Saturday, February 19, 2005
Day of mourning/ Day of freedom
Well I am glad at the effects of this blog on my spirits. It is a good reason to get off my arse and make the effort to foil the cordon and get outside and see something of this place. It’s easy to give in and just sit around read in the stuffy heat of the guesthouse – as I did yesterday, but it is nice to have something to show for it when I actually do go out and make the most of things. I still haven’t gone public with this blog – I mean to send it round to friends and family to check out when I have a decent backlogue to read through. It’s probably enough by now in fact.
Today is Ashura, the tenth day of mourning for the siege and slaughter at Kerbala of Husayn, son of Ali and grandson of the prophet Muhammad. I won’t go into all that though, as some people only have limited interest in the historical antecedents of Muslim religious festivals (weirdos!). Maybe I will try and find a good link about it. Anyway, there is quite a spectacle associated with chanting and crying and self-flagellation, so I wanted to go out and see if I could have a look.
Here are a couple of interesting links then:
Wikipedia general information
A bit more poetic, sums up the mood quite well
I am still in Mazar, normally easier to walk around in than Kabul, but today we had a security warning to stay away from things today – bloody spoilsports! For a change this is not because of threatened attacks on foreigners, but rather the possibility that there will be some kind of lashing out at the Shi’a population who take Ashura most seriously. The Shi’a in Afghanistan are predominantly Hazara, a visible minority because of their pronounced mongoloid features who have been oppressed here for a long time – warred against, attacked, oppressed and enslaved in the 19th Century, by Abdur Rahman Khan, the Iron Emir, they continue to be hated and despised by many, possibly because of being connected with Shi’a Iran, suspected of meddling in Afghan politics, and particularly in view of a series of particularly brutal war-crimes carried out by Hazara militias during the years of war. They were notorious for the Dance of Death, where you get a man, cut his head off, and seal the neck with boiling oil so that the blood is sealed in, and the corpse runs around, throwing himself about as the blood continues to pulse in his veins. The extent to which this kind of thing went on is probably exaggerated, and of course every side perpetrated war crimes in Afghanistan, but you get the sense also that possibly there was a spirit of exceptional revenge for all the years of bad treatment. Hazaras are still the butt of many Afghan jokes and stereotypes (I was told a very dirty joke of this variety recently, but I will leave it till another day – it is possibly not appropriate for such a solemn festival – indeed possibly not appropriate for repetition, full stop). So that’s why there was a security warning out for today – avoid all Shi’a areas and Shi’a mosques. To compound my luck, Mr Security, was up here for the weekend, sitting on the guesthouse sofa, nonchalantly flipping through a book about security for international NGOs, or something like that, his lips moving as he read, so the opportunity for sneaking around was pretty limited.
Anyway, La Petite Anglaise and I managed to persuade a driver to take us out to have a look at things from the car – I’ll post a photo or two up above this. Its not ideal snapping through the car window, but you get the general idea. In fact there was a particularly jolly mood in the streets on Mazar today. I was expecting the kind of mass-grief that I have seen in Shi’a mosques in Syria and Iran, but there was a holiday atmosphere with huge numbers of women wandering round with little dressy shoes poking out from their burkas to show you that they were dressed up – little fake-jewelled open-toed sandals or boots with stiletto heels and pointed toes. Its nice to see so many women around – many with their faces showing – well, not many, but many more than usual. I wonder why. It seems to be a day for the whole family to get out, at any rate. People from the same neighbourhood have rented buses to take them round to the Takiya-Khanas where they pray and listen to the readings of the story of the disaster at Kerbala.
So this is the end of 10 days of Muharram mourning. It’s interesting to think that people have been doing this every year at the same time for… how many years? 1400? Well, not at the same time in fact, because Muharram is a lunar month, so it comes at a different time each year. Having said that, there is nothing universally correct about the solar months, now that we get into it – though the solar system is in synch with the agricultural calendar, so more appropriate for planning when to put the daffodils in. The use of time though is a fiction really. I mean that if it were not for occasions like Ashura, and the planting of daffs, and Easter and Remembrance day, we would not need months and years. In fact, if we look at it like this, then Ashura really only came once – a drop in the great ocean of time, and it is just celebrated at regular intervals, based on arbitrarily selected astronomical events – these intervals eventually helping us to structure our lives and our memories. But you need something truly joyous or catastrophic to act as this kind of marker. Ashura is certainly one of these – wow! – what misery that they can summon up! Though watching TV today, in fact the Iraqis mourning at Kerbala seem to be rather jolly, jumping around and flagellating to an upbeat. And in other places many people are just patting their heads absent-mindedly. Still, in the past in Iran and Syria, I have seen readings of the story of Husayn, and they really do sob. I guess there is probably a psychosomatic reaction (is that the correct word?) of some kind where by if you display the physical elements of grief, you become truly sad. So while I have seen people with tears quietly rolling down their faces, the norm seems to be head in hand, shoulders violently heaving and shaking and trembling with the vocal grief.
In fact I did manage to get out and have a wander round later. I went to the great mosque in the centre of Mazar-I Sharif, the ‘mazar’ that the town is named after – an alternative shrine housing an alternative burial place of Ali to the one in Najaf in Iraq (don’t ask how is body got up to northern Afghanistan… someone saw it in a dream in the 13th century. I am not going to question it.) Mr Security went over to the office in the afternoon, and I looked out of the gate and there was no car, so I told the guard that I would walk the 10 minutes to the office, rather than waiting for the car, and set off towards the office, then doubled back and struck eastwards to the great mosque. It was the quietest most uneventful stroll round a town absorbed in a gentle, holiday atmosphere, rather than the commercial chaos that usually engulfs the centre of Mazar, but my pulse was racing and I was very pumped. I chatted to a little boy selling chocolates who proudly bore the name of Ahmad Shah, afterAhmad Shah Masood, the Panjshiri Mujahid, I went in to the mosque and visited the museum and looked at a bunch of old trinkets and a few new ones (I particularly appreciated the plaster deer with blue light-up eyes, and the ornamental sword donated my 'The large General Mumamad Ata'). In the museum, I was lectured by the good-natured curator who told me why I could not visit the main section of the mosque (something to do with purity), and made me slightly nervous as everyone else in the one-room museum turned their gaze upon me to see what I had to say for myself. I just nodded and said 'yes', and 'correct' a lot.
And then I collected my boots and the door of the mosque, turned around and headed for the office, with Ahmad Shah following along next to me, out of curiosity and companionship. As I say - pleasant, but extremely uneventful. Logically I knew that everything was quiet and safe, but the whole thing was so NAUGHTY! As I walked through the streets, every time I saw a big white 4-wheel drive of the kind the NGOs use, I half ducked, and checked to see if it was from my organisation. It is very weird this life we lead. I have not felt quite like that since I turned 18, and was able to go to the pubs in the UK without the nagging fear that someone would check my fake ID and throw me out. In the end it is annoying though. I really must develop more reliable means of slipping the cordon and being able to enjoy a more relaxed brand of freedom.
Today is Ashura, the tenth day of mourning for the siege and slaughter at Kerbala of Husayn, son of Ali and grandson of the prophet Muhammad. I won’t go into all that though, as some people only have limited interest in the historical antecedents of Muslim religious festivals (weirdos!). Maybe I will try and find a good link about it. Anyway, there is quite a spectacle associated with chanting and crying and self-flagellation, so I wanted to go out and see if I could have a look.
Here are a couple of interesting links then:
Wikipedia general information
A bit more poetic, sums up the mood quite well
I am still in Mazar, normally easier to walk around in than Kabul, but today we had a security warning to stay away from things today – bloody spoilsports! For a change this is not because of threatened attacks on foreigners, but rather the possibility that there will be some kind of lashing out at the Shi’a population who take Ashura most seriously. The Shi’a in Afghanistan are predominantly Hazara, a visible minority because of their pronounced mongoloid features who have been oppressed here for a long time – warred against, attacked, oppressed and enslaved in the 19th Century, by Abdur Rahman Khan, the Iron Emir, they continue to be hated and despised by many, possibly because of being connected with Shi’a Iran, suspected of meddling in Afghan politics, and particularly in view of a series of particularly brutal war-crimes carried out by Hazara militias during the years of war. They were notorious for the Dance of Death, where you get a man, cut his head off, and seal the neck with boiling oil so that the blood is sealed in, and the corpse runs around, throwing himself about as the blood continues to pulse in his veins. The extent to which this kind of thing went on is probably exaggerated, and of course every side perpetrated war crimes in Afghanistan, but you get the sense also that possibly there was a spirit of exceptional revenge for all the years of bad treatment. Hazaras are still the butt of many Afghan jokes and stereotypes (I was told a very dirty joke of this variety recently, but I will leave it till another day – it is possibly not appropriate for such a solemn festival – indeed possibly not appropriate for repetition, full stop). So that’s why there was a security warning out for today – avoid all Shi’a areas and Shi’a mosques. To compound my luck, Mr Security, was up here for the weekend, sitting on the guesthouse sofa, nonchalantly flipping through a book about security for international NGOs, or something like that, his lips moving as he read, so the opportunity for sneaking around was pretty limited.
Anyway, La Petite Anglaise and I managed to persuade a driver to take us out to have a look at things from the car – I’ll post a photo or two up above this. Its not ideal snapping through the car window, but you get the general idea. In fact there was a particularly jolly mood in the streets on Mazar today. I was expecting the kind of mass-grief that I have seen in Shi’a mosques in Syria and Iran, but there was a holiday atmosphere with huge numbers of women wandering round with little dressy shoes poking out from their burkas to show you that they were dressed up – little fake-jewelled open-toed sandals or boots with stiletto heels and pointed toes. Its nice to see so many women around – many with their faces showing – well, not many, but many more than usual. I wonder why. It seems to be a day for the whole family to get out, at any rate. People from the same neighbourhood have rented buses to take them round to the Takiya-Khanas where they pray and listen to the readings of the story of the disaster at Kerbala.
So this is the end of 10 days of Muharram mourning. It’s interesting to think that people have been doing this every year at the same time for… how many years? 1400? Well, not at the same time in fact, because Muharram is a lunar month, so it comes at a different time each year. Having said that, there is nothing universally correct about the solar months, now that we get into it – though the solar system is in synch with the agricultural calendar, so more appropriate for planning when to put the daffodils in. The use of time though is a fiction really. I mean that if it were not for occasions like Ashura, and the planting of daffs, and Easter and Remembrance day, we would not need months and years. In fact, if we look at it like this, then Ashura really only came once – a drop in the great ocean of time, and it is just celebrated at regular intervals, based on arbitrarily selected astronomical events – these intervals eventually helping us to structure our lives and our memories. But you need something truly joyous or catastrophic to act as this kind of marker. Ashura is certainly one of these – wow! – what misery that they can summon up! Though watching TV today, in fact the Iraqis mourning at Kerbala seem to be rather jolly, jumping around and flagellating to an upbeat. And in other places many people are just patting their heads absent-mindedly. Still, in the past in Iran and Syria, I have seen readings of the story of Husayn, and they really do sob. I guess there is probably a psychosomatic reaction (is that the correct word?) of some kind where by if you display the physical elements of grief, you become truly sad. So while I have seen people with tears quietly rolling down their faces, the norm seems to be head in hand, shoulders violently heaving and shaking and trembling with the vocal grief.
In fact I did manage to get out and have a wander round later. I went to the great mosque in the centre of Mazar-I Sharif, the ‘mazar’ that the town is named after – an alternative shrine housing an alternative burial place of Ali to the one in Najaf in Iraq (don’t ask how is body got up to northern Afghanistan… someone saw it in a dream in the 13th century. I am not going to question it.) Mr Security went over to the office in the afternoon, and I looked out of the gate and there was no car, so I told the guard that I would walk the 10 minutes to the office, rather than waiting for the car, and set off towards the office, then doubled back and struck eastwards to the great mosque. It was the quietest most uneventful stroll round a town absorbed in a gentle, holiday atmosphere, rather than the commercial chaos that usually engulfs the centre of Mazar, but my pulse was racing and I was very pumped. I chatted to a little boy selling chocolates who proudly bore the name of Ahmad Shah, afterAhmad Shah Masood, the Panjshiri Mujahid, I went in to the mosque and visited the museum and looked at a bunch of old trinkets and a few new ones (I particularly appreciated the plaster deer with blue light-up eyes, and the ornamental sword donated my 'The large General Mumamad Ata'). In the museum, I was lectured by the good-natured curator who told me why I could not visit the main section of the mosque (something to do with purity), and made me slightly nervous as everyone else in the one-room museum turned their gaze upon me to see what I had to say for myself. I just nodded and said 'yes', and 'correct' a lot.
And then I collected my boots and the door of the mosque, turned around and headed for the office, with Ahmad Shah following along next to me, out of curiosity and companionship. As I say - pleasant, but extremely uneventful. Logically I knew that everything was quiet and safe, but the whole thing was so NAUGHTY! As I walked through the streets, every time I saw a big white 4-wheel drive of the kind the NGOs use, I half ducked, and checked to see if it was from my organisation. It is very weird this life we lead. I have not felt quite like that since I turned 18, and was able to go to the pubs in the UK without the nagging fear that someone would check my fake ID and throw me out. In the end it is annoying though. I really must develop more reliable means of slipping the cordon and being able to enjoy a more relaxed brand of freedom.
# posted by Ed @ 5:26 pm 
