283 episodes
COMMONS Canadaland Beyond
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- Society & Culture
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4.3 • 71 Ratings
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COMMONS Presents: Inside Kabul
INSIDE KABUL is a multi-award winning series that follows the daily life of two young Afghan women, Marwa and Raha. Both have been recording their daily lives since the arrival of the Taliban in August 2021. Should they stay? Leave? And when they leave, what does exile look like?
As they contemplate their futures, Raha and Marwa exchange and record hundreds of voice notes with noted French journalist Caroline Gillet. What emerges is a raw and incredibly intimate chronicle of two young women coming of age amidst the collapse of the world they had known.
Original podcast broadcast on France INTER / RADIO FRANCE © RADIO FRANCE. Canadaland is proud to premiere the English-language adaptation of this urgent and intimate podcast, building on Commons' crucial season that told the story of Canada’s role in the War in Afghanistan.
COMMONS is a documentary podcast that proves Canada is anything but boring. Each season, host Arshy Mann guides you through the country’s dark underbelly, bringing you stories about crime, corruption and all manner of misdeeds.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Inside Kabul Ep. 1 - August: stay or go?
INSIDE KABUL is a multi-award winning series by journalist Caroline Gillet that follows the daily life of two young Afghan women, Marwa and Raha. Both have been recording their daily lives since the arrival of the Taliban in August 2021. Should they stay? Leave? And when they leave, what does exile look like?
Raha and Marwa record voice notes on their phones each day which they send to Caroline in Paris. They record to feel less isolated, to share the horror, to share the sounds of their new reality. They refuse to give up.
Raha and Marwa record for themselves to remember, and also for us – so that we know and don't forget them.
By Caroline Gillet with Marwa and Raha. The original podcast broadcast on France INTER / RADIO FRANCE © RADIO FRANCE. Canadaland is proud to premiere the English-language adaptation of this urgent and intimate podcast, building on Commons' crucial season that told the story of Canada’s role in the War in Afghanistan.
COMMONS is brought to you by: Arshy Mann (Host and Producer), Jordan Cornish (Producer), Noor Azrieh (Producer), Max Collins (Production Manager), Karyn Pugliese (Editor in Chief)
Shows like this cannot get made without you. Become a supporter and binge the entire season now, ad-free.
Additional music from Audio Network
Sponsors:
Douglas: Douglas is giving our listeners a FREE Sleep Bundle with each mattress purchase. Get the sheets, pillows, mattress and pillow protectors FREE with your Douglas purchase today at Douglas.ca/Canadaland.
Betterhelp: For 10% off your first month, visit BetterHelp.com/InsideKabul.
You can listen ad-free on Amazon Music—included with Prime.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. -
Inside Kabul Ep. 2 - September: Relearning Everyday Life
Marwa and Raha are relearning daily life.
Raha seeks comfort in anything that has not changed since the arrival of the Taliban, in the few dwindling spaces of freedom that remain.
While Marwa discovers new things in the Abu Dhabi refugee camp.
By Caroline Gillet with Marwa and Raha. The original podcast broadcast on France INTER / RADIO FRANCE © RADIO FRANCE. Canadaland is proud to premiere the English-language adaptation of this urgent and intimate podcast, building on Commons' crucial season that told the story of Canada’s role in the War in Afghanistan.
COMMONS is brought to you by: Arshy Mann (Host and Producer), Jordan Cornish (Producer), Noor Azrieh (Producer), Max Collins (Production Manager), Karyn Pugliese (Editor in Chief)
Shows like this cannot get made without you. Become a supporter and binge the entire season now, ad-free.
Additional music from Audio Network
Sponsors:
Douglas: Douglas is giving our listeners a FREE Sleep Bundle with each mattress purchase. Get the sheets, pillows, mattress and pillow protectors FREE with your Douglas purchase today at Douglas.ca/Canadaland.
BetterHelp: Canadaland listeners head to https://betterhelp.com/canadaland to get started today and enjoy 10% off your first month. Discount code “canadaland” will be automatically applied.
You can listen ad-free on Amazon Music—included with Prime.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. -
Inside Kabul Ep. 3 - October: Take Back Control
It has been three months since the Taliban returned to power. Raha and Marwa regularly receive reminders from Instagram of what their lives used to be – at a birthday, at a party, surrounded by friends. They send screenshots with their voice notes to Caroline Gillet.
For Caroline, she sees evidence of daily lives that had been so much closer to her own than she would have imagined. The images make Caroline more aware of the scale and speed of the upheavals over recent weeks.
While Raha endures the economic crisis and the multiplication of power cuts in Kabul, Marwa becomes familiar with the refugee camp, but the uncertainty and waiting weigh down. Marwa dreams of the future.
By Caroline Gillet with Marwa and Raha. The original podcast broadcast on France INTER / RADIO FRANCE © RADIO FRANCE. Canadaland is proud to premiere the English-language adaptation of this urgent and intimate podcast, building on Commons' crucial season that told the story of Canada’s role in the War in Afghanistan.
COMMONS is brought to you by: Arshy Mann (Host and Producer), Jordan Cornish (Producer), Noor Azrieh (Producer), Max Collins (Production Manager), Karyn Pugliese (Editor-in-Chief)
Shows like this cannot get made without you. Become a supporter and binge the entire season now, ad-free.
Additional music from Audio Network
Sponsors:
Betterhelp: For 10% off your first month, visit BetterHelp.com/InsideKabul.
You can listen ad-free on Amazon Music—included with Prime.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. -
Inside Kabul Ep. 4 - December/January: "Vampire Diaries"
With the media’s attention turned away from Afghanistan and snow beginning to fall, Raha and Marwa continue to endure the daily realities of their new lives – finding simple pleasures that help them get through the day.
While Raha finally finds a new job opportunity and a glimmer of hope, Marwa begins to go out at night in the camp and creates a new family to help her quench her desire for home.
By Caroline Gillet with Marwa and Raha. The original podcast broadcast on France INTER / RADIO FRANCE © RADIO FRANCE. Canadaland is proud to premier the English-language adaptation of this urgent and intimate podcast, building on Commons' crucial season that told the story of Canada’s role in the War in Afghanistan.
COMMONS is brought to you by: Arshy Mann (Host and Producer), Jordan Cornish (Producer), Noor Azrieh (Producer), Max Collins (Production Manager), Karyn Pugliese (Editor-in-Chief)
Additional music from Audio Network -
Inside Kabul Ep. 5 - February: Revolt Before Zombieland
Revolt in all its forms – hidden or revealed – is unfolding in Kabul and in the Abu Dhabi camp.
From the start, Caroline Gillet asks Marwa and Raha questions, and they answer. Or they send her sounds, or photos, when they want to share something. The reporter never knows what she will discover when she opens a voice note.
Sometimes there are long minutes of ambience, or short messages for practical things, or 20 minutes of monologues to tell a story. The reporter learns to recognize false cheerful tones when things are not going well.
An episode with a guitar, slogans, French high school students, and feelings of when you are 20 years old.
By Caroline Gillet with Marwa and Raha. The original podcast broadcast on France INTER / RADIO FRANCE © RADIO FRANCE. Canadaland is proud to premier the English-language adaptation of this urgent and intimate podcast, building on Commons' crucial season that told the story of Canada’s role in the War in Afghanistan.
COMMONS is brought to you by: Arshy Mann (Host and Producer), Jordan Cornish (Producer), Noor Azrieh (Producer), Max Collins (Production Manager), Karyn Pugliese (Editor-in-Chief)
Additional music from Audio Network -
Inside Kabul Ep. 6 - April: First Ramadan in Kabul
We arrive in April, and it has been eight months since Marwa and Raha began talking about their daily lives with reporter Caroline Gillet. Raha is in Kabul, Marwa in a refugee camp in Abu Dhabi. They say that documenting what they are experiencing and sharing helps to compensate for the immobility.
The economic situation in Afghanistan is dramatic following the freezing of international aid which financed nearly 80% of the Afghan budget. Half of the country is threatened by hunger. Aid is conditional on measures promised by the Taliban in favor of human rights and women's rights in particular, such as the return of adolescent girls to school.
Marwa and Raha celebrate Ramadan in very new conditions. These religious events are perhaps the last things that connect them. In this episode, their two trajectories will separate radically. While Marwa is far from her family, Raha is surrounded, but explosions make her fear for her mother's life, and push her employers to fire her. Marwa finally has her tickets to go to Germany.
By Caroline Gillet with Marwa and Raha. The original podcast broadcast on France INTER / RADIO FRANCE © RADIO FRANCE. Canadaland is proud to premier the English-language adaptation of this urgent and intimate podcast, building on Commons' crucial season that told the story of Canada’s role in the War in Afghanistan.
COMMONS is brought to you by: Arshy Mann (Host and Producer), Jordan Cornish (Producer), Noor Azrieh (Producer), Max Collins (Production Manager), Karyn Pugliese (Editor-in-Chief)
Additional music from Audio Network
Customer Reviews
Excellent journalism, lackluster production
This season on corruption features the excellent investigative reporting I’ve come to expect from Canadaland and its affiliated shows, however, elements of the production make Commons an aggravating listening experience. Audio packages and soundbites fluctuate from inaudibly quiet (see: Barack Obama in the first minutes of episode 3; many of the bed music interludes), to in-the-red loud at other moments. In one single segment, around 20:00mins in ep. 3, host Arshy Mann’s voice goes from too-quiet to too-loud with no interlude. It’s a fantastic show, but the listening experience both in headphones and external speakers, is poor.
Wannabe Woke
Trying way to hard to be “woke” and only catering to the racial narrative
Laziest journalism ever
Decent narration but you do an episode on fighting in hockey and you choose to rehash the Derek Boogard story?? I believe this case has been well covered, no? A writer for the NY Times wrote a mediocre book about it that was a bestseller. This is a polarizing and exhaustive topic, and one that deserves to be treated with care.
Instead we get the one story everybody has heard already. I think the topic, and your audience deserves better. Way to phone it in.
Why don’t go out on a limb and cover the Theranos story next episode?
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