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After the fighting, a photographer asks: What is left of Kabul--and how
are Afghanis adapting?
By Martin C. Pedersen
Photographs by Sean Hemmerle
June 2002
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BALA HISSAR
The old city in Kabul--Bala Hissar, once a thriving neighborhood--was
destroyed by twenty years of civil war. The most recent factional
fighting began in 1992 and involved four groups (three of which
eventually became the Northern Alliance, another the Taliban). It was
this chaos that allowed the Taliban to seize power. Downtown Kabul looms
in the distance.
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Offsite:
Hemmerle's exhibition of photographs from Afghanistan is currently at
The Front Room, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The show is entitled Three Generations
of High Explosives and runs until June 9th.
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For Metropolis contributor Sean Hemmerle, the road to Kabul began
in Lower Manhattan. The photographer lives directly across the river from
the site of the World Trade Center, and on September 11 he watched the towers
collapse. Later he documented the recovery efforts (his photograph taken
inside the Brooks Brothers across the street appeared worldwide) and served
as a Salvation Army volunteer. When the U.S. military campaign against the
Taliban commenced, he began planning a trip to Afghanistan. "After
what I'd seen," he says, "it seemed like the logical next step."
In January Hemmerle traveled to Afghanistan not as a war correspondent but
as a postwar correspondent. "I came to photograph the minefields,
the battlefields, and the architecture," he says. "I wanted
to see if smart bombs actually fell where they're supposed to."
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DOWNTOWN KABUL, 6 A.M.
An image taken from the top floor of the Spinzar Hotel, looking south
toward the Kabul River and the Sher-i-Darwaza Mountains. "Because
there's so much smog--so many particulates floating around in the
air--the light is actually gorgeous," Hemmerle says. "In the
morning when it streams in, it's just electric."
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DOWNTOWN KABUL, 2 P.M.
The six-story building in the center of the photograph is a hotel
catering largely to Afghanis. On the other side of the street --in front
of the parked taxis--is the city's book bazaar, a series of small
shacks. "I bought a guide to Afghanistan at the Hotel
Intercontinental for fifteen dollars," Hemmerle says. "Out
here, it was a dollar."
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Hemmerle decided to fly to Peshawar, Pakistan (about 200 miles from
Kabul), and arrange for ground transportation there. "I thought it
would be cowardly to just pop in by plane, like most Western journalists,
and not experience the country," he says. At the airport in Peshawar,
Hemmerle met Sohail--a man who called himself a "fixer"--and
became acquainted with the only growth sector of the local economy: guiding
Western journalists through tricky territory. "This is a very important
job," Hemmerle says. "His job is to 'fix' any of the problems
that might befall you. Because of the extensive bureaucracy in Pakistan,
you need paperwork for everything." When Hemmerle asked what else he
needed, Sohail answered, "Different clothes." "He took me
to a tailor and had me fitted for two Afghani suits," Hemmerle
says. "That little thing he did for me was one of the most profound.
Having those clothes provided me with safe passage in many situations."
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KABUL INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT
This was one of the U.S. Air Force's first targets in Afghanistan.
"We put big craters in the middle of the runway," Hemmerle
says, "then the Taliban mined it." The runways were
subsequently repaired, the mines removed, and flights have resumed.
Built by the Soviets in the 1980s, the airport terminal is a
surprisingly crisp piece of architecture. "From the outside it
looks like something you'd see in Topeka," Hemmerle says. "I
grew up in Arizona, and it reminded me of the Phoenix terminal in the
seventies. But inside the lobby is beautiful. The ceiling is done in a
gorgeous wood paneling. Aside from the ancient mosques, it was one of
the nicest structures that I saw in Afghanistan."
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At the end of a 200-mile gauntlet of various fixers--and the machine-gun-toting
representatives of local warlords--Hemmerle found Kabul and a young Afghani
guide named Rafi Amin. The 16-year-old arrived each morning at dawn,
and together they toured the city. Bala Hissar, a neighborhood devastated
by factional fighting, deeply affected Hemmerle: "As I was walking
through, I thought of the World Trade Center. But here it was as if instead
of just the Twin Towers, all of Lower Manhattan had been leveled. Walking
through Bala Hissar made me cry. Looking into the remains of someone's house
is hard. Seeing it repeated a thousand times is horrible."
In a city ravaged by two decades of war, it was difficult to find
areas untouched by the fighting. "Wazir Akbar Khan is the most
affluent neighborhood in the city," Hemmerle says. "The houses
are beautiful Art Deco sort of mansions. You can drive around there and
see almost no destruction. But on one street, where the Russian consulate
is now, there are two craters on each side of the embassy. This is the only
example I saw where smart bombs didn't fall where they were supposed to,
because that building [the consulate] had been the home of Osama bin Laden's
fourth wife."
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GHAZI STADIUM
During the reign of the Taliban, Ghazi Stadium was the site of
executions, floggings, and other gruesome punishments. "When the
Nazis were defeated, many Germans were asked, 'What did you do during
the war?'" Hemmerle says. "Well, a lot of people in
Afghanistan are facing a similar question: 'What did you do while the
Taliban was in power?' This photograph sort of sums up their recent
history: an empty stadium where horrible things occurred and where now
soccer practice happens. The portrait in the background is of Massoud,
former leader of the Northern Alliance, assassinated by the
Taliban."
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"The most extraordinary architecture in Afghanistan is the mosques,"
he says. "Unfortunately the one adjective that applies to most of the
other buildings is bombed." And yet Hemmerle found a strange
air of calm permeating Kabul. "I was surprised by how quiet, slow,
and still everything was," he says. "What I saw more than anything
was people trying to get back to life--trying to regain some sense of order
and civilization."
»
Read more about Sean Hemmerle's experiences in Kabul.
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