Creative Arts Emerge in Afghanistan
Billie
His favorite pieces are the ones he painted of his family — his grandmother's
well-worn face, his father's worried eyes, his mother's gentle smile.
But those portraits remained hidden in his home for years, where Sayed Ahmed
Zabir worked in secret because the fundamentalist Taliban rulers believed human
images were unholy.
"When I saw the difficulties of my people, I wanted to show the world what was
happening through my paintings. I wanted to show my work publicly but I could
not," said the 25-year-old newly hired art teacher. "Now I can do what I want."
In the six months since the ruling Taliban were ousted from power, the creative
arts scene in Afghanistan has emerged with all the pent-up energy of its
long-frustrated artists.
Music, painting and films are seeing a slow rebirth as a nation starved of its
culture, and art begins the slow process of reclaiming its creative birthright.
"Artists are free now. People are looking for a way to express themselves,
their ideas, their feelings. Under the Taliban, we did not have that right,"
said Mohammed Hashem, 38, who heads the Ghlam Mohammed Miuminagi Art Center,
Kabul's main government-funded non-university art school.
The free art classes offered by Hashem's center since January have been deluged
by budding artists. Enrollment has exploded to 270 pupils — most joining in
the last two months alone — and he expects many more. Zabir is one of the 18
teachers hired to meet the demand.
The sounds of music, once illegal, now fill the streets, blaring from radios
and boom boxes — the traditional rhythms of Dari and Pashtun music mixed with
the high-pitched exuberance of Indian film music. Pirated films from Pakistan,
Iran and India sold on sidewalks draw huge crowds of people at all hours of the
day.
During their reign, the Taliban banned music, television, movies and theater.
Photography, painting, sculpture — anything that depicted images of humans or
animals — was prohibited by the Taliban, whose stern interpretation of the
Quran viewed them as idolatrous.
In the final year of their rule, the Taliban went on a destructive cultural
rampage, ransacking antiquities salvaged from the historic Kabul Museum that
had been hidden in the Culture Ministry's storeroom and tearing up paintings
from the National Gallery.
More than 2,000 pieces — from turn-of-the-century portraits of Afghan royalty
to sandstone carvings of ancient kings — were smashed into piles of rubble or
torn into a collage of canvas.
The two-month cultural assault began in February 2001 as crews of Taliban
workers, armed with hammers and axes, were sent to destroy much of the nation's
cultural heirlooms.
The attacks included the desecration that drew the greatest international
condemnation — the destruction of two giant Buddha statues carved into the
cliffs in the central highlands of Bamiyan west of Kabul.
Even more pieces might have been lost had it not been for Hashem, a curator at
the time for the National Gallery, and his two colleagues.
By the time the Taliban came looking to destroy what it saw as unholy art, the
gallery had already lost about 200 of its 800 pieces to ransacking and looting
during its civil wars in the early 1990s.
But the Taliban were more methodic in their mission: tearing up, burning or
taking away more than 400 pieces.
Furious at the wanton destruction, Hashem came up with the idea to disguise the
remaining works, painting over the oil pieces with watercolor images of nature
— mountains, lakes and trees that did not offend the Taliban's sensitivities.
"We knew if they caught us, they would put us in jail or punish us. But it was
my responsibility. I had a small opportunity and I used it. I was not afraid.
Whether they caught us or not, I had to do this," Hashem said.
Working for weeks on end, the three men's daring rescue mission saved some 80
pieces from sure destruction.
"You must understand, a painting is like a child to an artist. It is like a
son, so he must care for it like a son, Hashem said. "Some of these paintings
are more than 100 years old. If they were lost, there would be nothing left of
those who had died."
After the Taliban left, the gallery staff removed the watercolors carefully,
revealing the undamaged oil paintings underneath.
Still, there is value in remembering the destruction left behind by the
Taliban, said National Gallery director Sabera Rahmani.
One large room of the gallery has been reserved for the piled up mounds of
broken frames and torn up canvases — most of them shredded portraits —
standing in mute testimony.
"We have decided to place this under glass and show people what the Taliban did
— how they destroyed the pride of the country," she said.
The treasures of the past must not be forgotten, but the focus for
Afghanistan's creative arts lies with its younger generation, Hashem said.
The government's Ministry of Information and Culture supports that goal,
providing all the funding for the school's 18 teachers, as well as its art
materials — including paint, brushes, canvas, and paper.
"I took those risks for the future generation," Hashem said, referring to his
decision to save the paintings. From his second-story office, he can look down
onto the sunlit courtyard compound of his art center.
On a recent morning, a handful of young artists carefully wielded chalk
pencils, their heads bent intently over their work.
Teacher Mahmed Emal Miakhil talked animatedly about the basics of line, shadow,
and perspective as his five students sketched a subject once forbidden by the
ruling Taliban — his face.
In the small light-filled room next door, Zabir was teaching another set of
students the basics of brush strokes.
Watching the classes in action, Hashem smiled with satisfaction: "We have a
free hand to teach what we know."
"STUPIDITY IS NOT A HANDICAP. Park elsewhere!"
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