"The Falling Afghans": Newest War Carpet Immortalizes Desperate Departure from KabulEvery hand-made knot in the Afghan war carpets tells the story of Afghanistan's decades of war.
On sale in a Pakistani handicraft shop is a hand -knotted carpet that crudely depicts the searing scenes that surrounded America’s desperate 2021 departure from Afghanistan when young men clinging to the wheels of a departing U.S. aircraft fell to their deaths. They were looking for a better life and found a horrifying death.edge your support One of the men crudely represented in the the rough woolen threads of the carpet is 24-year-old Fida Mohammad, a newly married dentist from Parwan Province, north of the Afghan capital. On Aug. 16, 2021 Fida heard rumors that the departing Americans were taking anyone who could get to the airport to the U.S. He knew he had to try. His father had sold his business to pay for his elaborate wedding. He didn’t tell his new bride. He didn’t tell anyone. They didn’t know until they found his body and a paper stuffed inside his pocket with his father’s name and phone number. Fida was among hundreds of Afghan men and boys who descended on Kabul’s International Airport when the Taliban retook power, bringing to an end America’s failed invasion that began 20 years earlier. In a desperate, unthinking moment, Fida grabbed the wheels of the departing C-17 aircraft. With men and boys clinging to the doors and on the wings, and Fida hugging the wheels, the aircraft sped down the runway eventually ascending over Kabul. When the pilot retracted the landing gear, Fida fell to his death. The Falling Afghans carpet is the latest in a series of so-called Afghan “war carpets” that weave Afghanistan’s sad history dominated by decades of war. The carpets most often made by women are a woolen hand-knotted collage of weapons, explosions, fire and destruction. The motifs identify the war the carpet depicts. Those carpets that feature grenades, the iconic Soviet kalashnikov rifles, tanks, rocket launchers and the occasional SAM-7 shoulder-launched surface -to-air heat seeking missile recall the 10-year invasion of Afghanistan by the former Soviet Union. That war ended in1989 with the Soviet troop withdrawal. The carpets that immortalize the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan feature the tools of a more modern warfare __ fighter jets, and 21st century weaponry. The United States, like the former Soviet Union before them, left Afghanistan defeated, but unlike the former Soviet Union, whose soldiers marched out of Afghanistan across the so-called Friendship Bridge to the former Soviet Republics, America’s departure was a chaotic mess. Each of the hundreds of hand-knotted woolen threads that make up The Falling Afghans war carpet pays homage to the chaos and the price paid by Afghans. Some war carpets also recreate the horrific terrorist attacks of 9/11, attacks an Afghan colleague and friend at the time said was certain to “set Afghanistan on fire.” He wasn’t arguing the rightness or the wrongness of what he knew would happen, he was simply stating a fact. Unlike the earlier Afghan war carpets that chronicle war, “The Falling Afghans” carpet reflects the hopelessness and despair that pervades Afghanistan after decades of relentless war. The earlier carpets are mostly a collection of weapons and war machines. They tell the story of the wars, but the “Falling Afghans” carpet tells the story of the people, the price they pay for the many wars, most imposed from outside. Prior to last week’s shooting in Washington, Afghanistan and its people received little attention internationally, aside from the notable focus on the Taliban’s mindboggling restrictions on women and girls But today today Afghans are again under attack, this time from their former allies. When the world descended on Afghanistan in 2001, and America embarked on what would be its longest war, Afghans believed it was about them, about a better life for them, about helping their homeland prosper. It wasn’t. It never was. Pledge your support |