Afghanistan, the Lost Generation

Afghanistan: The Lost Generation is not about politics or religion. It is an unflinching look at the atrocities of war, and a personal visit to a nation and a people struggling to survive in the total desperation caused by an almost perpetual state of conflict.

In a nation of countless victims, thousands of emotionally and physically crippled survivors-maimed children, widows and silent scholars-struggle to rebuild their lives. Ustad Kamal, a dean of traditional music and a virtuoso of the two-stringed dotar, uses his music to alleviate his pain and fight the cultural genocide destroying his country. Twelve-year-old Bashir lost both his feet in a rocket blast that struck his home and killed his parents, yet he works to provide food for his six surviving brothers and sisters. Nasrullah, a soldier crippled by war, clings to memories of his lost childhood amid the brutal reality of death and destruction.

Presented in this program are not the specific current conflicts, but the constant struggle that individuals meet as they rebuild their lives.