Women and Modern Art in Afghanistan

By Mujib Mashal

“Area Pollution,” by Arezo Waseq, part of a large exhibition in June by the Center for Contemporary Arts — Afghanistan at Kabul University.

KABUL, Afghanistan — Under the watchful eye of a male instructor, a teenage boy is deep in focus, trying to trace and copy from a postcard as accurately as possible. For years, this has been the art scene in Afghanistan: stale, and dominated by men. Realism has long ruled as the only accepted style.

The degree of accuracy in copying from a picture — and occasionally a live model — has been the only yardstick by which artists have been judged.

The tide, however, seems to be turning, even if gradually. For one week in June two spacious auditoriums at Kabul University hosted a large exhibition on the themes of pollution and the environment.

The exhibition had two remarkable qualities: All 18 participating artists were women, and the genre was modern art, a rarity in Afghanistan. Even today Kabul and Herat are the only Afghan provinces — out of 34 — to have a faculty of fine arts in their universities.

“The curriculum at most of our arts institutions has not changed for years,” said Rahraw Omarzad, the director of the Center for Contemporary Arts — Afghanistan.

“Such copying and copying only kills the creativity of our artists,” Mr. Omarzad said. “It gives them no opportunity, no room to develop a style of their own.”

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Afghanistan Graduates Another Class Of Policewomen

Officials in Kabul have announced the graduation of more policewomen as Afghanistan bids to increase the female presence in its security forces, RFE/RL’s Radio Free Afghanistan reports.

The class of 16 women received their certificates in a ceremony in Kabul on August 5 after eight months of training at the national police academy. They will soon be assigned to different parts of the country according to the needs of various districts.

Police academy General Director Sayed Mohammed Qudusi told reporters at the ceremony that Afghanistan’s Interior Ministry is doing all it can to make the newly established education and police training system for women effective.

The academy is funded by the U.S. government.

Afghanistan is encouraging a larger presence of policewomen as part of its effort to drastically increase its overall police force.

Cadets at the academy were taught how to conduct house searches, methods of recognition, explosives neutralization and dismantling, use of firearms and making arrests, as well as techniques used in detecting the smuggling of drugs.

“Our aim is to bring and restore social order [to Afghanistan],” Qudusi said. “We have to organize our programs and bring the quality of education to a level that is in accordance with the needs of society. We have to realize these needs on the ground and act accordingly.”

Qudusi said the academy’s goal is to have trained 5,000 female police officers by 2015. He said that so far a few hundred female cadets have graduated.

Policewomen serve several important functions in Afghanistan. For example, they are more adept at dealing with female criminals or in frisking women. Many say their existence in a strict Islamic society like the one in Afghanistan can help counter negative female stereotypes.

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