Heartwarming, a little Afghani girl hi5 a soldier. #TheAfghanistanYouNeverSee http://t.co/cVGCmw7N—
Victoria (@VixxyLix) May 07, 2012
It started as a hashtag attached to several photos by a journalist. By the weekend, it had become a huge sharing of images from people who had been to Afghanistan, and showed us another side to a country rarely away from the headlines.
The idea behind #theAfghanistanYouNeverSee came from journalist Antony Loveless, who specialises in defence for the London Press Service. The first hashtag appeared late last week, and by the bank holiday weekend had become a steady flow of images:
@Race2Recovery Pleasure, just want to show everyone there's more to the place than gets reported (as everyone who's been there knows)—
Antony Loveless (@AntonyLoveless) May 07, 2012
There was plenty of support quickly:
Approaching 1125 tweets of #TheAfghanistanYouNeverSee hashtag-just amazing. Thanks for all the RT's. It was @AntonyLoveless 's idea. Kudos.—
(@RAFairman) May 06, 2012
and
@jamesjamesbrown #TheAfghanistanYouNeverSee Best use of hashtag I've seen for ages—
Jim Thornton (@LordPlumpton) May 07, 2012
When challenged on a motive behind it, Antony replied:
@piscisaustralis No agenda, no angle, I started it to show the side of Afghan that doesn't usually get reported. That's it, no more, no less—
Antony Loveless (@AntonyLoveless) May 07, 2012
I created a Storify compiling some of the images which have been posted on Twitter under the hasthag #theafghanistanyouneversee. Sadly, Storify’s ‘publish to WordPress’ button doesn’t seem to be working at the moment, so you’ll have to click on the link here.
To me, put simply, it sums up everything that’s changed about storytelling. A collection of pictures, from people who’ve been there, show a side to a country which as been rarely out of the news.
It’s fascinating – and an example to all journalists of why we shouldn’t fear opening up our industry. If we’re not connected, we’re not really telling the story, are we?
