Home / Contact / Stories,
News & Reports / Photos
Worldwide Gay Life,
Sites and Insights
Stories + Photographs + News + Reports + Link
Gay
Afghanistan News & Reports 2002-06
Also see:
Gay Afganistan News & Reports 2007
Gay Afganistan News & Reports 2001
Gay Afganistan 2002 story
Also see
a 2004 story on gay Afghansitan by American writer Michael
Luongo who traveled to Afghansitan:http://www.globalgayz.com/g-afghanistan2.html
Also
see the interview with Luongo on
his return from gay Afghanistan
Also see:
Gay Asian Stories and News/Reports on GlobalGayz.com
More information
about Islam & Homosexuality can be found at: www.al-fatiha.org
Other articles of interest can be found at: groups.yahoo.com/group/al-fatiha-news
Queer
Muslim magazine: Huriyah
Gay Islam discussion groups:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/muslimgaymen http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lgbtmuslim
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/queerjihad http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bimuslims
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/transmuslims http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lesbianmuslims
Gay
Islam Reports 1998-2002
Gay
Islam Reports 2003-05
Gay
Islam Reports 2006-07
1
Startled marines find Afghan men all made up to see them 5/02
Three
similar stories by major newspapers:
2
Shh, It's an Open Secret: Warlords and Pedophilia (New
York Times) 2/02
3
Kandahar's Lightly Veiled Homosexual Habits (Los Angeles Times) 4/02
4
Kandahar comes out of the closet (Times of London) 12/02
5 A
Critique of Western Journalists' Reporting Bias about 'Gay
Kandahar 4/03
6
Afghanistan has its first official AIDS deaths 6/04
7
Interview with Michael Luongo on his return from ‘gay
Afghanistan': intimacy
and sex 7/04
8 American
arrested in Afghanistan on suspicion of soliciting gay sex 9/04
9
The boy singers of Kabul 4/05
10
Mazar-i-Sharif's young women meet their lovers in secret4/05 (non-gay
background story)
11
Afghan tribesman faces death for wedding to teenage boy 10/05
12 Correspondence
with GlobalGayz -
'secret sex life of wardlords and trophy boys' 11/06
13 The Return of the Taliban 11/06
The Scotsman,
EdinburghScotland ( http://www.scotsman.com/ )
24 May
2002
1
Startled
marines find Afghan men all made up to see them
by Chris
Stephen
In Bagram
British marines returning from an operation deep in the Afghan mountains
spoke last night of an alarming new threat--being propositioned
by swarms of gay local farmers.
An Arbroath
marine, James Fletcher, said: "They were more terrifying than
the al-Qaeda. One bloke who had painted toenails was offering
to paint ours. They go about hand in hand, mincing around the
village." While the marines failed to find any al-Qaeda
during the seven-day Operation Condor, they were propositioned by
dozens of men in villages the troops were ordered to search. "We
were pretty shocked," Marine Fletcher said. "We discovered
from the Afghan soldiers we had with us that a lot of men in this
country have the same philosophy as ancient Greeks: 'a woman for
babies, a man for pleasure'."
Originally,
the marines had sent patrols into several villages in the mountains
near the town of Khost, hoping to catch up with al-Qaeda suspects
who last week fought a four-hour gun battle with soldiers of the
Australian SAS. The hardened troops, their faces covered in camouflage
cream and weighed down with weapons, radios and ammunition, were
confronted with Afghans wanting to stroke their hair. "It
was hell," said Corporal Paul Richard, 20. "Every village
we went into we got a group of men wearing make-up coming up, stroking
our hair and cheeks and making kissing noises."
At one
stage, troops were invited into a house and asked to dance. Citing
the need to keep momentum in their search and destroy mission, the
marines made their excuses and left. "They put some music on
and ask us to dance. I told them where to go," said Cpl Richard. "Some
of the guys turned tail and fled. It was hideous."
The Afghan
hill tribes live in some of the most isolated communities in the
country. "I think a lot of the problem is that they don't have
the women around a lot," said another marine, Vaz Pickles. "We
only saw about two women in the whole six days. It was all very disconcerting."
A second
problem the British found came minutes after the first helicopter
touched down at one of the hilltop firebases, when local farmers
appeared demanding compensation for goats they claimed had been blown
off the mountains by the rotor blades. "Every time we landed
a Chinook near a village, we got some irate bloke running up to us
saying his goat has just got blown off the mountain ridge by the
helicopter - and then he demanded a hundred dollars compensation," said
Major Phil Joyce, commander of Whisky Company, one of four companies
deployed. As patrols moved away from the landing zones, the locals
began pestering Afghan troops attached to the marines with ever more
outrageous compensation demands--topping off at a demand from one
village elder for $500 (£300) for damage to a tree by the downdraft
from helicopters.
But the
marines were under orders to win the "hearts and minds" of
local farmers in what is one of the few remaining Taleban bastions. "I
managed to barter him down to two marine pens, a pencil and a rubber," Major
Joyce said. "He went away quite happy ."
New York
Times
February
21, 2002
2
Shh, It's an Open Secret: Warlords and Pedophilia
by
Craig S. Smith
Kandahar,
Afghanistan - Back
in the 19th century, ethnic Pashtuns fighting in Britain's colonial
army sang odes talking of their longing for young boys. Homosexuality,
cloaked in the tradition of strong masculine bonds that are a hallmark
of Islamic culture and are even more pronounced in southern Afghanistan's
strict, sexually segregated society, has long been a clandestine feature
of life here.
But
pedophilia has been its curse. Though the puritanical Taliban tried
hard to erase pedophilia from male-dominated Pashtun culture, now that
the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice is gone,
some people here are indulging in it once again. "During the Taliban,
being with a friend was difficult, but now it is easy again," said
Ahmed Fareed, a 19-year-old man with a white shawl covering his face
except for a dark shock of hair and piercing kohl-lined eyes. Mr. Fareed
should know. A shopkeeper took him as a lover when he was just 12, he
said.
An
interest in relationships with young boys among warlords and their militia
commanders played a part in the Taliban's rise in Afghanistan. In 1994,
the Taliban, then a small army of idealistic students of the Koran,
were called to rescue a boy over whom two commanders had fought. They
freed the boy and the people responded with gratitude and support. "At
that time boys couldn't come to the market because the commanders would
come and take away any that they liked," said Amin Ullah, a money
changer, gesturing to his two teenage sons hunched over wads of afghani
bank notes at Kandahar's currency bazaar.
Most
men here spend the vast majority of their time in the company of other
men and rarely glimpse more than the feet of any woman other than their
mother, sister or wife. The atmosphere leaves little room for romantic
love, let alone recreational sex between men and women. But alternative
opportunities are not hard to find. Muhammad Daud, 29, says he first
spotted Mr. Fareed seven years ago at an auto repair shop owned by Mr.
Fareed's father and pursued the boy for months.
"If
you want a haliq"--a boy for sex--"you have to follow the
boy for a long time before he will agree," said Mr. Daud, smiling
at Mr. Fareed in a hostel in Kandahar where the two consented to give
an interview. "At first he was afraid, so I bought him some chocolate
and gave him a lot of money," said Mr. Daud, laughing. "I
went step by step and after about six or seven months, he agreed."
"At that time, I had no beard," Mr. Fareed said, smiling.
The
Taliban took care of that problem by resorting to an ancient punishment
prescribed by the Shariah, a compendium of Islamic laws: they pushed
a wall on top of anyone found to be homosexual. Odd as the punishment
sounds, it resonates with many Afghans who live in a world of mud-and-wattle
walls, many of which have long since lost their usefulness. There are
plenty of 12-foot-high, 2-foot-thick earthen walls around waiting to
be toppled.
On
the outskirts of Kandahar, Mr. Fareed pointed to a mound of rubble and
described how he had watched the Taliban lay a man there in a shallow
pit in front of a high wall and then ram the wall with a tank from the
other side, knocking it over on top of him. "When the wall fell,
people said he was dead, but later we heard that he wasn't dead,"
said Mr. Fareed.
The
man was Mullah Peer Muhammad, a former student of the Koran who had
become a Taliban fighter and was later put in charge of boys then incarcerated
at Kandahar's central prison. He was convicted of sexually abusing the
inmates. After the wall fell on him, his family dug him out and took
him to the hospital. He spent six days there and another six months
in jail, but according to the punishment, survivors are allowed to go
free. He now lives in Pakistan, his former neighbors say. A man who
said he owns the wall that fell on Mr. Muhammad said he had seen the
Taliban knock successive sections of the wall on another man seven times,
digging him out each time and moving him along the remaining wall before
he died.
The
man had been convicted of raping and killing a boy. "We had to
be very careful then," said Mr. Fareed, shrinking instinctively
from the crowd that had gathered around the site during a reporter's
visit. He said he and his lover could meet only at night in each others'
homes, but that they tried to refrain from physical contact for fear
that the Taliban's extensive intelligence network would discover them.
Now the Taliban are gone and the commanders have returned, some with
their predilections.
The
problem is so widespread that the government has issued a directive
barring "beardless boys"--a euphemism for under-age sex partners--from
police stations, military bases and commanders' compounds. While men
are courting boys once again, few do so openly. "Still, we feel
ashamed in front of our older brothers or parents," said Mr. Fareed.
But he insisted that he does not regret being lured into a relationship
by his older friend. When asked if he would do the same to a young boy,
Mr. Fareed said, yes. "I'm looking for one now," he said with
a smile.
Los Angeles
Times
April
3, 2002
3
Kandahar's Lightly Veiled Homosexual Habits
Society: Restrictions on relations with women lead to greater prevalence
of liaisons between men, a professor says.
by Maura Reynolds
Kandahar, Afghanistan - In his 29 years, Mohammed Daud has seen the faces of perhaps 200 women.
A few dozen were family members. The rest were glimpses stolen when
he should not have been looking and the women were caught without their
face-shrouding burkas.
"How can you fall in love with a girl if you can't see her face?"
he asks.
Daud is unmarried and has sex only with men and boys. But he does not
consider himself homosexual, at least not in the Western sense. "I
like boys, but I like girls better," he says. "It's just that
we can't see the women to see if they are beautiful. But we can see
the boys, and so we can tell which of them is beautiful."
Daud, a motorbike repairman who asked that only his two first names
and not his family name be used, has a youthful face, a jaunty black
mustache and a post-Taliban cleanshaven chin. As he talks, his knee
bounces up and down, an involuntary sign of his embarrassment.
"These are hard questions you are asking," he says. "We
don't usually talk about such things." Though rarely acknowledged, the prevalence of sex between Afghan men
is an open secret, one most observant visitors quickly surmise. Ironically,
it is especially true here in Kandahar, which was the heartland of the
puritanical Taliban movement.
It might seem odd to a Westerner that such a sexually repressive society
is marked by heightened homosexual activity. But Justin Richardson,
a professor of psychiatry at Columbia University, says such thinking
is backward--it is precisely the extreme restrictions on sexual relations
with women that lead to greater prevalence of the behavior. "In some Muslim societies where the prohibition against premarital
heterosexual intercourse is extremely high--higher than that against
sex between men--you will find men having sex with other males not because
they find them most attractive of all but because they find them most
attractive of the limited options available to them," Richardson
says.
In other words, sex between men can be seen as the flip side of the
segregation of women. And perhaps because the ethnic Pushtuns who dominate
Kandahar are the most religiously conservative of Afghanistan's major
ethnic groups, they have, by most accounts, a higher incidence of homosexual
relations. Visitors might think they see the signs. For one thing, Afghan men tend
to be more intimate with other men in public than is common in the West.
They will kiss, hold hands and drape their arms around each other while
drinking tea or talking.
Moreover, there is a strong streak of dandyism among Pushtun males.
Many line their eyes with kohl, stain their fingernails with henna or
walk about town in clumsy, high-heeled sandals.
The love by men for younger, beautiful males, who are called halekon,
is even enshrined in Pushtun literature. A popular poem by Syed Abdul
Khaliq Agha, who died last year, notes Kandahar's special reputation.
"Kandahar has beautiful halekon," the poem goes. "They
have black eyes and white cheeks."
But a visitor who comments on such things is likely to be told they
are not signs of homosexuality. Hugging doesn't mean sex, locals insist.
Men who use kohl and henna are simply "uneducated." Regardless,
when asked directly, few deny that a significant percentage of men in
this region have sex with men and boys. Just ask Mullah Mohammed Ibrahim,
a local cleric.
"Ninety percent of men have the desire to commit this sin,"
the mullah says. "But most are right with God and exercise control.
Only 20 to 50% of those who want to do this actually do it." Following the mullah's math, this suggests that between 18% and 45%
of men here engage in homosexual sex--significantly higher than the
3% to 7% of American men who, according to studies, identify themselves
as homosexual.
That is a large number to defy the strict version of Islam practiced
in these parts, which denounces sex between men as taboo. Muslims seeking
council from religious elders on the topic will find them unsympathetic. "Every person has a devil inside him," says Ibrahim. "If
a person commits this sin, it is the work of the devil." The Koran mandates "hard punishment" for offenders, the mullah
explains. By tradition there are three penalties: being burned at the
stake, pushed over the edge of a cliff or crushed by a toppled wall.
During its reign in Kandahar, the Taliban implemented the latter. In
February 1998, it used a tank to push a brick wall on top of three men,
two accused of sodomy and the third of homosexual rape. The first two
died; the third spent a week in the hospital and, under the assumption
that God had spared him, was sent to prison. He served six months and
fled to Pakistan.
Apparently to discourage post-Taliban visitors, the owners of a nearby
house have begun rebuilding on the site. "A lot of foreigners came and started interviewing people,"
says Abdul Baser, a 24-year-old neighbor, who points out the trench
where the men were crushed. "Since then they have rebuilt the wall."
But many accuse the Taliban of hypocrisy on the issue of homosexuality.
"The Taliban had halekon, but they kept it secret," says one
anti-Taliban commander, who is rumored to keep two halekon. "They
hid their halekon in their madrasas," or religious schools.
It's not only religious authorities who describe homosexual sex as common
among the Pushtun. Dr. Mohammed Nasem Zafar, a professor at Kandahar
Medical College, estimates that about 50% of the city's male residents
have sex with men or boys at some point in their lives. He says the
prime age at which boys are attractive to men is from 12 to 16--before
their beards grow in. The adolescents sometimes develop medical problems,
which he sees in his practice, such as sexually transmitted diseases
and sphincter incontinence. So far, the doctor said, AIDS does not seem
to be a problem in Afghanistan, probably because the country is so isolated.
"Sometimes when the halekon grow up, the older men actually try
to keep them in the family by marrying them off to their daughters,"
the doctor says. Zafar cites a local mullah whom he caught once using
the examination table in the doctor's one-room clinic for sex with a
younger man. "If this is our mullah, what can you say for the rest?"
Zafar asks.
Richardson, the psychiatry professor, says it would be wrong to call
Afghan men homosexual, since their decision to have sex with men is
not a reflection of what Westerners call gender identity. Instead, he
compares them to prison inmates: They have sex with men primarily because
they find themselves in a situation where men are more available as
sex partners than are women. "It is something they do," he
notes, "not something they are."
Daud, the motorbike repairman, would concur that the segregation of
women lies at the heart of the matter. Daud says his first sexual experience with a man occurred when he was
20, about the time he realized that he would have difficulty marrying.
In Pushtun culture, the man has to pay for his wedding and for gifts
and clothes for the bride and her family. For many men, the bill tops
$5,000--such an exorbitant sum in this impoverished country that some
men, including Daud, are dissuaded from even trying.
"I would like to get married, but the economic situation in our
country makes it hard," Daud says. Daud talked about his sex life only in private and after being assured
that no photos would be taken. "I have relations with different boys--some for six months, some
for one month. Some are with me for six years," he says. "The
problem is also money. If you want to have a relationship with a boy,
you have to buy things for him. That's why it's not bad for the boy.
Some relationships need a lot of money, some not so much. Sometimes
I fix a motorbike and give it to him as a present."
It is not easy to conduct homosexual affairs, he admits. Home is out
of the question. "If my father were to find me, he'd kick me out
of the house," Daud says. "If you want to have sex, you have
to find a secret place. Some go to the mountains or the desert."
Opinions differ as to whether homosexual practices in Kandahar are becoming
more open or more closed since the Taliban was defeated. For instance,
after anti-Taliban forces arrived in the city in early December, some
Westerners reported seeing commanders going about town openly with their
halekon. But that has changed in recent weeks since Kandahar's new governor,
Gul Agha Shirzai, issued an order banning boys under 18 from living
with troops. Officially, the ban is aimed at ending the practice of
using children as soldiers.
"It is not that way," says one of the governor's top aides,
Engineer Yusuf Pashtun, objecting to the insinuation that the boys may
have been used for sex. The governor's order said only that "no
boys should be recruited in the army before the age of 18," he
adds.
Still, the anti-Taliban commander, who is close to Shirzai, acknowledged
that one goal of the order was to keep halekon out of the barracks.
The move simply drove the practice underground, he says.
Zafar, the doctor, says that in the community at large the Taliban frightened
many men into abstinence. "Under the Taliban, no more than 10%
practiced homosexual sex," he says. "But now the government
isn't paying attention, so it may go back up to 50%."
But Daud thinks the opposite may happen. If coeducation returns and
the dress code for women eases, men will have fewer reasons to seek
solace in the beds--or fields or storage rooms--of other men.
"As for me, if I find someone and see she is beautiful, I will
send my mother over to her" to ask for her hand in marriage, Daud
says. "I'm just waiting to see her."
The
Times of London ( http://www.the-times.co.uk )
January 12, 2002
4
Kandahar comes out of the closet
From Tim Reid in Kandahar
Our correspondent sees the gay capital of South Asia throw off strictures of
the Taleban
Now that Taleban rule is over in Mullah Omar's former southern stronghold,
it is not only televisions, kites and razors which have begun to emerge. Visible
again, too, are men with their 'ashna', or beloveds: young boys they have groomed
for sex. Kandahar's Pashtuns have been notorious for their homosexuality for
centuries, particularly their fondness for naive young boys. Before the Taleban
arrived in 1994, the streets were filled with teenagers and their sugar daddies,
flaunting their relationship. It is called the homosexual capital of south
Asia. Such is the Pashtun obsession with sodomy - locals tell you that birds
fly over the city using only one wing, the other covering their posterior -
that the rape of young boys by warlords was one of the key factors in Mullah
Omar mobilising the Taleban.
In the summer of 1994, a few months before the Taleban took control of the
city, two commanders confronted each other over a young boy whom they both
wanted to sodomise. In the ensuing fight civilians were killed.
Omar's group freed the boy and appeals began flooding in for Omar to help in
other disputes. By November, Omar and his Taleban were Kandahar's new rulers.
Despite the Taleban disdain for women, and the bizarre penchant of many for
eyeliner, Omar immediately suppressed homosexuality.
Men accused of sodomy faced the punishment of having a wall toppled
on to them, usually resulting in death. In February 1998 three
men sentenced to death for
sodomy in Kandahar were taken to the base of a huge mud and brick wall, which
was pushed over by tank. Two of them died, but one managed to survive. "In
the days of the Mujahidin, there were men with their 'ashna' everywhere, at
every corner, in shops, on the streets, in hotels: it was completely open,
a part of life," said Torjan, 38, one of the soldiers loyal to Kandahar's
new governor, Gul Agha Sherzai.
"But in the later Mujahidin years, more and more soldiers would take boys
by force, and keep them for as long as they wished. But when the Taleban came,
they were very strict about the ban.
Of course, it still happened - the Taleban could not enter every
house - but one could not see it." But for the first time
since the Taleban fled, in the past three days, one can see the
pairs returning: usually a heavily
bearded man, seated next to, or walking with, a clean-shaven, fresh faced youth.
There appears to be no shame or furtiveness about them, although when approached,
they refuse to talk to a western journalist.
"They are just emerging again," Torjan said. "The fighters too
now have the boys in their barracks. This was brought to the attention of Gul
Agha, who ordered the boys to be expelled, but it continues. The boys live with
the fighters very openly. In a short time, and certainly within a year, it will
be like pre-Taleban: they will be everywhere."
This Pashtun tradition is even reflected in Pashtun poetry, odes written to
the beauty and complexion of an 'ashna', but it is usually a terrible fate
for the boys concerned. It is practised at all levels of Pashtun society, but
for the poorer men, having an 'ashna' can raise his status.
"When a man sees a boy he likes - the age they like is 15 or 16 - they will
approach him in the street and start talking to him, offering him tea," said
Muhammad Shah, a shop owner. "Sometimes they go looking in the football
stadium, or in the cinema (which has yet to reopen).
"He then starts to give him presents, hashish, or a watch, a ring, or even
a motorbike. One of the most valued presents is a fighting pigeon, which can
be worth up to $400 (£277). These boys are nearly always innocent, but
such is the poverty here, they cannot refuse."
Once the boy falls into the man's clutches - nearly always men with a wife
and family - he is marked for life, although the Kandaharis accept these relationships
as part of their culture. When driven around, 'ashna' sit in the front passenger
seat. The back seat is simply for his friends.
Even the parents of the boys know in their hearts the nature of the relationship,
but will tell people that their son is working for the man.
They, like everyone else, will know this is a lie. "They say birds flew
with both wings with the Taleban," Muhammad said. "But not any more."
Gay
and Lesbian Review
March-April 2003
5
Kandahar: Closely Watched Pashtuns--A Critique of Western Journalists' Reporting
Bias about 'Gay Kandahar
by Brian James Baer
Soon after American troops entered Afghanistan following the events of 9/11/2001,
reports began to appear in major press outlets documenting a phenomenon that
had previously received scant attention: widespread homosexual activity among
Afghan men, in particular among the Pashtun of the southern region of Kandahar. It
seemed that Western forces sent into Afghanistan to liberate Afghan women had
unwittingly liberated Afghan homosexuals, and Western journalists weren’t
sure what to make of that. The idea of homosexuality among rugged Afghan fighters
was treated—often within the same article—both as a cultural curiosity
and as an instance of abusive pedophilia. In the end, these Western press’s
accounts revealed at least as much about current Western fears and prejudices
as about the local practices they concerned.
Shortly after the 9/11 attack, an article titled “Repressed Homosexuality?” appeared
in The Times of London (October 5, 2001) suggesting a link between
misogyny and
homosexuality within the Taliban. A few months later a piece called “Kandahar
Comes out of the Closet,” also in the Times (January 12, 2002),
offered anecdotal evidence of the re-emergence of visible homosexual activity
in the
Kandahar region following the defeat of the Taliban. This story was picked up
in The New York Post under the title “A Gay Old Afghan
Time Again.” Two
days later, The New Yorker published a lengthy report by Jon
Lee Anderson on post-Taliban Kandahar in which he too broached the subject of
homosexual activity.
At last, The New York Times weighed in with a piece called “Shh,
It’s
an Open Secret: Warlords and Pedophilia” (Feb. 21, 2002). A spate of articles
followed with titles like “Kandahar’s Lightly Veiled Homosexual Habits” (Los
Angeles
Times, April 3) and “The Royal Marines and a Gay Warlord” (Sun
Herald [Sydney], June 9). Even USA Today (June 3) got into the act with a piece
that
discussed the threat of AIDS in post-Taliban Afghanistan, a nation seen as particularly
vulnerable because of “promiscuity and homosexuality without the use of
condoms.”
What makes these reports of open homosexual activity in Kandahar surprising is
that they seem to contrast so markedly with the repressive policies of the Taliban—and
Islamic societies in general. The official Taliban punishment for homosexual
activity was to topple a stone wall upon the offender (most died from the experience
but the occasional survivor was set free). Although this particular punishment
was confined to Afghanistan, the persecution of homosexuals was and remains widespread
throughout the Middle East. As Surina Kahn of the International Lesbian
and Gay
Human Rights Commission (ilghrc) has observed: “Homophobia runs through
mainstream, conservative, and fundamentalist elements of Islam.” Moreover,
in recent years even some of the more progressive governments in the Middle East
have been cracking down on homosexual activity in order to appease increasingly
powerful and vocal fundamentalist groups. This was illustrated by the arrest
of 52 suspected homosexuals in Egypt in May 2001 at a riverboat disco on the
charge of “practicing debauchery with men.”
Against this backdrop the open homosexuality of Pashtun men might seem the height
of social tolerance. However, when read within the context of Western
views of childhood sexuality, the love of youths (referred to as ashnas or haluks)
among
the Pashtun of Kandahar became a disturbing example of pedophilia. Several of
these reports noted that the rape and kidnapping of youths had increased in the
years preceding the Taliban takeover, and that the Taliban persecution of homosexual
activity had been greeted by many Afghanis with enthusiasm. The tendency
of Western observers to focus on instances of abuse was matched by a tendency
to reduce
same-sex relations to a Pashtun “obsession with sodomy.” Despite
the jocular tone of these exposés, their subtext was clearly aimed at
discrediting the Pashtun tradition by equating it with the ultimate American
taboo, adult sex with minors.
A Secret in Plain View
Modern Western cultures, particularly Anglo-American ones, construct homosexuality
as a secret—as the secret, according to Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick in The Epistemology
of the Closet (1990); but this is not necessarily the way that other cultures
have constructed it. Western journalists relentlessly projected onto
Kandahar
the two great secrets of contemporary American society: closeted homosexuality
and child abuse. Viewing homosexuality as something that’s kept secret,
Western journalists found the patterns of silence and disclosure in Afghanistan
to be rather baffling. They noted, on the one hand, a reluctance on the part
of Kandaharis to discuss their homosexual liaisons. When asked about these relationships
by one reporter (a female), a local contact replied: “These are hard questions
you are asking. We don’t usually talk about such things,” Tim Reid
of The Times of London noted the Kandaharis’ reticence and accused local
parents of “lying” when they, “who know in their hearts the
nature of the relationship [between their son and an older man], say that their
son is working for the man.” Of course, what Reid calls a lie others might
see as a tactful way of refusing to discuss a private matter.
But if Kandaharis seem unwilling to speak about their sex lives, as Tim Reid
noted, “there appears to be no shame or furtiveness” in the behavior
of male-male couples. Michael Griffin, also of the Times, reflecting on the history
of these relations, declared that “in Pashtun society, man-woman love was
the one that dared not speak its name: boy courtesans conducted their affairs
openly.” Reid wrote of pre-1994 Kandahar, where “the streets were
filled with teenagers and their sugar daddies, flaunting their relationship.” It’s
a bit ironic that Reid’s exposé was titled “Kandahar Comes
out of the Closet,” for it promises an act of disclosure that the Pashtuns
fail to deliver. At the same time, the Pashtuns’ behavior suggests a lack
of shame that’s inconsistent with the Western view of “the closet.” Reid
seems to be caught in the paradox of Western sexual discourse, which (as Foucault
argued) is organized around the imperative to control sexual behavior by talking
about it. In the end, Reid squares Kandahari behavior with Western expectations
only by castigating the Pashtun for “lying” to avoid the subject
and for “flaunting” their behavior in public.
The other Big Secret is that of pedophilia, the secret within the secret of homosexuality
in the popular imagination, the ultimate taboo. Despite statistical evidence
demonstrating that pedophilia in the West is more common among heterosexual men,
the association of homosexuality and the sexual abuse of children remains prominent
in Western anti-gay discourse, propelling “save our children” campaigns
to restrict their contact with gay adults. By constructing age-stratified
homosexual activity in Kandahar as pedophilia, Western journalists provided themselves
a
link to the ever-popular issue of child abuse—especially hot, what with
the unfolding scandal in the Catholic Church. Needless to say, Western reports
on age-stratified homosexuality in Kandahar typically stressed the “innocence” of
the minors involved. For example, Reid wrote that Kandaharis preferred “naïve
young boys,” while the Post described them as “fresh-faced.”
In their reporting Western journalists insisted on reducing relationships
that
are often long-term emotional bonds to a crude sexual bargain. The New York Times’ Craig
Smith, for example, translated the term haliq, which crudely means “beautiful
boy,” as “a boy for sex.” Michael Griffin, while noting the “rich
tradition of homosexual passion” celebrated in Pashtun poetry and dance,
nonetheless referred to it as “male prostitution.” Reid put forth
that boys are “groomed for sex” with an older man, which is “usually
a terrible fate for the boys concerned.” Without a shred of evidence, he
described the courting of an ashna, which typically involves elaborate and expensive
gift-giving. Smith’s contact provided the following description of this
courtship: “‘If you want a haliq—‘a boy for sex’—you
have to follow the boy for a long time before he will agree,’ said Daud,
smiling at Fareed in a hostel in Kandahar. ‘At first he was afraid, so
I bought him some chocolate and gave him a lot of money,’ said Daud, laughing. ‘I
went step by step, and after about six or seven months, he agreed.’”
The fact is that these relationships may last for many years; and,
as one contact
noted, “sometimes when the halekon [sic] grow up [and are no longer sexually
desirable], the older men actually try to keep them in the family by marrying
them off to their daughters” (LA Times, April 3, 2002). While Craig Smith
reported that his contact, Mr. Fareed, “does not regret being lured into
a relationship by his older friend,” his use of the word “lured” again
portrayed the ashna as an unwilling victim.
Tim Reid pronounced solemnly that “once the boy falls into the man’s
clutches, he is marked for life,” but added immediately that “the
Kandaharis accept these relationships as part of their culture.” But if
indeed they’re accepted, why would someone be “marked for life”?
This non sequitur reveals that Reid merely assumed that psychic trauma
and social stigma could be the only consequence of these relationships. In fact,
evidence
from Islamic cultures that have a tradition of age-stratified bonding suggests
that the matter is forgotten when the minor comes of age. “[N]o one,” writes
Stephen O. Murray in Homosexualities (2000), “not even those who remember
it from personal experience, will mention in his presence (or, probably, at all)
his pre-adult sexual behavior. His male honor depends on his conduct as an adult.”
Another of Reid’s underlying assumptions about homosexuality is revealed
in his statement that the Taliban leader, Mullah Omar, suppressed homosexual
activity “despite the Taliban disdain for women, and the bizarre penchant
of many for eyeliner.” The New York Post, which picked up Reid’s
story, recapitulated his strange logic: “Despite the regime’s hatred
of women and penchant for eyeliner, homosexuality was banned.” Like the
association of homosexuality with misogyny, the attempt to equate the Taliban’s
use of eyeliner with homosexual activity depends on a rusty Western stereotype
that seems to have life in it yet. Jon Lee Anderson’s article in The New
Yorker implied a connection between homosexuality and effeminacy by juxtaposing
a report on the enduring tradition of pederasty among the Pashtun with a description
of local practices that include the use of eyeliner and toe-nail polish and the
wearing of colorful, high-heeled sandals a size or two too small—which “means
that you mince and wobble as you walk.”
Maura Reynolds of The LA Times noted that “there is a strong streak of
dandyism among Pashtun males. Many line their eyes with kohl, stain their fingernails
with henna or walk about town in clumsy, high-heeled sandals.” But
this
equation makes sense only if we accept two Western assumptions: that homosexuality
and effeminacy are automatically linked; and that the practices described are
in fact “effeminate.” By that logic, turning to the West, what are
we to conclude about 18th-century aristocrats in their wigs, face powder, tights,
and high heels? Reynolds’ own research should caution against such simplifications.
She quotes one local source as saying: “Hugging doesn’t mean sex,
locals insist. Men who use kohl and henna are simply ‘uneducated.’” Moreover,
her contact Daud, who’s unmarried and has sex only with men and boys, “does
not consider himself homosexual, at least not in the Western sense.” And
although he has never been physically intimate with a woman, he assures Reynolds: “I
like boys, but I like girls better.”
The Making of a Minority
Western views on homosexuality can be neatly divided into two overarching traditions:
a Freudian school that sees all sexuality as “polymorphous” and homosexuality
as one position on a fluid continuum; and a gay liberationist view that sees
homosexuality as a distinct identity analogous to that of an ethnic minority.
In Kandahar, there is clearly no sense in which homosexuality constitutes a minority
identity—but this did not prevent Western journalists from constantly using
the language of the Western gay rights movement to describe it. Thus, for example,
faced with estimates from her informants that “between 18% and
45% of men
[in Kandahar] engage in homosexual sex,” Maura Reynolds observed dryly
that this is “significantly higher than the 3% to 7% of American men who,
according to studies, identify themselves as homosexual.”
Journalists repeatedly used Western concepts such as “gay” and “the
closet” to characterize the Kandahar situation, thus imposing their notion
of homosexuality as a minority identity. The term “gay” is used in
the title of the New York Post article—“A Gay Old Afghan Time Again”—as
well as in the article itself: “Men accused of being gay were executed
by having a wall toppled on them.” The word also appears in the headline
of Smucker and Kili’s story, “The Royal Marines and a Gay Warlord,” even
though the Afghan doctor quoted by Reynolds cautions that, among the Kandaharis, “homosexuality
is what they do, not what they are.” The picture of homosexual behavior
that emerges in even the shortest press accounts is complicated and, to the Western
eye, contradictory. Smucker and Kili’s article profiles an Afghan warlord,
Malim Jan, who has “two wives and ‘several boyfriends,’” and
who has now taken a fancy to the Royal Marines visiting his camp.
Another way that journalists like Craig Smith and Maura Reynolds try to reconcile
the evidence for polymorphous sexual desire with Western binarism is by interpreting
the widespread homosexual activity as an aberration, a product of the extreme
segregation of women in traditional Muslim cultures. This segregation presumably
places women sexually out of bounds, forcing men to go elsewhere for gratification.
And yet, as Tim Reid points out, the men who court adolescent boys are typically
married with children, while the “gay warlord” profiled by Smucker
and Kili has “two wives and ‘several boyfriends.’”
Michael Griffin appears initially to follow a similar line of argument, attributing
the popularity of homosexual sex to the Taliban’s extreme misogyny or “gynæophobia.” Near
the end of the article, however, he writes that the Taliban’s “gynæophobia
appeared [to be] the product of a repressed homosexuality” (italics mine).
Here he reverses the terms of his original argument, namely that homosexuality
is the product of gynaeophobia. Which is it, then? By arguing that homosexual
activity is not an effect of misogyny but rather its cause, Griffin seems to
be positing a primary homosexual desire, albeit a repressed one, that will not
simply disappear with the eventual liberation of Afghan women.
Whatever the cause of homosexuality in Kandahar, the future of same-sex relations
there is uncertain. While some predict an increase in tolerance of homosexual
activity with the defeat of the Taliban, a recent law forbidding “beardless
youths” in the army appears intended to restrict the practice of man-boy
love—a possible reaction to the sudden Western interest in this subculture.
This may signal a broader crackdown on homosexual activity throughout Afghan
society. Moreover, the slow liberation of Afghan women and the opening of Afghanistan
to the West promise to influence the construction of (homo)sexual behavior there
in unpredictable ways, as a deeply traditional Islamic society, suddenly in the
world spotlight, comes to terms with this sudden invasion of modernity.
Brian James Baer, associate professor of Russian Literature and Translation at
Kent State University, is presently completing a book on the representation of
homosexuality in post-Soviet culture.
Reuters
June
1, 2004
6
Afghanistan
has its first official AIDS deaths
by
Sayed Salahuddin
Kabul - The
deaths of an Afghan man and two of his children marked the
first official fatalities
from the AIDS virus in deeply conservative Afghanistan,
a health ministry official said on Tuesday. A 45-year-old man along
with
his six-month-old
son and two-year-old daughter died recently in a Kabul
hospital
where they were being treated for AIDS, said Dr Naqibullah
Safi, the head
of the ministry's HIV department. Safi did not identify
the man. The
wife of the victim was alive, he said.
"The man
had been suffering from AIDS for the past
seven years or so," Safi
told Reuters, adding that the deaths were the first
official AIDS fatalities registered
with the ministry. He said between 200 and 300 men
and women were registered as AIDS sufferers in Afghanistan.
But he
said the real number of sufferers
would be far higher, because many Afghans
with HIV or
AIDS
would avoid talking about it publicly.
Safi
linked AIDS cases in Afghanistan to
drug abuse as well as sex. There was little
awareness in the war-shattered country about the disease
and how it
spreads, he said. Most affected
people appear to have contracted AIDS from
Afghans who had lived abroad as refugees but who
have returned
home
in their
millions since late
2001. The risk of HIV/AIDS increased
after the hardline Islamic Taliban regime was toppled nearly three years
ago, as drug
abuse spreads in
the world's largest source of heroin and new freedoms
appear in cities, including prostitution.
The
ousted Taliban would
publicly lash or stone
to death adulterers, including women, and the
harsh interpretation of Islamic sharia law appeared to
have curbed promiscuity
and slowed the spread of sexually transmitted
diseases. President Hamid Karzai's
U.S.-backed government has come under fire from
some Islamists for failing to clamp down on brothels that
have opened
in the capital.
July 2004
7
Follow-up interview with Michael Luongo on his
return from ‘gay Afghanistan': on Afghani male intimacy and sex
GlobalGayz: During your visit to Kabul and Kandahar could you discern
the overall level of comfort Afghanis have with with guy-sex? Did they
seem to know what to do? Were they actively engaged or passively led?
Michael Luongo: I can’t really say what they actually do in bed,
but Afghan men in general picked up very quickly that I was gay, and
with such male to male intimacy in this country, it's not really a
problem. Men are allowed to do as they please, and if it means that
the possibility
of sex between men can occur, than so be it. I was often asked for
sex in very public, and even religious and government settings, which
was
actually shocking to me.
GG: My understanding is that Muslim guys (gay and straight) are so conditioned
toward heterosexual marriage that they feel OK about MSM as long they
are tops after a certain age (about 17, when they switch from boy bottoms
to man tops). Did you discern anything about this aspect? Talking is
one thing, actual sex-in-the-dark is another and reveals more than words.
Luongo: I think certainly most men want to play the active role. There
were men I met whom it would be understood played the passive role, but
these things are never said. In conversations, men did ask to penetrate
me, and I said no. Reversing the question, I could never get a response
back. Also, the men who seemed most aggressive about wanting what we
would call gay sex were also the most aggressively heterosexual appearing
- soldiers, policemen, and the like.
GG:
You wrote about the keen interest the native guys have in sex; did
you discern their interest in homosex
was only sublimated proxy hetero interest? Or is there a deeper appeal
for genuine homosex/intimacy that includes wet kissing and active
oral. (I think wet kissing and active oral separate the pseudo-gay
from the
real gay person vs fucking which anyone can do.) I guess this question
essentially asks, are these guys bisexual by nature or is their playing
around just a temporary stage--situational homosexuality?
Luongo: I was at a party where clearly the men
wanted to fool around with each other and played at that sort of
thing, but
would
still discuss
women. In fact, even knowing that I was a gay man, I had more experience
with women than any of them, none of whom had ever seen a woman naked.
Imagine being 26 and in that same situation in the USA? Still, ultimately
sex between men was the point of the party. One man sat close
to me caressing and playing very tenderly with my arm and hand; at
some points he would say, "I
wish you were a girl. So I think yes, in some cases,
it is substitution, and yet also, based on our own stereotypes of
what a gay man should be, there were some men who would be gay in
Western
setting. So it is both, but perhaps situational in more cases. (But
I also say we should throw out all of our Western notions of gay
and assume
that sexuality is fluid and people do not need to define oneself.
That is the beauty of such a situation, and is perhaps the way homosexuality
truly is, rather than a constructed identity which in the West means
we pay $10 for beers in gay bars when straight people pay $2 for
the
same in their bars.)
GG: In Kandahar, as we know from mainstream reports,
gang leaders and warlords seduce younger men as their paramours.
Did you find this to
be true? I assume the younger one takes the feminine sexual role?
How long do these big guys keep these little lovers? Until they marry?
And
then they in turn take younger guys or do these relationships last
many years?
Luongo: Western journalist want to state that the
evidence on this is clear, and yet I am not so sure after having
been there. This tradition/pattern
is something hard for an outsider to prove. In the recent past the
Taliban
ensured that many such people were killed - even if they themselves,
also to a degree practiced such a thing. There are an inordinate
amount of young beardless ‘soldiers’ in Kandahar in comparison
to other parts of the country. But does that mean they are all the
lovers
of older soldiers? I can not say for sure. I would say,
based on what people tell me who live there, anecdotally, yes. There
are hospital
cases where younger men have been anally traumatized, either by rape,
or simply
sex that is rough. Still, it is hard to say how many.
There are also adult homosexual relationships, but this too is hard
for me to prove.
Mazar
is another city known for these practices as well; it is not solely
a Kandahar characteristic. What was put to me very poetically
by an American woman living there is that in Kandahar, there is a
tradition of keeping beautiful things. Anyone who goes to this city
will immediately
notice the love of ornamentation, and it is the most beautiful city
in the country in my opinion. People also keep pets, especially birds,
which
is not common in other parts of Afghanistan. This perhaps extends
to beautiful young men who are kept by older men as trophies to have
around,
buy things for, to keep, to show to friends and play with, but whether
that extends to sex is a case by case arrangement.
GG: In your story you mentione that a construction worker said to
you, "You
like homosex?" in front of the other guys? Was that a risky
moment for you? Is there gay bashing in Afghan culture? What happens
if
straight guys there find out that a friend is really gay?
Luongo: It was not the construction worker who asked me if I liked
homosex, but rather all the old men who had gathered and were pushing
us together.
I was shocked at the openness of this, as we were also at a mosque,
but with 20 people watching, all was OK. I would not say it was a
risky moment
- I felt more at risk going to a remote party where I had no clue
how to get home or where I even was.
Romantic overtures were actually quite common from men on the streets
of Kabul. I never felt at risk in those situations, just simply shocked
at the openness of it. This even happened on my second trip with
a policeman who held my hand and told the crowd at a swimming pool
he wanted to find
a room so he could have sex with me. There are also visibly gay men,
but very few among native Afghans. I noticed this more on my second
trip, and also in dealing with gay Americans living in Kabul who
know such
people. In general, such men have been Westernized, or work in the
hotel industry. But it is very very few.
I have been receiving calls from a Swiss refugee organization about
gay Afghans claiming asylum. As a Westerner, you tend to be considered
above
the law in a place like Afghanistan. While I do not consider the
country homophobic, far from it, to be a gay Afghan in the Western
sense is an
entirely new construct for the country even if they understand the
meaning of the word. So it is hard to say.
One bright note I will mention though is that the gay-marriage debate
in the USA, broadcast into Afghan living rooms via CNN and BBC, is
bringing about intelligent and interesting questions in Kabul and
other cities.
It also allowed one young man to come out indirectly to a gay American
couple I know there. So, only the future will tell what happens in
a place like Afghanistan. And I will make sure to continue to visit
to
find out.
Associated Press
September (?) 2004
8
American
arrested in Afghanistan on suspicion of soliciting gay sex
Kabul, Afghanistan - An
American adviser to the Afghan government has been arrested
in the capital for allegedly having sex with an Afghan
man, officials said last week. The man was arrested late last month
after an Afghan detained by police told investigators the American
had paid
him for sexual relations at a Kabul hotel, the officials said. Afghan
officials say homosexuality remains a crime, even though it no longer
brings the brutal punishment handed out under the Taliban before
its ouster in 2001. Under its harsh interpretation of Shariah, or Islamic
law, gays were crushed to death by having walls toppled on them,
although
Afghans say closet gay relationships remained widespread. Abdul Halim
Samadi, a prosecutor dealing with the current case in Kabul, said
the American could get a jail term of 5-15 years if convicted.
Moby
Capital Updates <info@mobycapital.com>
12
April 2005
9
The boy singers of Kabul
--They were beaten and jailed under the Taliban.
But now child singers such as 13-year-old Mirwais Najrabi are fêted
as stars, despite the taint of corruption that clings to them.
by Nick Meo
In the cramped upstairs office of a theatre in central Kabul, thirteen
year-old Mirwais Najrabi is standing up to sing. As he begins the first
sorrowful verse of a traditional Afghan lament, it soon becomes clear
why this is the most sought-after voice in the city.
Dressed in an embroidered shalwar khamiz and green velvet jacket, with
a great mop of hair falling over an innocent face, Mirwais sings like
an angel. In post-Taliban Kabul, a voice like that can earn its owner
- and his agent - up to $1,000 (£500) a night.
Of all the extraordinary changes of fortune to affect Afghans in the
past three years, few have seen their luck change for the better as
much as Kabul's boy singers. During the rule of the Taliban, they were
a despised
breed. Boys were often beaten and jailed if caught plying their trade;
now they are showered with dollar bills and fêted as the showbiz
stars of Asia's most broken-down city. The two singers' bazaars in the
backstreets of Kabul's old town are crowded with hundreds of boys - talented
aspirants, established singers from famous musical families, and for
the really big names, canny agents.
The biggest stars make their main money from the lucrative wedding
party appearances that pay up to $1,000 a time, plus tips. And Mirwais
is the
biggest star of them all. His father, Mazari Najrabi, was a famous
singer; Mirwais discovered his gift singing along to tunes his elder
brother
played on an instrument similar to an accordion.
About a year ago, with the Taliban gone, he started attracting attention.
Then a Svengali-like figure, Sidiq Darayee, an impresario and theatre
owner, began to organise Mirwais's business affairs. Soon he was singing
until 3am at wild wedding parties before going to school the next day.
I met Mirwais and his entourage in Darayee's theatre in the week he
was putting on a comedy. After what they've been through in the past
25 years,
Afghans like a good laugh. Two cousins accompany the boy everywhere;
in lawless Kabul, a 13-year-old with a marketable voice is a valuable
commodity, and it is not unheard of for commanders to arrange the kidnapping
of boys they take a fancy to.
Darayee did most of the talking. Mirwais sat patiently on a worn couch
as the agent explained rather bitterly that foreigners were not spending
enough in Kabul. Later, eyes shining, the theatre-owner demanded $600
for a private singing appearance by Mirwais. Meanwhile the child star
said little. He enjoyed singing. He would like to be famous. Coming
to England is one of his ambitions.
He seemed a cheerful lad, if taciturn. And the rewards of his trade
were obvious. Round his neck was a gold pennant on a gold chain and,
on his
finger, a gold ring. Farhad, my translator and one of Afghanistan's
few true peaceful souls, was rather shocked. "What is such a young boy
doing wearing gold? If my son did that I would strike him for not showing
respect."
But Mirwais and others like him can scarcely be blamed for exploiting
their temporary good fortune. The boy singers may be practising an
art form with an ancient role in Afghan tradition, but their time at
the
top is brief, starting, if they are lucky, at the age of 12 or 13.
Most of them are finished forever by the time their voice breaks a
couple
of years later. That doesn't leave long to rake in the cash, and the
wooden huts of Chor bazaar where the boys and their families base themselves,
resound with the harsh sound of haggling for fees as much as the sound
of young voices showing off their talent.
Nor do the singers occupy a comfortable place in Afghan culture. Pre-pubescent
boys with sweet voices are highly prized and highly praised, but they
will never manage to shake off the taint of corruption that clings
to even the most innocent of them.
In a land where women are unavailable outside marriage, except as prostitutes,
sex with young boys has always been socially acceptable in most layers
of society and not just in the southern city of Kandahar where it is
a famous vice.
Everybody knows that beautiful young beardless boy singers are a source
of lust for wealthy commanders, who would be embarrassed to take a
female mistress. The pre-pubescent boy draped in gold, wearing the
finest clothes
and well known as a concubine, is a Kabul cliché, although such
liaisons will never be acknowledged by either the boy or the commander.
Many are chauffeured around in expensive vehicles and treated with deference
by the commander's men. "You must be careful with some of these
boys and their families even though you may despise them and what they
represent," said one Kabuli. "If you laid a finger on them
or said a bad word against them, the commanders would have you killed."
As the commanders enrich themselves on drugs and corruption, the number
of kept boy singers proliferates and the parties become wilder.
Whether the boys have personally been corrupted or not, and even if
they are stars, they will never be truly free of the low-life reputation
which
surrounds their calling. But for all the dubious morality of the profession,
Afghans love music and are happy to celebrate the return of the boys
with beautiful voices.
Music-making here nearly perished for good in the war and during the
Taliban persecution that followed. Even now, in more relaxed times,
it remains at risk of being eclipsed by youthful Kabul's new obsession
with
all things foreign and especially anything emanating from Bollywood.
But slowly, the old ways and habits of Kabul are regaining a foothold,
and Afghans are rediscovering a part of their heritage.
The district where musician families lived for centuries, Kocha Kharab,
used to be famous for its racy nightlife. Afghans would go in search
of the sad songs of longing sung in the classical Mahali tradition,
with their hypnotic beats on tabla drums and a range of stringed instruments
such as the 19-stringed habab, a kind of mandolin, and a traditional
accordion.
According to mood, men would sit in clouds of hashish smoke chatting
with friends and letting the music wash over them, or clapping along
with the beat and getting up to dance, hands waving above their heads
in wild abandon.
Afterwards, many would discreetly slip into Kocha Kharab's brothels
in search of boys or girls according to taste, or would even put a
bid in
for the dancing boys or the young singers. Like so much else in the
city, Kabul's unlikely bohemian world came to an abrupt end when the
rockets
of the fundamentalist leader, Gulbaddin Hekmatyar, flattened it during
the war - Kabulis claim the puritan, psychopathic warlord singled out
Kocha Kharab for his special brand of violent attention.
The musicians' families were then scattered across the city. The Taliban
destroyed the instruments and threw anyone caught dancing or singing
into prison. To an Afghan puritan, Kocha Kharab was Afghanistan's Sodom
and Gomorrah. Notwithstanding the return of the singers, it will probably
never return to its heyday. But in a city of overnight millionaires
and with the freedom to once again perform in public, the success of
boys
like Mirwais underlines a mini-revival.
During the three month wedding season before Ramadan, he was booked
every night, singing songs of impossible love, bloody betrayal, and
heroism.
As with many Afghans, these are themes that have touched his own family.
Mirwais's father was killed when he was five, and the family lived
on the front line during the fighting between factions that tore the
city
apart. When the Taliban came, they had to bury their instruments in
the garden.
After such traumas, he is at the top of the singing hierarchy, for
now. According to Darayee, he has rivals but the agent refused to name
them. "
They laughed at Mirwais when he started singing because he is small," he
said. "But
they are not laughing now."
One rival, reportedly, is Wali Fateh Ali Khan, 14. There are others.
But Mirwais proved his worth by winning a singing competition at
the Park Cinema last year, blowing the competition away with his
stage
presence.
His cassettes sell out routinely. Shaky DVDs of his performances
at wedding parties outsell Bollywood hits. Posters of him adorn the
teashops
of
Kabul.
Protected from press questioning by his entourage, it is difficult
to say what effect all this is having on his 13-year-old mind. He
insists school is fun and he is treated the same as any other boy.
As for the
unwanted attentions of older men, Mirwais is lucky; his family are
respectable
musicians and the protection of his cousins can be relied upon. He
is probably safe from the predations of corrupt old men. But other
boys
do not have such protection, as post-war Kabul becomes ever wilder.
One horrified Afghan even reported that he had seen women dancing
at a wedding party thrown by one of the capital's richest families.
They
were beautiful girls, he admitted, and demurely dressed, but they
were clearly prostitutes, and therefore to see them in public was
even more
shocking than seeing a kept boy. Boys who had been corrupted by commanders
were also there, and the illicit alcohol had been flowing freely.
"
I have never seen anything like it," the man said. "Ninety
per cent of the men there were criminals. There were dozens of
police outside protecting the party. I left when it started turning
violent."
Many Afghans are pleased their musical tradition has survived, but
are embarrassed it is turning out to have such a sleazy side. In
Kabul, perhaps
inevitably, beauty comes at a price.
"
These songs are beautiful. They make me close my eyes and dream," said
one. "It is when I open my eyes and look that I have such
a rude awakening."
Agence
France Press
April
2005 10
Mazar-i-Sharif's
young women meet their lovers in secret
Mazar-I-Sharif,
Afghanistan
Beneath a blue burqa
which glides through the shadow of the Hazrat Ali shrine, a pair of feet
with delicately painted nails makes its way towards the gardens where
some of Mazar-i-Sharif's young women meet their lovers in secretThe
northern city's young men openly discuss this educated minority of urban women,
who discreetly challenge Afghan traditions that fathers must
choose
the men their daughters marry and that brides cannot see their husbands in
advance.
"Today, girls can meet boys in government offices, in aid agencies, non-governmental
organisations, at university," explains Aimal, a 24-year-old dressed in
jeans and a western shirt who works for the United Nations in Mazar.
Virtually impossible under the ultra-Islamic Taliban, these meetings are a
prelude to "love marriages", still an extremely rare phenomenon in Afghanistan
but becoming increasingly popular in towns.
"People who make love marriages are educated people, people who have a job,
which is still rare in Afghanistan today," adds Aimal.
"Only educated people can meet other young people and have a boyfriend or
a girlfriend before getting married," says Hamidullah, a 25-year-old journalist
sitting at a table full of men at a restaurant in central Mazar.
At Koti Barq, a small residential area built by the Soviets near the city,
three young men talk about girls in a pharmacy owned by Sabur, a jovial, goateed
23-year-old
who is also dressed in jeans.
"The vast majority of Afghan marriages comply with traditions; so they're
more or less forced marriages," Sabur says.
More than three years after the fall of the Taliban, social customs in much
of Afghanistan continue to be repressive. Many young people, particularly women,
continue to be forced or pressured into marrying spouses who are not of their
choice.
Those who shun arranged marriages often meet in towns like Mazar, particularly
at work or at university.
"Hospitals too," says Ershad, 30, a doctor from the western city of
Herat, the only one of the three wearing traditional Afghan dress. "Lots
of people come to hospitals only to see girls. And all the doctors I know have
a girlfriend." After the initial meeting, young lovers have to make an effort to keep in touch. "But
today, it's easy to contact boys or girls with mobiles," says 26-year-old
Jamshit, the third of the young men at Sabur's pharmacy.
"Before that, if you wanted to meet a girl and to send her a message, you
had to give it to her little brother, with a candy for him. With one risk, the
message being caught by the father. "Now, 80 percent of young people in Mazar have a mobile. It's like a fashion,
and with it you can set up meetings without any problem." All that's left is to find a spot for a rendezvous.
"In Mazar, there are several places where you can meet girls: hotels, some
restaurants, shops, hospitals," says Ershad. "And pharmacies," he
adds with a glance at Sabur. The young pharmacist smiles. Quietly, he shows a red curtain behind the counter. "This
is a very good place for secret meetings. And there's no risk: it's normal for
a girl to come here to buy drugs," he says. Those who have no secret place can always go to the gardens at the Hazrat Ali
shrine, Afghanistan's holiest, where Ali, the cousin and son-in-law of the
prophet Mohammed is buried.
There, in the shadow of the mosaics and turquoise domes, "girls come to
the shrine in burqa, call their boyfriend with their mobile and tell him: meet
me there, under this tree, at this table's corner", says Sabur.
During the recent Afghan New Year in Mazar, dozens of young people could be
seen dancing, singing and greeting each other at the shrine. But there were
virtually
no young girls out at a time which their parents no doubt judged to be unacceptable. Instead they came to the pine-fringed pathways of Hazrat Ali two days later,
for the traditional new year "Women's Day" picnic, strictly reserved
for women. But the men are never far away.
A few days before, Aimal, Sabur, Ershad and Jamshit -- but not Hamidullah,
who already has a girlfriend -- said they were going to have a walk round the area "just
to have a look".
Sydney
Morning Herald
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/afghan-tribesman-faces-death-for-wedding-to-teenage-boy/2005/10/06/1128562943177.html#
October
7, 2005
11
Afghan tribesman faces death for wedding to teenage boy by
Peter Foster, New Delhi
A Pashtun tribesman who
fell in love with
and "married" a 16-year-old boy faces summary execution
in Pakistan after his "unholy union" provoked outrage among
Islamic leaders.
The "marriage" between Liaquat Ali, 42,
and the teenager, Markeen Afridi, was conducted with all the ceremony
of a conventional tribal wedding, including a troupe of singers and
a feast. But guests who arrived at the village of Nangrosa
in the Khyber Agency, 80 kilometres north of Peshawar, said they
were scandalised
to discover the "bride" was a boy.
Fazal
Amin, 30, a shopkeeper, said 200 people attended the wedding last
Monday, watching the "bride" arrive
in costume on a white horse, as tradition demands. "I didn't
know that Liaquat was going to marry a boy. When we discovered, everyone
was taken by surprise and many guests went back without eating the
traditional walima [feast]," he said.
Local
reports said the boy's family, who are extremely poor, agreed to
the union after Liaquat,
an Afghan refugee, paid a dowry of 40,000 Pakistani rupees
($885) -
a huge sum. However, as news of the scandal leaked out, Afridi
tribal elders convened an emergency jirga (tribal council) on Wednesday
to decide how to respond to the "immoral and shameful act".
A tribal elder, Haji Namdar, recently returned from
a year-long pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia to impose a Taliban-style
law on the area, some of
the wildest and least accessible territory in Pakistan.
Millat
Khan Afridi, 56, another tribal elder, said he would advocate
the death
penalty for the pair because they had held up the reputation
of Islam and the tribe to ridicule and contempt. It is also common
practice
in such disputes for tribal delegations to march on the homes
of the offending people and set them ablaze as a warning to others.
12
Personal correspondence with GlobalGayz - the
'secret sex life of wardlords and their trophy boys'
November 2006
First, the 'secret sex life of wardlords and their trophy boys' can't really be called the "Kandahar phenomenon" anymore -- because it exists throughout Afghanistan. Our only Afghan friend who identifies as gay -- in contrast to the great many male friends and acquaintances who are attracted to, and active with, other men -- informs us that the "center of activity" has migrated to NE Afghanistan, particularly in Badakhshan and Takhar provinces. It is safe to say that close to 100 percent of adult males up there are "bacha-baaz" ( i.e., "boy players" in Dari). The typical pattern, which is replicated throughout the country (and Kandahar and Logar provinces are still famous for it), is the age-stratified, role-stratified relationship: older top/younger bottom. The older tops are sometimes not all that much older than the bottoms: we have known 19-yo "BBs" as we call them. The "bachas" tend to be 13 to 19 yo, tending toward the upper end of that scale, but can sometimes be a little older. When they get older and more confident, many of the Bs "flip" and become BBs. Although occasionally I ran across Afghans in their 20s who were "curious" about what it was like to be a bottom, there is almost universal agreement that it is shameful for someone to be bottom once they reach that age.
To us, it was amazing not only how widespread the BB phenomenon was, but also how widely it was tolerated. It wasn't really accepted, or talked about that much, but it was just dealt with as a fact of life and nobody paid much attention to who was a BB or not. Students joked about their teachers, and some teachers developed reputations for coming on to their male students, but they weren't routinely condemned or drummed out of the community, as often happens in the west. It really did seem that as long as an adult male fulfilled his social responsibilities -- getting married, having children, and adequately providing for them -- he could go off and do whatever he wanted: have boyfriends, have girlfriends, or sometimes both at the same time. I knew a great many young guys who cheerfully admitted to being BBs, and many of them had no intention of giving it up once they got married. Indeed, some were already married and still interested in other guys.
It has often been said that the widespread same-sex activity in Afghanistan was due to the unavailability of women. To me, that cannot be a full explanation. First of all, as I said, a great many BBs were married, and, presumably had access to women. Next, if this causal link were true, every adult man would be a BB, because every one faced the same problem of unavailability of women. I knew several young guys who acknowledged that most Afghan adult men were BBs, but they themselves were 100% attracted to women. Thus we have the curious outcome that the presence of some men who were genuinely, exclusively heterosexual proves that those who have sex with men or boys must be genuinely attracted to them.
Still, it was clear that it is not possible to apply the labels gay, straight, bisexual, etc., to Afghan men. The many discussions I had demonstrated what social scientists are coming to accept: that sexual orientation consists of several dimensions, and one could be physically attracted to men yet emotionally attracted to women, and that their are often divergences between attraction and actual behavior. Remember that almost nobody "identifies" as gay in our sense, although many young Afghan men develop deep emotional attachments to other men (although, again, they would never allow themselves to be "passive" with those men).
One writer whose name I forgot, who contributed a good study to a book called "Islamic Homosexualities," even went so far as to say that in the Arab/Islamic world, the wider Middle East in general, there is no "sexual orientation" in men the way we think of it. He argued that for a man, the only orientation is whether one is top or bottom. And if he is top, then it almost does not seem to matter whether the bottom is a man, woman, younger, or older -- all are attractive objects. I think this argument has some validity.
We even found in Kabul that some of the younger BBs were very interested in being top with older Western guys who wouldn't normally be viewed as sex objects in the West. A number of Western guys over the last three years going in and out of Kabul played bottom to enthusiastic young Afghans. Sometimes the Westerner would "accommodate" as many as 3 or 4 Afghan tops in a single night. Sometimes the tops would watch each other perform, and sometimes that was not allowed.
We also found that same-sex activity was very prevalent among the Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police. A great many of them, when on leave in Kabul, would stay at hostels in the older parts of town where one room would be reserved for the guys to take turns with their "bachas." To have a "bacha" seemed to earn one even greater respect, and guys would compare their bachas (but never fight over the best looking ones, since that would disrupt the camaraderie). Indeed, the most famous BBs would organize parties for their bachas to dance at, and the best dancing by a bacha would confer prestige on his BB.
Many outsiders, such as the one who wrote to you, asked how they could meet Afghan guys in Kabul who were open to having sex with other men. As you've probably gathered, these guys are very numerous, but there are no obvious places where they gather, and there is no "scene" per se, because there doesn't have to be. It is all around. It takes patience, but the best way is for anyone, particularly a Westerner (Afghans seem to have no sexual interest in other "brown" people -- that is, Turks, Arabs, Iranians, South Asians) to simply get to know young Afghan guys well as friends first. The Afghans will take it from there. They will ask thousands of questions about how dating and sexuality work in the West, questions that can be answered by introducing topics into the conversation such as same-sex marriage and the gay identity. In dozens of such conversations with Afghans, I only heard one negative view expressed about these lifestyles and practices in the West. They seem to envy us our sexual freedom, rather than resenting us for it, and in many cases these lines of conversation will lead to confessions of same-sex desire on their part. But it takes time, and really, the friendship has to come first before these guys will open up.
I think this field is ripe for qualified social scientists to explore further. Please let me know if you have any more questions, and best of luck with your travels. If you ever plan on venturing to Kabul, let me know in advance and I can ask those who are remaining there if they would be willing to meet and share ideas with you.
FrontPageMagazine.com
http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=25695
November 28, 2006
13
The Return of the Taliban
by Jamie Glazov
They’re back.
Five years since their overthrow at the hands of U.S. forces in the fall of 2001, the Taliban are reappearing with potent strength. Terror attacks in Afghanistan doubled this year, as the former tyrants of the beleagured country are striking with increasing frequency, engaging in suicide bombings, kidnappings, rocket launchings, mine plantings, ambushes, murder of moderate clerics, torching of schools and various other terrorist activities.
NATO’s attempt to safeguard the Afghan government and to bolster its efforts at democratization faces a perilous test. The situation is further endangered by the possibility of the Afghan government opening up talks with the Taliban – a development that could result in allowing terrorists into the government.
The notion of “peace talks” with the Taliban follows in the steps of a current nightmare phenomenon in which fragile states are making, or seeking, deals with the devil. The Musharraf government, for instance, recently reached a "peace" agreement with the Taliban insurgency that runs unchecked in Waziristan, the lawless mountainous western tribal region bordering Afghanistan. The “deal” basically involves Pakistan's complete and unconditional surrender of Waziristan to the Taliban and al Qaeda terrorists -- who now launch their terror attacks on coalition forces in Afghanistan from their safe haven completely unfestered. This agreement represents a disaster for the West in the terror war. As one intelligence source has noted, the gains of the past five years have been reversed in a few weeks with the surrender of Waziristan.
In Iraq, meanwhile, government leaders are entering "talks" with Iran and Syria in the hope that these terror-sponsoring nations will somehow help mitigate terror in Iraq and assist in stabilizing the country. This development, as in the case of Waziristan, represents nothing more than a surrender to Islamofascists and paves the road to a disaster for Western security.
Afghanistan simply cannot follow this pattern.
Israel’s painful lesson in the Oslo process reminds us how a people under siege can delude themselves into making “peace” with those whose life-goal is their extermination. An Afghan government that strives for democracy, therefore, cannot engage in delusions about making peace with forces whose primary objective is to destroy democracy itself.
It was the Taliban regime that hosted al Qaeda and gave the terror group a safe haven in which to plan and orchestrate the 9/11 crime against humanity. The overthrow of the Taliban by U.S. forces represents our first strike against the core of our pernicious enemy. To make deals with this entity that continues to house and abet Osama and his demons is utterly self-destructive.
It would do well to remember who exactly the Taliban are:
A Pashtun-dominated Islamic fanatic movement comprised of students who developed their hate in Pakistani refugee camps during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan in 1996. The new rulers followed the traditions of Mao and Pol Pot by making almost every facet of human life illegal. They banned television, film, books, photography, music (even at weddings) and sports. Public executions of homosexuals and of women accused of adultery and premarital sex became common place.[1] The Taliban destroyed ancient cultural artefacts and forced Hindus to wear yellow patches on their clothing. All men were forced to grow beards or face brutal punishment.
Kabul University, which the Taliban closed down upon their victory in 1996 and re-opened in 1997, began its educational program without women teachers or female students. Girls were banned from going to school. Women were restricted from working anywhere -- except in the medical sector. They were not allowed to receive medical help from male doctors, and most of the female doctors left the country.
As everyone now knows, women were forced to wear the infamous body-bag for the living: the burqa – that dehumanizing garment that completely covers the body and face, with only mesh to see and breathe through. If a woman failed to wear the burqa, she would be beaten, imprisoned and tortured at best.
If seen in public, women had to be accompanied by a male relative. They were not allowed to mix with men and could not travel abroad unless they received permission from male relatives. They were barred from the streets for certain periods during the fasting month of Ramadan. They also had to be silent in public; their men did the talking for them. Women’s shoes that made noise, such as high heels, were also illegal. The religious police feared such shoes might tempt a pious man.
The Taliban's morality squad enforced these monstrous and sadistic rules by beating women in detention centres and, most often, in public places. Many times, the Taliban found it easier just to shoot women upon sight. One woman was gunned down on the street for walking without a male relative -- she was taking her sick child to the hospital. Another was shot dead because her ankles were showing while she and her husband were bicycle riding.
Since the liberation, much progress has been made. Women are now allowed to leave their home without a male relative. Girls can once again go to school and a quarter of Afghan parliamentarians are women – a reality enforced by law. Women also no longer have to wear the burqa, although many still do out of fear and submission to social pressures and dangers that are the legacy of the Taliban.
To be sure, many of the horrors of Islamic gender apartheid remain. Afghan women and girls are still victimized by domestic violence and imprisonment, denial of educational opportunity and forced marriage. Men can have female members of their family arrested if they do not obey their commands. And as in other Muslim countries, no law exists against rape, and those women who dare to report it are most often charged with adultery.
The problem here, of course, is that notwithstanding the fall of the Taliban and a new constitution that guarantees women's rights, traditions die hard, and fanatic vigilantism remains. Much of the society and its legal guardians submit to Islamic law.
Much hope remains, however, in a society that has implemented new democratic institutions and, unlike the Taliban, has had elections for a parliament and a president. Councils have been set up in all thirty-four provinces for self-administration. There has also been progress in the economy and health care. Five million children have gone back to school.
It is on this foundation that a more equitable and humane society for women can be built. And many efforts are in progress: individuals such as Hussn Banu Ghazanfar, Minister for Women's Affairs, are leading the effort to guarantee all women access to education, to illegalize violence against women, to end forced marriages and to create safe shelters for homeless or abused women. At this moment, Ghazanfar is working with international aid donors to provide vocational training for women.
The hope for Afghan women lies in the process of democratization and in the suffocation of Taliban ideology. The fragile democracy must be given time to grow and be given sufficient control of the country's legal system in order to make real progress. Allowing the wizards of gender apartheid an official re-entry into Afghan society and leadership would simply cancel out any possibility of liberalization.
NATO has no choice but to militarily defeat the Taliban, no matter how difficult or long the battle will prove to be. For Afghanistan to fall back under Taliban rule would be an unmitigated disaster. Not only would a fascist tyranny re-enslave the Afghan people, but, as NATO’s Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer has noted, the country would become a "black hole for terrorism training."
Just like with a Western military defeat, any sort of “deal” with the Taliban will by necessity mean a re-entry of al Qaeda into Afghanistan. Thus, not only would a “deal” facilitate the re-Talibanization of Afghanistan, it would pose the threat of a Taliban takeover of the country -- a nightmare scenario that would mean the return of Osama’s terrorist training camps.
Despite the many difficult obstacles and dangers, there remains much room for optimism. Notwithstanding the apparent Taliban resurgence, NATO operations are dealing significant blows to the terrorist entity. General David Richards, the British officer commanding the 31,500-strong NATO force in Afghanistan, has recently emphasized that NATO is gaining ground and that, since the summer, there has been a significant reduction in the number of Taliban attacks. In his view, it is a winnable war.
This is a war, of course, that not only demands a military element, but a social and economic one as well. One of the key objectives must be to improve the lives of the Afghani people. Bringing economic development and ending government corruption are critical in winning the hearts and minds of Afghans and minimizing the chances of their turning to the Taliban in desperation.
The war against the Taliban is the core of the terror war. If the horror of 9/11 means anything, if the barbaric reality of the burqa matters, and if free peoples want a world where Osama has fewer killing fields on which to sow his trade, then this is a war that the West, and the fragile Afghan democracy, have no choice but to fight and win.
Notes:[1] For an account of the monstrosities perpetrated by the Taliban, see Ahmed Rashid, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001).
|