To mark one yr for the reason that Taliban takeover of Kabul, and in solidarity with the folks of Afghanistan, a competition of kite flying, storytelling, music, poetry and dance can be launched throughout the UK and Europe on 20 August.
Fly With Me is a free competition organised by Afghan artists and Good Likelihood Theatre that can be held throughout 16 areas within the UK and Europe. Contributors will be capable to participate in kite-making and storytelling workshops and are available collectively for a kite-flying celebration.
“In Afghanistan, kites occupy a singular house between nationwide artwork kind and nationwide sport. They’re a common image of expression, talent and cultural delight,” says Sanjar Qiam, a grasp kite-maker and Afghan refugee based mostly within the UK who is likely one of the co-organisers of the Fly With Me competition.
“Fly With Me is an act of solidarity with the folks of Afghanistan and a possibility for all of us to come back collectively and really feel between our fingers the strings that join us to this unbelievable nation, its tradition and its folks,” says Qiam.
The competition orgnisers are additionally calling on the UK authorities to deal with all folks in search of asylum pretty and equally and to deal with Afghan refugees with the identical respect and open heartedness proven to refugees from Ukraine.
Afghanistan, one yr on
On 15 August, 2021, two weeks previous to the deliberate withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan and after months of intense preventing between the Afghan military and Taliban forces, the conflict got here to an abrupt finish as information unfold that the president, Ashraf Ghani, had fled the nation. The Taliban fighters entered Kabul with out going through a lot resistance and shortly after they introduced that they had been the brand new rulers of the nation.
The swift takeover sparked panic throughout Afghanistan, particularly amongst those that had spent years working with Western allies, together with Afghan artists and cultural figures. Tens of hundreds of Afghans scrambled to desperately discover a approach in a foreign country in an effort to flee persecution by the hands of Taliban. Nonetheless, solely a fraction of these in peril made it out.
This portray titled In Search of Peace (2022) has been created in secret by a distinguished Afghan artist who has been left behind in Afghanistan regardless of over a decade of collaboration with Western allies. With the colors of Afghanistan’s flag within the background, the artist reveals coated and bare figures with their faces in panic, screaming and with out order to precise the chaotic feeling throughout the nation.
A restricted variety of artists and cultural figures had been granted entry onto the evacuation flights in a foreign country. The bulk travelled to France whose artwork neighborhood rallied behind the artists and pressured the native authorities to supply help. As arts was largely not recognised by Western allies as a discipline that positioned lives in danger, artists, together with controversial visible artists, musicians, college lecturers, well-known actors and administrators had been left behind. With the recollections of how they had been crushed, tortured and killed over the past Taliban rule nonetheless contemporary of their minds, many artists destroyed their paintings, buried musical devices and went into hiding to keep away from detection and punishment for his or her work and for collaborating with “infidels”. The Artwork Newspaper printed the collection “Dispatches from Afghanistan” the place artists shared their experiences for the reason that rise of the Taliban.
Hopeless, in peril and futureless, a gaggle of distinguished Afghan artists and cultural figures penned an open letter to key world leaders in December 2021 pleading to be rescued. Artwork advocates and activists labored tirelessly to deliver consideration to their plight and to persuade the UK authorities and different Western allies to assist evacuate these in peril, however to no avail.
As murals and indicators of the humanities had been eliminated by the Taliban from public view, cultural heritage advocates started to boost alarm bells about unlawful excavations and lootings within the Bamiyan Valley, listed as a Unesco World Heritage in Hazard in 2003, with some consultants warning that the actions might trigger the dear cliff to break down.
Underneath strain, the Taliban, who’ve been making an attempt to current themselves as a modified and fashionable group, halted excavations near the cliff, which as soon as housed the sixth- and seventh-century Buddha statues earlier than they had been destroyed by the Taliban in 2001. Nonetheless, the brand new Taliban authorities has no oversight physique put in place to implement legal guidelines and restrictions that had been launched to safeguard the valley and its treasures. Because of this, the world that was as soon as closely protected is subjected to unlawful constructions and actions that proceed to threaten to wreck the location.
The primary actual take a look at of Taliban’s governance got here in June 2022 when a strong earthquake devastated numerous villages in japanese Afghanistan, killing greater than a 1,000 folks and injuring hundreds extra. The brand new authorities was gradual and chaotic in its preliminary response. Efforts had been lastly stepped up as worldwide support companies stepped in to help. Whether or not any archaeological websites had been broken in the course of the quake stays unknown.
An unsure future
Because the Taliban tightened its grip within the nation, positive aspects that had been made through the years, particularly in girls’s rights and freedom of expression have been rolled again. Universities have banned music and sculpting. Each departments have been dismantled and their college students have been pressured to maneuver to different artwork departments similar to graphics. Girls are ordered to put on unfastened and lengthy black garments when on campus. Artwork lecturers and instructors are warned in opposition to together with human figures of their syllabus or else face punishment and artwork college students stay in limbo as to what kind of future they’ll have in a rustic that has all however banned the humanities.
In current months Germany has taken steps to avoid wasting Afghan arts and tradition by granting entry to plenty of Afghan artists and cultural figures from a variety of backgrounds, with the promise to do extra in coming months. Nonetheless, the acceptance process stays a thriller and seems to depend on suggestions by trusted teams or people with hyperlinks to the overseas ministry. Afghan artists themselves are unable to contact anybody to current their instances. Nonetheless, the efforts are welcome as Germany seems to be the one nation who’s presently offering any help to Afghanistan’s artwork neighborhood.
Sanjar Qiam with a gaggle of youngsters, getting ready for the Fly With Me competition Courtesy of Good Likelihood Theatre
With the US, UK and different Western governments nonetheless refusing to formally recognise the Taliban’s authorities, Afghanistan, which relied on overseas support for about 80 % of its authorities spending, stays remoted amidst of one of many worst humanitarian crises on this planet.
“By making and flying kites within the Afghan custom, led by Afghans who’ve made new lives in Europe, and open to all, we can be standing in solidarity with Afghans within the newest affront to their freedom and can remind the world of the devastating humanitarian disaster nonetheless happening in Afghanistan as we speak,” say Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson, the co-artistic administrators at Good Likelihood Theatre.
• For extra particulars about Fly With Me and how one can assist or take part go to the web site
