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Established 1961 Lifestyle THURSDAY, MARCH 22, 2018 A snowman stands near The Eiffel Tower in Paris. — AFP Afghan street artists haunt warlords with graffiti campaign or days Hamida Barmaki’s smiling face stared out over hopes to pressure warlords to acknowledge their past traffic in Kabul, painted in a towering mural near the actions and apologize, said Sharifi, 31. Barmaki’s portrait Fhome of the warlord blamed for her death, until it was was near the home of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, one of the mysteriously covered over in white. most notorious warlords in Afghanistan’s history. The short-lived image on a concrete blast wall marked His group claimed involvement in the 2011 suicide the beginning of a provocative campaign by social activist attack on a Kabul supermarket that killed Barmaki-a group ArtLords, whose artists are calling out Afghanistan’s prominent law professor and human rights activist-as well This handout from the Afghan social activist group ArtLords shows artists painting a mural of Hamida Barmaki, who, along most powerful by depicting people killed by warlords in as her husband and their four children. The Taliban also with her husband and children, was killed in a 2011 suicide attack on a supermarket, on a blast wall near the home of warlord giant murals in public places. claimed responsibility for the attack. Conflicting claims Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, whose followers had carried out the attack, in Kabul. — AFP photos They have been threatened on social media, branded have long been a feature of the 16-year war. Hekmatyar, infidels and told by gunmen and mullahs to stop painting- whose spokesman declined to comment on the mural, is artists, who are paid for their efforts. Sharifi said he rarely but are unrepentant. “This was a warning shot to every- one of several infamous warlords whom Kabul has sought goes out and is careful to use different routes when he one that we will not let you sleep at night, we will come to reintegrate into the mainstream political system in the does. “The threat is very real. At any moment anything can after you, we will paint in front of your homes,” ArtLords post-Taleban era. happen, a bomb can go off,” Sharifi said. “Despite all these co-founder and president Omaid Sharifi said at his studio A two-time prime minister, he is accused of responsi- We will paint challenges... we have to take responsibility. Somebody has in the Afghan capital. bility for the death of thousands of people during to do it.” Rather than seek justice for the countless victims- Afghanistan’s 1992-1996 civil war. Other such figures something that is not realistic given the huge number of include General Abdul Rashid Dostum, a powerful ethnic Courage and guts them and the country’s weak judicial system - the group Uzbek linked to multiple human rights abuses in in front of The mural of Barmaki has changed the “narrative of street art in Afghanistan” and people were now recogniz- ing art as a “powerful tool” for social change, he said. It your homes has also galvanized other socially conscious artists around the country to use street art to send “very harsh messages to these people”. While ArtLords receives widespread Afghanistan who is now the country’s first vice president, support from Afghans and the international community for and Atta Mohammad Noor, the former governor of Balkh its work, reaction on social media to the Barmaki mural has province. Noor is seen as a potential presidential con- been mixed. tender but has been accused of links to people involved in Some have applauded the group’s “courage and guts” kidnapping and other crimes. while others have accused them of bias and exacerbating discord in the country. “Use your art to promote unity and ‘You’re not going to heaven’ serve Afghanistan, do not use it to spread division,” The murals-which typically cover several square Facebook user Yaser Baburi wrote. Sharifi admits the new meters-will put faces to the victims, Sharifi says, and send campaign will upset people “because we will remind them a message to warlords that “we have not forgotten... what of all these crimes”. they did in this country”. Over the past four years “But I think this is the way to continue this discussion ArtLords has turned Kabul’s grey maze of concrete barri- and force these people to come out and apologize for cades-shaped like a wide-based inverted ‘T’ to provide what they’ve done.” With the help of the public, ArtLords protection from bomb blasts-into a canvas to tackle issues is compiling a list of warlords and of people allegedly such as rampant corruption and abuse of power. killed by them, who will be the faces of the next murals. With permission from local authorities, businesses and “We will have faces of these victims in front of their (war- institutions, the group’s artists have painted more than lords’) houses or the streets they are passing by,” Sharifi 400 murals on blast walls and other prominent places in said, without disclosing who will be targeted. “There are a around half of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces. Sharifi said the lot of names that come to mind.”—AFP latest campaign would also target the violence of the Taliban and other militant groups now terrorizing the country. “There will be murals that say ‘you’re not going to In this photograph, Artlords co-founder and president Omaid Shariﬁ takes part in an interview with AFP in Kabul. heaven’,” Sharifi said. It is risky work for the group’s 45.

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