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THURSDAY, MARCH 5, 2015 INTERNATIONAL From AK47s to drones, Afghans ‘war rugs’ reflect bloody decades KABUL: More than three decades of war Kalashnikovs also feature. The US-led war Haref Fazli, another Chicken Street rug have damaged Afghanistan’s once-thriving in Afghanistan brought with it a flood of seller, said that just as traditional weavers carpet industry, but weavers are tapping expats-aid workers, diplomats and security depicted the natural world of flowers and into the bloody past to boost their fortunes contractors-bringing boom times for car- animals that surrounded them, so weavers with “war rugs” depicting guns, tanks and pet sellers. Now the expat population is now are showing war, because war is what warplanes. On Chicken Street, the most falling fast, the rug industry is struggling has surrounded them for more than three famous street in Afghanistan during the and the transformation in styles is an decades. “From long ago the carpet “hippie trail” tourist days of the late 60s and attempt to attract more business from a weavers would weave the map of 70s and still the place to come for souvenirs, dwindling band of foreigners. Afghanistan on rugs as a symbol of the some of the carpets in the shops look like country, but when war began, the war ele- pages of the country’s wartorn history. Rugging the changes ments such as guns, tanks and so on were Since the Soviet Union invaded in 1979 A carpet showing the map of Afghanistan added on the rugs,” he said. Carpets have Afghanistan has been in a state of near-con- with US fighter planes around it and the been a main source of income for millions stant conflict, and this strife is woven into words “terrorism”, “Pakistan”, “China”, “USA” of Afghans during the years of war, but the fabric-literally of the woollen rugs. and “Britain” costs between $30 and $300 business and sales have dropped drastically Helicopters, tanks, Kalashnikovs, grenades, depending on its quality. Mohammad as foreigners have left. the Americans’ distinctive B-52 bombers Anwar, 62, who has been in the business for Political uncertainty following a disput- and even drones form the designs, in place over 40 years, says designs have to keep up ed presidential election last year and an of the traditional patterns of landscapes and with demand. “These rugs with pictures of array of other daunting problems, includ- flowers. One has a map of Afghanistan with war in them are for gifts. Foreigners buy ing a resilient Taliban insurgency and “Tora Bora” marked-the suspected moun- them and keep them as a reminder of what widespread corruption, have also badly hit tain hideout of Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin kind of country they have been to,” he said. the carpet business. But Mohammad Kabir Laden, from where he fled the US-led inva- Foreign soldiers used to be the main buyers, Raouf, 58, another seller, is hopeful that sion in late 2001. he said, but now very few of them remain the new artistic transformation of patterns Another carries a solemn reminder of after NATO’s drawdown of forces. NATO end- will help bring the business back on track. the 9/11 attacks that prompted the inva- ed its combat mission on December 31 after “The war has had some good impact on sion, showing the World Trade Center’s 13 years of fighting the Taliban insurgency in the rug industry too, people have become twin towers with planes nearly hitting Afghanistan and downsized its forces from a more creative,” Raouf said. “There are many them, overlaid with Afghan and US flags peak of 130,000 in 2012 to about 17,000, varieties of rugs in the market nowadays, and a peace dove. Carpets with pictures of who will focus on training the Afghan police they draw pictures, war elements, many KABUL: A carpet bearing images of weaponry, military vehicles and air- Soviet troops withdrawing from and army and conducting a limited counter- different designs just to attract people.” he craft is pictured inside a shop on Chicken Street in Kabul. —AFP Afghanistan leaving behind tanks and terrorism mission. said. —AFP After beef ban, Hindu groups force India Rapist’s views reflect abattoirs to close MUMBAI: Members of a Hindu nationalist group have forced several abattoirs in the Indian state of Maharashtra to shut after a law was passed banning the beef trade there, a leader of the group and a those of many in India lawyer for meat traders said yesterday. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad, or World Hindu Council, a nationalist group linked to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling party, acted after winning a court order to stop the killing of bulls and bullocks. “Members of the VHP came to Indian men ‘blame women for rape’ Deonar abattoir late at night and asked us to stop the slaughter, showing the copy of the High Court order,” said Mohammad Ali Qureshi, president of the Bombay Suburban Beef Dealers NEW DELHI: When a condemned killer said Heinous view ment will be able to block the film but the confessions, saying they’d been tortured into Association. the woman he and others brutally gang- It’s a view that Sangwan hears all too often. legal wrangling will most likely delay its admitting their involvement. Legal appeals Deonar, on the outskirts of Mumbai, is India’s largest abattoir. The raped on a New Delhi bus was responsible “It’s a heinous view to hold, but it’s the view of screening in India. The brutality, and perhaps against their death sentences are pending in beef trade is mainly controlled by minority Muslims, raising concern for what had happened to her, his comments our religious leaders, our community leaders, the fact that the gang rape occurred on a the Supreme Court. In response to the 2012 that the ban is driven by Modi loyalists pursuing a Hindu agenda. were shocking in their callousness and lack our legislators,” she said. The country’s women moving bus in a posh New Delhi neighbor- attack and the widespread public protests it President Pranab Mukherjee last week gave his assent to the of remorse. But the underlying view has wide aren’t surprised either. “A lot of Indian men hood, galvanized this country of 1.2 billion, provoked, India’s government rushed through Maharashtra Animal Preservation Bill, which had been pending for acceptance in India. Blaming women for rape think this way. They don’t have any empathy where sexual violence is rampant. The woman legislation doubling prison terms for rapists to 20 years, extending a ban on the killing of cows, considered sacred is what hundreds of millions of men here are or they are brought up in such a way that they and a male friend were returning home from 20 years and criminalizing voyeurism, stalking by Hindus, to bulls and bullocks. The law calls for up to five-years jail taught to believe. And the code for women don’t feel anything for women. They feel that seeing a movie at an upscale mall when they and the trafficking of women. for anyone found in possession of beef, according to media reports. in this country is simple: Dress modestly, women are only for sex and to be thrown were tricked by the attackers into getting on But while laws can change quickly, mind- But the state government - led by a Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party don’t go out at night, don’t go to bars and away,” said Bhavleen Singh, an 18-year-old the bus, which the men had taken out for a sets do not. India’s Parliament held a stormy - said it could take a week to implement the law, prompting the VHP clubs, don’t go out alone. If you break the student at Delhi University. joyride. debate yesterday on whether the film should to petition the Bombay High Court on Tuesday for an immediate code, you will be blamed for the conse- ban. “Why wait for another 5 to 6 days, just for paper formalities and quences. the final draft?” asked Vyankatesh Abdeo, all-India secretary of the When one of the four men sentenced to VHP. “If we would have waited thousands of cattle would have been death for the high-profile gang rape of the slaughtered.” Attacks on the trade have intensified in Maharashtra woman in 2012 was quoted in a new docu- since the BJP came to power 10 months ago. Modi himself criticized mentary as saying “a girl is far more responsi- the previous government for promoting a “pink revolution to butch- ble for rape than a boy,” he was repeating er cattle and export meat”. something community and religious leaders Acting on the VHP’s appeal, Justice V.M. Kanade on Tuesday in this nation of 1.2 billion routinely say. “A ordered the state to ensure that killing of bulls and bullocks is decent girl won’t roam around at 9 o’clock at stopped, according to a copy of the order seen by Reuters. Meat cen- night. ... Housework and housekeeping is for ters across the state, including Deonar, have stopped operating, said girls, not roaming in discos and bars at night Sagheer Khan, a lawyer for All Maharashtra Cattle Merchant doing wrong things, wearing wrong clothes,” Association. Up to 95 percent of the large-sized cattle slaughtered in Mukesh Singh said in the documentary, Deonar were bulls or bullocks, with the rest being water buffaloes, “India’s Daughter,” meant to be shown on whose killing is legal. Beef dealer Qureshi said the ban would cost Sunday, International Women’s Day, in India many jobs and push up prices of buffalo meat.

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