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The Texture of Time
A 19th century torba fragment, cut and shaped for use as an ok-bash
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Tom Cole, an "old Afghan hand", returned to Mazar-i Sharif in Afghanistan's northern
province of Balkh during early spring 1997, little realizing how brief the window of
opportunity for such a visit was to be. He reports for HALI on some of the realities
in a much-beloved land that for almost two decades has endured the tribulations
of revolution, invasion and civil war. |
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By Tom Cole
Oct-Dec 1998
Lemar-Aftaab
click on the photos to enlarge
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The idea of returning to Afghanistan come to me suddenly, with no
time given to contemplation or trepidation. It was ten years since I had
been to Kabul, then controlled by the Afghan communists, while their
Soviet masters wreaked havoc throughout the country, destroying an ancient
culture and lifestyle which, for all the harsh realities of environment
and traditional abuse of power in Central Asia, was not entirely
uncomfortable. It was a land that gave so much to its people.
My plan was to go to Mazar-i Sharif in the northern sector controlled
by the Uzbek warlord, General Rashid Dostum. It had been a full nineteen
years since I had visited the north. How much had things changed? What
could be found in an area now visited by few Western rug and textile
dealers?
Flights went from Peshawar in Mazar on what my Uzbek friend
Mohammed Khalid called "Dostum's planes", Balkh Airlines had no association
with any of the travel agencies in Peshawar, so I ventured across town to
the new city where I spent some time trying to locate the "airline office".
After being repeatedly misdirected, I finally stumbled upon it in the building
housing the local office of the premier national newspaper, The Muslim.
Two Pakistani manned a bare desk with two chairs for visitors: no travel
posters, no airline brochures with flight schedules, and no Afghans in
sight. They assured me a ticket could be purchased without a problem. No one
seemed interested whether I held a valid visa or by which of the
authorities claiming to represent Afghanistan it had been issued. No one
enquired about my reasons for going. No one cared about anything, just
the money. I left with a ticket of sorts in my hand -- three pieces of paper
cut into the size of a ticket and stapled together -- and high hopes for the
coming week.
Checking in at Peshawar airport (after my "scheduled" flight had
been delayed for a week) was bizarre. I had requested an aisle seat but,
without explanation, was told that all seats were aisle seats, and that this
would be a flight I would never forget.
The plane was a converted Russian military transport with benches on
either side and luggage stacked in the middle, unconstrained. We piled in,
as if boarding a country bus, I was seated shoulder to shoulder with Uzbeks,
Turkmens, Hazaras and Farsiwans (Tajiks), the principal inhabitants of Balkh
Province. The usual admonitions about seat belts and hand luggage were distant
memories as the pilot revved the propellers and we took off into the azure
sky. An Uzbek and his unshrouded wife clung to each other in fright, eyes
rolling up, lips moving silently in prayer. Another Uzbek man constantly
dabbed his brow with his unrolled turban, contorting his face in
apprehension. A modern looking Farsiwan nervously tried to engage fellow
travelers in light-hearted banter, though he was the only one
laughing. Others feigned sleep. Life is notoriously cheap in Asia,
but not to those who face the imminent prospect of losing it.
As we cleared the precipitous Hindu Kush, which had shielded the
northern steppes from the Islamic fervor of the Kabul government, the relief
was palpable: a reaction to our imminent arrival in Mazar, as well as to
leaving behind the battle-scarred territory held by the Taliban, where most
of the war has been conducted. Fear of heat-seeking SAMs lurked in the back of
my mind, though I consoled myself with the knowledge that no planes had been
lost on this flight route.
Mazar airport is small, close to the outskirts of the city. The
military presence was unobtrusive: security was tight without being abrasive, an
overriding theme of the laissez-faire (in Afghan terms) Dostum regime. Not
once did I see aggressive action by soldiers at checkpoints outside the city,
and there were none in Mazar itself. Nor did I see the young conscripts
point a weapon at anyone or raise a voice, testimony to the manner in which the
government had engaged the people's support. Dostum had long held power in
the north, first as a lackey of the communist puppet state in Kabul, later
as a mutinous opponent of the ill-fated Najibullah regime and then as a
self-anointed warlord whose portrait adorned every public building, leaving
no doubt that he considered himself to have an inalienable right to lead
northern Afghanistan.
It all looked pretty much how I remembered it. Turkmen shepherds
tended flocks of fat-tailed sheep, small camel trains ambled into the city
loaded with fodder and wool. Signs of battle were limited to a few
burned-out Russian tanks and armored personal carriers, left as reminders
of the Soviet invasion. Close to the border with former USSR, Mazar has
never experienced the shelling and mass destruction of other Afghan cities
and has always been a relatively secure place.
Mazar is the site of the most revered Islamic shrine in Afghanistan,
the Tomb of Ali around which the city is built. The Shrine dominates local
life: pilgrims from all over the region traditionally pay homage here, hands
raised in prayer as they converge from all directions. Aged and handicapped
mendicants, astrologers, purveyors of medicinal herbs, as well as widows
and orphans of the war throng the surrounding square. Oral historians
animatedly recall the glories of Islam and the teachings of the Prophet for
the illiterate masses. The fabled white pigeons thrive, nurtured by the
faithful. Life has not changed here, on the surface everything is as it
has always been.
Mazar is full of refugees from other parts of the country, now most
notably from Kabul. The rebellion in Tajikistan too has produced a sizable
refugee population, but they are confined to UN agency camps on the northern
outskirts.
I was told that the rug market had grown during the war. Before, most
goods went directly to Kabul, but the influx of refugees and uncertain road
conditions through the formidable Salang Pass have contributed to an
expanded marketplace. The main rug bazaar is adjacent to the Shrine, just
east of the city center. I had been warned in Peshawar not to expect much in
the way of carpets but the textiles were abundant and I soon found that my
hopes for a good score would not come without relentless rummaging through
the dusty piles. Only five stores out of perhaps forty prided themselves on
dealing in old rugs. I bought a beautiful and unusual Turkmen embroider in
the I wandered into for a mere 100,000 Afghanis (about $2), but rug pickings
were slim and the Lakai silk embroideries were rarely of sufficient age to
satisfy me. I had also hoped to find Tajik needlework, but saw only one piece,
which had an unappealing purple dye also used by the Lakai.
The shopkeepers were ecstatic to see a foreigner looking to buy; few
Westerners have made it to this city in the past eighteen years, though a
well known British antiques dealer had flown up from Peshawar just a few days
before me. His luck must have been better than mine.
All the carpet dealers are also engaged in the lucrative antiquities
business. Northern Afghanistan has been a culture center for thousands of
years -- from the time of the Scythians to Alexander the Great and the
Bactrian era through the Seljuk period and the zenith of Islamic civilization.
Excavation of possible sites was previously forbidden and under strict
government control. Now the people are free to dig as they please and
treasure are slowly being unearthed. The prices asked by the diggers
themselves preclude the idea that there must be bargains about. I was shown
a rusty steel axe-head engraved with the profile of a lion for which its owner
had paid $1,500 to the man who had actually taken it from the ground! I did
manage to buy a small Seljuk gold ring, for a pittance really,
considering its about seven hundred years old, but I was lucky.
Some people are getting rich
from this business, and the wealth still underground is astonishing.
It takes many forms, from antiquities to semi-precious and precious
stones (agate, lapis, tourmaline and emeralds), natural gas, oil and other
minerals. It is, of course, the gas and oil (not to mention uranium) which
tempted the Soviets, as well as the dream of building a pipeline from
Turkmenistan through Afghanistan to that coveted warm water port of
the Arabian Sea. The "Great Game" goes on.
Incredibly, it is the United States that has in effect created the
Taliban, providing ample money to buy loyalties in a push for total control
of the various ethnic groups and their lands. The war has become an
essentially ethnic struggle with the Pashtun Taliban battling Farsiwans,
Hazaras, Turkmens and Uzbeks. The stake in this game are high, alliances
fickle, and loyalty is often paid to the highest bidder, as evidenced by the
rapid chain of events which led to the fall of Dostum's regime a matter of
weeks after my visit.
The north is a country all unto itself. Dostum printed his own money
in Russia, mimicking the Kabul currency in appearance, even though there are
no banks at all in the city. Rates on the private money market, housed in
a new building known as the Kefeyat Market, fluctuated wildly depending on
the proximity of the Taliban forces; the closer they got the higher it went.
The rate had been as high as one lak (100,000) Afghanis to the dollar at
open point. I caught it on the downside, a mere 56,500 Afs(Afghanis), but
I was still a multi-millionaire; I could have lived in Mazar for the next
twenty years without a thought to earning money! But this was Dostum's money
and one wondered on what it was based.
Dollars were in high demand. In the parallel economy no Afghan
currency is accepted for imported goods. If one wants a Japanese TV
or a satellite dish made in either Iran or Pakistan (about 20% of the
population of Mazar have these), or even a Japanese thermos, one pays
in dollars. Afs are good only for food and other humble household necessities.
There is a premium on dollars in small denominations: no one wants to accept
Afs in change for a dollar purchase.
Telecommunications are handled through Uzbekistan and Russia. If one
wants to call Mazar one must first dial the Russia country code, then the
Moscow code, then the Uzbekistan country code and finally the four digit
local number. And the connection is good! The Iranians have recently installed
a new local phone system, but is far easier to make an international call than
to dial across town.
Trade with Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmanistan flourishes and it
is these traders, with their truck and transport businesses, who bring
textiles and rugs to the Mazar marketplace. I had the good fortune to meet
one them, Habibullah Dost, who had established himself in Charjui in
Turkmenistan. he remembered me from times past in Kabul and generously dined
me in the evenings, offering Uzbek textiles and a few Tekke tent bags,
through none were quite my taste. I bought a Lakai needlepoint from another
dealer who had a shop in Dushanbe, a transport business and a suitcase of
embroideries in hand. Oddly, the Kungrat style of Lakai embroidery is
shunned by these Afghan dealers. Asking about such pieces, the invariable
reply was that they knew what I was talking about, that such things are still
available from the Lakai, but that they thought no one wanted them! The allure
of silk is compelling and the Afghan traders could not understand why I would
want to buy an "unrefined" woolen embroidery.
My search for old rugs continued with more hope than success. Two
Hazara brothers who manned an unassuming hole-in-the-wall shop invited me
to their home to see the old rugs which they had been amassing for some years.
Expectations ran high as we flagged a taxi. Their home was a traditional
Afghan estate established by their grandfather some fifty years before, with
beautiful gardens of almond trees intermingled with grapevines surrounded by
high mud walls and the domed medieval roofs of neighboring houses. I did fine
an absolutely wonderful fragment of an Uzbek torba, cut and shaped for use as
an ok-bash. Their ambitious starting price was laughable, but it rapidly fell
spectacularly to a more affordable rate. I paid happily and we headed back
to the Shrine, sharing public transport with a few woman and children.
Women walked freely in Mazar, either in full chador or completely
unveiled, as they had been doing for many years. Unveiled students from
Balkh University strolled the dusty streets chatting, holding hands and
laughing as young girls do everywhere, I walked around this great city,
brandishing my camera and feeling perfectly relaxed. One woman wearing
complete chador approached me, asking me in English to which country
I belonged. I
replied, she nodded approval and hurriedly rejoined her young daughter,
excitedly relating her adventure.
The Hazara brothers told me that their uncle had a shop in Peshawar,
as do all the other shopkeepers who deal in old rugs. They ship everything to
Pakistan as soon as they get it, thus accounting for the lack of anything
good in the Mazar bazaar. Their uncle, though, has a shop selling new rugs.
Those that I saw were being made for the Afghan market only: typical red
rugs with fil poy (elephant foot) or octagonal gol designs filled
the bazaars, as did new flatweaves. Many of these were made by the
Farsiwan rather than
the Turkmen masterweavers of the area. Mazar is divided into neighborhoods,
not strictly determined by ethnicity. Weaving of traditional "Afghan" red
rugs also takes place in the predominantly Turkmen districts where the
craftsmanship and wool is slightly better than the inferior product of their
Tajik neighbors.
With the bazaar yielding so little of interest, I negotiated an
excursion by taxi to Balkh, 18 kilometers west of Mazar, for 400,000 Afs.
Balkh, ancient Bactra, the "Mother of All Cities", the seat of great empires
including that of Alexander the Great, is now a tiny village with not much
happening. Ruined walls surround it and the entrance is manned by malangs
(itinerant Muslim mendicants) tending the tomb of Baba Koo Mustaan, a
legendary saint in ancient Afghan history. To the rear of the city is another
ruin, the remnants of city walls from the time of Genghis Khan. The Mongols
overran Balkh and slaughtered every soul within: the bleached bones
unbelievably still litter the ground. Reading the accounts of Balkh written
by Elphintone in 1815 and Vambery in 1863, it is clear not much has changed
in two centuries.
We left Balkh under a certain amount of duress. During a final
commiseration with the malangs, while I observed them partaking in a holy
sacrament, a notorious badmash (bandit) approached to get a closer view of us,
perhaps intending to commit unspeakable depredations upon the strange
foreign visitor. He was cautioned that I come as a journalist and guest of the
Governor of Balkh Province. This was not entirely untrue as I had spoke with
the Governor only minutes before, declining his generous offer of green tea
and pilau. It as enough to send the badmash away in search of easier prey. I
remained oblivious, immersed in Afghanistan of the distant past.
Returning to Mazar, we passed through a huge for situated between the
two towns. Its walls were built by the great Nader Shah in the mid 18th century when he
to conquered this land. General Dostum's troops were firmly ensconced, and
it seemed inconceivable that this would be the scene of the last great battle
in the Taliban offensive to come. Sadly, as we go to press, that battle rages,
much sooner than I had ever hoped or imagined.
Afghan hospitality is legendary and I fondly recall how generous,
gracious and inquisitive the people were. The common person on the street
was still able to smile as our eyes met. Young Afghan students who have only
known war were anxious to practice their English: the young man at the desk
of my hotel was honing his computer skills on a sophisticated laptop,
navigating Windows 95, hoping to contribute to a brighter future for his
country.
But the future is a mirage in shifting desert sands. The past is
much more real, while the present is an incongruous source of unease and
exhilaration. Vladimir Nabokov wrote of "the texture of time": returning
to Afghanistan provided a remarkable demonstration of this graphic imagery for
me, as the past and the present are so closely intermingled, with so little
definition. As for the future, the Afghans will inevitably say that only
Allah can know what will happen. Let us all hope that Allah is merciful and
compassionate: these people deserve much better than they have had these
past two decades.
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This article is reproduced courtesy of HALI, The International Magazine of
Antique Carpet and Textile Art.
HALI is published six times a year. For further information about
subscriptions, back issues and advertising, please contact HALI
Publications Ltd.,
St. Giles House,
50 Poland Street,
London W1V 4AX, UK.
Tel: 44 171 970 4600; Fax: 44 171 970 4897; email:
hali@centaur.co.uk
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Copyright © 1998 Aftaabzad Publications. All Rights Reserved.
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