Monday, Nov. 26, 2001
Even chaos is a gift, when it follows a five-year curse. In the Afghan capital
of Kabul, as in other cities suddenly set free from the Taliban's medieval
rule, the streets smelled of blood and joy. Taliban warriors who had
promised a fight to the death disappeared in the middle of the night like a
long bad dream, and by morning the people were throwing flowers at the
tanks as Northern Alliance commanders rode victorious into town.
Freed from theocracy, Afghan men ignored the call to prayer, preferring
instead to line up for their first shave in five years. They rubbed their faces,
savoring the feeling of bare skin. Children climbed to a high, windy point
atop the ruins to fly the kites that the mullahs had banned as frivolous. On
Tuesday night, the lights of Kabul came on for the first time in weeks. You
could hear music for the first time in years. Families and merchants dug up
their television sets, their VCRs and tape players; they swapped pictures of
movie stars and reveled in irreverence. One group of men played soccer in
the Thursday sun, the game for once not interrupted by a public execution in
the stadium. Fans were actually allowed to clap and cheer, the players to
wear shorts. It will take some time to sweep all the bullet casings from the
field.
As for the women, so long smothered in commandments, it was the greatest
pageant of mass liberation since the fight for suffrage. Female faces, shy and
bright, emerged from the dark cellars of house arrest. In Mazar-i-Sharif they
threw off their floor-length shrouds in front of the shrine to Ali, nephew of
the Prophet Muhammad, and stomped on them. In Kabul families went for
joyrides through the streets, a teenage girl with her veil off laughing and
waving at the crowds she could at last see without a scrim. When Northern
Alliance fighters seized the headquarters of Radio Afghanistan, they
installed three women as newscasters. Women walked the streets without
chaperones; they looked up and felt the sun on their skin....
~~~~~~~~~~
From... Blood and Joy
BY NANCY GIBBS
Time magazine.