Afghanistan needs books rather than bombs to educate a largely illiterate population that has endured nearly two decades of war, starvation and drought, celebrated Iranian movie director Mohsen Makhmalbaf told a news conference in Tokyo on Friday.
"Afghanistan is a nation that shunned schooling and most media, for its locals for seven years during the Taliban rule," remarked Makhmalbaf, who directed the widely acclaimed "Kandahar." "Was the bombing a good thing to change such a situation?"
Makhmalbaf, who will attend the film's Japanese premiere in Tokyo today, wondered aloud how Afghanistan might be different if oats, rather than 10 million land mines, were buried under its dry soil, and if books had been raining from the skies for the past four months instead of bombs.