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Aziz Hazara is tracking an unusual shipment - 20 tonnes of rubbish collected from Bagram air base, formerly the largest US military base in Afghanistan. It is making its way west, back to its source. Itll pass through Karachi and the Gulf, sailing the Indian Ocean and crossing the Atlantic to return to the US.

The artist, who currently works in Kabul and Berlin, estimates that the journey could take up to a year as it carefully retraces what he refers to as the supply chain of the global war on terror the route along global ports and cities that American soldiers and weapons passed through to get to Afghanistan during the war. When it finally lands on US soil, it is home. Hazara calls it his gift to the American people.

To skirt regulations on refuse imports (the US prohibits such shipments even though it exports tonnes of its own waste to South-East Asia every year), he has labelled the junk-filled container as art. Having checked the rules, Hazara explains that if it makes it to the country successfully, it cannot be shipped back. When it arrives, it belongs to the Americans. Once it is in America, you cant undo it, he says.

The ongoing work has been commissioned for the 2022 Carnegie International, a major art exhibition held every three to four years, which will take place in Pittsburgh in September.

Part of childhood in Kabul is on one side, a horror show. On the other side, war is so normalised that you dont realise it until you see it from a distance

Aziz Hazara, artist

When US troops withdrew from Afghanistan last year, after a 20-year occupation, they left behind death, chaos and rubbish. Bagram air base, where more than 100,000 American troops had served from 2001 to 2021, had a shopping centre and fast food restaurants. Now, heaps of rubbish, toxic plastic, scrap metal and electronic waste are all that remain, and the Taliban have taken control of the airfield and the rest of Afghanistan.

More than a gesture, A gift to the American people (its working title) considers the legacy of war and the idea of circularity as weapons, equipment and military detritus manufactured in the West make their way into the hands of the Taliban after the collapse of the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces, furthering death and destruction. It also critiques political and economic complicity in an age of globalised conflict and proxy wars.

Born in 1992 in Wardak, a province in Afghanistans central region, Hazara and his family moved to Kabul when he was a child. Life in the capital, which has been marred by the Soviet-Afghan War, civil conflicts and the US invasion, shaped much of his memories and world view.

Part of childhood in Kabul is on one side, a horror show," he explains. On the other side, war is so normalised that you dont realise it until you see it from a distance.

Ranging from video and photography to installation and performance, his works contemplate war and occupation, both Soviet and American, and their lingering effects. Hazara often features children in his works, a choice that he says reflects his obsession with his own childhood.

In December, he won the $100,000 Future Generation Art Prize from the PinchukArtCentre, Kyiv, for his work Bow Echo (2019). The five-channel video installation shows young boys struggling to climb rocky mounds along the hills of Kabul as fierce winds attempt to knock them down.

The children blow on toy bugles, producing bleak sounds diminished by the howling gales. The futility of their efforts is palpable, one almost runs out of breath with them, as they clamour for a kind of control or recognition.

In another work, Rehearsal (2020), the artists young subjects play a different game. A boy recreates the sound of gunfire as he sits on the shoulders of another who swings him side to side like a weapon mount.

Hazara says many children in Afghanistan have mastered the mimicry of such noises, even recognising the differences between the Taliban-used Kalashnikovs and the US militarys M16 rifles. War has become very normalised, he says. We grow up with it, we die with it. We commemorate it, we celebrate it and we remember it.

As the videos title suggests, Rehearsal shows the children mirroring what they see around them, performing what is expected of them, especially as young boys, and practising for what may be ahead. What begins as childrens games may become more sinister later on, and in the context of a war-stricken country, the outcome feels more fated.

'Rehearsal' (2020), a five-channel video installation by Aziz Hazara. Photo: Aziz Hazara / Experimenter, Kolkata

The artists characters not only underscore a loss of innocence, but another form of circularity, of war begetting war. Afghanistans crisis is the outcome of generations of conflict, constructed by invading forces battling out their own interests on Afghan land.

The Taliban that we have in Kabul now are the kids that grew up in the refugee camps in Pakistan [in the mid-1980s and 1990s]. They have been through all these J is for Jihad campaigns, Hazara says, referring to a $50 million US-backed educational programme that promoted the use of mujahideen textbooks. Containing lines such as Doing Jihad against infidels is our duty, the books and lessons aimed to further religious war to help combat the Soviets.

This process of radicalisation is an American project, Hazara says.

The artist turns to a different kind of weapon in Eyes in the Sky (2020), where a drone follows children as they walk the arid mountainous landscape and gather to play around an abandoned tank. That their playground is made from a machine intended to kill doesnt seem to bother them as they hop on to its metallic body carrying toy guns.

A still from 'Eyes in the Sky' (2020), a single channel video installation by Aziz Hazara. Photo: Aziz Hazara / Experimeter, Kolkata

Addressing the use of surveillance in modern warfare, Hazara considers the drone as a technological panopticon, keeping a watchful eye over its subjects. Kabul is a city that is constantly under surveillance by the Americans, the Germans, the Brits, the French, the artist says of the period before the American withdrawal. There are all these drones, kite balloons, objects flying above you. They watch you 24/7.

He is referring to the spy balloons that were scattered across Afghan skies from 2007 (they were first used in Iraq in 2004) to observe and record the movements of residents and gather intelligence on potential attacks, including suicide bombers. They contain an archive of a city, a collection of images created after being constantly being watched without permission, Hazara says.

Unsurprisingly, the drones were reviled by locals, casting a psychological effect that prevented them from living their daily lives. Men were afraid of sleeping on their rooftops, a common activity during hot summer months, and women were cautious about stepping out to their yards.

Towards the end of Eyes in the Sky, the boys turn their guns upwards, firing at the all-seeing eye. In real life, when American crews would take down the blimps for maintenance, they would note that they were ridden with hundreds of bullet holes.

Its my constant struggle to not depict [violence], but use visual devices that might appear well-composed, but on the other side are brutal

Aziz Hazara

Such wartime surveillance practices are distinctly American high-tech, exportable and therefore highly bankable. This, too, has become a legacy of modern war. Formerly in the hands of the US, vast stores of data on the Afghan people, including digital histories and biometric data, collected over the years through a national ID and voter registration systems, are now with the Taliban, according to various reports, a shifting threat for which the implications are yet unknown.

But while the cameras of the military are intent on watching, Hazaras camera is concerned with the telling of memories and stories. The artists fascination with the camera as an object that bears colonial and militaristic histories began as a problematic relationship, he says. This was largely influenced by his witnessing the ways foreign journalists in Kabul while growing up. I didnt like when people, especially white journalists, were walking around the city and photographing us without permission. I found that they were exoticising us, he explains.

In his practice, he casts a different lens, one that rejects dehumanising images of conflict prevalent in international media, and presents stark views of Afghanistans landscape and those who live in it. Its my constant struggle to not depict [violence], but use visual devices that might appear well-composed, but on the other side are brutal, he explains.

His work, he says, is a continuous search along the border between being political and poetic.

'Bow Echo' (2019). Photo: Aziz Hazara / Experimenter, Kolkata

Sound plays an integral part of it, too. Hazara once again draws from his childhood in Kabul, where the citys soundscape blends the hum of drones, the whirr of choppers flying in and out of the green zone, recitations from masjids calling you for prayers, and on occasion, the sound of "suicide bombings".

Sound becomes a constant reminder of your geography and that was important to translate into the work, he explains.

The use of sound is perhaps most chilling in Monument (2019), one of Hazara's most powerful pieces. Running a little over five minutes, the double-channel video installation, shown at the Biennale of Sydney in 2019, takes place at a memorial site for the victims of a 2018 suicide bombing. Carried out by the Islamic State Khorasan, an offshoot of the militant group borne out of another war between other nations, the attack targeted an education centre in a Shia neighbourhood in Kabul. A total of 48 students, men and women, were killed and 67 people were injured.

One side of Monument shows the graveyard and memorial site in a wide-angle view, an arrangement of flags and posters, while the second screen offers a close-up of the latter, revealing the faces of the students, mostly teenagers, their names and dates of birth and death.

There is no narration and little context needed. As these scenes play, we hear only a steady low noise: the wind and the flags flapping along, then auditory cues of war, looming helicopters and soaring jets.

The artist reminds us of what we know to be true, that war does not end with a withdrawal, and not even with the laying down of weapons. It scars, stains and sticks it does not wash off, even if the US and its coalition may wish it so. Today, Afghanistan is not only faced with the grief of more than 170,000 dead (a conservative estimate by the Costs of War Project) and millions displaced, but also a humanitarian crisis that is rapidly worsening.

Contained in Hazaras work is a ruminative condemnation of imperial violence and a tragic foreshadowing of the countrys future. Like the sound of Monument, the road ahead is vast, eerie and cold.

Updated: February 2nd 2022, 12:27 PM

See more here:
Artist sends 20 tonnes of rubbish from Afghanistan to US as 'gift to the American people' - The National

A Taliban fighter inspects documents of people queuing to enter the passport office in Kabul on Dec. 18, 2021.MOHD RASFAN/AFP/Getty Images

A former employee of Canadas embassy in Kabul who made it safely to this country in August says his brother, whom he wanted to bring here as well, has been killed in Afghanistan.

The embassy employee said he was evacuated to Canada through the special immigration program set up for those who had assisted the Canadian government in Afghanistan. The program covered family members as well, but he was unable to bring his family with him to Canada because their paperwork was incomplete. He said he found out last week that one of his brothers had been killed.

The Globe and Mail is not identifying the former employee because he fears for his familys safety in Afghanistan.

He said his brother had been missing for more than a month and that another, older brother found him by sifting through countless frozen bodies at a hospital. Hospital staff told his brother that many of the dead came from a Taliban prison, he said, adding that he is 90-per-cent sure the Taliban killed him.

This is at least the second time someone waiting to come to Canada has been killed in Afghanistan since the Taliban took control of the country. A 10-year-old girl was shot and killed by the Taliban while her family was waiting to be resettled here. Her father had worked for the Canadian military in Afghanistan and the family had been approved for resettlement.

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The former embassy employee said he was unable to bring his family with him when he came to Canada because he was evacuated on such short notice and they were missing documents. He shared an e-mail he sent in October to a government address that had been set up to help Afghans. In it he wrote that his brothers and his familys lives were in danger because everyone knew he had worked for the Canadian embassy. He said he never received a response.

His brother leaves behind a wife and two children, who are very scared, he said. He said his niece cries every time they speak. He hopes his parents, his deceased brothers family, his other siblings and their families can come to Canada.

Immigration Minister Sean Fraser said his heart sank when he heard the news from The Globe at a news conference Monday.

The situation in Afghanistan remains very bleak for thousands and thousands of people who may qualify and want to come to Canada. The circumstances that theyre facing and the fact that they may be persecuted on the basis that they contributed to the government of Canadas efforts is the justification for our commitment to bring 40,000 Afghan refugees, with a specific focus on those who worked alongside Canada during our presence there, Mr. Fraser said.

He added that there will be challenging circumstances and deadly threats from the Taliban against vulnerable people. He said he is doing everything he can to expedite the resettlement of people to Canada from Afghanistan and third countries.

There are heartbreaking examples that I hear about on a daily basis. This is particularly difficult to hear, but we are going to do whatever we can to work to bring those who worked alongside Canada and their families here as part of the 40,000 Afghan refugee commitment that weve made and I remain committed to.

Mr. Fraser said that while Canada does not have a diplomatic presence in Afghanistan, which would allow officials to process paperwork and secure safe passage out of the country, Ottawa is working with partners and countries that are looking at potentially establishing a presence.

Abdul Qayum Hemat, who also worked for the Canadian embassy in Kabul for many years, as a driver, said he is also anxiously waiting for word on the status of his familys applications.

He said his two brothers are waiting to complete the next step of the application, which involves biometrics and has so far not been possible without a presence in the country. Meanwhile, his siblings and their families move all the time to avoid detection by the Taliban.

Mr. Hemat, who arrived in Toronto in August, said his family members are all scared, calling all the time to ask for an update in order to make sure that they are soon going to be relocated from the ongoing threat against them and their families as the result of their brother working for the government of Canada.

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Brother of Canadian embassy worker in Kabul killed in Afghanistan - The Globe and Mail

Fancied England kept its nerve to reach the ICC U-19 World Cup final after prevailing over Afghanistan by 15 runs in an exciting last-four clash here, ending a 24-year wait for the side.

The win has put England in its first U-19 World Cup final since 1998 in South Africa, when it lifted the trophy.

Spinner Rehan Ahmed became the hero for the Young Lions, taking three wickets in the penultimate over at a crucial point when Afghanistan needed just 18 runs from the last 10 balls on Tuesday.

It was a remarkable turnaround for England from the previous tournament just two years ago in South Africa when it finished ninth.

As for Afghanistan, it will head to the Coolidge Cricket Ground for the third-place playoff.

Rain delayed the first of the two super league semifinals at the Sir Vivian Richards Cricket Ground after England won the toss and chose to bat.

Afghanistan made a strong start as Jacob Bethell was trapped lbw by Naveed Zadran, an early sign that England faced a difficult task.

Skipper Tom Prest then joined vice-captain Bethell in making an early departure, reducing the team to 56 for two, as the Young Lions struggled to command with the bat.

Opener George Thomas steadied the ship with an excellent 50, but he lacked support from front-line batters.

And when William Luxton was clean bowled by Izharulhaq Naveed, Prests team was five wickets down having barely put 100 runs on the board.

However, the rain came again to delay play for a further half hour and led to revised conditions of 47 overs per side.

Englands back-end partnership of 95 from George Bell and Alex Horton then managed to lift the final total to 231.

The earlier interruptions from the weather meant Afghanistan had a revised DLS target to match this score.

In reply, Afghanistan lost opener Nangeyalia Kharote to seamer Josh Boyden off just the third ball of the innings.

But Kharotes replacement Allah Noor, smashed a huge six to get off the mark and quickly gave his team a platform.

The 18-year-old produced a marvellous knock, which featured eight boundaries as the momentum of the semifinal swung back Afghanistans way.

Along with wicketkeeper Mohammad Ishaq, the pair got their team past 90, with Noor making a valuable half-century.

Englands crucial breakthrough came after some wonderful fielding led to a run out for Ishaq with wicketkeeper Horton reacting quickly to a loose throw at the strikers end.

Noor remained stubborn but eventually went for 60, with Thomas Aspinwall claiming a vital wicket. That set-up a frantic-finish that could have gone either way.

The 44th over for England appeared to have turned the game when two no balls in a row gifted eight runs, before Abdul Hadi (37 n.o.) smashed a huge six to take them to 200. But Ahmeds late flurry and a nerveless final over from Boyden saw England through.

The scores: England 231/6 in 47 overs (George Thomas 50, George Bell 56 n.o., Alex Horton 53 n.o., Naveed Zadran 2/67, Noor Ahmad 2/32) bt Afghanistan 215/9 in 47 overs (Mohammad Ishaq 43, Allah Noor 60, Bilal Ahmad 33, Noor Ahmad 25, Rehan Ahmed 4/41, Thomas Aspinwall /37). Match reduced to 47 overs; target revised as 231 as per DLS method; England won by 15 runs.

Continue reading here:
U-19 World Cup | England beats Afghanistan to enter final, ends 24-year wait - The Hindu

Ross Giblin/Stuff

Footballer Fahima Yousofi, 18, arrived in New Zealand from Afghanistan last September when she and her family fled the Taliban. Next week she will begin training with the Phoenix Academy team.

A young refugee will train among New Zealands best up-and-coming footballers just months after fleeing war-torn Afghanistan.

Fahima Yousofis tutors from the English Teaching College in Lower Hutt put in a call to the Wellington Phoenix after she revealed her talent at a school picnic. From February, Yousofi will begin training with the clubs academy team.

With her sister, Farzana Yousofi, acting as an interpreter, the 18-year-old said the trip through the riotous crowds outside Kabul Airport was not as frightening as the prospect from which she was escaping being forcefully made a bride.

Yousofi, who played football in Afghanistan to a high level, is pleased she will be playing football again. She arrived in New Zealand in September around the time the air force was making mercy flights to and from the Afghan capital with her family. Members of her extended family had already settled in New Zealand.

Ross Giblin/Stuff

The Wellington Phoenix Academys technical director Paul Temple says Fahima Yousofis journey to the club has been an unusual one, and he is keen to kelp her get back into football.

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Its my favourite hobby. I want to be the best player in the world, said Yousofi, a midfielder, who also plays in the forwards.

Having met with her on Tuesday, Phoenix Academy technical director Paul Temple said it was clear she was very keen to play again.

WELLINGTON PHOENIX

Wellington Phoenix coach Gemma Lewis frustrated by changes to upcoming schedule.

With the club sorting her out with boots and kit, she will be joining in the Phoenixs academy team training.

Were going in a little bit blind, but we want to help her if we can. If shes played international football, this will be the right place for her.

Shell spend a few weeks training and from there well see what the best option is for her.

Having not seen her play, Temple was keen to get her on the pitch.

This is quite unusual. Obviously we deal with overseas players all the time, but thats always arranged in advance.

We want to help her get back into football, whether thats with the Phoenix or playing with a [local] club.

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Refugee to train with Phoenix Academy after fleeing Taliban takeover of Afghanistan - Stuff.co.nz

Photo:United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime

A drug that is a mix of meth and opioids, and believed to be the first of its kind in the world, is on the rise in Afghanistan.

UN drug experts have warned that pills being sold on the streets as tablet K mark a new era in narcotics production because some of them contain both stimulants and depressant drugs. The tablet also represents a further step in the expansion of a cheap synthetic drug market serving up to the worlds poorest populations.

Tablet Ks look like badly-made, colourful ecstasy pills and sell for between 3 and 12 each. Alongside the usual mish-mash of gimmicky pinger logos, such as Donald Trumps head, Rolex and Tesla, batches of tablet Ks have been stamped with the name of the Netflix series La Casa De Papel (Money Heist) with a masked face from the show on the back.

The pills have been steadily growing in popularity, particularly among young Afghans, since 2016. Despite this, until now, there has been little attempt to find out what the pills contain.

But on Tuesday, the UNs drugs office published a forensic analysis of 536 pills seized over 2020 and 2021 and sold on the streets as tablet K. It found that while the drugs were sold under one brand name, the contents fell into three types.

Of the pills tested, 42 percent contained mainly meth, 23 percent mainly MDMA, and 32 percent contained the surprise mixture of methamphetamine and opioids. The opioids found in these pills was most often heroin, but was sometimes tramadol, a synthetic opioid painkiller.

Although the MDMA infused pills are typically sold for more than those containing meth or heroin, the report said there was no obvious link between the visual aspects of the tablets and the presence of a particular drug. So in essence people buying tablet K are essentially involved in a lucky, or unlucky dip, and could find themselves getting high from meth, MDMA or a combination of meth and heroin. One in ten of the pills also contained sildenafil, which is sold under the brand name Viagra.

The presence of an illicit drug product in tablet form that contains both methamphetamine and opioids has implications for the understanding of drug use and supply in Afghanistan and beyond, said the report. The identification of opioids in a large number of samples [containing methamphetamine] was unexpected.

Mixing stimulant and depressant drugs in the same hit is something heroin users have been doing for decades with speedballs, by buying cocaine or crack and heroin, and either injecting or snorting them both at the same time. Even though the drugs work in opposite directions to each other, studies have shown that taking a speedball can potentiate the normal effects of both drugs to create a more extreme high. Stimulants and depressants are also mixed in Red Bull and vodkas or espresso martinis.

But drug trade observers who spoke to VICE World News said they had not come across a ready-made product containing the two types of high before.

Batches of tablet Ks have been stamped with the name of the Netflix series La Casa De Papel (Money Heist) Photo: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime

I have never heard of such combinations in tablets in European drug markets or elsewhere, said Andrew Cunnningham, head of drug markets and crime at the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA). He said that so far these types of pills seemed to be a local phenomenon in Afghan drug markets and that they were likely cheap products targeted at the Afghan population.

Between March 2020 and March 2021 officials seized 80kg of the tablets (around 160,000 individual pills), double the amount seized the previous year. In 2020 a survey carried out among young people found that for the first time use of tablet K was higher than methamphetamine, also a rising drug in Afghanistan which has become a meth production hub.

According to the report, tablet Ks are found across urban and rural parts of Afghanistan, with a high prevalence in the Eastern (bordering Pakistan) and Northeastern (bordering Tajikistan) regions, where use of the drug is two to three times higher than average. Production facilities for tablet K have been detected in Kabul and Kunduz, but there have also been reports of the pills being trafficked from Peshawar in Pakistan and Tajikistan.

Analysis of tablet Ks found the pills contained a total of 26 different substances. Alongside meth, heroin and MDMA analysts found a plethora of cheap pharmaceuticals such as caffeine, carisoprodol (a muscle relaxant), chlorpheniramine and diphenhydramine (antihistamines), dextromethorphan (a cough suppressant), propranolol (a beta blocker), diazepam, sildenafil, paracetamol, tramadol, chloroquine (an antimalarial medication), and tinidazole (an antiprotozoal medication).

Afghanistan may no longer seem such an unlikely place for synthetic drug manufacture and constitutes just the latest example of a largely plant-based drug economy embracing synthetic drug manufacture, said the report.

Excerpt from:
A New Drug That Contains Meth and Heroin Is on the Rise in Afghanistan - VICE