The New York Times’ journalism on Afghanistan is nothing short of a heroic record. Consider Dexter Filkin’s investigative journalism and then, think no more. But today, the series of photographs and story it published on the endemic incidence of self-immolation among women in Afghanistan is something beyond note, and approbation. It is revelatory and within the next second, mind numbing, heart arresting. For, the Times isn’t the ‘Grey Lady’, a singular flagstaff, a tall, properly-asssertive authority on all things narrative because of its laudable journalism and its still global reach; it’s because of the multiply focused proposition on the facts and bearings of journalism that it has earned its regard over the last so very many years.
And here’s proof positive. Spend some time with these pictures of Afghan women who burn themselves: the causes, reasons and consequences of self-immolation. 15 year old babies, married off, abused and chided; victims, finally, in an unfunded, understaffed burn unit.