the Cold War in a strange and dissonant way.

Lots of great BBC archive footage in there too. Hopefully it's viewable
outside the uk.

~~~
teh_klev
I love Adam Curtis's work and that is a great series on Kabul. Sadly a lot of
that footage isn't viewable outside the UK. It's a shame he's not permitted to
publish those videos on YouTube or Vimeo.

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anderspetersson
As someone who served in Afghanistan last year, very interesting.

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codegeek
This reminds of the book The Kite Runner. It describes a very different
Afghanistan in the 70s before the Soviet intervention.

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jread
I just returned. The contrast in culture is striking - flying overhead in a
sophisticated aircraft watching farmers till land by hand outside mud huts in
remote villages - living life as they have for a millennium. Afghans are
resilient - Nato will leave, the war will fade, and they will choose their
destiny.

~~~
barry-cotter
_the war will fade_ Afghanistan is now and has ever been a war zone. Why would
that change just because the Americans declared victory and went home?

~~~
jread
I'm not arguing there will be peace - I'm referring to the Nato war, and I
don't think anyone familiar believes it is ending in victory.

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adamlj
It's really sad to see how effective they have been in ruining this society.

More like this:
[http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/05/27/once_upon_a...](http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/05/27/once_upon_a_time_in_afghanistan)

~~~
freehunter
Foreign influence didn't help, either. It wasn't all the fault of Afghanis.

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DrinkWater
The sad thing is: this is almost analogue to Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, etc, the
list goes on an on...

I wonder when (and if) the middle east will become again what it used to be.

~~~
beat
When the oil runs out, so they no longer have influence over the rest of the
world, and the rest of the world has no interest in them.

Afghanistan may not directly have oil, but it plays into other things. It's a
symbolic point for both the Muslim world and the outside world. Militancy is
funded by Saudi oil money. Invasions are funded by the US (and previously, by
the Soviets).

Pouring billions of dollars of outside money into resource/cultural wars in
otherwise poor and isolated nations turns them into nightmares. Afghanistan is
just another tumor in this cancer.

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gautamsomani
Looks so peaceful then .... I wish it goes back to then.

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Dewie
> Keep in mind, when looking at these images, that the average life expectancy
> for Afghans born in 1960 was 31, so the vast majority of those pictured have
> likely passed on since.

... lies, damned lies and statistics. Why do people keep on using the mean for
lifespan, when so many interpret it the wrong way?

~~~
antocv
I suspect there is a point or ideological agenda to the lie "People earlier in
more 'primitive' cultures were lucky to live to see their 30th birthday", its
the old "life was brutal without civilization and a state to keep you safe and
well" which then suggests we should also be lucky today to have all this
modernism and be thankful to have "progressed" so far as to live to 31.

~~~
derleth
> "life was brutal without civilization and a state to keep you safe and well"

It was. Children died in infancy, which is why the life expectancy was so low.
If that isn't brutal, you need to redefine the term.

