Uniting Afghanistan Through Street Art

Every day, the walls in the Afghan capital Kabul get higher and there are more of them — walls around government offices, foreign embassies and around the offices of international organizations based in Afghanistan. These walls of concrete started appearing in 2003, erected as a measure to make the buildings more resilient in the face of increasing security threats.

These tall, thick walls have made Kabul look more like a military base than a city. But for some time now, young Afghan artists have been covering them with murals, changing the face of the city, and giving passers-by a chance to reacquaint themselves with color — without necessarily forgetting the dark side of Afghan life over the last decades.

Many of the murals tell the stories of an infinite number of problems the Afghan people and their government face. Take the murals on the walls of the Ministry of Technology and Communications. One, called “I can see you!”, is a protest against widespread corruption. Another depicts an Afghan child drowning in water on the way to Europe as a refugee, a reminder of the plight of Afghan refugees trying to escape the war and the misery in their country.

Some of the murals are quite poignant, like images of journalists who lost their lives doing their job, or of women who were killed by suicide bombings or other bombs.

 

Invoking a Sense of Serenity

Sarollah Salemi, a young Afghan painter, is the head of Top Art, a group of painters in Kabul who, over the last year and a half, have painted several murals, including on security walls, the walls of schools and kindergartens and on the concrete walls of the office of the First Vice President. “Painting always gives its viewer a sense of serenity,” he says. “With a painting you can tell people a lot of things that you cannot tell them by talking.”

Salemi has worked as a professional painter for the last three years. Apart from him, the Top Art group is composed of two other young men and two young women who, working side by side, paint murals on Kabul’s walls. He has also set up a workshop to teach painting to teenage boys and girls.

The painting on the security walls outside the office of the first vice president was one of their projects. The murals display a motif of Turkish kings from Afghanistan’s history. “The project consists of portraits of six Turkish kings and it was proposed by the Dari-speaking Afghan descendants of Turks,” Salemi says. “Each portrait also presents a quotation from them. It took us around three weeks to finish it.”

Afghanistan is a multi-ethnic, multi-religious and multi-racial country. Over the last few decades the country has been witness to deadly armed conflicts between groups with various different ethnic and religious loyalties. Since the Taliban lost its grip on the government, there have been many efforts to unite Afghan people by encouraging them to understand and accept each other’s cultures and beliefs. The murals on the walls of the vice president’s office and the quotations accompanying them are part of these endeavors. They also aim to familiarize the new generation with its history and Afghan historical figures. “The quotations from these kings gives a new perspective to the new generation,” says Salemi, “and the murals make the walls beautiful and lift the spirits of our unhappy people in this war-torn country.”

 

Destroy Anything “Depicting a Face”

This artistic endeavor has been well received by young Afghans, but it has also introduced a few problems. Occasionally the murals are vandalized, and unidentified individuals have defaced them by throwing paint or mud on them. Some opponents of the government, including the Taliban, also object to the murals. In one instance, a mural on the wall of the National Security Agency was completed removed. There were reports that an armed group had sent out a message to its members to attack any mural that “depicts a face.” The artists, together with the support of civil society activists, restored the mural only a few days after its destruction.

One Top Arts member, Fatemeh Etemadi, has worked as a professional artist for the last three years, and has been painting murals on concrete security walls in Kabul for more than a year and a half. She says she enjoys painting the murals and takes pleasure in knowing that thousands of people get positive energy and think of things other than war and destruction by looking at them.

In Afghanistan, women in many occupations do not feel safe, and many of them face constant harassment, but Etemadi says that the situation for female artists has improved considerably and today they are more able to freely engage in artistic activities. “Discrimination and harassment against women in Afghan society is an old story,” says Etemadi, “but in recent times the situation has improved compared to the past.”

“The message of the murals we painted on state-run schools was about cleanliness and taking care of nature,” she says, “and this message has had a positive impact on the minds of students. Every time they see them they think about keeping the school and the city clean. Some of these murals promote educational and moral messages as well.”

“Our projects usually last between one to three weeks,” says Etemadi. “Our murals have been well received and opposition, although it existed, was minimal.”

 

 

More from IranWire citizen journalists on Afghans and Afghanistan:

Iran Violates the Rights of Afghans by Sending them to War, March 19, 2019

Smuggled Afghan Children Working as Street Peddlers, February 20, 2019

The Soldier Sent Back to Afghanistan for Demanding Days Off, October 16, 2018

One Afghan’s Last Mission to Syria, October 12, 2018

For Some Afghan Soldiers, Fighting in Syria was their Dream, October 9, 2018

Iran Fools Afghan Recruits into Fighting in Syria, September 26, 2018

The Love Story of a Shia Afghan Fighter and his Iranian Bride, August 29, 2018

Iran’s Teenage Afghan Fighters, August 25, 2018

Afghan Shias trapped in the Syrian War, August 22, 2018