For foreign correspondents like CBC’s Mellissa Fung life in warzones is the norm. It’s coming back home that’s the shock.
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Six months ago Fung was shackled and blindfolded in a tiny Afghan cave, praying she’d escape with her life. Tuesday, April 21 she spoke with fellow Afghanistan correspondent Graeme Smith at the Canadian Journalism Foundation panel discussion at U of T.
“You stop thinking like a normal person,” said Fung of her time in Afghanistan. “You think like a soldier.”
Fung’s kidnapping shocked the nation and prompted immediate, sweeping changes in the system. Canadian journalists in Afghanistan are now on full lockdown, only allowed to travel with military escorts.
“We have green zones, orange zones, red zones,” said Smith. “Places that are safe. Places that are semi-unsafe. Times of day when we think there’s going to be a suicide bomber. Particular convoys we should stay away from. But at the end of the day it’s all meaningless. You can hedge your bets, but you don’t really know.”
138 Journalists have been killed in Iraq since 2003, more than twice the number that were killed over 16 years of reporting during the Vietnam War. 6 were killed in Afghanistan. Dozens more have gone missing. And there are still ongoing cases of kidnapped journalists kept hidden from the public by media blackouts according to both Fung and Smith.
But Fung still dreams of going back. Getting the story out has never been more important, she says. People who want to stop sending Canadian journalists to Afghanistan, “just don’t understand why we do what we do.”
Looking up at the two journalists on stage, you’re struck by how young they are. “I’m still a rookie,” says Smith, who has the blunt, hard bitten mannerisms of an old war vet.
The first time the Globe and Mail foreign correspondent went to Afghanistan he was just 26 and had no idea what he was doing. He spent the plane ride desperately going over computer printouts trying to piece together what was going on. “Prepare is often a euphemism for ‘get on the plane, now!'”
Fast forward a few months and he’s trapped in a compound with a handful of badly shaken up British soldiers, hounded through the night by gunfire from insurgents firing at them from a nearby graveyard. Fearing for their lives, one of the soldiers insisted he take a pistol.
“Camera, yes! Pistol, no,” protested Smith. “I don’t know how to shoot this.”
As a compromise he kept the gun by his sleeping bag. He never had to use it and he still doesn’t know today if he could’ve.
“I’m not an adrenaline junkie,” said Smith. “I’ve been bombed, mortared, shot at, RPDed by a suicide bomber. Those are not pleasant experiences. There are people who love the thrill of adventure, but I’m not one of them. That cowboy side of it leaves me cold.”
While Mellissa’s firm, but soft-spoken, Smith’s both earnest and distracted.
An audience member asks if safety issues make it hard to get information.
“Yeah, I can’t tell you how annoying it is to set up an interview with a source and he gets killed in the meantime,” Smith replies dryly.
“Graeme… enough.” The interviewer titters nervously. There’s a few glances. No one else laughs.
Smith stares at his glass of water on the table. There’s disappointment in that look. Like he realized he came here seeking affirmation or understanding from people who can’t possibly grasp what he’s been through or what drives him to keep going back.
The U of T panel comes to a close late at night. Fung and Smith shake hands with the interviewer to an enthusiastic round of applause from the audience.
On the other side of the world, it’s almost morning in Afghanistan and the journalists at the military base in Kandahar will just be waking up. They’ll head to the work tent to meet with a public affairs official from the military, getting a morning update on lockdowns, visitors and embargoes. While Canadians are sleeping peacefully in their beds they’ll be working on stories, so that by the time their editors get up in Toronto they can file a piece for the morning show.
In a few weeks, the poppy fields in Afghanistan will be ready for harvest, ripe with 93% of the world’s poisonous opiates, a $4 billion cash milk feeding the veins of the Taliban’s arsenal. “There will be a huge spike in violence,” says Smith hollowly.
For most Canadians a newspaper is just a couple bucks. But for foreign correspondents like Fung and Smith these stories are worth their lives. They’ve seen colleagues and friends killed, kidnapped and tortured. They’ve stared death in the face and taken notes. And most amazing and bewildering, they’ve given their hearts to a country that’s murderous and unforgiving.
“Every time I get off a plane or walk out of the gates of the army complex I mentally catalogue my life and say, am I satisfied with it?” said Smith. “The answer is yes.”
Some experiences just don’t translate onto ink and paper.
