Two Afternoons in the Kabul Stadium

by Tim Bonyhady

  CHAPTER 3

  Gone with the Wind

  For Nehru in Kabul, see NYT, 20 September 1959, p. 14. For Teachers’ Day and the play at the Women’s Welfare Association, see Afghanistan News, December 1959, pp. 12–13, 21. For Mahbuba Musa, see Morning Record, Meriden-Wallingford, Connecticut, 3 August 1970. For the play at the Women’s Welfare Association, see Andrew Wilson, North from Kabul, George Allen & Unwin, London, 1961, pp. 107–8. Louis Dupree’s ‘The Burqa Comes Off’ was in American Universities Field Staff Reports, 1959. Wilson wrote abut the unveiling in North from Kabul, esp. pp. 47–8, 101–2, 106–7, 182–3. Charles Beardsley’s story is in his book, The Naked Hills: Some Tales of Afghanistan, Davies, London, 1959. The Streits’ feature was in the NYT, Sunday Magazine, 9 November 1959. Afghanistan News published photographs of unveiled Afghan women in September 1959, pp. 8–9; October 1959, p. 16. It reported the unveiling in November 1959, p. 18. On Simone Shokour Wali’s Awakening, see A. A. Dzhafarova, ‘The Position of Women in Afghanistan’, Central Asian Review, 1964, p. 240. For the Kandahar protests, see Washington Post, 9 January 1960, p. B15; Wall Street Journal, 14 January 1960, p. 10. For the Kandahar riots, see Times, 29 December 1959, p. 6; 11 January 1960, p 11; 18 January 1960, p. 11; 26 January 1960, p. 8. For the Indian response to the suppression of the Kandahar protests, see Times of India, 17 January 1960, p. 8; 22 January 1960, pp. 8–9.

  CHAPTER 4

  New Women

  For Shirin Majrooh, see Delloye, Women of Afghanistan, pp. 97–8. For Jeanne Beecher, see Palm Beach Daily News, 13 March 1961, p. 3. For ‘Long live Daoud!’, see Farooka Gauhari, Searching for Saleem: An Afghan Woman’s Odyssey, University of Nebraska Press, Nebraska, 1996, p. 14. For the speeches when Daoud visited Herat, see US Foreign Broadcast Information Service Daily Report, 8 September 1960. For Shomei Tomatsu’s photographs, see his Kingdom of Mud, Asahi Sonorama, Tokyo, 1972. Chesler first wrote about her time in Kabul in Mademoiselle, June 1969, and at greater length in An American Bride in Kabul, Palgrave, New York, 2013. See Prita K. Shalizi, Here and There in Afghanistan, Department of Translation and Compilation, Kabul, 1966, esp. pp. 13, 63–4, 89–92. Louis Dupree wrote about the unveiling and the response to it in ‘The Political Uses of Religion’ in Kalman H. Silvert (ed.), Church and States: The Religious Institution and Modernization, American Universities Field Staff, New York, 1967, pp. 203–7. For segregation at the university, see Fazel Rahman Fazel, Shadow over Afghanistan, Western Book, San Mateo, 1989, p. 94; Theodore S. Gochenour, ‘A New Try for Afghanistan’, Middle East Journal, winter 1965, esp. note 29. For Islah on Daoud’s rule and the celebration by women, see Kabul Times (KT), 10 March 1963, p. 2; 12 March 1963, p. 1.

  CHAPTER 5

  Masters of their Destiny

  For Zahir Shah’s ‘playboy youth’, see Robert Fisk in the Independent, 24 July 2007. For women at the loyah jirga in 1964, see ‘The Draft Constitution of Afghanistan’, Islamic Review, March 1965, pp. 26–29. For Queen Humaira in the US, see St Joseph’s News Press, 13 September 1963. For Donald Wilber’s estimate, see his Afghanistan: Its People, Its Society, Its Culture, HR AF Press, New Haven, 1962, pp. 200–1. For Kubra Noorzai, see esp. KT, 20 December 1965, p. 3. For Anahita Ratibzad’s speech, see KT, 8 November 1965, p. 2. D. R. Goyal wrote about Ratibzad in Afghanistan: Behind the Smoke Screen, Ajanta, Delhi, 1984. On Ratibzad and much else, see also Nancy Hatch Dupree, ‘Revolutionary Rhetoric and Afghan Women’, in M. Nazif Sharani & Robert L. Canfield (eds), Revolutions and Rebellions in Afghanistan: Anthropological Perspectives, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1984, ch. 14. For the fight over school uniforms, see Mohammad Anwar Khan, ‘The Emergence of Religious Parties in Afghanistan’, in Fazalur-Rahim Marwat & Sayed Wiqar Ali Shah Kakakhel (eds), Afghanistan and the Frontier, Emjay, Peshawar, 1993, pp. 4–5; Asta Olesen, Islam and Politics in Afghanistan, Curzon, Richmond, 1995, p. 21. For the assault, see Nabi Misdaq, Afghanistan: Political Frailty and External Interference, Routledge, London, 2008, p. 102. On the cartoon, see Louis Dupree, Afghanistan, Princeton UP, Princeton, 1973, p. 615.

  CHAPTER 6

  The Nixon Bazaar

  For Chatwin, see Nicholas Shakespeare, Bruce Chatwin, Nan A. Talese, New York, 2000, pp. 157–8, 283; Elizabeth Chatwin & Nicholas Shakespeare (eds), Under the Sun: The Letters of Bruce Chatwin, Jonathan Cape, London, 2010, p. 52. Life published ‘Afghans go American’ on 23 September 1946. For Edward Hunter’s encounter in the Kabul Hotel, see Evening Independent, St Petersburg, 11 May 1958. For the 1956 fair, see David Cort, Is There an American in the House?, Macmillan, New York, 1960, pp. 145–50; Hunter, The Past Present, pp. 43–61; Jack Masey & Conway Lloyd Morgan, Cold War Confrontations: US Exhibitions and their Role in the Cultural Cold War, Lars Müller, Zurich, 2010. Mohammad Maiwandwal discussed the used-clothes trade in Current Problems in Afghanistan, Princeton University, 1961, p. 123. For the protests against Spiro Agnew, see NYT, 7 January 1970, p. 12. Michener wrote ‘Afghanistan: Domain of the Fierce and the Free’, Reader’s Digest, November 1955, p. 164. The Canadian response to the bazaar is in B. Northgrave, ‘Used Clothing’, Foreign Trade, vol. 132, no. 4, 16 August 1969, pp. 12–14. Masatoshi Konishi wrote about the bazaar in his Afghanistan, Kodansha, Tokyo, 1969, p. 61. Louis Dupree wrote about the appetite for uniforms in ‘Aq Kupruk: A Town in Northern Afghanistan’, American Universities Field Studies Reports, vol. 10, no. 9, November 1966, p. 16; Afghanistan, pp. 241–2. The Guardian featured the bazaar on 27 October 1978, p. 11. On the grading of American used clothes, see NYT, 15 July 1972, p. 2. For the criticism in the Anis of the second-hand clothes trade, see KT, 1 March 1970, p. 1, and, further, 15 April 1970, p. 2; 1 November 1970, p. 3; 24 February 1973, p. 3.

  CHAPTER 7

  Golden Afghans

  For Noor Sher and his store, see James Opie, ‘Learning from a Master Dealer: A. W. Noor Sher’, on Opie’s website. Gordon R. Williamson was the IBM manager who bought weaponry. See his Memoirs of my Years with IBM 1951–1986, Xlibris, 2009, p. 73. On the sale of Winchesters, and copies of jezails, see NYT, 9 July 1972, p. 15. For the show at the Metropolitan, see Richard Ettinghausen, ‘Islamic Carpets: The Joseph V. A. McMullan Collection’, Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, vol. 28, 1970, esp. p. 402. For the export limits on weaponry, see KT, 16 March 1971, p. 3. For Haq Murad and Golden Afghans, see KT, 4 September 1968, p. 1; 12 November 1968, p. 3; 18 February 1969, p. 2; 4 March 1969, p. 3; 31 October 1971, p. 1; George W. O’Bannon, The Turkoman Carpet, Duckworth, pp. 72–9, 90, 147. For Murray L. Eiland, see his Oriental Rugs: A Comprehensive Guide, New York Graphic Society, Boston, revised ed., 1976, pp. 12, 83. George W. O’Bannon wrote ‘Baluch Rugs from Afghanistan: Aksi Rugs’, Hali, vol. 5, no. 2, 1982. For Najiba, see KT, 1 September 1969, pp. 3–4; 7 September 1970, p. 3; 30 September 1972, p. 4.

  CHAPTER 8

  Flower Power

  Maynard Owen Williams wrote ‘Back to Afghanistan’, National Geographic, November 1946, pp. 541, 546. Sylvia Matheson wrote in Time off to Dig, pp. 36–7. Oliver Rudston de Baer wrote in Afghan Interlude, Chatto & Windus, London, 1957, p. 189. On tourism to Afghanistan, see Erwin Grötzbach, ‘Der Ausländertourismus in Afghanistan bis 1979’, Erdkunde, vol. 37, 1983, pp. 146–59. J. C. E. Bowen wrote about hippies in ‘The Khyber Restaurant, Kabul’, Contemporary Review, vol. 252, February 1988, p. 93. For Jimi Hendrix, see Chris Welch, Hendrix: A Biography, Flash Books, New York, 1973, p. 22. For a defence of hippies, see KT, 8 February 1973, p. 3. Waleh wrote about hippies in KT, 6 July 1968, p. 3; Tony Wheeler in Across Asia on the Cheap, Lonely Planet, Melbourne, 1973, p. 172. Chatwin expressed his hatred in his introduction to the 1981 Picador edition of Robert Byron’s The Road to Oxiana. For Richard Neville, see his Play Power, Cape, London, 1970, p. 214. The pustincha was in Life, 26 July 1968; Harper’s Bazaar, August 1968; Look, 17 September 1968; Australian Women’s Weekly, 25 September 1968; Vogue, 1 November 1969. The NYT wrote about Americans going ‘ga-ga’ on 30 September 1969, p. 50. Michael Lawrence wrote about the pustinch
a in Jim and I: Jim Morrison and other Friends, Blackbird, 2003, p. 165. Eleanor Lambert wrote in World of Fashion, Bowker, New York, 1976, p. 24. For the smell, see Judith Thurmann, ‘Swann Song’, New Yorker, 18 March 2002. For tanning in Afghanistan, see KT, 13 March 1971, p. 3; 18 May 1971, p. 3; 3 July 1971, p. 1. For ‘I wear one’, see KT, 27 January 1973, p. 2. The Ronald Searle drawing was on the cover of the New Yorker on 17 April 1971. For ‘such designs can’t be embroidered’, see KT, 7 November 1967, p. 3. For the campaign for national dress, see KT, 29 April 1970, p. 2. For Safia Tarzi, see Montreal Gazette, 15 July 1957, p. 14; Schenectady Gazette, 17 March 1958, p. 7; Vogue, 15 January 1968, p. 70; July 1968, p. 111. For the making of pustinchas in Kabul, see KT, 3 February 1968, p. 3; 30 September 1968, p. 3; 18 May 1970, pp. 3–4. For ‘everybody remembers’, see NYT, 18 January 1971, p. 58.

  CHAPTER 9

  The Miniskirt Craze

  For the miniskirt’s arrival in Kabul, see KT, 26 June 1967, p. 3; 6 May 1968, p. 3. For the photograph of Safia Tarzi, see KT, 2 December 1968, p. 3. For the uniform for female university students, see KT, 24 April 1968, p. 2; 29 April 1968, p. 3; 30 April 1968, p. 2; 1 May 1968, p. 2. For Suraya Sadeed, see her Forbidden Lessons in a Kabul Guesthouse, written with Damien Lewis, Virago, 2011. For Mahbuba Musa, see Morning Record, 3 August 1970; KT, 2 November 1970, p. 3. Eve Arnold recalled her visit in Eve Arnold: In Retrospect, Knopf, New York, 1997, pp. 133–7. ‘The Seven Veils of Islam’ was in the Sunday Times Magazine, 1 November 1970. For the dress of female students in the Sharia faculty, see KT, 23 April 1970, p. 3. For the reception of Rozegaran, see KT, 10 September 1970, p. 2. For the parliamentary response to Mahmoud Habibi, see Mohammad Anwar Khan, ‘The Third Afghan Constitution: Part XIII’, Central Asia, no. 17, 1985, pp. 1–19; Fazal-Ur-Rahim Marwat, The Evolution and Growth of Communism in Afghanistan, Karachi, Royal Book, 1997, p. 339. On the King’s alleged mistresses, see cable from Ambassador Neumann to Washington, 29 December 1970; Robert D. Crews, Afghan Modern: The History of a Global Nation, Harvard UP, Harvard, 2015, p. 264. On the screening of Khuda Nest and related controversies, see David B. Edwards, Before Taliban: Genealogies of the Afghan Jihad, University of California Press, Berkeley, 2002, pp. 204–9. For the protests at the Pul-e Khishti mosque and their aftermath, see KT, 30 May 1970, p. 1; 31 May 1970, p. 2; 1 June 1970, p. 1; 2 June 1970, p. 2. On the Whacking Battalion, see Gauhari, p. 52. For the American Embassy in Kabul on Maoists, see its declassified cable, ‘The Afghan Left’, 22 May 1973. For the acid attacks, see KT, 25 April 1970, p. 1; 27 April 1970, p. 2; 2 May 1970, p. 2; Paul Fitzgerald & Elizabeth Gould, Invisible History: Afghanistan’s Untold Story, City Lights, San Francisco, 2009, pp. 114–15. For the Twenty-Five Hour Club, see KT, 31 March 1970, p. 3; Montreal Gazette, 1 August 1970, p. 26. For the parliamentary response to the acid attacks, see KT, 13 July 1971, p. 2. For Gul Mohammad, see KT, 8 October 1970, p. 3; 10 October 1970, p. 3; 16 October 1970, p. 3; 12 December 1970, p. 3; 1 January 1971, p. 3; 15 February 1971, p. 3; 22 January 1972, p. 3. For ‘Give him to us!’ and much else, see Louis Dupree, ‘A Note on Afghanistan 1971’, American Universities Field Staff Reports, 1971, pp. 15–18. For a hanging in Kabul in 1970, and its photography, see ‘Als in Kabul Hippies tanzten’, Spiegel, 4 February 2009. For the International Club, see Kathleen Trautman’s Spies Behind the Pillars, Bandits at the Pass, McKay, New York, 1972, pp. 86–8. For ‘strip-tease shows’, see KT, 8 June 1971, p. 3. Erika Knabe wrote Frauen Emanzipation in Afghanistan, Hain, Maisenheim, 1977. For the response of parliamentarians, and then that of the Women’s Welfare Association. see KT, 13 July 1971, p. 1; 22 July 1971, p. 1; 16 August 1971, p. 3. For the rejection of immorality, see KT, 2 August 1971, p. 3. For Omar Sharif ’s arrival in Kabul, see KT, 19 June 1969, p. 1. For Uganda, see KT, 3 July 1972, p. 4. For unveiled women remaining under attack, see KT, 11 September 1972, p. 3. For film censorship and the response to the Sound of Music, see KT, 15 May 1971, p. 2; 20 April 1972, p. 3; 14 November 1972, p. 2. On A Mother’s Behest, otherwise called Mother’s Advice, see KT, 8 October 1973, p. 1; 9 October 1973, p. 1. For A Christmas Carol, see Eloise Hanner, Letters from Afghanistan, Branden Books, 2003, p. 71.

  CHAPTER 10

  The Artist who Did Nothing

  For the sale of embroidery in Kabul when Boetti arrived, see KT, 11 March 1971, p. 3. Annemarie Sauzeau Boetti wrote in Alighiero e Boetti: Shaman/Showman, Walter König, 2004. For postage stamps of the Buddhas, see J. Eva Meharry, ‘Politicisation of Afghanistan’s Archaeological Postage Stamps’, Smithsonian National Postage Museum blog, 10 April 2018. For Dupree on the Buddhas, see her An Historical Guide to Afghanistan, Afghan Tourist Association, Kabul, 1977, 2nd ed., p. 155. Murray Sayle recalled his visit in London Review of Books, 19 April 2001. For the roads to Bamiyan and its tourist accommodation, see Evelyn Ames, In Time Like Glass: Reflections on Journey in Asia, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1974, p. 39. One Hotel advertised in the KT from 25 March 1972, p. 4. For the supermarket see Louis Dupree & Linette Albert (eds), Afghanistan in the 1970s, Praeger, New York, 1974, p. 251. For Zarhoona Adde, see KT, 2 April 1973, p. 3. For more on Seret, see NYT, 9 February 1974, p. 35. For Oxus, see Times, 14 August 1970, p. 5; 15 June 1974, p. 12. For the Afghan postal service, see Neville, pp. 212–13. For coverage of Documenta in Kabul, see KT, 21 September 1969, p. 3. For Nigel Lendon, see his ‘A Tournament of Shadows: Alighiero Boetti, the Myth of Influence and a Contemporary Orientalism’, emaj, no. 6, 2011–12, pp. 3, 7–9. For the catalogue of the 2011–12 exhibition, see Lynne Cooke, Mark Godfrey, Christian Rattemeyer (eds), Alighiero Boetti: Game Plan, Tate, London, 2012. Amidst the vast literature on Boetti, see especially, Mark Godfrey, Alighiero e Boetti, Yale UP, New Haven, 2011.

  CHAPTER 11

  Miss Afghanistan

  For the contest in Turkey, see Ada Holland Shissler, ‘Beauty is Nothing to Be Ashamed of: Beauty Contests as Tools of Women’s Liberation in Early Republican Turkey’, Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, vol. 24, 2004, pp. 107–22. For the Pakistani competition, see Times of India, 14 June 1956, p. 7. For the photograph of Shukria Raad, see KT, 29 March 1970, p. 2. For contemporary accounts of the Afghan competition, see KT, 6 March 1972, p. 3; 13 March 1972, p. 3; 3 April 1972, p. 3; 17 April 1972, p. 3; 18 September 1972, p. 3; 19 December 1972, p. 1; 5 March 1973, p. 3; 2 April 1973, p. 3. For hot pants, see KT, 5 April 1971, p. 3. For Rahim Nawin, see Faridullah Bezhan, ‘Artist of Wonderland: Rahim Nawin and the Political Cartoon in 1960s Afghanistan’, Third Text, vol. 27, 2013, pp. 634–49; Faridullah Bezhan, ‘Tarjoman or Interpreter: The First Satirical Newspaper and the Emergence of Modern Satire in Afghanistan’, Media History, vol. 20, 2014, pp. 302–31. Laurence Brun wrote about her photographs when a selection was shown in New York’s Maya Stendahl Gallery in 2004 as part of the exhibition, Harriet Logan, Unveiled: Voices of Women in Afghanistan. For a key selection of Brun’s photographs, see Mike Barry, Afghanistan, Petite Planète, Paris, 1974. For the image of Adam and Eve, see KT, 2 May 1972, p. 2. The US Embassy sent its memo, ‘Merajuddin: Portrait of a Moslem Youth Extremist’, on 13 June 1972. That Hekmatyar did not kill Sukhandan is suggested by Chris Sands with Fazelminallah Qazizai, Night Letters: Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and the Afghan Islamists who Changed the World, Hurst, London, 2019, pp. 68–9. For Fatima Gailani’s wedding, see KT, 6 March 1973, p. 3. For Zohra Yousuf at Malalai, see KT, 18 August 1971, p. 3.

  CHAPTER 12

  Great Leader

  On the symbolism of the new flag, see KT, 9 May 1974, p. 2. James Opie wrote about his visit to Afghanistan in ‘Good Driver’ on his website. For buzkashi, see Whitney Azoy, Buzkashi: Game and Power in Afghanistan, University of Philadelphia Press, Philadelphia, 1982, esp. p. 104. For Daoud’s attempt to control painted trucks, see Louis Dupree, ‘Towards Representative Government in Afghanistan: Part II’, American Universities Field Study Reports, no. 14, 1978, pp. 6–7. For celebration of International Women’s Year, see KT, 9 March 1975, p. 1; 27 July 1975, p. 3. For celebration of the unveiling in 19
59, see KT, 25 August 1975, pp. 1–2. Nancy Hatch Dupree contradicted the usual western view of the chadari in ‘Behind the Veil in Afghanistan’, Asia, July–August 1978, pp. 10–15. Louis Dupree wrote ‘It Wasn’t Woodstock, But: The First International Rock Festival in Kabul’, American Universities Field Study Reports, South Asia Series, May 1976, vol. 20, no. 2. For UNESCO, see its Courier, August-September 1975, p. 27. Erika Knabe wrote ‘Afghan Women Does their Role Change?’ in Afghanistan in the 1970s, ch. 9; ‘Women in the Social Stratification of Afghanistan’ in C. A. O. van Nieuwenhuijze (ed.), Commoners, Climbers and Notables: A Sampler of Studies on Social Ranking in the Middle East, Brill, Leiden, 1977, pp. 329–43. Pamela Hunte wrote ‘Women and the Development Process in Afghanistan’, July 1978. Peter Brook discussed filming in Afghanistan in KT, 3 May 1977, p. 4; Margaret Croyden (ed.), Conversations with Peter Brook 1970–2000, Faber & Faber, NY, 2003, p. 128. For Noor Sher’s part, see James Opie, ‘“The Material Question”: In Afghanistan 1977’, Gurdjieff International Review; and for the antiquities trade, see Matthieu Aikins, ‘Devil’s Marble’, Sydney Morning Herald, Good Weekend, 3 April 2021, pp. 22–4. A key account of this aspect of Sarianidi’s work, and much else that followed, is his Golden Hoard of Bactria: From the Tillya-tepe Excavations in Northern Afghanistan, Abrams, New York, 1985.

  CHAPTER 13

  Red

  For amateur photographs of the Saur Revolution, see Louis Dupree, ‘Red Flag over the Hindu Kush: Part II’, American Universities Field Study Reports, no. 45, 1979, pp. 8–12. For the invitation to Kabulis to see the palace, see NYT, 4 June 1978. For trampling the Daoud portrait carpet, see Gauhari, pp. 102–3. For paintings of the Saur Revolution, see KT, 27 November 1978, p. 3. On the use of red, see Anthony Hyman, Afghanistan under Soviet Domination 1964–81, Macmillan, London, 1982, pp. 112–3. The Economist reported on 26 August 1978, p. 48. Anahita Ratibzad’s dismissal of the unveiling was reported later, in Times of India, 28 January 1980. For Setboun’s photographs, see his site on the internet. The NYT, 13 April 1979, reported Sarianidi’s finds. The quotation comes from Sarianidi’s ‘The Golden Hoard of Bactria’, National Geographic, vol. 177, March 1990, pp. 50–75. Among the many accounts of the Herat uprising, see, especially, C. P. W. Gammell, The Pearl of Khorasan, Hurst, London, 2016, pp. 289–301. R. D. Parsons discussed his departure from Afghanistan in the foreword to The Carpets of Afghanistan, Oriental Textile Press, London, 1981. ‘All the Men of Allah’ was in Corriere della Sera Illustrato, 21 July 1979. For McCurry’s first trips into Afghanistan, see Steve McCurry, Untold: The Stories behind the Photographs, Phaidon, New York, 2013, pp. 9–10, 16–25. Kaufman wrote in NYT, 14 August 1979, p. A3.