The stunningly beautiful Hazrat Ali Mazar (Shrine of Ali) in central Mazar-e-Sharif
As the Afghan people face further suffering and the big powers and international agencies debate how to deal with the new Taliban government, I am posting photos from my reporting assignements in the country in the first decade of the century, the captions are based on memory but I have done my best to avoid inaccuracy.
A key element in the Taliban’s seizure of power this time round was the collapse of support for Ashraf Ghani’s government in the north, a region where Pashtuns, who form the Islamist movement’s traditional base of support, are in a minority.
I visited Mazar-e-Sharif in 2009 and interviewed Atta Muhammed Noor, a Tajik former warlord who had become governor of Balkh province and has now fled the country.
Mazar-e-Sharif’s population includes Tajiks, Uzbeks, Turkmen and Hazaras, the latter group, who are mostly Shia Muslim, having particularly bitter memories of the previous period of Taliban rule.
Men line up to petition the governor, who has swapped his battle fatigues for a smart suitThere seems to be little machinery of local government, so individuals and community elders present their requests direct to the governor, which I supose keeps down the wage bill and has the advantage of giving him great powers of patronageAgreement seems to have been reached hereA woman enters the UN commpound, which, like all public buildings, has armed guards in case of attackMen enter the Hazrat Ali MazarWomen pray outsideLegend has it that when Ali, Islam’s fourth caliph, who was both cousin and son-in-law to the prophet Muhammed, was assassinated his remains were loaded onto a white camel, which walked as far as Balkh, then collapsed and died. Local people say the shrine was built on the place where he was buried, although the Iranian city of Najaf is also cited as his resting place – the doves that gather on the roof of the Hazrat Ali Mazar are believed to be attracted to this holy place. Over 1,000 are believed to have died last year because no-one was feeding them during Covid lockdownPeople gather around the shrine – this young man had come to Mazar from a rural area seeking work – he is wearing a traditional Uzbek coat, the chapan, which was adopted by former president Hamid Karzai, along with elements of dress from other ethnic groups, in an attempt to symbolise Afghan unityNot all practices hereabouts are strictly Islamic – this man is a fortune tellerHere are the tools of his trade – I omitted to ask what he used the knife forThis boy sells paper handkerchiefs and other such merchandise to passers-byA retired police officer talks about local people’s struggle to surviveThe covered market is a riot of colourChillis are good trade – strange to think that they are not indigenous to Asia but came from the Americas, spices having been a motor force of early colonialism Pomegranates – a staple in the central Asian and Caucasian dietI’m told that vegetables are not highly regarded – Afghanistan has a kebab culture, if you have the money, you eat meatBut, fortunately for the nation’s health, cauliflowers, courgettes, aubergines and so on still find plenty of buyersAuto-rickshaws are a popular form of transport, usually referred to by the name of their Chinese manufacturer, Qingqi or Chingchi
