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We went to this public execution.

And they-they brought this guy into the stadium.

And he was accused of murdering a relative.

Um, a man, who looked like maybe he was about

22, 23 years old.

And then the judge went through the whole ceremony of

you know explaining why it's in the Sharia law

this guy has murdered somebody,

and the only way to restore justice

is for the relatives to either forgive, or to kill him.

And then the relatives, you know, people were like,

"Oh, you know, let's forgive him."

And the guy said, "No."

And then they picked up the gun.

And I was like, within,

maybe about 2, 3 meters away from him.

10 to 15 feet.

And they brought him and just shot him in the head,

and when he was, as he was dying, he was making this...

this like, um... you know, like a purring sound.

You know how the cat's like "prrrrr".

And that image stuck with me.

And it was pretty shocking,

because I remember getting out of, you know,

of the stadium with the crowd. And I was in shock.

That had become the only entertainment in the city.

There was nothing else.

You know, imagine that you're dying slowly,

and you don't know it.

That was the thing, because there was so much suffering,

there was so much pain,

that the country had completely shut down,

so people didn't have access to media

to listen to what's- or hear what's happening in the world.

We thought this was life.

There were some people who had dish antennas

and they were satellites, you know

they would place it strategically in homes,

so that they could not be visible from outside.

We had one. Um...

My oldest brother,

who was working for the U.N., had one.

And we would go to, like, a little basement,

make sure that all the little windows are-

you know, we have this dark curtain

so it cannot be... from outside.

And you have to have the light on.

And even-there was, not much electricity around the city,

so it was just, like, maybe once a week,

have a couple of hours of entertainment.

It was like this little neighborhood network,

you know, of- of us teenagers.

We would all, like, "Oh yeah, tonight, eight o'clock,

you get to come over to our home."

And then they would come secretly.

People couldn't believe

the Taliban would be finally defeated.

You know, and then you saw the trucks fleeing,

you know, Kabul City.

That's when people finally believed

something good is about to happen.

Essentially they were just

taking passengers back and forth.

And it was the most difficult flight to get on,

because everyone wanted to fly into Kabul.

The a-the agencies, the journalists,

various journalists who were following the Afghan story,

and members of the diaspora.

So it was very difficult to get tickets on this plane.

And of course it was the only airline in the world

which still allowed smoking.

And I smoked in those days,

so I was chain-smoking in the front seat.

The stewards didn't have seats,

even the jump seats, where they usually sit

were sold to passengers.

And even a couple passengers were in the cockpit.

So, while the plane was landing and taking off,

in the first couple of months when it was so popular,

the stewards would just hang on to the sides, standing up.

But, somehow we made it.

I mean, I think it was a very emotional experience

when they announced that we're now over Afghanistan.

And people broke down,

not having been to the country for decades.

And then, of course, you know

we were falling all over each other

trying to kiss the tarmac when we landed in Kabul.

When we landed...

it was...

just silence.

There was not one person saying anything,

as we taxied on the runway.

And we saw...

you know, like, bits of blown-up planes on the side,

because this was still pretty early,

they hadn't cleaned it all up.

Yeah, that was kind of a bit emotional,

because you could feel it in the atmosphere.

People were, like, really quiet.

The majority of people were Afghans still, on the plane.

So a lot of them would have been returning from a long time.

I just think back to Kabul in 2000.

It had about one fifth the people that it had now.

There were no cars.

Half the city was in ruins.

Of course there was almost no electricity.

There was no television. There was nothing.

It was like being in the middle ages.

It really was, It was just an extraordinary time.

The city itself was calm.

It was very quiet, it was very peaceful.

We had a curfew,

which meant that you couldn't go out after 10 p.m.

But, you know, it was a very exciting time to be in Kabul.

It was a... it's-it's difficult to describe,

but it was euphoric,

in terms of how we felt about Afghanistan,

how we could transform it.

It was just like starting from scratch.

It was really a period where

most Afghans thought you could really do anything.

This is the time, this is our chance.

We finally got our opportunity and we can make a change.

We can make things happen.

All of a sudden, you know, there was this thing,

like, finally feeling, that the world has focused on Afghanistan.

That we're gonna be, not rich, we're gonna be finally peaceful.

We're gonna be able to go and see the world.

That we will access to things that other have.

The people were obviously shell-shocked, literally,

they were-they were emerging from

five years of God knows what,

during the Taliban time, what they suffered,

I can only imagine.

But they, you know, they were very zombie-ish.

You know, there was just this thirst for knowledge.

You know because for us, the generation that grew up

in an ideological...

We grew up during the Communists.

We experienced... civil war during when the Mujahideen

took over when the communists collapsed.

And then we were brutalized by the Taliban.

So, for us, our generation,

We had one mission, one goal.

And that was just to survive.

All of a sudden, you know,

there was an opportunity given to this generation,

and we really rushed in.

Afghanistan, I always new I'd be back, in some way,

and I did wanna go back, but my dad didn't let me go back

until the brothers went first.

And I didn't actually think I'd be working with family.

You know, as soon as I landed that first time,

I felt like I'd come home.

There was a calling, of sorts, to go back to Afghanistan.

It wasn't just a place we left behind,

it was a place that had so many victims.

Members of our family, childhood loss.

You know for us, it wasn't like a great opportunity

to live in Australia.

For us, the good life was in Afghanistan.

It was... a lost period in our life.

You know, contrary to what most people believe,

Afghanistan actually was peaceful.

I first came to Afghanistan in 1972.

Kabul was quite cosmopolitan compared to today.

You know, the elite lived there,

there was a beginning of a middle class,

you'd see women in mini-skirts.

I left Afghanistan in April, 1978.

There was a communist coup.

I left because Kabul, all of a sudden,

became kind of a violent place.

I came back in 2007.

I was fascinated by the fact that...

this guy was the Rupert Murdoch of Afghanistan,

because as I remembered,

Afghanistan didn't have any media.

There was this information gap

from, basically, pretty much for the last 30 years.

You know, um... and especially during the Taliban,

where all forms of media shut down in Kabul.

The way we thought we could reengage with the country

was to actually do something business-wise.

So in a casual discussion with the information councilman,

I brought the subject up, and I said,

"You know, you don't have any, um...

independent media outlets.

Is it something you would consider?"

And he said,

"Technically, you can establish a radio station."

which was the idea that we had at the time.

There was an interest from USA I.D.,

which is the development and aid agency

of the U.S. State Department.

Now they wanted to help out with media companies,

and of course we put our hands up,

as has every other media organization in Afghanistan.

Now, typically they work with NGO's.