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Tools of Resistance: Women and Art in Afghanistan
Maya A. Weisinger
Paper Submission for
Performing Violence, Engendering Change
A Conference on Gender and the use of Arts-Based Methods to Understand Conflict,
Prevent Violence and Build Peace
16-18 November 2021
TOOLS OF RESISTANCE: WOMEN AND ART IN AFGHANISTAN
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Table of Contents
Table of Contents
2
Note
3
Introduction
4
The state of arts and culture 4
Women in Afghanistan Now 6
Documentation and Visibility
9
Activism, Protest, Rebellion
12
Protection of Arts and Culture
15
Conclusion
19
References
23
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Note
I am currently a community engagement practitioner working in the area
of arts and cultural policy. I recently graduated with a Master of Public Policy at
the Willy Brandt School in Erfurt, Germany. My specialization was in Conflict
Studies, with my work focusing on arts-based approaches to peacebuilding. One
of my term papers focused on the implementation of arts programming in
Afghanistan, primarily as rehabilitative measures for women in the early 2000s.
Following the US military withdrawal and subsequent Taliban takeover in the
summer of 2021, I revisited my paper after watching the stories unfold of women
across Afghanistan, not only preparing for the threat to their safety but finding
ways to safeguard their businesses, education and artistry. I saw that there was a
missing narrative in my term paper: while I was specifically focused on project
implementations from international peace operations, I did not investigate
Afghan women’s self-driven initiatives and community-building that has been
ongoing for decades. Upon seeing the call for paper for the “Performing
Violence, Engendering Change” conference, I decided to use the opportunity to
further educate myself and use the conference to share what I have expounded
upon in my knowledge.
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Introduction
In 2008 arts-based approaches to transitional justice started being implemented
in Afghanistan by the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC)
and the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) and then later the
International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ). One of the main goals of this
project was to implement an arts-based approach to analyze how it could engage
Afghanistan at a localized level. One of such issues pertains to the rebuilding and
empowerment of women’s rights that were significantly oppressed during the Taliban
regime. This resulted in data supporting the concept that arts-integrated programming
in post-war reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan significantly impact women through
its ability to address trauma and provide a platform for expression that was not possible
during wartime.
However, this data was gathered before the recent collapse of the Afghanistan
government and the Taliban subsequently securing rule. The ongoing crisis in
Afghanistan is overwhelmingly putting the rights, safety and wellbeing of women and
girls at risk, while the freedom of artistic expression is also being threatened. Shifting
from a discourse focused on oppression, this paper will instead
examine how women in
Afghanistan are using arts and culture as tools for resistance.
The state of arts and culture
In August 2021, the United States began withdrawing troops from Afghanistan,
resulting in a swift and violent takeover of Taliban forces in cities across Afghanistan. In
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what was deemed a messy and uncoordinated effort, the US and its allies engaged in
evacuation protocols, focusing on identifying Afghans that were most at risk from the
Taliban. Among these identified Afghans were those who had worked with the US
military or had collaborated with journalists, embassies, or other Western entities. In
most cases, artists or cultural agents were not considered priorities for evacuation.
Very soon after the Taliban takeover, the threat to artists and those working in
the cultural sector was evident. According to reporting from ArtNews (2021), "Taliban
militants shamelessly videoed their abuse of the popular comedian Nazar Mohammad,
known as Khasha, in Kandahar; he was later found shot dead,...the poet and historian
Abdullah Atefi was taken from his home in Uruzgan province’s Chora District and
murdered…[and] the folk singer Fawad Andarabi was dragged from his house and shot
dead in the Andarab Valley in the country’s north (Geranpayeh, 2021b).”
From 1996 to 2001, the time when the Taliban was last in power, “the regime
defaced public paintings and destroyed cultural heritage sites around the country. In
1996, members machine-gunned an iconic fountain in the city of Herat, in western
Afghanistan; while in 2001, they blew up two colossal statues of the Buddha that had
looked over the Bamiyan Valley for 1500 years. Most forms of music were banned, and
television was declared un-Islamic (Alkhaldi, 2021).”
Defining how many artists and cultural workers are affected by the Taliban’s rule
is not easy to determine, especially as arts and culture are defined differently through
the sector. Sahraa Karimi, a woman filmmaker and the head of the state-run Afghan
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Film Organization, provided context for the film sector specifically in an interview with
the Washington Post (2021). Karimi indicated there were approximately 200 to 300
artists and documentarians involved in international projects, many of whom had
already fled Afghanistan. However, she also estimated that there are 5,000 to 10,000
other artists who do not have such international exposure or the accessibility of
travelling outside the country (Kennicott, 2021).
This wider group of artists, which includes craftspeople, experience the threat of
the Taliban on different levels. There are some aspects of Afghan arts and crafts that
are embedded in Afghan traditional cultures, such as woodworking and ceramics. With
roots in Persian culture, miniature painting veers into a more charged territory, as the
imagery usually includes human figures. “During the Soviet occupation that began in
1979, rug-making — one of the most pervasive and revered Afghan crafts — morphed
from an abstract craft to a field of resistance, with individual craftsmen making “war
rugs” that recorded the brutality of the Russian war effort (Kennicott, 2021).”
Women in Afghanistan Now
For over twenty years, women in Afghanistan have been leaders in advancing
gender and human rights by developing places for studying, building careers, and
establishing financial independence. These advancements were immediately put under
threat following the Taliban’s takeover in the summer of 2021 (Akhauri, 2021b). “Most
analysts and human rights activists believe the Taliban will institute draconian
restrictions and deadly punishments for women, as they did during their rule in the 90s.
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Female artists face a doubly dangerous position as women and as creatives doing work
that the Taliban has considered in the past to violate its strict interpretation of Islamic
law (Burack, 2021).”
A report from CNN (2021) documented the experience of a woman artist
(choosing to remain anonymous) whose art classes were shut down, leaving her with no
space to continue practicing her art. She spoke about how the situation for women
artists is much more difficult than for men, explaining that “boys, they can go to a
teacher's home, and they can continue their work from there. They can gather
informally...But for girls, it's not possible to do that...For women,...meeting at a place
that is not a formal center for learning is uncommon...We are so fearful of what might
happen, that we don't even want to try it (Alkhaldi, 2021).”
In August 2021, in a media report, Taliban spokesperson Suhail Shaheen said
they “will respect rights of women,” and that under Taliban rule, women will be allowed
“access to education and work, to wear the hijab.” Shaheen insisted that the idea that
the Taliban has been forcing single women into marriage, shutting schools and banning
their rights is only propaganda and that the Taliban is committed to the protection of
vulnerable communities in Afghanistan (Akhauri, 2021b). In an interview with Deutsche
Welle, Afghan designer Shamayel Pawthkhameh Shalizi stated that "Twenty years ago,
the Taliban shut all schools, girls were forbidden from going to school, women couldn't
go to work, they were whipped, they were stoned, they were raped. The world kept
watching. It's the same Taliban (Gopalakrishnan, 2021a)."
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Shalizi, who now lives in Berlin, goes on to say that Afghanistan is not a safe
place for artists right now, “both if you continue to create art as well as if you were
creating art these 20 years of no Taliban. These are very vulnerable communities, artists
specifically and especially the artists who are from even more marginalized
communities, such as women and religious minorities (Ibid).” According to Shalizi,
artists she is communicating with in Afghanistan are hiding their work and tearing down
studios. However, there are other artists she has reached out to that continued to
create artwork, be it through graffiti or music, as a final act before going into hiding
(Ibid). “Artists depicting the Taliban regime negatively are under extra heightened
threat, Shalizi said, but art in general is perceived as a threat by the Taliban (Ibid).”
The Taliban regime has notoriously suppressed the rights of women in
Afghanistan over the past decades. Following the takeover in the summer of 2021,
mounting violence and threats to women and girls have created an oppressive and
dangerous environment. However, this environment has not stifled women-led
resistance movements. To stand up against current totalitarian upheaval and conflict,
women in Afghanistan are self-organizing and defending their rights by utilizing their
skills within arts and culture. This paper will examine how women are using arts-based
approaches within resistance movements in Afghanistan to document and bring
visibility to their experiences, as tools for protest and activism, and to protect arts and
cultural heritage.
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Documentation and Visibility
One of the ways artists are adding to the resistance movement is by bringing
focus and visibility to the lived experiences of women in Afghanistan. This includes
shedding light on the realities of women and girls under the Taliban regime, as well as
the subsequent normalization of gender oppression experienced by women in Afghan
society. This also includes demonstrating these realities as documentation for action
and discourse to an international community. After the fall of Kabul in 2021,
international media made a point to focus on the danger that the Taliban takeover
would impose on women and girls. However, less focus was given to showing the long-
standing roles and experiences occupied by Afghan women. Many women artists in
Afghanistan have been using their medium to self-generate the image and narratives
about Afghan women to take precedence on an international stage. In reinforcing these
authentic representations, their art helps to demonstrate how international entities can
engage in the support and protection of human and gender rights in Afghanistan.
Fatimah Hossaini, a photographer who was a Kabul-based artist until recently
needing to flee the country, has been documenting Afghan women to demonstrate their
representation “outside the constraints of patriarchal oppression and gender
restrictions in their land (Akhauri, 2021a).” In an article she wrote in September 2021,
she stresses that her work strives to redirect the perceptions of Afghanistan and focus
on empowerment. She said,
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“I was tired of always showing the war and the poverty, always talking about
the murders, the explosions. When I travelled to other countries, capitals
of art and culture abroad, people would ask me, ‘If you’re an Afghan artist,
where is your burqa?’ The only thing people knew about Afghanistan was
terrorism and women’s oppression, the twin sins of the Taliban. Why
doesn’t the world know anything about our culture and our beauty? About
our carpets, our textiles, our diversity, all of our cultural heritage? Why is it
never reflected in the world? This question preoccupied me, and I think it’s
why I was so inspired to work on the beautiful side of Afghanistan
(Hossaini, 2021).”
Hossaini has created a photography series called “Pearl in the Oyster'', which is a
“colourful, empowering catalogue from Kabul of the liberation women in Afghanistan
had so far achieved and could envision further in a future that formerly appeared free
(Akhauri, 2021a).” The photographs depict bright and colorful fashion and positions
Afghan women in a powerful confrontation with traditionally male-dominated spaces
across Kabul. One example is a photograph of a woman holding an electric guitar,
staring directly into the camera while surrounded by men in a busy street. Hossaini
speaks to the power fashion can have in resilience movements, saying “[a] sense of
fashion…can be a sign of Afghan women’s resilience. In a conservative community...like
Afghanistan, when you talk about women, it’s all about restrictions (Pomeroy, 2021).”
The photo series is an example of how women are using art to strengthen and showcase
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a narrative about women in Afghanistan that focuses on their empowerment, especially
in the face of a regime that explicitly bans women from expressing such empowerment.
Another artist, Rada Akbar, curated an exhibition called “Abarzanan,” (or
“Superwomen”) in March of 2019. This installation features mannequins each
representing women who have been defiant in the fight against oppression. The
mannequins were dressed in artistry that honor the skills of Afghan craftspeople and
artists, showcasing Afghan cultural heritage while putting a spotlight on important
leaders within the women’s empowerment movement (Okoro, 2021). Similarly to
Hossaini, Akbar expresses the importance of reclaiming space for Afghan women to
self-identify instead of allowing Western-driven ideas of Afghan women to dominate
the discourse. In an interview, she expressed that “[s]he finds it ‘disrespectful’ when the
international community claims to be behind female empowerment in Afghanistan, and
is frustrated that a modern Afghan woman is often measured by whether she can speak
English and if she wears Western clothes (Bangkok Post Public Company Limited,
2021).” Akbar expounded on this idea of multidimensionality by saying, “We’re not
victims — we’re champions...We’ve fought hard for everything we’ve accomplished. But
people expect us to be satisfied with basic rights, nothing more (Zucchino, 2020).”
Another artist focusing on the visibility of Afghan women is Shamsia Hassani,
Afghanistan’s first female graffiti artist and now art lecturer at Kabul University.
Hassani’s self-developed technique called “dreaming graffiti” features photographs of
Kabul which she then paints over. In an interview with Street Art Bio, Hassani discussed
how graffiti's ability to publicly highlight the challenges that Afghan women face — but
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also their strength and resolution — was a major reason Hassani chose to work with the
medium (Ibid). “Her images are a mix of bold and colourful illustrations often set
against a darker, sober background. Many feature...a young girl in traditional clothing,
wearing a headscarf…[whom] expresses herself through the various objects she is
depicted alongside, from musical instruments to dandelions, to paper planes and boats
conjuring thoughts of freedom and escape (Okoro, 2021).” In much of her work, she
seeks to “change how people perceive Afghan women, including those who wear the
burqa…I try to show them bigger than what they are in reality, and in modern forms, in
shapes, in happiness, movement, maybe stronger. I try to make people look at them
differently (Kumar, 2021).’”
Activism, Protest, Rebellion
Another way in which women are using art as a tool of resistance is by integrating
creative practices within protest and activism efforts. This includes creating art that
expresses dissent against Taliban rule, as well as gender oppressive societal norms.
Additionally, it includes acts of rebellion, such as practicing art in the face of the
regime’s mandate against such practices for women.
Since the takeover of the Taliban in the summer of 2021, Afghan people have
been organizing public protests against the actions of the self-appointed government.
Women have been participating in these protests to share their voice in publicly
objecting to the Taliban’s return to power. However, since the takeover, women have
found it more difficult to be part of the protests. Demonstrations have begun to be
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banned or dispersed by beatings and gunfire, resulting in several people being killed. In
an interview with Reuters, the Kabul-based women’s rights activist Taranom Seyedi
helped organize protests and is now receiving letters saying “the Taliban had made a list
of all the women who protested and would conduct house searches for them (Siddiqui
& Zemaryalai, 2021).” Maryam Sadat, a law student and protest organizer in Kabul
paints a similar picture regarding the threat women face by protesting, saying, “[s]ince
my participation in the protest, I’ve had to relocate twice … My family is terrified, and
even my neighbours are concerned and urging me not to join (Ibid).” In early November
2021, the Guardian reported that activist and economics lecturer, Frozan Safi, had been
shot and killed in northern Afghanistan, “in what appears to be the first known death of
a women’s rights defender since the Taliban swept to power (Ferris-Rotman, 2021).”
Artists are beginning to take alternate routes to be able to protest while still
protecting themselves and others from retaliation. The acclaimed director Sahraa
Karimi wrote an open letter to an international community, describing the horrors of
the situation on the ground in Afghanistan as hundreds of people, including many of
her fellow filmmakers, attended to leave in August 2021. In her letter addressed to the
international film community specifically, she emphasized,
“Everything that I have worked so hard to build as a filmmaker in my
country is at risk of falling. If the Taliban take over, they will ban all art. I
and other filmmakers could be next on their hit list. They will strip women’s
rights, we will be pushed into the shadows of our homes and our voices, our
expression will be stifled into silence…I will stay and fight for my country,
but I cannot do it alone. I need allies like you…Be our voices outside of
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Afghanistan…Please engage your filmmakers, artists to support us…
(Karimi, 2021)”
Jamila Saadat, the President and Director of the Handicraft and Carpet Weaving
Institute, teaches women how to work with textiles to “promot[e] economic growth,
women’s well-being and defen[d] the rights of those women who are not fully aware of
their rights (Amnesty International, 2021).” For over 13 years, Saadat has worked with
women who have been deprived of an education to address human rights issues in the
Nangarhar Province. She has had to confront families who “did not want their wives to
work or study outdoors, to allow their wives to go out to work, and their daughters to go
to school (ibid.)” Even in the face of the significant opposition to women becoming
educated or working, especially in the remote regions of the province, Saadat has
continued to use the textile art as a tool to rebel against gender oppression and support
“women’s access to education and work, increas[e] women’s participation in judicial
affairs and a society free from violence are my hopes and expectations (Ibid).”
Another woman practicing her craft in the face of opposition is Sima [full name
omitted to remain anonymous], a musician who plays and teaches the rubab, an Afghan
stringed instrument. Sima was determined to be allowed to follow her passion for music,
which her family apprehensively respected. She worked within the field of music
through consulting, performing at events and teaching, primarily encouraging young
women and girls to participate. Her commitment to music stands in the face of
extremists, who oppose the idea of women playing music. “Even families who did not
share those ideologies often prevented their children, especially girls, from playing
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instruments to protect them from the abuse and possible assaults they could suffer at
the hands of radicals in their communities (Geranpayeh, 2021c).”
On several occasions, Sima and her family had been threatened that they would
be killed if she did not stop performing music. Around a week after the Taliban’s return
to power, a Taliban spokesman told the New York Times of their plan to ban music, as it
is prohibited in Islam. The Taliban takeover has elevated the threat to danger Sima is in.
With her family’s help, Sima has protected her instruments to keep them safe. In an
interview in October 2021, she said that “Afghanistan is a very traditional country and
women have been deprived of opportunities in music and kept away from it for years. I
really wanted to help girls and young women learn and play music so that it could be
more widespread and this negative mentality towards it could be abolished…I wanted
them to have a positive outlook towards music and understand that women could be
active in music and arts (Ibid).”
Protection of Arts and Culture
The resistance movement also requires the protection of marginalized voices
from disappearing. This includes saving art from being destroyed, as well as creating
pathways for cultural heritage to be shared and understood outside of Afghanistan.
This preservation of art and culture is important to the resistance movement because it
creates a record of cultural life that acts against a regime determined to eradicate facets
of such culture. Proving the existence of arts and culture is an act of resistance under
oppressive forces that are seeking to ban this within Afghan society. In an interview,
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Laila Noor, an Afghan activist and fashion designer based in Germany stressed the need
for outside actors to better understand Afghan culture to be more intentional about
support efforts. She said “[t]he world powers think they can deal with everything
through force, weapons and money, but, before one does anything, one needs to get
familiar with the traditions and history of the country…One needs to be sensitive and
ask, what is important for the people of this country? These barbarians do not have
anything to do with the arts and culture, but other people in Afghanistan do. It is these
people who need support and security and who should not be simply delivered to those
who have no respect for the arts, culture or women (Gopalakrishnan, 2021a).”
Artists have been hiding their artwork to protect it from Taliban searches.
Shortly after the Taliban’s takeover, the artist Mina [last name omitted to remain
anonymous] prepared for the potential of Taliban-ordered door-to-door searches by
hiding all of her artwork and then “erased her social media, burned incriminating
documents and tore out book pages (Geranpayeh, 2021a). In an interview she spoke of
the dire need to preserve and protect art and artists, saying “Who is thinking of art now?
No one. Everyone is only thinking of finding ways to save their lives (Ibid).” Negina
Azimi, another artist, said she knew that she would be a target for the Taliban once they
entered Kabul in August 2021. “‘We heard reports that the Taliban might raid houses. I
was scared because I live in a very central neighbourhood and every room in my house is
adorned with the kind of art the Taliban won’t approve of,’ she [said], referring to
paintings that feature messages about women’s empowerment and are critical of the
Taliban’s atrocities (Kumar, 2021).” Azimi removed all of her artwork from her studio
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and hid them in advance of hearing later that the Taliban asked nearby shopkeepers for
the addresses of her and fellow artists.
Since the Taliban have returned to power, some arts and handiwork
organizations have decided to remain open. Farshied Jabarkhyl is a director of an
artisan organization Tanweer FBMI which supports women in creating Afghan carpets.
His decision to remain open relied heavily on the fact that he is already accustomed to
interaction with the Taliban. In an ArtNet interview (2021), he said, “We are present in
the communities in the south, areas where the Taliban have always had a presence...In
certain areas in Afghanistan, people have lived under the Taliban, and our only aim is to
employ women in those areas in order to empower them...Our factories and operations
are still running, and the women are still working. Our model allows women to work
from home, use their skills and importantly, their heritage, to create artisanal items. We
employ them while also helping their children go to school. We have no political
affiliations (Proctor, 2021).” This commitment to preserving culture in the face of such
danger and threat to women is one way that demonstrates resistance.
Another art form that has been significant in the role of resistance for women in
Afghanistan is poetry. Women in Afghanistan have had a long-standing history of using
poetry as a form of resistance. Dealing primarily with themes of reconciliation and
healing, these poems, called landais, “refer to two-line folk poems that are very powerful
and...are collective. It does not belong to just one person. The writer is unknown, and
they are shared, revised and edited as they are recited. Although men do recite them
too, they are mostly in the voices of women (Pulugurtha, 2020, p17).” Women’s
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18
experience as targets of violence and oppression is read in the poem through the
agency Afghan women have as subjects (Pulugurtha, 2020, p16-17).
A women’s literary group called Mirman Baheer was founded in Kabul and
supports women in sharing landais. It includes a diverse group of women and girls, some
even contributing their poems in secret. In 2013, Afghan activists and writers Noorjahan
Akbar and Batul Moradi founded Free Women Writers, an organization focusing on
women’s empowerment through written word. Another organization, “Afghan
Women’s Writing Project (AWWP) was founded in 2009 in honour of Zarmeena who
was brutally executed by the Taliban in 1999 without being able to tell her story
(Pulugurtha, 2020, p18).” AWWP is dedicated to creating a platform for women to
share their poems and oral stories and preserve them in a digital archive. In a poem
written by a 16-year-old girl who goes by Zahra, she writes,
Hear my cry for my girls
For women and mothers
Sisters and children
My cry for myself
Hear my cry for my people
For my government
For Afghan immigrants
I will shout with bloody eyes
Against discrimination in Iran
And attacks in Afghanistan
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Listen to me and speak to me
I demand to stand against injustice
I write and write
(W & Afghan Women’s Writing Project, 2016)
This excerpt demonstrates how poetry is a medium that serves as a tool of
resistance for women in Afghanistan by providing a platform to speak out against
violence and an oppressive regime, while allowing for their words to be shared beyond
their local environment. This not only is a form of preservation of Afghan poetry forms,
but it also allows for women’s voices to be prominent in discourse pertaining to women
in Afghanistan.
Conclusion
Ever since the Taliban recaptured Afghanistan in summer 2021, a big focus
permeating Western media has been on the safety of women and girls. As the Taliban
has had a history of imposing harsh restrictions on women, this focus has certainly been
merited and is important to share across international media outlets. However,
especially in the United States, coverage of the events that unfolded in Afghanistan
have reinforced the idea that the empowerment and advancement of Afghan women
has been reliant upon US military intervention. This rhetoric “presents Afghan women
as victims in need of saving, suggesting all women experience life in Afghanistan the
same way, without accounting for their activism and political resistance (Osman &
Zeweri, 2021).” There is a longstanding history of women self-organizing and leading
TOOLS OF RESISTANCE: WOMEN AND ART IN AFGHANISTAN
20
resistance actions in Afghanistan. While women across different fields have risen in
solidarity, many women are using the arts and culture as tools of resistance by bringing
visibility to their experiences, protesting and rebelling and protecting arts and cultural
heritage.
By highlighting the realities of women and girls under the oppressive forces,
women-empowered art sets a course of action for international communities to
intentionally and authentically meet the needs of women in Afghanistan. Women
involved in protest and activism against the Taliban use art as a form of dissent against
Taliban rule, as well as gender oppressive societal norms. Women who practice art in
the face of the regime’s mandate against it is a bold form of rebellion as well. Lastly,
resistance efforts can also be found through women who seek to preserve and save art
objects and practices against the demands of Taliban leaders.
In 2014 the organization Artlords was established in Kabul. They are a hub for
artists, creators and activists who seek to engage in social transformation through art
and culture as a non-intrusive approach. In an interview the co-Founder and manager,
Omaid Sharifi and Kabir Mokamel (2020) respectively, defined what they do as
“Artivism”, saying “we are artists and activists equally. One of the primary roles of civil
society is to connect the ‘ordinary people’ with their governments, so we work with
members of the public, teaching them how to paint and showing them that by holding a
brush they can make a statement about corruption and the other issues impacting civic
space in Afghanistan and beyond.” During International Civil Society Week in 2020,
Sharifi added, “With art, you’re healing yourself and you’re healing the people who
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21
engage with you. Together you can reintroduce positive narratives or change the
narratives (Mokamel & Sharifi, 2020).”
As the situation in Afghanistan continues to roar on, the lives of women, artists
and other marginalized people continue to be at risk. International communities can be
effective in supporting these vulnerable groups in Afghanistan. Leeza Ahmady, director
of Asia Contemporary Art Forum (ACAF) says that “the international arts community
can act by exerting pressure on politicians, offering residencies, providing support
letters for visas, creating university or other arts positions, and obtaining legal and
financial support. ‘The art world is a global community and the only reason it is
functioning is because everyone contributes to its ecology...If we are talking about
inclusivity, democracy and equity, then let’s actually show it by taking action
(Geranpayeh, 2021b)’.” Adding to Ahmady’s call to action, Graham Sheffield, the
former director of arts at the British Council said that “[a]rtists and cultural workers
have been at the forefront of the battle for social advancement in Afghanistan, as much
as the people who assisted the British forces and the government...We have a collective
responsibility to help them—and swiftly (Ibid).”
In the wider field of peacebuilding, it is important to look for leadership and
empowerment already found in the communities of people affected by conflict.
Through the artworks that women artists share, it is not only insight into personal
trauma and experiences that one gains, but firsthand accounts of self-organizing and
courageous and revolutionary acts that speak to a widespread representation of
Afghan women that is not always portrayed in international, and especially, Western
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22
media. Without seeking authentic and direct voices, international efforts to support
peacebuilding initiatives may muffle the voices of the very leaders who are already on
the ground and understand how to approach the next steps from different cultural,
political, and artistic aspects.
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References
Akhauri, T. (2021a, August 19).
Afghan Women Artists Took On Patriarchy For Years.
What Now, Under Taliban?
SheThePeople TV.
https://www.shethepeople.tv/news/afghan-women-artists-taliban-shamsia-
hassani-rada-akbar-fatimah-hossaini/
Akhauri, T. (2021b, August 19).
“Have No Tears Left In Me.” Afghan Women Fear Dark
Days Amid Taliban Takeover
. SheThePeople TV.
https://www.shethepeople.tv/news/gender-rights-afghan-women-taliban-
takeover-kabul/
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Annex I | Resources for Support
ArtLords Public Art for Social Transformation
https://www.artlords.co/
The Gender Hub
https://thegenderhub.com/news/help-afghanistan-with-your-donation/)
Women For Afghan Women
https://womenforafghanwomen.org/
Afghanaid
https://www.afghanaid.org.uk/
Artists at Risk
https://artistsatrisk.org/
New University in Exile Consortium
https://newuniversityinexileconsortium.org/
Pro Bono Immigration Lawyers for At-Risk Artists | Artistic Freedom Initiative
https://artisticfreedominitiative.org/
Afghan American Artists and Writers Association
https://aaawa.net/2021-afghanistan-crisis-resources/
Afghanistan National Institute of Music
https://www.anim-music.org/donate-1
Asian Contemporary Art Forum
https://givebutter.com/tQYjzg#
