Tajikistan's battle against beards to 'fight radicalisation'

By Anora SarkorovaBBC Russian Service, Tajikistan

• 21 January 2016
 
• From the sectionAsia

Image captionPolice in Khatlon say they have shaved the beards of nearly 13,000 men (file photo)

"They called me a Salafist, a radical, a public enemy. And then two of them held my arms while another one shaved half of my beard."

Djovid Akramov says he was stopped by Tajik police outside his house, along with his seven-year-old son, last month - and taken to the police station in Dushanbe where he was forcibly shaved.

He became one of hundreds of thousands of men in Tajikistan arrested in recent years for wearing a beard.

Shaving beards is part of a government campaign targeting trends that are deemed "alien and inconsistent with Tajik culture".

Earlier this week, police in Tajikistan's Khatlon region said that they had shaved the beards of nearly 13,000 men as part of an "anti-radicalisation campaign".

The BBC spoke to nine other men who described similar experiences - being detained in the street and forcibly taken to the police department or a barber shop, where they were shaved.

The government campaign is explained by the need to fight radicalisation, amid fears that Central Asia might follow the path of countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq or Syria towards extremism.

Image copyrightAFP

Image captionWomen have been told to wear traditional Tajik colours - not black

Estimates suggest that between 1,500 and 4,000 Central Asians could have joined different Islamist militant groups in Syria, as of June 2015.

The move against beards is seen as part of a broader government campaign against the adoption of Islamic cultural practices in Tajik society, and to preserve secular traditions.

According to official data, 99% of the Tajik population are Muslim. However, atheism was officially encouraged during 70 years of Soviet rule.

'Don't wear black'

The campaign against Islamic practices also affects women. There is an official ban on wearing hijabs in schools and universities - but in practice it is enforced in all state institutions.

Police say that over the past year, they have closed about 160 shops where hijabs were being sold, and convinced 1,773 women to stop wearing hijabs.

Image captionShaving beards is part of a government campaign against "alien culture"

President Emomali Rakhmon has also warned Tajiks: "Don't worship alien values, don't follow alien culture. Wear clothes of traditional colours and cut, not black."

"Even in mourning, Tajik women [should] wear white, not black," he said.

And the authorities have previously called on parents to give their children traditional Tajik names, rather than Arabic or foreign-sounding names.

Image copyrightAFP

Image captionColourful headscarves are popular in Tajikistan

It is not clear whether these policies will have an impact on preventing radicalism.

Djovid Akramov says he will not forget the humiliation he felt while being forcefully shaved at the police station.

"The worst is the impunity of the policemen, who were enjoying the opportunity to bully people," he says.

It is this kind of conduct that can prompt people to become radicalised, he says.

Afghan Women's Writing Project

Afghan Women's Writing Project

http://awwproject.org/

Wind

Sep 15, 2014 

I want to live just like a wind, be free—
fly in the sky with no rules,
break the chains that bind me.
I want to live my life like a tree—
grow without limitation,
bloom with no explanation, regulation
and die—
naturally. I want to shine as a sun
on the world. I want my heart
to guide me so I can feel oxygen, live
like a wind, be free.

Don’t give me pain.

Give me rest.

My tears have dried up.
I need peace, to shine like the moon.
I want to live like a wind, be free
to dance with nature, sing
with birds, fly with them, feel the freedom, lose
myself in nature’s
love.

Don’t put me in a cage!
Don’t be evil to me!
I want to live like a wind.

By Shogofa

The writer is currently studying abroad. Photo by Jack Wolf.

Shamsia Hassani: ‘I want to colour over the bad memories of war’

Shamsia Hassani: ‘I want to colour over the bad memories of war’

Afghanistan’s cultural image is changing, thanks in part to the strong, graceful and dynamic female silhouettes emerging from this bold graffiti artist’s spray can

·         Shamsia Hassani’s Afghanistan street art – in pictures

 Shamsia beside what's reckoned to be the first ever piece of 3D street art on Afghanistan. Photograph: Shamsia Hassani/www.kabulartproject.com

Steve Rose

Wednesday 17 September 2014

Shamsia beside what's reckoned to be the first ever piece of 3D street art on Afghanistan. Photograph: Shamsia Hassani/www.kabulartproject.com

Just over a decade ago, the abiding image of art in Afghanistan was theBuddhas of Bamiyan being destroyed by Taliban dynamite, but Shamsia Hassani is proof of how much has changed since. Hassani is the country’s foremost graffiti artist, and her work is respraying Afghanistan’s cultural image.

“I want to colour over the bad memories of war on the walls,” Hassani told Art Radar last year, “and if I colour over these bad memories, then I erase [war] from people’s minds. I want to make Afghanistan famous because of its art, not its war.”

Graffiti has proved the perfect artform for modern-day Afghanistan, practically as well as metaphorically. It is the ultimate democratic medium, freely available to spectators and artists alike (save for the spray-can budget) and capable of transmitting a powerful idea or message without words (Afghanistan still has one of the world’s lowest literacy rates). Art galleries are scarce in the ravaged cities, but there are blank walls and pavements in abundance. Hassani even sprayed one of her pieces on the ruins of Kabul’s Russian Cultural Centre. And where graffiti is an outlaw activity in the west, policed with Taliban-like vigilance, in Afghanistan, it is embraced (Hassani teaches at Kabul University’s faculty of fine arts). For extra irony, she took up the art after being inspired by British artist, Chu, who held a graffiti workshop in Kabul in 2010.

A 3D-style floor painting inside the faculty of fine arts, Kabul University. Photograph: Shamsia Hassani

 A 3D-style floor painting inside the faculty of fine arts, Kabul University. Photograph: Shamsia Hassani

Not that Hassani doesn’t have problems. The security situation is still far from ideal. And being a female artist, she is not always greeted with enthusiasm when she’s out working. Some regard her as a vandal, others believe a proper Afghan woman’s place is in the home.

Women are very much Hassani’s subject matter. She often draws them in stylised blue silhouettes, wearing burqas, or, more recently in a hijab. They’re far from Taliban-sanctioned stereotypes, though. Hassani’s figures are active subjects: strong, graceful, dynamic, often depicted emerging from depths, lost in reflection, even dancing. “I want to show that women have returned to Afghan society with a new, stronger shape,” she told Art Radar. “It’s not the woman who stays at home. It’s a new woman. A woman who is full of energy, who wants to start again.”

• This article was amended on 18 September 2014 to clarify that the quotes from Shamsia Hassani came from an interview with the website Art Radar.

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/sep/17/shamia-hassani-i-want-to-colour-over-the-bad-memories-of-war

Afghan Women Cyclists Offer Lesson in Courage

Afghan Women Cyclists Offer Lesson in Courage

Although it’s winter in Colorado, I can’t get bikes off my mind. I grew up on two wheels, tearing up

   BY SHANNON GALPIN

 FEBRUARY 05, 2015

  0

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Although it’s winter in Colorado, I can’t get bikes off my mind. I grew up on two wheels, tearing up the neighborhood to visit friends, savoring the freedom, the mobility, the wind in my face, and then eight years ago fell in love with mountain bikes. It wasn’t, however, until I started working in Afghanistan that I really understood that a bike could be more than just a bike. This simple two-wheeled vehicle could also be a tool for social justice, providing easier access to schools, allowing midwives to better serve their rural communities, and giving girls a tool to prevent sexual assault and harassment.

Today I work with a group of young women in that war-torn country who are breaking cultural barriers and risking their honor to ride bikes as members of the national women’s cycling team. These young women are among the first generation of Afghan women to challenge deep-seated taboos, and they do so despite insults, harassments, and threats. They ride on IED-strewn roads, on trucking highways with no shoulders, and through the police checkpoints that dot the city streets.

Amazingly, over the past two years since I first met the national cycling team, more groups of girls have emerged in other areas of the country, watching their brothers ride, and they have decided that they too had the right to find their freedom, and they’ve begun borrowing bikes and teaching each other to ride, also.

The story of these courageous young women has inspired the upcoming documentary, Afghan Cycles, which is set to premiere in 2016. They have raced in India, Pakistan, and Kazakhstan; most recently were invited to compete at the Asia Games in South Korea; and the Danish clothing company NOA NOA launched an advertising campaign in support of the Afghan team centered around the concept of the “strength of women.”

Recently, the team was invited to Italy and England to take part in a series of rides and events, and a Swedish company committed to an ad campaign focused on the bravery of female athletes. Shirzanan Global, a magazine focused on Muslim female athletes, partnered with RAGBRAI, the famous bike race across Iowa, to bring a team of Muslim female cyclists to the States, hopefully including one or two of the Afghan riders, for this summer’s event. These are all amazing steps for young women who have just learned to ride in a country that is still considered one of the worst in the world to be female.

Then the Charlie Hebdo attacks happened. They were heart-breaking. Horrifying. Tragic. In the weeks that passed, there was more horror: the rise of ISIS, public beheadings of kidnapped journalists, Boko Harem kidnapping young girls and terrorizing villages, the ongoing Syrian conflict, and the Taliban’s insurgency as the U.S. withdraws out of Afghanistan, all conflating the view that Muslims are terrorists and giving Islamaphobia fertile soil in which to take root.

Fear, alas, is perhaps the biggest threat to freedom. Self censoring begins, often by those scared but not directly threatened, allowing the bullies to win and freedoms to roll back. Just a few days ago, two of the cycling team’s biggest supporters pulled out, one in Italy and one in Sweden, both citing an aversion to potential controversy in the wake of the Paris attacks. The Swedish company was creating an ad campaign around the team, much as NOA NOA did last fall, and was paying a stipend to help cover racing costs this year. The company’s underwriting would have dramatically elevated the team’s exposure and raised much-needed financial support. Now, less than two months before we were to fly the team to India for filming, the underwriting is gone. Gone because of fear.

The Swedes could have been bold and brave and gotten ahead of the story. They could have led. Instead, they censored themselves and abandoned their social responsibility. Their company could have driven social change in a positive way, with a unique opportunity, as it once promised, but it didn’t. Rather, it let down a team of young women who are all too well-versed in disappointment and threats, and gave in to fear. The girls will get by, of course; a loss of funding hurts, but it pales compared to the threats they face every day. They will continue taking back the streets, claiming their rights, inspiring a global movement.

As most people know, the staff of Charlie Hebdo, despite unimaginable pain and loss, stood their ground. They published the next issue, on time, and with a press run that was four million copies more than usual. Threatened in the worst possible way, they stood tall in the face of violence, unwilling to let terrorists silence them. Fear would not make them cower.

You don’t use your voice or stand up for your beliefs because it’s easy to do so. You do these things because you are standing on the side of justice and reasoned behavior. This is not a privilege for the few, the wealthy, or the safe, this is the responsibility of all of us, because we’re at risk of giving away our freedoms every time we silence ourselves in fear. It is a company’s right to pull out, of course, but I find it telling that a bunch of teenage girls in a war zone is stronger than a corporation located in one of the safest places on earth.

http://www.adventure-journal.com/2015/02/essay-in-wake-of-paris-attacks-afghan-women-cyclists-offer-lesson-in-courage-and-fear/

Five Fantastic Things Afghan Women Did in 2015

Five Fantastic Things Afghan Women Did in 2015  

(article found in Arzu Studio Hope's Facebook Page)

Afghan women demand justice for Farkhunda, a victim of mob-killing. Photo courtesy of Shamama Gallery

The murders of Farkhunda, Rokhshana and the many other women we will never know, and increased insecurity and gender-based violence made this a difficult year for the women of Afghanistan. Yet, Afghan women have found ways to push the country forward and demand their rights. Here are some inspiring examples of Afghan women’s accomplishments in 2015.

Women hikers reached new heights. Seven Afghan women hiked an unnamed 16,500 feet mountain, despite fears of attacks by terrorist groups, familial restrictions and lack of training and equipment. With the support of an international non-governmental organization, the hikers also petitioned to change the mountain’s name to “Shir Dukhtaran” which means “Lion Daughters.” Next stop: Afghanistan’s tallest mountain, Noshaq.

More women brought money home in 2015. According to A Survey of the Afghan People, by Asia Foundation, 22.6% of Afghans said that women contribute to their families’ income. This is a nearly 10 percent increase from 2009. The report argues that there is evidence to suggest that not only are more women making money, but that they are also making more money than before. Global research shows that women’s economic empowerment not only contributes to the advancement of their own rights, but also improves communities and strengthens economies.

Afghan women fought sexism with art. Earlier this year, Afghan activist Munera Yousufzada founded Shamama Contemporary Arts Gallery, a women’s art collective. Named after the Buddha statue destroyed by the Taliban in Bamyan, the Gallery highlights the work of female artists and pieces that discuss societal gender norms.

The Gallery has been able to exhibit works by more than 10 artists in under a year. Photo courtsey of Shamama Gallery

“We created the gallery to show that Afghan women have a voice and they can be role models for each other. We exhibit women’s power,” Munera Yousufzada said in an interview with Free Women Writers.

Four women joined the Afghan cabinet. For the first time in our history, Afghanistan has four female cabinet members. Not only do we now run the Ministry of Women’s Affairs -typically run by a woman- but also Ministry of Counter-Narcotics, Ministry of Labor, Social Affairs, Martyrs and the Disabled, and Ministry of Higher Education. Even though it is 2015, few women hold decision-making positions in Afghanistan, but this is a step in the right direction.

Women were at the forefronts of national protests. Whether indemanding justice for Farkhunda and, or denouncing the beheading of Hazaras by ISIS, Afghan women’s voices were loud and clear during public demonstrations around the country. Not only did women organize protests and gather hundreds, they also made headlines by writing poetry,performing live reenactments of the mob-killing of Farkhunda and leading social media campaigns urging an end to violence.

Two middle school students in Faryab, Afghanistan. 2013. Photo: Noorjahan Akbar

Afghanistan has a long way to go before it can guarantee basic human rights for women. Even today, many Afghan families mourn the birth of a girl child. When girls grow into women, they are sent into hiding, inside of being cherished. When women get married, they are asked to be submissive, instead of being supported to reach their full potential. When women refuse, they are shamed, imprisoned and killed. Yet, Afghan women are not only surviving, but fighting. The women above and the many more who are taking tremendous risks on a daily basis to go to schools and work, raise their voices, and push the country towards progress and change are a force to be reckoned with. They are showing the world how powerful, resourceful and resilient they are.

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About the author: Noorjahan Akbar is an out-spoken women and human right’s advocate from Afghanistan. She has worked with several Afghan and global organizations focusing on women’s issues and led national campaigns in defense of human rights. Noorjahan has been published on Al Jazeera, and Safe World for Women among other outlets. In 2013, she published a collection of Afghan women’s writings. Currently, Noorjahan runs a national blog called Free Women Writers focused on gender equality and social justice. Noorjahan was Glamour Magazine’s College Women of the Year in 2013, and has been named one of Forbes’s 100 Most Powerful Women of the World and one of The Daily Beast’s Women Who Shake the World.