FROM LOCAL TO GLOBAL IN THE COMPANY OF AFGHAN WOMEN 233

Holly Edwards

Glancing Blows, Crossing Boundaries: From Local to Global in the Company of Afghan Women

The contemporary Afghan artist Lida Abdul has said ­imbricated processes of seeing and being seen, theo- that Afghanistan works hard for the world, the site of rized as “the gaze,” advance the fashioning of self as well and metaphor for intractable problems—war, gender, as the recognition of the other, and, by extension, they religion—and the screen for myriad orientalist projec- are constitutive of individual identities, diverse groups, tions.1 Perhaps the most vexed arena of contestation in larger communities, and ultimately, transnational rela- which Afghanistan has figured (along with other play- tions. Such relational encounters—the terms of engage- ers) has been termed the image wars,2 wherein diverse ment implicating self and other in the “politics of vision”5 acts of iconoclasm have been committed: women were across wider fields—are exponentially complicated by veiled, Buddhas were bombed, museums were looted, modern technologies of image-making arising from the and Islam was invoked in efforts to claim and retain medium of photography. As Catherine Collins and Jane clout and credibility around the globe. That widespread Lutz have elaborated, photographs entail the intersec- and “deep uncertainty about the power, sanctity, and tion of multiple gazes, including that of the photogra- violence of images” (termed “iconoclash” by Bruno La- pher, the subject, and myriad viewers of different tour)3 is not the main focus of this article, but it is the persuasions.6 One gaze of ambiguous but undeniable conceptual backdrop against which to position some force is that which is encoded in a portrait photograph— photographs of Afghan women. Transgressive images in the fixed focus of the represented subject, looking back some contexts and compelling icons in others, these at diverse audiences. Such faces can be powerful proxies photographs entail power and risk in the cracks between in the self/other encounter, agents of both differentia- people, classes, cultures, and nations, and therefore they tion and homogenization.7 can drive change, foment instability, and even incite Portraits of Afghan women are a complex case in violence or destruction. Such processes, transpiring in point, given the risks as well as the powers that photog- those interstitial spaces, are both synchronically and raphy offers to anyone ordinarily excluded from the diachronically manifest, working to globalize visual cul- public realm. Operative deterrents to female visibility ture. By subjecting these processes to scrutiny, this proj- and agency can vary, but the quandaries that Afghan ect is, in effect, an exploration of the aesthetics of social women have regularly faced—whether to be seen and change across boundaries of time and space, among to look back or not—are fraught and situational, subject myriad agents operating in disparate centers of cultural to a tenuous balance of variables and institutions, gravity. among them tribe, state, and Islam.8 Sometimes women To explore the complexity of such interstices, one are victims of coercion; other times they have the power useful strategy is to situate images in what James Elkins to choose, opting for the security of the veil or the pub- has called “the weightless skein of vision,” that cat’s licity of the photograph.9 I will consider cases in which cradle of interlocking, overlapping, and otherwise tan- photographs of Afghan women were widely dissemi- gled sightlines first articulated by Jacques Lacan and nated, in the 1920s, at mid-century, and then at century’s subsequently elaborated by many others.4 These end. In these instances and for diverse reasons, Afghan

An Annual on the Visual Cultures of the Islamic World DOI: 10.1163/22118993-00321P12 ISSN 0732-2992 (print version) ISSN 2211-8993 (online version) MUQJ Muqarnas Online 32-1 (2015) 233-251 234 HOLLY EDWARDS women became visible, extricated from (presumptive) Abdur Rahman (r. 1880–1901), gradually coalesced as a socially mandated invisibility by means of the camera, bounded state, albeit in relative isolation from the out- a globally disseminated but locally deployed tool of side world.13 After Abdur Rahman, Habibullah took documentation and self-realization.10 My intention power as amir of Afghanistan (r. 1901–19), and the ruling here is not to belabor the familiar feminization of “the clan began to formalize and modernize the nation, Orient,” or to castigate abuse of Afghan women, or to molding the society from the top down, beginning in revisit reductive refrains about iconoclastic Islam, Kabul; the changes were manifest in architecture, insti- though my comments impinge on all these issues to tutions, dress, and other aspects of visual culture. varying degrees. This project is also not about the per- Photography was a significant part of this transforma- formance of power over subalterns or others, although tion, with images figuring diversely in private and public there are asymmetrical dynamics among players in the spaces. In general, it was a useful technology for those story as well. Rather, my goal is to track the helix of dis- in power, confirming rule with verisimilitude, extending crete or localized visual proprieties twining together to and reifying established social norms, and offering new generate broader networks of seeing, as people and their options for expression and communication. Deployed proxy pictures transgress sightlines and transcend initially from the top down and the center out, photo- boundaries between self/other, man/woman, public/ graphs were obedient agents in the larger campaigns of private, and ultimately between cultures and nations. modernization—until they were not. Doing so will entail ranging across the full spectrum of Images of women are indicative of this complex func- visuality, from production to reception. tionality. A formal portrait taken in the Arg harem serai On one level, then, this is an exercise in what W. J. T. around 1915–16, shows Amir Habibullah surrounded by Mitchell has called “showing seeing”—sorting out the fourteen consorts from the royal household (fig. 1).14 For visual construction of the social and the social construc- the ruler, it was clearly a desirable and even flattering tion of the visual11—as it transpires over time. On picture, posed to capture power, comfort, and privilege. ­another level, it is a case study of female beauty as nego­ It was also evidence of being “modern,” but it was not tiable currency in transnational consumer culture, man- intended for public distribution. Since the women, the ifest vividly in the entanglement between two quite photograph, the negative, and the photographer—that disparate political entities—Afghanistan and the is, all possible sightlines—were controlled by the patron ­United States. By throwing a spotlight on some univer- patriarch, the canons of visual propriety more broadly sally legible photographs operating in the interstices operative in early twentieth-century Afghanistan were between local and global, I hope to explore the imbri- not overtly violated with this act of image-making. cated processes of looking, of being seen and looking The situation was quite different when the next ruler, back, of exercising agency and being erased. Thus the King Amanullah (r. 1919–28) and Queen Soraya went project concerns images but also “image,” a ubiquitous abroad for the first time, in 1927–28, to introduce their anxiety in the contemporary public domain. fledgling republic to other countries.15 During the course of this diplomatic tour, Soraya chose to perform her role as a royal ambassador in “modern” terms and to capital- AFGHAN IMAGES IN TIME AND OVER TIME ize on “modern” technologies such as photography. Not surprisingly, to veil or not to veil was a critical question, By way of preface, it is necessary to acknowledge the and while she ultimately acquiesced to covered mod- relationships between image-making and self-fashion- esty in both Egypt and Iran,16 she charted an incremen- ing, between photography and nation-building, in Af- tal path to visibility as she traveled through Europe, thus ghanistan in the early decades of the twentieth century, effectively advancing her own (orientalist) exposure. because the modern polity took shape even as the tech- Described in the Illustrated London News as veiled and nology was being adopted.12 Over the course of a few retiring in Bombay on January 7, “unveiled in public for short decades, tribes under the hand of the “Iron Amir,” the first time” by January 14, lauded for her fashion sense FROM LOCAL TO GLOBAL IN THE COMPANY OF AFGHAN WOMEN 235 and skin tone by February 4, she appeared on the cover zeal and political upheaval within the nation-state of of that august publication on March 24. Exposed, Afghanistan. dressed, and launched appropriately in “civilized” soci- That the same photographs sustained three qualita- ety, Soraya thus became, in picture and person, an in- tively different gazes/perspectives, synchronically op- ternational celebrity.17 erative in discrete locales, is worth elaborating. At each Publicity shots of the queen traveled considerably site, individuals/societies made meaning, forged values, farther than she did, and the reception they garnered and confirmed identity with reference to the queen’s was mixed. For example, whereas English audiences portrait, although those processes entailed quite dispa- had applauded her sartorial panache, the Turkish press rate codes of honor, norms of behavior, and claims to published the same images, noting patronizingly that sophisticated civility. In the moment, a few images social proprieties in “far away Afghanistan” were com- bridged vast distances and convened heterogeneous parable to those operative in Turkey ten or fifteen years audiences around shared experience; such is the poten- previously.18 Thus cultural commonalities between the tial of photographs to activate the spaces between cul- two young republics were acknowledged even as Tur- tures in diverse and even seemingly contradictory ways key’s own more advanced modernity was asserted. Fi- simultaneously. But if such diversity is refracted in the nally, when such vagrant images found their way back localized reception of images in the moment, that very to Afghanistan from abroad, they were deemed incon- diversity is also subject to homogenization over time, as trovertible (visual) proof that traditional notions of peripatetic pictures summon unprecedented gather- proper behavior had been flaunted by the rulers.19 For ings, blurring and cross-fertilizing previously discrete some, it was a travesty of collective honor wrought in systems of representation and propriety. To substanti- and by mechanically reproduced images, an unfamiliar ate that claim, I will now operate diachronically in the technology. This, then, is the critical conflation of me- arena between two different political entities (Afghani- dium and message, wherein resistance to the making of stan and the United States) to track the genesis of a images is coterminus with resistance to the content of larger, transnational visuality. A pair of pictures can set images. What resulted was a moment of iconoclastic the stage.

Fig. 1. Anonymous, Amir Habibullah and Consorts, ca. 1915–16. (Photo: KES Archives, 158-H-69, courtesy of the Williams Afghan Media Project) 236 HOLLY EDWARDS

OF SELF OR OTHER? The medium in which these created worlds are ren- dered—photography—works to substantiate that cul- About the time that Amir Habibullah of Afghanistan tural imaginary and make it credible, in part and had his picture taken with fourteen of his consorts, Un- ironically, because the requisite verisimilitude entails cle Gus had his picture taken, too, posing as “Sultan for diverse fabrications, distortions, and even accidents.23 a Day” in Bennington, Vermont (fig. 2). The images are Some of these contrivances seem unremarkable or at twins in a sense, though not quite identical ones.20 Each least familiar, reflecting widely disseminated conven- shows a single male figure surrounded by women; both tions of studio photography. In the Afghan photograph, ensembles invoke issues of gender and sex, although for example, an outdoor garden is evoked by a pictorial with different codes and connotations. In both cases, backdrop combined, in turn, with an indoor carpet; thus the women wear clothing that departs from normative living, breathing people occupy a fake space bounded custom in their own societies but relates in some way to by the picture frame as determined by the photographer fashions elsewhere. Amir Habibullah’s women wear behind the camera. Another kind of artificiality occurs clothes ordered or copied from European catalogues, in the American photograph. There, a real interior and while the women in Uncle Gus’s photograph sport cos- costumed charade substantiate fantasy. Both images are tumes rather than fashions, each outfit suggesting pas- fabricated, then, but not exactly duplicitous. Both pho- tiche and charade. Both images document private tographs serve up mundanely mendacious “truth”— experiences, and, in a sense, both have a peepshow posed moments in which alternative selves or morphing quality because neither would have been intended for values are projected. public consumption when they were taken.21 In retro- There are differences, of course, between the sober spect however, both also betray the larger “cultural aspirations of modernizing Afghans and the cavalier as- imaginary” in which they were produced, a system of sumptions of modernizing Americans, but the general representation specific to time and place.22 similarity between these images points to social change

Fig. 2. Willis White, Uncle Gus Was Sultan for a Day, n.d. (Photo: courtesy of private collection) FROM LOCAL TO GLOBAL IN THE COMPANY OF AFGHAN WOMEN 237 under way in both societies in which diverse boundaries However, it would be a mistake to reduce National are breaking down—boundaries between man and Geographic’s coverage to hackneyed stereotype, for woman, public and private, self and other, but also doc- there is (grudging) nuance therein as well. For example, ument and wish. In order to isolate constituent strands it was noted that the Afghans “have found, to their dis- in these increasingly tangled patterns of seeing and be- may, that polygamy is nowadays more expensive than ing seen, it is useful to begin in one of the two centers of exciting…. The present Amir, Amanullah Khan, has but cultural gravity and then incorporate other storylines one wife … and the Amir loves pictures and is a good contrapuntally. First, I will consider American notions amateur photographer.”25 Such commentary sounds about Afghanistan after the demise of the polygamous condescending, but it also betrays recognition and self- Amir Habibullah, during the reign of King Amanullah. validation, wherein quandaries, fantasies, and enthusi- In 1921, newly enthroned and just a few years prior to his asms current in the United States were projected for own European tour described above, this young Afghan consideration at a comfortable distance on the most ruler sent a surrogate diplomatic entourage to Washing- exotic of screens. Imagine, for example, fireside conver- ton, D.C., led by Muhammad Wali. The visit prompted sations (or silent ruminations) prompted by this well- avid journalistic coverage, while ancillary information illustrated magazine: “Multiple wives?? Cough, snicker, also proliferated about a place that was even more ex- harumpf … I wonder what they look like … too bad there otic than the Ottoman empire for the American public, are no photos of them…. I wonder why … photography one that increasingly epitomized the ever-receding “Ori- is everywhere these days…. Clearly the Afghan king en- ent.” joys it, though I doubt he owns one of those new Ko- daks or has been to the movies!” Typical of this discourse of broadening horizons is a Obviously, my purpose is not to declare such con- story entitled “Every-Day Life in Afghanistan” which ap- jured responses factual, but simply to point to the peared in a respectable, even scholarly magazine, Na- ephemeral, seemingly inconsequential (but not!) mut- tional Geographic (January 1921). The content was terings and labelings that coalesce as personal opinion credited to one “Haji Mirza Hussein,” a European ob- and, when expressed, may eventually generate collec- server (Oscar von Niedermeyer) traveling incognito on tive convictions. Only incrementally are the partialities a mission of “political and military significance” in the of individual experience knit together into broader pat- disguise of a “Persian pilgrim.” His field notes had been terns of representation; only in retrospect is this incre- edited by a former United States consul in Baghdad for mental genesis of global visual culture legible. But publication and dissemination to American readers. setting aside conjured conversations, one does have the Thus the article had the imprimatur of governmental photographs themselves and the words that are intend- accuracy as well as the allure of exotic intrigue. So le- ed to explain them. Together they point to dual pro- gitimized, the “buffer state” was characterized by a cesses of othering and identification. On the American “Keep Out” sign at the border, its “splendid isolation,” side of the story, a resilient template of representation and its “brooding, suspicious” capital, Kabul. This “un- for Afghanistan gradually coalesced, in which the erotic friendly realm of fanatic tribes” was home to “the last of exotic and the seductions and perils of “image” consis- the despots, a sort of modern Oriental patriarch on a tently figured, often in gossipy tone. Newspaper cover- grand scale” who wielded “a far-reaching influence age of Muhammad Wali’s diplomatic mission to the throughout the Mohammedan world.” “Afghan women United States demonstrates, for example, that polyga- are not taught to read or write” and the deceased Amir my, jewels, and mystery were key variables in public Habibullah “had a harem of over 100 women and among perceptions of the nascent country. The New York these, strangely enough, were a few Europeans.”24 Such Times’s coverage of July 13, 1921, is relatively measured, rhetoric worked to consolidate familiar orientalist with headlines noting that “Two Royal Afghans are not tropes, linked to a particular and, ultimately, paradig- Acquainted … Prince Muhammad Wali Khan and Prin- matic place. cess Fatima exchange no visits here … Envoy off for 238 HOLLY EDWARDS

Washington … Seeks Recognition of his country’s Inde- ­multifaceted appeal in the American arena, but not pendence—Princess would sell Diamond for $500,000.” enough to dictate foreign policy. At stake here is the very legitimacy of the envoy; how (a If Americans viewed Afghanistan in self-serving bits staunchly monogamous reader might wonder) could and snippets, others viewed the diplomatic dance di- two members of Afghan royalty not know each other? versely around the globe. The transnational migration While journalistic sleuthing mapped out the extended of news and image consolidated familiar themes of po- family tree, determining that the prince was in fact a lygamy, jewels, and fashion, but varied audiences reputable envoy and the princess was actually a legiti- framed the encounter in localized perspectives. For ex- mate but distant relative resident in India, a section on ample, the “Mysterious Afghans” were newsworthy as “Afghan home life” remained the site of curiosity and far away as New Zealand, where an Ashburton Guardian further questions. The prince, “a swarthy smiling man of columnist noted that Princess Fatima had attracted about 40,” was asked if the amir had “the usual four “considerable attention by her wonderful native cos- wives” and was told that “the Ameer has but one wife tume. She wears a white sapphire embedded in the side and is not in favor of polygamy.” When asked if he was of her nose.” The prince professed “ignorance of her ex- “surprised at the skirts of American women when you istence,” while the princess returned the patronizing arrived in this country?” he replied, “We have been in castigation, pointing out that he was “related to the Paris … and his answer seemed final enough to end the Royal Family of Afghanistan and not of it.” The subse- subject.”26 So whose perspective is dominant here? If quent commentary is more regionally specific: “People American expectations revolved around harems and are inclined to suspect the machinations of an enterpris- mystery, the fashion world still revolved around Paris, ing cinema director, and take note that the princess’ and in the face of it all, Afghans were capable of cosmo- name is also that of a popular brand of cigarettes” (fig. 3).29 Here the snarky New Zealand journalist in- politan condescension.27 vokes the requisite gems, dress, and complicated family Meanwhile, as the official entourage proceeded to- trees, but the innuendos point not simply to “the Orient” ward Washington, diplomatic process unfolded at the but to a different erotic exotic place—the land of movie- top levels of government. Charged to establish an offi- making and cigarette-smoking flappers otherwise cial presence on American soil for the fledgling Afghan known as the United States. nation, the envoy duly submitted his request to Secre- Having acknowledged (however briefly) this multi- tary of State Charles Evans Hughes and ultimately en- centric arena of image and representation, let us return joyed a respectful audience with President Warren G. to the localized viewing dialect current in America. Harding on July 26, 1921, but the matter of a formal mis- There, information about the Afghan mission worked in sion, he was told, “must be reserved for further consid- transitive resonance with contemporaneous larger- eration.” This decision reflected careful respect for than-life individuals prominent in that particular cul- British interests in regard to the former protectorate: tural domain—one an enigmatic figure of the Great that Italy had formally recognized Afghanistan had gen- War, Lawrence of Arabia; the other a sex symbol of the erated some “sensitiveness … some feeling,” whereas “in silent screen, Rudolph Valentino (alias “The Sheik”).30 France, the Mission was received but no promises were Both heroes operated in “exotic” terrain, and the per- made.” It was also noted that Afghanistan had signed a sonal charisma of each one was projected beyond his treaty with the Soviet government guaranteeing Af- immediate surroundings by widely disseminated im- ghanistan a yearly monetary subsidy along with person- ages. Predictably, Hollywood was the key variable, and nel and technical expertise. State Department efforts to “The Sheik” was both deterministic and indexical of investigate the commercial potential of affiliations American attitudes. Arguably the first real movie “star,” ­concluded that “there is little or no opportunity for Valentino exercised his cat-like grace and complicated trade, aside from the products of the sapphire and of the sexual appeal in a distant ostensibly North African set- lapis lazuli mines.”28 Precious stones apparently held ting, offering audiences vicarious sex in the desert. He FROM LOCAL TO GLOBAL IN THE COMPANY OF AFGHAN WOMEN 239

STANDARDS OF BEAUTY, SITES OF CONSUMPTION

The same year in which The Sheik was released—1921— the first Miss America pageant was staged in Atlantic City. The winner, as yet unchallenged to be articulate, creative, or socially conscious, was chosen purely on ap- pearance: Margaret Gorman was 16 years old and mea- sured 30-25-32. In 1922 and 1923, Mary Campbell won and then won again because she scored the highest on a scale that awarded points for physical attributes: 15 for the construction of the head, 10 for eyes, 5 each for hair, nose, and mouth, and 10 each for facial expression, torso, legs, arms, hands, and something called “grace of bear- ing.”31 While the contest grew quickly in popularity, it was discontinued five years later amid moralist com- plaints about revealing bathing suits and the discovery that one contestant was married while another had an infant child. Apparently, wholesome (virginal) beauty was one thing, but sexually active contestants flaunting their appearance was quite another.32 Clearly there were limits to how visible and how sex- ual women could actually appear in polite American society, but for present purposes, it is most pertinent to Fig. 3. Fatima Cigarettes magazine advertisement, litho- graph, ca. 1910. (Photo: courtesy of private collection) flesh out the larger commercial context in which this recalibration of female “beauty” and visibility tran­ spired. The Fatima cited above offered cigarettes from became the center of an unprecedented media-fed cult behind a diaphanous veil, and the product sold, but the made up of carefully crafted images, the heartthrob of advertising business was mushrooming rapidly and it swooning women and the bane of mystified men. was doing so in lockstep with Hollywood. In a prece- The Sheik was compelling and even transformative dent-setting strategy of entrepreneurship, Valentino the viewing in the wake of world war and Lawrence of Ara- idol and impresario of sensual experience was deployed bia’s exploits, in large part because of its duplicitous in a thinly disguised promotional tour for a beauty aid realism—movie echoing news, familiar tropes embod- called Mineralava.33 This sequence of dance perfor- ied and performed with unimpeachable verisimilitude, mances around the country culminated in a beauty con- seductively disseminated with advanced technology. It test in Madison Square Garden judged personally by was timely and catalytic in the era of suffrage activism Valentino. A film produced by David Selznick, Rudolph and birth control controversies. Women were becoming Valentino and His 88 American Beauties, documents the increasingly independent, and their sexual appetites concluding program of the tour, a major public event; were acknowledged and even advanced thanks in part in it, the star is presented as a discriminating connois- to this infusion of orientalism. Despite these advances, seur of beautiful women, viewing and judging the however, they remained subject to demeaning terms of ­enviable contestants. Perhaps for some it was a perfor- visibility that were imbricated in and refracted through mance of that titillating exotic practice, polygamy; for the erotic exotic cult surrounding Valentino. What hap- others it offered a springboard for fantasy about that pened? more ­domesticated idol known as Rudy. Certainly, the 240 HOLLY EDWARDS

­entrepreneurial campaign advanced this general ethos by yoking the product with a charismatic movie star would become perennial strategy for the burgeoning advertising business. Obviously, these are but snapshots from a much larg- er process by which the United States came to be emble­ matized by Miss America, Hollywood, and consumerism. With this modest foil, however, I turn now to the pro- motional campaigns that were waged by Afghan icono- philes in which women also figured prominently. Efforts were made throughout the reign of King Zahir Shah (r. 1933–73) to project a national identity in the interna- tional arena by disseminating images. For example, a large format magazine entitled simply Afghanistan Ari- ana, published in English in 1961, is indicative of Afghan desire to be seen by the outside world.36 Picture and text document indigenous industry, education, and daily life, and women are prominent therein (fig. 4). While a close reading of this Soviet-tinged publication and its encoded political agendas is beyond the scope of this article, the entrepreneurial, propagandistic tenor of the magazine is inescapable. Clearly ratified by the Afghan government, it presents a nation in which work, women, and image are seen as the tools and evidence of social change and even revolutionary advance. Concomitantly, tourism and the culture industry Fig. 4. Feature story on “Women and Work” from Afghani- were actively sponsored, and the campaign to promote stan Ariana, June 1961. The magazine was designed and ed- the country in transnationally legible terms culminated ited by Mohammed Khalid Roashan and published by the in the 1970s. This campaign is evident in a series of glossy Royal Afghan Government, Department of Press and Infor- calendars produced collaboratively by Ariana Afghan mation. (Photo: courtesy of private collection) Airlines, Afghan Tourist Organization, and Bakhtar Af- ghan Airlines.37 Images of Afghan countryside, monu- ­participants were thrilled at the possibility of being es- ments, flora, and crafts complement each month’s page, corted to the throne by the screen idol himself. and women figure centrally in this advertising cam- Most important for present purposes, the beauty con- paign, representing different regions, dressed in colorful test was a paradigmatic mélange of controlled viewing, “native dress.” In one 1973 production, each month is performed desires, and promotional agendas. Selznick’s graced with a single female figure posed in distinctive film is all about the act, experience, and significance of dress before a recognizable landmark or landscape seeing and being seen; arguably, it anticipated and even (fig. 5). While some calendars are rendered in Pashto or insidiously inculcated what would become normative Dari for local consumption, others cater overtly to the behaviors in the marketplace of women’s beauty and tourist market and international audiences. In one sam- the products concocted to enhance it. “Just looking”34 ple dating to 1977, Afghanistan is dubbed (in English) and then buying the proliferating cosmetics and related “Haven of Peace and Tranquility” and it includes a care- commodities35 lie at the very core of American con­ fully posed shot of the “inflight service personnel” of sumer culture. That the movie and the associated Ariana Airlines, lined up on the tarmac next to a plane FROM LOCAL TO GLOBAL IN THE COMPANY OF AFGHAN WOMEN 241

Fig. 5. Page for Mizhan (September–October) from a calendar produced by Bakhtar Afghan Airlines and the Afghan Tour- ist Organization, 1973. (Photo: courtesy of private collection) 242 HOLLY EDWARDS

Fig. 6. Photograph for April from a calendar produced by Bakhtar Afghan Airlines and the Afghan Tourist Organization, 1977. (Photo: courtesy of private collection)

(fig. 6). Dressed in colorful local attire, these women clared the winner, having been judged for her academic would have been responsible for making airline passen- accomplishment and social comportment. Clearly, at gers comfortable en route, thus actively engaged in pro- that particular moment in time, enterprising Afghan fessional lives outside the normative privacy of women (and their image proxies) enjoyed respectabil- traditional Afghan home life, previously the focus of ity when they were seen playing respectful roles, rein- avid American armchair travelers. forcing the operative balance of powers among tribe, In general, such publications demonstrate the extent state, and Islam in the process of modernization and to which Afghanistan was engaging in the sites and engagement with other countries in the global arena. In modes of cross-cultural exhibition and promotion at effect, women and photography had been mobilized on mid-century, a campaign that entailed relaxed stan- acceptable terms, to serve local purposes and simulta- dards of gender construction. Even more telling, per- neously broaden horizons. Images offered passports to haps, is the crowning of Zohra Daoud as Miss Afghanistan the spaces between other localized visual cultures, and in 1973, the first such contest to transpire in echo of the photography remained licit for indigenous audiences then-well-established American equivalent; her story is and subservient to stable political processes. a revealing index of attitudes about the visibility and agency of women in a modernizing tribal, Muslim na- tion-state.38 It is not without irony, for example, that the MEN, WOMEN, AND WAR standards of evaluation in the Afghan contest differed considerably from the bluntly physical scrutiny of the Even after the Soviet invasion of 1979 and during the first Miss America contests. Chosen from a pool of hun- subsequent decades of civil war, photography contin- dreds of contestants nationwide, Zohra Daoud was de- ued to serve both militant and therapeutic purposes FROM LOCAL TO GLOBAL IN THE COMPANY OF AFGHAN WOMEN 243

Fig. 7. Followers of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar with a captured Soviet tank, May 1989. (Photo: Afghan Media Resource Center, courtesy of the Williams Afghan Media Project) among diverse internal constituencies resisting outside such a publication point to strongly held spiritual con- interference. The most obvious function was propagan- victions, visually rendered. da. This sort of visual exhortation, rendered in the gaze As the resistance to communism and Soviet en- of the portrait photograph, served to transmit the cha- croachment acquired a more charged and institutional- risma of group leaders from a distance, proclaiming ized religiosity,41 the instrumental relationship between party affiliation and galvanizing men under fire (fig. 7). looking at images and strengthening religious commu- More modest images operated not at the level of com- nity took other public forms as well. At once modest and manders, political parties, or battle zones, but rather at monumental, the poster in figure 9 commemorates the level of personal loss,39 sometimes in the context of ­Ghulam Muhammad Niazi,42 founder of Jamiat-i Islami, inexpensive magazines devoted to individuals slain in professor of theology at Kabul University, and mentor the struggle. Such faces “look back” across the boundar- of such important younger men as Burhannuddin Rab- ies between life and death with grinding force. Meeting bani and Abdul Rasul Sayaf. Imprisoned in 1974 by Mu- that gaze sustained private memories even as some pho- hammad Daoud Khan and executed in 1979 by the tographs were put to more public purpose. One such Khalqi, Niazi had argued for a modern, Muslim Afghan- magazine, called Sima-yi Shahid (The Visage of the Mar- istan even as the country was careening through its tyr), shows the face of a fallen student on the cover; in- short-lived experiment in socialism. Surrounding his side, other biographies and pictures are presented (fig. face are the portraits of students and followers during 8).40 Image and encomium combine to document the the tenure of the Russian-backed government in the resistance and legitimize grief and ongoing suffering. 1980s. On one level, the poster replicates the original The suggestive title and the nearly hagiographic tone of pedagogical relationships; on another level, hanging 244 HOLLY EDWARDS

Fig. 8. Cover of Sima-yi Shahid, early 1980s. The magazine Fig. 9. Poster commemorating Ghulam Muhammad Niazi, was published by Hizb-i Islami. (Photo: courtesy of private n.d. (Photo: Afghan Media Resource Center, courtesy of the collection) Williams Afghan Media Project) from a tree in an open-air classroom in a sunlit glade, honor, and exhortation. Just looking at pictures helped the poster defines a commemorative site, dedicated to to constellate and confirm the world around fighting important individuals, staking visualized claim to the men within the boundaries of the contested nation. Dis- land in their names. Here an image actually defines a seminating such images beyond the borders held the sacred space for the consolidation of the Muslim resis- promise of worldwide attention. Whereas King Amanul- tance. lah and Queen Soraya had welcomed photography as a means to project a “modern” Afghanistan, publicizing and documenting the war entailed a much wider array SEEING IS (NOT?) BELIEVING of vested interests. The resistance itself was atomized, and the superpowers were involved, and the story was Even this small selection of images demonstrates that not getting out to everyone’s liking. As armed conflict the Afghan nation-state in the 1980s and 1990s—tribal, and Soviet influence ground on, an American effort was Muslim, and still aspiring to independent integrity— launched to fund and train Afghans to document the was (as before) a nation fashioned and a terrain con- war from the inside. The Afghan Media Resource Center tested by men and their images, working as record, was established in 1987 and active up through 1992 FROM LOCAL TO GLOBAL IN THE COMPANY OF AFGHAN WOMEN 245 and beyond.43 The staff, recruited from political par­· image had no roots at all in her own culture; her picture ties based in Peshawar, Pakistan, was made up of edu- was “taken” and used elsewhere without permission. cated but unemployed Afghans who traveled in teams Both women were photographed so as to conform to throughout their homeland, gathering news for interna- canons of contemporary beauty or fashion in the coun- tional distribution. They were locals, but they were tries in which they gained their greatest fame. Soraya’s schooled by outsiders—professionals from Boston Uni- image (fig. 10) resonated with those of young British versity, funded by the Department of State—in photog- debutantes (fig. 11); Sharbat Gula’s echoed those of cut- raphy, video, and the principles of “objective journalism” ting-edge American fashion models.48 Thus both wom- congruent with American media.44 Periodically during en could be welcomed, trusted, and desired even as they their internships, the trainees were urged to operate retained a charged political affiliation. Furthermore, the tactfully against the grain of traditional Afghan culture celebrity of each of the women transpired initially in the in order to document indigenous struggles more effec- context of a publication (the Illustrated London News tively for the evening news abroad. Interviewing and and National Geographic, respectively) that represented photographing women were encouraged, and appropri- the highest standards of truth, accuracy, and reportage, ate strategies were coached and scripted. More specifi- a status deriving in large part from the aura and impact cally, Afghan journalists were advised to simply treat of the photographs disseminated therein. In a sense women as “sources,” nothing more.45 then, each had international backers and sponsors, and Perhaps not surprisingly, this was also the very time the benefits were reciprocal: images granted power and that a woman’s face personified the nation abroad. Just power legitimized image. as images of Queen Soraya figured in the earlier repre- Pictures of both women also returned to the region sentation of Afghanistan in the international arena, from which they came, but by the end of the twentieth “The Afghan Girl” (arguably, the green-eyed girl needs century, the stakes and implications differed radically. no introduction, but her name is actually Sharbat Gula) The green-eyed girl had become the poster child for hu- played a critical ambassadorial role for her country, al- manitarian philanthropy to refugees and Afghanistan beit in counterpoint to indigenous cultural norms.46 She more generally, with the result that considerable phil- did not choose this role. An American photographer, anthropic aid flowed from abroad. Even locally pro- Steve McCurry, saw her in a refugee camp and took her duced posters advertised the suffering that was picture. She was twelve at the time, and her face ap- endemic in the traumatized nation,49 and Sharbat Gu- peared on the cover of National Geographic (June 1985) la’s image was captioned to stand for the country and its although she was neither identified by name nor con- devastation more generally. While this use is arguably sulted about the use of her portrait. Indeed, she did not congruent with localized, collective need, there were see her own image until seventeen years later, when ironies as well. The same image that legitimately gener- ­National Geographic launched a search for the girl who ated aid money was sold illegally in the bazaar near the had become iconic and even ubiquitous in global visual camp where she had originally been photographed. culture. There, in bootlegged copy, it was displayed along with While I have dealt with the veritable metastasis of the images of Bollywood stars and other items of consumer Afghan Girl image elsewhere, for the present purposes culture.50 Such are the myriad powers of a versatile im- it is important to articulate the mechanics of represen- age in a globalized visuality. tation47 by which power and celebrity accrued to these Clearly, the boundaries of the Afghan nation were two women, unveiled and operating forcefully in the fragile and porous, perforated by people as well as by public domain, and to acknowledge the benefits that image proxies. Society was in radical flux as a result of ultimately resulted. Soraya was photographed both at armed invasion and civil war, and political power was home and abroad, and some of the images migrated, atomized and tenuous. Sightlines were very, very albeit slowly by modern standards, to varied audiences. ­tangled. But who was looking, and what boundaries Sharbat Gula was photographed by an outsider, and her were crossed? In the face of such chaos, and perhaps 246 HOLLY EDWARDS

Fig. 11. “Some Débutantes of the Season,” Illustrated London News, April 21, 1928, 696.

of war, founded on a well-tuned appreciation of the Fig. 10. Cover of the Illustrated London News, March 10, 1928, power of images, congruent with contemporary global showing Queen Soraya. practices.51 Here again is the arc of licitness noted earlier: images were collectively accepted, forcefully deployed, and inevitably, the terms of visual propriety inside Afghani- then summarily proscribed. This trajectory was the re- stan became protective indices of cultural identity rath- sult of a morphing balance of factors and forces, only er than accepted sites of social change. Women’s rights one of which was Islam. Similar stories abound in other and visibility were subject to standardization and cen- contexts; indeed, iconoclastic episodes punctuate many sure, and, by extension, the licitness of images became monotheistic traditions, although each one is inflected a variable in the conflict as political control eluded any in historically and culturally specific ways.52 Afghani- faction as well. At century’s end (from 1996–2001), the stan simply offers a prismatic case in point that might Taliban were faced with armed insurrection but also be diachronically summarized as follows: In the 1920s, with visual artillery—images in the service of individu- the medium and the message were conflated and al memories of the past and contested aspirations for ­condemned in certain sectors of Afghan society for the future. The edict to ban photography, rhetorically ­reasons arising out of normative tribal, religious, and camouflaged as a return to pure Islam, should not be political practices. Eventually, new canons of visual reduced to a performance of piety, although that was ­propriety emerged as processes of globalization and ­ the dominant explanation at the time. It was also an act modernization escalated. Over time, women operated FROM LOCAL TO GLOBAL IN THE COMPANY OF AFGHAN WOMEN 247 more independently and images proliferated, serving an ­segregated isolation, only to be sought out again by Na- ever wider range of purposes without censure. By cen- tional Geographic and rephotographed for the cover to tury’s end, however, a global crossfire of image-making the April 2002 magazine. Thus Sharbat Gula was found was under way, and visible women and rampant pic- and reexposed as a mature woman, holding the original tures were incendiary agents in the spaces between and picture of her virginal self. With such freighted narra- among Afghans, and between the Taliban and outside tives paraded in modest guise, these pictures offer im- interests. plicit titillation to countless viewers—lifting the Portrait photographs, in particular, were able to oper- localized veil from distance to reveal what is hidden. But ate across boundaries and transcend differences be- they also encode responsibility for that action. Such is cause of their gendered and generic appeal, sustaining the covert potential, the glancing blow, of an unruly im- myriad meanings in diverse cultural imaginaries. Ar- age transgressing homegrown stricture in favor of for- ticulating the versatility of these portraits is, on some eign freedoms. In effect, such images feed appetites, levels, to state the obvious—pictures of beautiful wom- demand attention, and instigate change all at once. en are endlessly capable of eliciting desires and inspir- Soraya’s celebrity, of course, transpired early in the ing projections. In contemporary entreprenurial twentieth century, and her fame was relatively circum- parlance, this might be termed their brandable charac- scribed; hers was a campaign of collusion and self-fash- ter,53 but such agency between local and global con- ioning, and photojournalism worked on her behalf in stituencies is not just a matter of a pretty face; that the diplomatic arena. There were perks and costs to her agency is advanced and complicated by applied cap- choice for such exposure, all of which redounded to her tions, encoded narratives, and viewing contexts, all of personally. The Afghan Girl, by contrast, still works hard which are generated and even forced by the broad dis- in a globalized marketplace, irrespective of boundaries, semination of compelling pictures. Once encountered, subject to the advertising industry, humanitarian zeal, those faces demand engagement and elicit explanation, and digitized communications. Indeed, she is a useful over and over again. “type,” and she has held many jobs, not all of which ben- Viewed close to home, such photographs often do not efit Afghan women directly, if at all.54 While her iconic generate unanimous response, precisely because they status has undeniably metastasized worldwide with manifest indigenous social and cultural norms and pro- considerable ramifications, that is not my present point. voke corollary conflicts with maximum nuance and in- Rather, it is important to reframe Queen Soraya and tensity. As they migrate across the boundaries between Sharbat Gula in a different local-to-global narrative, one diverse communities or cultures, however, universally that concerns an increasingly institutionalized gaze, legible photographs also wield power, but they carry less manifest as the commodification and consumption of baggage, enjoying diplomatic immunity from censure as “beauty” in the spaces between cultures.55 A few bench- they erase, break down, or simply disregard social dif- marks in the history of beauty contests tell the tale. ferences. Glib and cosmopolitan, they oversail and un- American modes of viewing women were incremen- derplay cultural norms, functioning as compelling if tally globalized and the corollary terms of spectatorship somewhat duplicitous diplomats. Liberated from their were increasingly politicized in the transnational arena: own worlds, they seem to perform the agendas and val- Miss America was captivating viewers in the 1920s, and ues of their various host countries more than their own. Zohra Daoud was crowned Miss Afghanistan in 1973. Afghan elites, English imperialists, Turkish republicans, There were no subsequent contests inside Afghanistan and American humanitarians have all found women due to political unrest and unremitting upheaval, but like Queen Soraya and Sharbat Gula gratifying com­ that competitive arena attracted a displaced Afghan liv- pany, their beauty enhanced by the corollary stories of ing in Los Angeles for its activist potential. In 2003, Vida power—erasure and exposure. Soraya emerged from Samadzai entered the Miss Earth competition as the gendered seclusion to public acclaim, while Sharbat Miss Afghanistan contestant, generating censure in her Gula became famous and then disappeared into troubled homeland but acclaim elsewhere. Indeed, she 248 HOLLY EDWARDS

Such is contemporary reality: that female beauty is political ammunition and negotiable currency in the world market and rendering female beauty visible is a site and strategy of complicated power in the spaces be- tween local and global. But who wields the real power: the maker of the photograph? the viewer of the photo- graph? the publisher of the photograph? or, the viewer in the photograph? With regard to pictures of Afghan women, answers must be carefully contextualized. Scholars have argued that in a beauty-obsessed, image- conscious world, women are victims of dictatorial fash- ion trends and endless scrutiny, even as they are active agents of self-fashioning.56 Such ambivalence may be amply evident in the United States, but echoes of it may now undergird the choices open to Afghan women as well, albeit in different ways. How, for example, shall we think about the relational aesthetics encoded in a cover photograph of Time magazine for August 16, 2010? The headline reads “What Happens If We Leave Afghani- stan?” but the photograph (taken by South African pho- tographer Jodi Bieber and awarded the World Press Photo Award for that year) is a portrait of Bibi Aisha, a woman brutally deprived of her nose by Taliban disci- plinarians.57 So disfigured, Aisha is no longer “beautiful,” but she looks right at us and we gaze at her, stunned. Consider her choice and her celebrity. Like Queen Sora- Fig. 12. DVD cover for The Beauty Academy of Kabul, a docu- mentary film directed by Liz Mermin, film release date 2004. ya decades earlier, Aisha opted to go public and reveal (Photo: courtesy of Ken Eisen) herself, a courageous act that went against the grain of her own culture. Admittedly, she was not acting alone. She was prompted by opinionated activists, her sponsor was a high-profile news organization, and it is certainly clear whose photograph and iconic beauty her portrait was granted a special award for her actions—“Beauty was referencing as she traded local humiliation for glob- with a Cause”—and she was not alone in her choice to al honor. Her pose and her expression clearly mimic deploy this particular weapon in a larger war. Around those of the more famous girl from Afghanistan. Like the same time, the beauty industry was being harnessed Soraya and Sharbat Gula, Aisha deployed cover-girl cha- to humanitarian zeal as an NGO dubbed “Beauty with- risma, but not as a pretty face deserving acclaim; rather out Borders.” Sponsored by Laura Bush, the program she was a victim demanding witness. was intended to enable modest beauty shops to employ Not unlike the Taliban destruction of the Bamiyan impoverished Afghan women in sequestered and so- Buddhas, this choice was a pointed act of image-making cially unimpeachable settings. Ultimately, the campaign in global visual culture, a radical, transgressive one. was a site of sustained controversy, the focus of consid- Even in retrospect, it is deeply shocking viewing pre- erable media attention, and the subject of a documen- cisely because it violates widely accepted canons of tary film (fig. 12), all issues that are beyond the scope of beauty and visual propriety, obliging us to look at some- this article. thing we would otherwise avoid. Indeed, this agonizing FROM LOCAL TO GLOBAL IN THE COMPANY OF AFGHAN WOMEN 249 photograph might be termed iconoclastic. Disseminat- simply global consumption? Or, should we instead be ing Aisha’s disfigurement, unveiled and effectively en- wondering, do we control our images, or is it actually the shrined, is a provocative, even destabilizing campaign other way around? of advocacy, undertaken by a major news organization across political boundaries. But that is the nature of the Department of Art, Williams College image wars that embroil us. In this face-off, she is not Williamstown, Mass. the only victim; we are all implicated. Welcome to trau- ma culture. NOTES

LOOKING BACK AND GOING FORWARD 1. lida Abdul, interview by Hong-An Truong, Artslant, 2007, http://www.artslant.com/ny/artists/rackroom/7567 The multivalent photographs considered here operate (accessed July 3, 2014); Lida Abdul, interview with Renata among tangled sightlines, occupy spaces between Caragliano and Stella Cervasio, in Lida Abdul, ed. Renata ­disparate cultures, and transcend boundaries with di- Caragliano and Stella Cervasio, exh. cat., Prince Claus Fund for Culture and Development (Torino, 2007), 161. verse consequences. Their impact is not confined to 2. w. J. T. Mitchell, Cloning Terror: The War of Images, 9/11 to Afghanistan or the United States, nor is the unifying nar- the Present, paperback ed. (Chicago and London, 2011). On rative propounded here simply about two discrete cen- July 23, 2012, the Bergen Center of Visual Culture convened ters of cultural gravity. Considered in the moment, an array of scholars to consider the idea of “image war” as individual images may generate divergent and even articulated by Mitchell in Cloning Terror. See the online dis- cussion, “Image Wars,” in Nomadikon, http://www.noma- contradictory meanings among disparate audiences. dikon.net/contentitem.aspx?ci=320 (accessed July 3, 2014). Over time, those same images may be agents of change, 3. Bruno Latour, “What Is Iconoclash? Or Is There a World homogenization, and collective understanding. How- Beyond the Image Wars?” in Iconoclash Beyond the Image ever, the speed of their production and the palimpsest Wars in Science, Religion, and Art, ed. Bruno Latour and Peter Weibel (Cambridge and Karlsruhe, 2002), 14–37. of their afterlives may simply foster a benumbed, ­chaotic 4. James Elkins elaborating on Jacques Lacan in The Object glut. As images cascade endlessly around us, only a few Stares Back (New York, 1996), 70–73. come to anchor broad patterns of representation and 5. norman Bryson, “The Gaze in the Expanded Field,” in prompt informed action; the Afghan Girl is such a one. Vision and Visuality, ed. Hal Foster (Seattle, 1988), 107. For She is a formidable presence to whom others defer and still wider fields and issues, see Nicholas Mirzoeff, The Right to Look: A Counterhistory of Visuality (Durham and London, aspire. She is not powerful because of what she repre- 2011). sents, for that is not fixed. Rather, her peculiar force 6. catherine Lutz and Jane Collins, “The Photograph as arises from seeing and being seen. She is a ubiquitous an Intersection of Gazes: The Example of National Geo- but silent witness, surfacing and resurfacing as other graphic,” in The Photography Reader, ed. Liz Wells (New York and London, 2003), 354–74. images come and go. She looks back relentlessly, and we 7. cf. W. T. J. Mitchell’s “go-between” in his What Do Pictures are respectful when she does, for she is ageless and un- Want? The Lives and Loves of Images (Chicago and London, flinching. She is the projection of our own desires and 2005), 351. needs, and now, like any good icon, she has us in thrall. 8. these variables are operative parameters in Afghan soci- ety more generally, but they impinge on canons of visual Held and humbled in her gaze, we face ourselves and all propriety in complex ways. See Holly Edwards, “Unruly our appetites, looking, buying, judging, gaping, enshrin- Images: Photography in and of Afghanistan” Artibus Asiae ing, even as we continue to point at others, sometimes 66, 2 (2006): 114. in judgment and sometimes in recognition. Clearly, 9. For a selection of voices and experiences, see Harriet Logan, much can be learned in the company of Afghan women, Unveiled: Voices of Women in Afghanistan (New York, 2002). 10. cf. Christopher Pinney and Nicolas Peterson, eds., Photo­ but having traced the helix of visuality between Queen graphy’s Other Histories (Durham and London, 2003). Soraya’s diplomacy and Aisha’s challenge, questions lin- 11. mitchell, What Do Pictures Want?, 352–56. ger. Is this story about global culture, global civility, or 12. see Edwards, “Unruly Images.” 250 HOLLY EDWARDS

13. For a general overview of this era, see Vartan Gregorian, 25. simpich and “Haji Mirza Hussein,” “Every-Day Life in The Emergence of Modern Afghanistan (Stanford, 1969). Afghanistan,” 92, 97. 14. For further contextualization, see Edwards, “Unruly 26. Headlines and articles in the New York Times, July 13, 1921. Images,” 131. 27. regarding the triangulation operative among the United 15. the political and religious dynamics surrounding this tour States, France, and “the Orient,” see Edwards, Noble have been analyzed in detail by Senzil K. Nawid, Religious Dreams, Wicked Pleasures, 12–14. Response to Social Change in Afghanistan, 1919–29: King 28. “Exchange of Letters between President Harding and Aman-Allah and the Afghan Ulama (Costa Mesa, Calif., Amir Amanullah Khan of Afghanistan,” United States 1999), 136–70. I have addressed the role of photography Department of State, Papers Relating to the Foreign Rela- on this tour in detail in Holly Edwards, “Photography and tions of the United States, 1921, Afghanistan, 258–62, avail- Afghan Diplomacy,” Ars Orientalis 43 (2013): 47–65. able online at http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/ 16. these charged decisions were made in the context of sus- FRUS/FRUS-idx?type=turn&entity=FRUS.FRUS1921v01. tained contestation of women’s rights inside Afghanistan. p0385&id=FRUS.FRUS1921v01&isize=text (accessed July 3, Nawid, Religious Response, 125–27. 2014). 17. the images from the Illustrated London News are repro- 29. Ashburton Guardian, October 29, 1921, 6. On the Ameri- duced in Edwards, “Photography and Afghan Diplomacy,” can cigarette industry and Fatima brand in particular, see figs. 6–10. Edwards, Noble Dreams, Wicked Pleasures, 203–4, cat. nos. 18. these images are reproduced in ibid., figs. 8, 11. 53, 54. 19. on the religious and political context of this response, see 30. Edwards, Noble Dreams, Wicked Pleasures, 49–51. See also Nawid, Religious Response, 158–61. Steve Caton, “The Sheik: Instabilities of Race and Gender in 20. i have situated each of these images in their own viewing Transatlantic Popular Culture of the Early 1920’s,” in ibid., contexts elsewhere. For the Afghan image, see Edwards, 99–117. “Photography and Afghan Diplomacy”; for the American 31. on diverse criteria of judgment, see Sarah Banet-Weiser, photograph, see Holly Edwards, Noble Dreams, Wicked The Most Beautiful Girl in the World: Beauty Pageants and Pleasures: American Orientalism, 1870–1930, exh. cat., Ster- National Identity (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1999), 53–57. ling and Francine Clark Art Institute (Princeton, N.J., 2000), 32. ibid., 35–42. 49, fig. 24. 33. it is a testament to Valentino’s appeal that the cult still 21. cf. the discussion of the transnational ramifications of exists, manifest in extensive online collections of material peepshows in Iran in Staci Gem Scheiwiller, “Cartographic evidence and fan scholarship; for example, boudoir dolls Desires: Some Reflections on the Shahr-Farang (Peepshow) from the Mineralava tours are collectibles. See Inherited and Modern Iran,” in Performing the Iranian State: Visual Values: Antiques and Vintage Collectibles, http://www. Culture and Representations of Iranian Identity, ed. Staci inherited-values.com/2012/02/of-valentino-mineralava- Gem Scheiwiller (London and New York, 2013), 33–54. beauty-pageants-pink-powder-puffs/ (accessed July 3, 22. the “cultural imaginary” deriving from fictive/real/ephem- 2014). On the tour more generally, see Falcon Lair: The eral partakes of Lacan and Benedict Anderson on imagined Rudolph Valentino Homepage, the Mineralava Tour, http:// communities. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: www.rudolph-valentino.com/mineralava.htm (accessed Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London July 3, 2014). and New York, 2006). 34. “Just looking” is not simple. See James Elkins, The Object 23. the vast bibliography on the “truth” of photography, often Stares Back (New York, 1996), 17–45. addressed in conjunction with issues of documentation 35. Kathy Peiss, Hope in a Jar: The Making of America’s Beauty and photojournalism, is beyond the scope of this project. Culture (New York, 1998); Julie A. Willett, Permanent Waves: A canonical point of reference is John Tagg, The Burden The Making of the American Beauty Shop (New York and of Representation: Essays on Photographies and Histories London, 2000). (Minneapolis, 1988). Two provocative recent additions to 36. information provided on the inside cover of the magazine the discourse are Errol Morris, Believing Is Seeing: Obser- credits Mohammed Khalid Roashan with the design and vations on the Mysteries of Photography (New York, 2011); editing and describes the publication thus: “A pictorial rep- Mia Fineman, Taking It: Manipulated Photography before resentation of Afghanistan’s developments in educational, Photoshop (New Haven and London, 2012). technical industrial and social fields published once every 24. Frederick Simpich and “Haji Mirza Hussein,” “Every-Day two months by the Publicity Section of the Royal Afghan Life in Afghanistan,” National Geographic, January 1921, Government Department of Press and Information.” I have 85–110. It is not without significance that this article was not located subsequent issues to date. chosen for excerpt in a 2001 compilation of the magazine’s 37. Bakhtar Afghan Airlines was formed in 1967 to cover articles in which the writers and photographers were domestic routes, complementing Ariana Airlines. In 1988, described as “literally the eyes of the Western world.” Don the airline reverted to Ariana and the name of Bakhtar Belt, ed., The World of Islam (Washington, D.C., 2001), 14, disappeared. 50–59. FROM LOCAL TO GLOBAL IN THE COMPANY OF AFGHAN WOMEN 251

38. Zohra Yusuf Daoud, “Miss Afghanistan: A Story of a Nation,” wards, “Cover to Cover: The Life Cycle of an Image in in Women for Afghan Women: Shattering Myths and Claim- Con­temporary Visual Culture,” in Beautiful Suffering: ing the Future, ed. Sunita Mehta (New York, 2002), 102–11. ­Photography and the Traffic in Pain, ed. Mark Reinhardt, 39. For a selection of such photographs, see Fazal Sheikh, The Holly Edwards, and Erina Duganne (Chicago, 2007), 75–92. Victor Weeps: Afghanistan (Zurich and Berlin, 1998). 47. this argument is indebted in many ways to Robert Hariman 40. on this and related publications, see David Edwards, “Print and John Louis Lucaites, No Caption Needed: Iconic Photo- Islam: Media and Religious Revolution in Afghanistan,” graphs, Public Culture, and Liberal Democracy (Chicago, Anthropological Quarterly 68, 3 (1995): 171–84, esp. 179–81. 2007). 41. the morphing role of Islam in Afghanistan during the last 48. see Holly Edwards, “Cover to Cover,” 82, figs. 5–6. decade of the twentieth century is complex. See Olivier 49. steve McCurry’s image is reproduced and fully credited Roy, Islam and Resistance in Afghanistan (Cambridge: on a poster produced by Breshna Cards Company, Kabul. Cambridge University Press, 1986); David Edwards, “Sum- The caption beneath the bold title “Afghanistan” reads as moning Muslims: Print, Politics, and Religious Ideology in follows: “Tattered clothing and fear-filled eyes of an Afghan Afghanistan,” Journal of Asian Studies 52, 3 (August 1993): reveal war zone truma [sic].” 609–28. 50. Further details are available in Holly Edwards, “Cover to 42. on Niazi’s influence on Muslim students in the 1960s, see Cover,” 90–91. David Edwards, “Summoning Muslims,” 612–13. 51. the text of the edict is included along with other perspec- 43. the Afghan Media Resource Center (AMRC) was founded tives on these events in Finbarr Barry Flood, “Between in 1987 with the assistance of the College of Communica- Cult and Culture: Bamiyan, Islamic Iconoclasm and the tion at Boston University. The goal of the collaboration Museum,” Art Bulletin 84, 4 (December 2002): 1–47. was to train Afghan journalists to cover the war inside 52. there is a vast discourse on idolatry, iconoclasm, and their country. At the time, few Western reporters or film monotheism. One new assemblage of perspectives is Josh crews were willing to risk the hazards and travails of work- Ellenbogen and Aaron Tugendhaft, eds., Idol Anxiety (Stan- ing in Afghanistan. In 1980, world attention was focused ford, 2011). That attitudes to image in the Islamic sphere are on the Soviet invasion, and for several years thereafter, complex and variegated is increasingly the focus of schol- reporters made the trek into Afghanistan to cover guer- arship. See Jamal J. Elias, Aisha’s Cushion: Religious Art, rilla operations against the Soviets. But by the mid- to late Perception, and Practice in Islam (Cambridge and London, 1980s, reportage on Afghanistan had become increasingly 2012). dangerous and therefore scarce. AMRC was established to 53. douglas B. Holt, How Brands Become Icons: The Principles rectify this situation, providing in-depth coverage on the of Cultural Branding (Boston, 2004). war and its consequences for the people of Afghanistan. 54. most obviously, the image has been used to advertise From 1987 until 1992, AMRC dispatched video cameramen, Sharbat Gula’s institutional sponsor, National Geographic, photographers, and print reporters throughout Afghani- and she continues to be a flattering attribute of the pho- stan, including to regions in the far north of the country tographer, but other iterations are too numerous to list. that took a month or longer to reach and had never before Along the way, she has become a critical benchmark in been visited by journalists. Videos produced by AMRC were scholarship. See, e.g., Stephanie L. Hawkins, American broadcast by the BBC, CNN, and other major media outlets Iconographic: National Geographic, Global Culture, and the and syndicated internationally for broadcast in more than Visual Imagination (Charlottesville, Va., and London, 2010), 120 countries around the world, while its photographs were 1–7. Most recently, the image graces the cover of National published by Time and other magazines and newspapers. Geographic again, in “The Photo Issue” (October 2013). In the course of the war, AMRC accumulated an archive 55. other cases parallel this one. Cf. Shoma Munshi, “Mar- of approximately 3,000 hours of videotape, 100,000 nega- vellous Me: The Beauty Industry and the Construction of tives and slides, and 1,600 hours of audio tape. Williams the ‘Modern Indian Woman,’” in Images of the “Modern College, Williamstown, Massachusetts, currently hosts the Woman” in Asia: Global Media, Local Meanings, ed. Shoma archive as a website, The Williams Afghan Media Project, Munshi (Surrey, U.K., 2001), 78–93. http://contentdm.williams.edu/wamp/web/information. 56. peiss, Hope in a Jar, 268. htm (accessed October 26, 2014). 57. Time, August 16, 2010. After the cover story ran, Aisha was 44. obviously notions of objectivity are time- and culture- brought to the United States for reconstructive surgery. specific. That process and the case more generally elicited consider- 45. in the wake of 9/11, I was part of a curatorial team that able media attention. See Jessica Ravitz (story) and Edythe mounted an exhibition, titled Through Afghan Eyes, at the McNamee (photography and video) “Saving Aesha,” CNN, Asia Society in New York, drawn from AMRC archive. One http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2012/05/world/saving. video clip displayed therein recorded a class under way. aesha/?hpt=hp_c2 (accessed July 3, 2014). 46. i have studied this image in detail elsewhere. Holly Ed-