Even in the wartorn and violence of the war in Afghanistan there is still hope. That is the message reaching through a new British Museum exhibition of “Afghanistan’s ancient treasures” believed to have been lost, destroyed, or looted over the past 30 years of the Taliban rule, Each jewelery is links to a story which is what makes it more valuable.
This video is a short insight of the stuff displayed at the British Museum from Afghanistan
A Thousand Splendid Suns is a book written by Khalid Husseini based the lives of Afghan women . He takes the reader on a journey that centers on the lives of two very different Afghan women, but also discusses the history of the country in that time and its effect on their lives.
The story starts with the life of Mariam, a 15 year old girl in Herat who lives with her bitter mother. She is the Harami child of a local businessman, illegitimate because he had an affair with her mother, a servant in his house. even though He already had three wives. When Mariam steals away to visit her father one day, she’s refused entry to his house. By the time she returns home, her mother is hanging from a tree.
Now orphaned, her father is quick to marry her off to the first man who expresses an interest. Unfortunately, that man is Rasheed, a bully many years her senior who takes her home and subjects her to a life of strict rules and introduces her to the burka. Things are passable at first, but as Mariam continues to miscarry Rasheed’s babies, he becomes increasingly abusive towards her.
The book moves on to Part 2 introducing the character of Laila, a girl who is born around the time Mariam moves to Kabul to live with Rasheed. Her family are far more liberal, and Laila’s mother is not forced to wear a burka. Her husband is a bookish man, who encourages his daughter to educate herself and gives her hopes of travel and a career. And as the political tensions in Kabul escalate, a rocket attack on the family home kills Laila’s parents, leaving her wounded. She’s dug out of the rubble and taken to Rasheed and Mariam’s house, where the two of them tend to her wounds and look after her.
At this point, the stories of Mariam and Laila begin to intertwine – all is not well at first, because Rasheed soon starts turning his attention to Laila. Mariam is incensed, but knows she has no say in his taking another wife. Even though Rasheed is so old at this point, we expect Laila to reject his offer of marriage, but she accepts without hesitation. This is a shocking turn of events, but we soon discover that Laila is pregnant to her childhood lover who moved away from the neighbourhood not long before her parents died.
And the story carries on from there onwards I recommend this book its an amazing story. Once one reads it,
Etched into the dappled sandstone of the Bamiyan mountains are the faint remains of the once colossal Buddha statues that silently watched over the Bamiyan Valley for 1500 years. The ancient statues were destroyed by the Taliban in March 2001, complaining that the Buddhas represented polytheistic idols. After destroying the tall monuments it caused an uproar, people of Afghanistan were very sad to see it getting destroyed but there was nothing they could do to save it since the Taliban were ruling. Recent efforts in the region hope to restore their magnitude and reintroduce their cultural significance.
These are some images showing the damage the war had caused Afghanistan. During the war nothing was the way it once was everything was destroyed leaving the people nothing but sorrow.
The people of Afghanistan love playing all kinds of sports. The most popular sport in Afghanistan is Buzkashi, a team sport played on horseback. The second most popular sport recently is football , as well ad cricket. Cricket had only become popular since 2002, when Afghan refugees who had lived in Pakistan returned home they had brought the sport with them since cricket is very popular in Afghanistan. In fact, Afghanistan
A lot has changed since the fall of the Taliban for Afghan sports and athletes. For instance, now more women have taken up various types of sports such as martial arts, and boxing. During the dark rule of the Taliban, participation by both men and women in many sports were restricted, and Buzkashi was even banned. Instead, the Taliban used Kabul’s sports stadium to carry out public executions which was extremely brutal and shocking.
Members of the Afghanistan national team of boxing who are women leave a gym after a training session at the National Stadium on May 3, 2010 in Kabul, Afghanistan. After facing years of restrictions and oppression during the period of Taliban rule, Afghan women are again able to make use of sports clubs and private gyms and the national boxing team have sets their sights on competing at the London 2012 Olympics.
Players of Afghanistan’s national women’s football team rest during halftime in a friendly match against a pickup team of women assigned to the International Security Assistance Force Headquarters in Kabul. The Afghan women controlled much of the game, but scored just once. That goal, which came in the first half, was enough for them to win as they once did not have the opportunity to take part in any kind of sport.
Hamid Rahimi the famous boxer , was born on 12th September 1983 in Afghanistan Kabul. Hamid and his family fled the civil war in 1992, and moved to Germany (Hamburg) with his parents and three siblings. A crucial experience
from his childhood marked the beginning of his boxing career:
The 11 year old immigrant Hamid Rahimi was called up in the classroom. When he didn’t
understand the teacher’s question, his classmates burst out laughing. During recess, he was
wound up by three of his classmates. Due to his lack of knowledge of the German language, he
was unable to verbally defend himself, so he beat up the three boys without further ado. His crime was rewarded with the admiration of his peers and they never made fun of him again. In
this moment Hamid decided that he could gain recognition by using his fists. His passion for
boxing was born. Very early on, he showed his exceptional willpower and talent for martial arts.
In 1998, the very first thing he did was to acquire the basic skills of Thai boxing. Obsessed with
his goal to become stronger and better, Hamid spent several months in 2002 in a training camp
in Thailand, which is the birth place of Thai boxing. Isolated from the outside world, he learned
new techniques and defeated his first opponent in the ring. The move to amateur boxing sealed
the bond of the athlete with boxing for good. The fights were no longer carried out on the streets
but only within the four ropes of the ring.
In 2003, he was discovered by the renowned trainer Owen Reece and became his protege. In
2004, boxing briefly took a back seat as he opened a Restaurant-Bar named Buddha Lounge in
Hamburg. The idea to combine the culture of Southeast Asia with modern European design was a
very successful one. Despite this, Hamid gave up his job as a restaurateur in order to return to
his calling as a boxer.
On 10.11.2006 Hamid Rahimi entered the ring for the first time under the name of “The Dragon”
– his successful professional debut. Hamid Rahimi’s sporting career shows a shining track record
as an unbeaten professional boxer.
The great hero of Afghanistan, We are all very proud of him. He has shown the world the talent of Afghans. There are many hidden talents within Afghanistan, but we were not given the freedom or opportunity to show what we are capable of, and hope that the fall of the Taliban will change that so that Afghans are given back their freedom and given an opportunity to become something in life. We pray that better days will come, after all the people of Afghanistan are also human, they have dreams and hopes. Thanks to people like Hamid Rahimi Afghanistan can be given some hope.
The Afghanistan of Today 