Afghanistanism facts for kids
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Afghanistanism is a term that first appeared in the United States. It describes when people focus on problems in faraway parts of the world, but ignore important local issues.
Sometimes, the term also means being interested in "really old and confusing studies" or having a "strong interest in strange, distant lands." It can also mean "getting angry at an enemy who doesn't even know you exist."
Contents
What is Afghanistanism?
Afghanistanism is a way of talking about problems that are far away instead of dealing with issues close to home. It's like focusing on a news story from another country when there's a big problem right in your own town.
Where Did the Term Come From?
The Oxford English Dictionary says "Afghanistanism" is an American slang term. The first time it was written down was in 1948. A writer named J. Lloyd Jones used it. He talked about how some newspaper editors would write strongly about elections in Costa Rica, but ignore local problems like garbage piling up.
Robert H. Stopher and James S. Jackson wrote in 1948 that Jenkin Lloyd Jones from the Tulsa Tribune newspaper made up the term. Jones said that many writers found it easier to talk about "the situation in Afghanistan" because it was safe. It took more courage to investigate local issues, like what the sheriff was doing.
However, columnist Joe Klein wrote in Time magazine in 2010 that the term might be older. He suggested it came from the 1800s in Britain. There, the British press used "Afghanistanism" to describe being too focused on unclear foreign wars instead of problems at home.
How Has the Term Been Used?
Over time, "Afghanistanism" has been used in different ways.
In Journalism
In North American journalism, it described newspaper articles about faraway places that weren't important to local readers. Other writers said it was a way for editors to avoid difficult local news. They would instead write opinion pieces about events happening in distant countries.
James Reston, a writer for The New York Times, explained it well. He said journalists often suffer from "Afghanistanism." If something is far away, it's considered news. But if it's close to home, it's just "sociology" (meaning it's seen as a social problem, not a big news story).
In Education and Environment
In 1955, educator Robert M. Hutchins used the term in a speech. He gave an example: if you asked a professor at Caltech about smog (air pollution) in their city, they might change the subject and ask, "Have you heard about the crisis in Afghanistan?" This showed how people avoided local issues.
Later, in 1973, the idea was used for reporting on environmentalism. Researchers said that news often focused on environmental problems in distant communities. It ignored similar issues happening locally. This was repeated in 2004 by B.A. Taleb, who called it "moving the [environmental] problems to other places and ignoring them in one's own community."
Why Did the Term Come Back?
After the September 11 attacks in New York City in 2001, the idea of "Afghanistanism" became important again. Some writers argued that the term no longer fit modern times. This was because global events, like the attacks, clearly showed that what happened far away could directly affect people at home.
For example, Stuart Loory, a professor of journalism, wrote in 2001 that news organizations have an important job. They should act like an "early warning signal" for problems around the world. He said journalists need to be trained to understand different parts of the world. They shouldn't just be "parachutists" who drop into an area only to cover a disaster. Loory believed that this "parachutist" approach kept "Afghanistanism" alive, and that the term was no longer useful.
