From "'The soul of Kabul: Taliban paint over murals with victory slogans/Works including celebration of killed aid worker and signing of peace agreement are replaced" (The Guardian).
I think that many people who can "imagine art" would still have trouble understanding the specifics of these murals. Why should public art in Kabul show George Floyd?
Here's a Guardian article from last year, "Artlords, not warlords – how Kabul's artists battle for the streets/Muralists are covering the Afghan capital’s blast walls with agitprop imagery and calling out corruption":
Kabul’s green zone, a highly fortified area home to embassies and news agencies, is surrounded by tall, heavy walls. Since 2014, Artlords – a word play on warlords and drug lords, of which Afghanistan has many – a collective of artists and volunteers, has put some of the country’s politics into paintings, aiming to reflect the city’s atmosphere.
“We want to turn public opinion into murals, that’s why we paint what we hear on the streets,” explained Abrar Kakarr, Artlords’ programme manager. “We don’t want to offend, we want to criticise."...
[T]he group has painted almost 2,000 murals in 19 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces. Some work has been commissioned by UN agencies and embassies to raise awareness about the development agenda. But other independent pieces are aimed at stirring political debate. The group – now mainly funded by international donors – has faced praise and criticism. Some have questioned whether beautifying explosion-proof walls denies their purpose and the continuing war in the city, but Artlords has said it will continue to promote messages of peace and social justice, as well as use its work to target alleged government corruption.
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24 comments:
AA, "Why should public art in Kabul show George Floyd?"
Because St. George Floyd is a secular saint and his death represents all that is evil and bad about America; at least in the view of the Left.
My view is that Floyd was a convicted felon who died of an overdose while he was committing another crime. His lungs were full of fluid. He had just taken a large dose of some illegal drug. A non-addict would have died with that dose.
The fact that a cop was convicted in this case is to the everlasting shame of our screwed up society.
Sharifi believes the Taliban are trying to silence people by destroying the murals with their comments on social issues.
Our aim was to promote critical thinking and put pressure on the government to accept people’s demands.... There is no vocabulary about art in the Taliban’s dictionary. They even cannot imagine art. I think they don’t understand it, that’s why they are destroying it
Of course not. Representative art of any sort is forbidden in Salafist Sunni Islam. Funny how the Guardian fails to mention that very obvious & relevant fact.
They'd paint over the Mona Lisa if they had it.
The reason St. George Floyd couldn't breathe was because his lungs were full of fluid. He had just "hooped" some drugs; fentanyl I think.
I had to google "hooped" when it happened. George was not playing basketball.
but Artlords has said it will continue to promote messages of peace and social justice, as well as use its work to target alleged government corruption.
Yeah, that's going to end up well. ArtLords artists are going to find that the Taliban favor the color red. Blood spatter is the impressionistic style the like most. Their favorite media just happens to be artists who favor social justice and "alleged" government corruption themes.
Althouse: "I think that many people who can "imagine art" would still have trouble understanding the specifics of these murals. Why should public art in Kabul show George Floyd?"
Why did Anderson Cooper refer to blacks in Britain as "African-American"?
They even cannot imagine art. I think they don’t understand it, that’s why they are destroying it.
They are destroying it because Allah says so, as the Afghan artist knows.
The Taliban are the heirs of a 7th century barbarian. They can no more understand art and music than can their predecessor's camels.
The real tragedy of Afghanistan: the indiscriminate killing of art.
Apparently Mr. Sharifi didn't get the memo: You're not dealing with the Americans any more. The Taliban are Islamic fundamentalists, and that means things like representative art and music are forbidden. Islam is not just a religion, it is a way of life, and because it is all-encompassing and unforgivingly intolerant, those who live in Afghanistan will now have accommodate themselves to the new reality: Get with the program or suffer the consequences. Mr. Sharifi looks fairly young and probably has never had to live under such rigid intolerance. But power comes from the barrel of a gun, and the Taliban are the ones with the guns (and Humvees, armored vehicles, helicopters, planes, drones, night-vision goggles...) now. I'm sorry that our current government and his former government failed him and his countrymen and -women.
"Why should public art in Kabul show George Floyd? "
Because although I personally do not know where it's actually located, our world now has a global bullshit generator. And man, does it consume a shit-ton of energy.
Maybe we can send Antifa and BLM to Kabul to protest the destruction of the St. Floyd murals.
So basically like downtown Madison...good to know.
I confess myself impressed at Omaid Sharifi's command of American English, right down to "the asks of the Afghan people." Apparently one of our best translators remained behind. Though that particular usage is one I had hoped we wouldn't spread to any countries, least of all Afghanistan.
I agree with YoungHegelian: Salafist Islam forbids all representational art, as well as all music. They are far more likely to make an example of the Kabul muralists than an exception for them.
As expected, the Taliban are acting just like democrats.
we were in afghanistan for 20 years. We finally withdrew our troops. So when do we stop talking about them? Why do the same people who push "diversity" and love "people of color" and believe that no civilization/culture is better than anyother one, constantly act like its OUR RESPONSIBLITY to tell the Afghans how to live.
People like Lindsey Graham and George Bush were/are imperialists who want to tell others how to live, and how their culture should be. They clothe this in a lot of blather about "Rights". But even if the Afghans aren't living the way, we approve of, its their fucking country.
What would've happened if in 1845, the British had invaded the USA because we still had slavery. As stated thye were doing in the name of "Human rights for blacks" and "Spreading racial equality"? DO you think Abe Lincoln and Dan webster would've approved?
Isn't installing American style protest art in Kabul sort of imperialistic? It certainly shows the international effort to rehabilitate Afghanistan to be myopic and not meeting the Afghans where they actually are, rather, where some nitwit SJW thinks they should be.
Terrific metaphor for the whole doomed effort.
Many in the US thought it peachy when the mob came for statues & other expressions that were tainted with wrongthink. Too many caved to the idea that it is possible to erase history. None of them has right to complain now. Taliban is merely "differently woke".
Well, if the murals in Kabul are as bad as the ones painted on the boarded up windows after the riots in downtown Madison, then no loss.
Isn't installing American style protest art in Kabul sort of imperialistic?
I was going to say that it's Western in style, but not necessarily American, and not all protest art. A lot of it is indeed political, and in Afghanistan painting women without face coverings, or painting anything at all is political.
It does look like something Banksy would paint or a European or South American Social Democratic city council would commission, and in Afghanistan that's alien and out of place enough.
George Floyd is an icon -- like Che or Shepherd Fairey's Obama poster. And now I've looked at some of Shepherd Fairey's work, yeah, he was probably an influence too. No wonder they're painting over the murals.
“If only Stalin knew!”
George Floyd is the Artlords mural martyr for all the unknown tormented, imprisoned, murdered by police, paramilitary police, and government goon squads across Africa, the Islamic world, China and rest of Asia?
Back in the 70s Doonrsbury's Raoul Duke ( in Beijing as either a reporter or ambassador) learned about Chinese government policy from his CCP ace assistant, who read the ever-changing government propaganda posters on city walls, each morning on her way to work.
He who controls the tagging controls the people.
The Taliban would have known how to deal with George Floyd.
From the pictures I've seen, many of those "Islamic slogans" are forms of art from the fundamentalist Sunni tradition. So the Taliban are likely replacing some of the fundamentalist Tranzi* art murals with more traditional fundamentalist Sunni Islamic murals. Art for art. Mural for mural. An eye for an eye.
In any conflict the winners write the history and hang their public art along with their enemies.
*A old shorthand for transnational progressives.
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