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Afghanistan

Afghanistan research newsletter - No. 20

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Feature: Hidden Kabul

by Jolyon Leslie

"Let the reader conceive a broken succession of houses, composed of mud walls of different elevations, pierced here and there with wooden pipes to carry off the rain from the flat roofs.....then let him imagine... the entrance to the residence of some great man, with a mulberry tree occasionally peering over the wall; add to this a thick crowd, and he will form a good idea of a Kabul street."

This account from 1840, of what was then the centre of Kabul, could as well apply to surviving parts of the city's historic fabric today, nearly 170 years later. Rarely visited now, the network of narrow alleyways between traditional homes south of the Kabul River is where many of the narratives of Afghan history and society come together; shrines, mosques and daramsals (Sikh or Hindu religious buildings) embody the diverse strands of faith; crumbling houses retain traces of past prosperity and style; rickety wooden serais are stacked high with brash plastic imports; empty new office-buildings tower above ruins that are the preserve of drug-addicts; mounds of earth bear witness to fierce fighting that took place in 1993, and are all that is left of the homes of families now scattered through the city, and across the globe.

At a point in their history when they are being urged to look forward, and leave their dark past behind them, the old city seems to embody what Afghans are at risk of losing. It is as though nothing has been learned from the experience of 50 years ago when the Jade Maiwand road was driven through the historic fabric, to provide the ruling elite with a symbol of a "modern" city, but in fact it merely concealed the jumble of traditional buildings behind regular facades. Subsequent efforts by Afghan planners (and their foreign advisers) to wipe what they regarded as a "slum" off the city map also failed. It is ironic that, given their fierce opposition to modernism, it was Islamist fighters who nearly succeeded where professionals had failed, when they reduced much of the historic Nearly a decade later, it was on the site of this battle that the Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC) initiated a pilot conservation project. As the quality of the carved timber columns and plaster decoration of a war-damaged 19th-century mosque resurfaced from beneath layers of paint and grime, the history and experiences of a community displaced during the conflict also emerged. Having restored the first mosque to its former glory, the AKTC team has gone on to work on eight other mosques, two shrines, a madrasa, two traditional hammams (bath houses) and more than a dozen fine historic homes. This has enabled some 100 masons, carpenters and plasterers to develop their craft skills through apprenticeships. Along with the upgrading of infrastructure across an area that is home to some 20,000 people, the programme continues to generate much-needed employment within the old city.