by Tim Bonyhady
CHAPTER 24
The Enduring Image
I accessed the photos by Steele-Perkins on the Magnum site on the internet. For the Taliban’s conquest of Herat and the work of Mashal, see Age, 13 April 1996. The prime collection of portraits of the Taliban is Thomas Dworzak, Taliban, Trolley, London, 2003. For the bonfire of movies in Kabul, see CCA Newsletter: Department of Human Rights, October 1996, p. 8. For the reopening of the National Gallery and the overpainting of some of the pictures, see AP, AFP and Reuters, 17 February 2000. For Asefi’s removal of the overpainting, see Independent, 15 December 2001, p. 15; Toronto Star, 15 December 2001; NYT, 13 January 2002. For Miragha Hashemi, see AP, 25 June 2002. The South China Post reported about photographers on 29 August 1999. For the amputations in Lashkargar, see AP, 7 March 1995; AFP, 8 March 1995. For the execution in Khost, see AFP and AP, 10 February 1996; Times of India, 12 February 1996. For Robert Nickelsberg, see Hannah Bloch, ‘Q&A: Robert Nickelsberg on a Distant War’, Proof, 16 December 2013. For Ed Grazda, see his Afghanistan Diary 1992–2000, Powerhouse, NY, 2000, p. 52. On Kandahar, see Mohsen Makhmalbaf. ‘Limbs of No Body: The World’s Indifference to the Afghan Tragedy’, Monthly Review, November 2001; Pazira, Red Flowers. For the initial response to it, see AFP, 11 May 2001; Orange County Register, 12 May 2001; Daily Telegraph, London, 22 May 2001; The Nation, 18 June 2001. Harriet Logan’s photographs were first published by the Sunday Times Magazine, 22 February 1998. She discussed this trip in an interview with Bedales school and in her Unveiled, p. xiii. For the Taliban wanting television to resume, see AFP, 8 February 1997. The special issue of Elle appeared on 30 April 2001. For the Taliban’s attempt at systematic attack on television sets, see NYT, 10 July 1998; AFP, 30 July 1998.
CHAPTER 25
Protectors and Breakers of Idols
For looting when the Taliban came to power, see Independent on Sunday, 24 March 1996. Robert Kluijver wrote in the Art Newspaper, June 2001, p. 7, and ‘How the Collection of the National Museum of Afghanistan Survived the Civil War and the Looting, 1992–2001’, 2013. For the opening at the museum, see AFP, 22 August 2000; Kate Clark, ‘Flash from the Past: Afghanistan Independence Day 2001, 2000’, Afghanistan Analysts Network, 18 August 2011. Gannon wrote about the slapping of the Bodhisattva for AP, 22 March 2001, and in her I Is for Infidel: From Holy War to Holy Terror, Public Affairs, Washington, 2005. Grissmann’s earlier account is ‘More on the Kabul Museum’, October 2000, in the SPACH Newsletter. For the museum under the communists, see Afghanistan Today, no. 1, January–February 1988, p. 28. On the destruction of the Buddhas, see Finbarr Barry Flood, ‘Between Cult and Culture: Bamiyan, Islamic Iconoclasm and the Museum’, Art Bulletin, vol. 84, no. 4, December 2002, pp. 641–59. For shooting practice, see Kitchener-Waterloo Record, 16 March 2002. For the invitation to CNN, see AFP, 31 January 2000. For al-Jazeera and its filming of bin Laden at his son’s wedding, see AFP, 10 January 2001; ‘The Courting of al-Jazeera’, TBS: Arab Media and Society, no. 7, fall/winter 2001. John F. Burns wrote about Amir Shah in Histories are Mirrors: The Path of Conflict through Afghanistan and Iraq, Umbrage, New York, 2004. Juliette van Krieken wrote about the Bactrian gold being safe in the IIAS Newsletter, no. 27, March 2002. For a key account of the museum and the gold, see Carla Grissmann, ‘The Kabul Museum: Its Turbulent Years’, in Juliette van Krieken-Pieters (ed.), Art and Archaeology of Afghanistan: Its Fall and Survival, Brill, Leiden, 2006, ch. 4. For the exhibition, see Fredrik Herbert & Pierre Cambon (eds), Afghanistan: Hidden Treasures from the National Museum, Kabul, National Geographic, Washington, 2008. For the profits from the show, see NYT, 6 June 2007. For Ameruddin Askerzai, see Telegraph, 3 November 2003; Economist, 18 December 2003; Wall Street Journal, 12 August 2009. For Najibullah Popal, see Guardian, 5 May 2016.
CHAPTER 26
Shocking Footage
Najibullah’s execution was in the Observer, 29 September 1996, pp. 1, 17, discussed by John Taylor in Body Horror: Photojournalism, Catastrophe and War, Manchester UP, Manchester, 1998, p. 79. For hangings by crane, see AP, 10 February 1998; 8 August 2001. For the stadium as a battleground, see AFP, 19 January 1994. For executions at the Amani High School, see Guardian, 19 December 1996, p. 2; NYT, 19 December 1996, p. 3. For Mullah Niazi on public punishments, see AFP and UPI, 27 February 1998. For the Taliban’s punishment of sodomy, see Cole, ‘The Taliban, Women and the Hegelian Private Sphere’, pp. 139–40. For Jason Burke on the half an hour, see Independent, 15 August 1998. For spectators’ responses to the punishments, see AP, 27 March 1998; 21 May 1999; Independent, 4 August 2001. For theft of bicycles, see AFP, 15 October 1999. For refusal to pray, see Tageszeitung, Berlin, 27 July 2000; AFP, 6 September 2000. For RAWA’s photography of public punishments, see Payam-e-Zan, no. 49, July 1998; Zoya, Zoya’s Story: An Afghan Woman’s Battle for Freedom, HarperCollins, New York, 2002, ch. 13. For the video of the stoning in Iran, see AFP, 29 January 1998; Mirror, 31 January 1998. For Zarmeena’s execution, see AFP and AP, 16 November 1999; and Jason Burke in Observer, 21 November 1999; London Review of Books, 22 March 2001. See, further, Anne E. Brodsky, With All Our Strength: The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, Routledge, New York, 2004, pp. 13–20. For the media’s refusal to show the footage because it was ‘very shocking’, see New Internationalist, January–February 2004, pp. 17–19. For the making of Beneath the Veil, see Saira Shah, The Storyteller’s Daughter, Michael Joseph, London, 2003. For responses to Beneath the Veil, see Daily Express, Guardian, Times, 27 June 2001; News of the World, 1 July 2001.
CHAPTER 27
The Famed Shot
Larry King talked about ‘the famed shot’ on CNN, 26 December 2001. For bin Laden requiring Jouvenal to use his own camera, see Loyn, Frontline, p. 289. For W. J. T. Mitchell, see his Cloning Terror: The War of Images, 9/11 to the Present, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2011. For the Retort group, see Iain Boal et al., Afflicted Powers: Capital and Spectacle in a New Age of War, Verso, London, 2005. The exhibition at the Linden was Lebensbaum und Kalaschnikow. For Kandahar, see Kamran Rastegar, ‘Global Frames on Afghanistan: The Iranian Meditation on Afghanistan in International Art-House Cinema after September 11, 2001’, in Zubeda Jalalzai & David Jeffries (eds), Globalizing Afghanistan: Terrorism, War and the Rhetoric of Nation Building, Chapel Hill, Duke University Press, 2011, pp. 145–164. For Tyler Hicks’s photographs, see New York Times, 12, 13 November 2001. Hicks was quoted by the Daily Mirror and the Sun, 16 November 2001. See, further, Barbie Zelizer, ‘Death in Wartime: Photographs and the “Other War” in Afghanistan’, Press/Politics, vol. 10, 2005, pp. 26–55. For images of Massoud, see Whitney Azoy, ‘Masood’s Parade: Iconography, Revitalisation and Ethnicity in Afghanistan’, Expedition, vol. 45, no. 1, 2003, pp. 39–45. For the screening of Uruj, see The Times, 20 November 2001. For Tom Ford on Karzai, see Chicago Tribune, 31 January 2002. For Noor Sher’s dress, see Omar, A Fort of Nine Towers, p. 45. For Hamid Karzai’s outfits, see William Vogelsang, ‘Dressing for the Future in Ancient Garb: The Use of Clothes in Afghan Politics’, Khil’a, 2005, vol. 1, pp. 123–38. For the British Museum acquiring a chapan, see Telegraph, 21 April 2015. For Zinat Karzai, see BBC, 10 March 2005; AP, 9 March 2009.
CHAPTER 28
The Ghazi
For the new year celebration, see Boston Globe, 22 March 2002, p. A24. For the commemoration of Massoud, see NPR, 9 September 2002; Washington Post, 10 September 2002. The Scottish Daily Record wrote about the stadium on 15 November 2001. Scott Simon of NPR discussed it on 26 February 2002. For Azar Nafisi, see NPR, 18 July 2005. For Robina Muqimyar Jalali, see Time, 29 July 2010. Anton Antonowicz wrote about Zarmeena in the Mirror, 19 June 2002; 6 August 2002. For Khaled Hosseini on 9/11, see San Francisco Chronicle, 8 June 2003; on Zarmeena’s execution, see Radio Free Europe, 22 May 2007; Denver Post, 15 July 2007. John F. Burns wrote about the stoning in NYT, 3 November 1996; Jonathon Steele in Guardian, 7 November 1996. For the Game of Unity, see The Times, 16 February 2002. For how blood had either contaminated or fed
the grass of the stadium, see Reuters, 13 September 2008; Virginian-Pilot, 29 May 2011. For the first new soil, see Reuters, 13 September 2008, and Dexter Filkins, ‘Death, Life and Grass in Kabul’, NYT, 24 August 2009. For the second soil, see Mark Porter of US Forces Afghanistan Public Affairs, ‘Ghazi Stadium Reflects Changes in Afghanistan’, 19 December 2011. For the execution of Najiba, see Obaid Ali, ‘Written in Ice? Protests after the Public Execution of a Woman in Parwan’, Afghanistan Analysts Network, 17 July 2012. Brun’s photographs appeared in Elle, 30 April 2001, and Logan’s Unveiled. For McMaster showing the photograph to Donald Trump, see Washington Post, 21 August 2017. For its place on the internet, see David Bernsen, ‘Prüfung historischer Bildquellen. Beispiel: Foto aus Kabul von 1972?’ 12 October 2015; Rossalyn Warren, ‘Are Old Photos of “Westernised” Women Driving Trump’s Foreign Policy?’, Guardian, 24 August 2017.
ILLUSTRATIONS
Bieber Studio, ‘Queen Soruya’, 1928, from the author’s collection.
Andrew Wilson, ‘Miss Afghanistan’, 1959, from Wilson’s North from Kabul, 1961.
Unidentified photographer, ‘Steps Forward: The First Women Medical Students in Afghanistan History Attend Mixed Classes at Kabul University’, 1962, from the author’s collection.
Unidentified photographer, ‘The New Women of Afghanistan: Old Women and Young Girls Work Side by Side in the Kabul Printing House, a Government Agency’, 1962, from the author’s collection.
Mohsen, ‘Ghazi King Amanullah’, c. 1969, from the author’s collection.
John Downing, ‘John Lennon at the London Launch of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’, 1968, Hulton Archive, Getty Images.
Laurence Brun, ‘Kabul, Shahr-e Naw, September 1972’, 1972, Gamma-Rapho, Getty Images.
Laurence Brun, ‘Kabul, May 1st, 1972’, 1972, Gamma-Rapho, Getty Images.
Unidentified photographer, ‘Communist Soldiers in the Centre of Kabul Celebrate following the Saur Revolution’, 1978, from the author’s collection.
Unidentified photographer, ‘The Pul-e Charkhi Prison outside Kabul’, 1980, from the author’s collection.
Stern, 10 January 1980, from the author’s collection.
Alain Mingam, ‘Execution of a Pro-Communist Traitor in Afghanistan’, 1980, Gamma-Rapho, Getty Images.
Internal Islamic Front of Afghanistan, Red Devil, c. 1983, from the author’s collection. National Geographic, June 1985, April 2002, October 2013, from the author’s collection.
Unidentified weaver, ‘Najibullah’, design first woven in 1989, from the author’s collection.
Unidentified weaver, ‘Jacques de Maio Kalashnikov Mat’, c. 1989, from the author’s collection.
Unidentified weaver, ‘Jihad’, c. 1994, of a design first woven c. 1990, from the author’s collection.
Abd al-Hayy Pupulzay, ‘Sister! With your Islamic Covering, You Turn the Hopes of the Enemies of Islam into Disappointment’, poster published by Kumitah-i Farhangi-i Tanzim-i Khvaharan-i Musalman-i Afghanistan, c. 1992, Middle Eastern Posters Collection, Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.
B. K. Bangash, ‘Najibullah and Shahpur Ahmadzai Hung by the Taliban in Ariana Square, Kabul’, 1996, Associated Press.
Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, ‘Zarmeena’s Execution, Ghazi Stadium, Kabul’, 1999.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Since 2002, Nigel Lendon and I have pursued Afghan war rugs together. We have been friends for even longer. Without Nigel—his remarkable enthusiasm, companionship and eye for much I miss—I would not have written this book.
Many others have helped me make this book what it is. As deans of the law school of the Australian National University, where I resumed working in 2004, Michael Coper and Sally Wheeler have both been great supporters of this project, as has my dear friend, colleague and co-teacher Desmond Manderson.
A visiting fellowship at Trinity College, Cambridge was vital—providing me with a wonderful opportunity to research and write. I am hugely indebted, as so often, to Kevin Gray for securing me this fellowship and ensuring that my time at Trinity was as fulfilling as it was productive.
I have been fortunate to interview Zia Amini (Karlsruhe), Luca Brancati (Turin), Robert Cadry (Sydney), Reto Christoffel (Steinmauer), Alexandera and Leigh Copeland (Melbourne), Richard Elliott (Sydney), Sabur Fahiz (Canberra), Masoud Farhatjar (Freiburg im Breisgau), Ray Hughes (Sydney), Friedrich Langauer (Vienna), Parwiz Paiwand (Toronto), Peter Renz (Schramberg), Ahmad Shah Siddiqi (Canberra), Ron Stewart (London) and Kevin Sudeith (New York). Tom Cole (San Francisco), R. Neil Reynolds (Alexandria, Virginia), Chris Steele-Perkins (London) and Abdul Tawab and Hajji Sufi Abdul Wahid (Islamabad) responded generously to my requests for information. I have also benefitted from the expertise of Max Allen (Toronto), Till Ansgar Baumhauer (Dresden), Paul Bücherer-Dietschi (Bubendor), Jürgen Wasim Frembgen (Munich), Nicola Müllerschön (Berlin), Maryam Rashidi (Canberra), Tony Street, Nicholas Thomas and Emma Widdis (Cambridge).
Bain Attwood, Bruce, Eric and Rae Bonyhady, Roger Butler, Peter Christoff, Helen Ennis, Willameena Gentle, Pam McGrath, Humphrey McQueen, Helen Rechter, Andrew Sayers, Nat Williams and Claire Young have supported me and enhanced this book in many different ways.
Mary Cunnane, my agent, is one of the wisest of counsels about writing and publishing. Jane Pearson, at Text, is a fabulous editor. As she did with my Enchantment of the Long-haired Rat, Jane has shaped, sharpened and strengthened my words and ideas with exceptional skill.
My partner Nicole Moore and sons Nicholas Bonyhady and Ned Moore Bonyhady have done most. Nicole has lived with this book with particular intensity. It is a product of her love and tolerance. The trip that we made togther in 2008 to Moscow so I could research there remains especially memorable—one of the great things that we have done together. As the years go by, I wonder at how Nicko and Ned sustain me and make my life ever richer.
Tim Bonyhady is one of Australia’s foremost cultural and environmental historians. He has curated two exhibitions of Afghan war rugs: The Rugs of War and I Weave What I Have Seen. His many books include the award-winning Good Living Street, The Colonial Earth and The Enchantment of the Long-haired Rat.
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