‘Imagine a life without the Taliban’: artist-activist Alina Gawhary
by Hamber KEEFE
8 March 2024
The International Conflict Research Institute (INCORE) hosted a panel discussion at the Belfast campus of Ulster University to commemorate International Women’s Day. This discussion focused on the life, achievements, and art of Alina Gawhary following the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in 2021. Gawhary was joined on the panel by Sadie Harrison and Darren Ferguson. Their conversation was moderated by Brandon Hamber.
Alina Gawhary is an Afghan painter, musician, educator, and activist who was raised in Kabul. Born in 2004, she was 17 years old when the Taliban re-gained political power. Gawhary has resided in Bangladesh since March 2023, where she received a scholarship to continue studying art. Sadie Harrison is a composer who champions music as a tool of social solidarity with marginalised groups, including refugees, Afghan women, the deaf, and homeless people. She met Gawhary over the Internet in late 2021 and has provided various forms of assistance to her ever since, particularly through Gawhary’s relocation to Bangladesh. Harrison currently lives in England.
Darren Ferguson is the chief executive officer of Beyond Skin, an intercultural music and arts collective that is engaged in peacebuilding across Northern Ireland and beyond. He is also the co-founder of the Musicians-Artists at Risk Resettlement Scheme in Northern Ireland. Dr Brandon Hamber is the John Hume and Thomas P. O’Neill Chair in Peace at INCORE at Ulster University. His research interests include the psychological implications of political violence, masculinity, and the process of transition and reconciliation in South Africa, Northern Ireland, and other post-violence states.
After welcoming the panel and audience, Hamber invited Gawhary to share her personal experiences from the past two-plus years. She began by reflecting on 15 August 2021, the day that the Taliban took over Kabul. Gawhary described it as “the darkest day of my life” that “altered everything for me in just a few hours”.
Gawhary began that day ready to take the last of her midterm examinations. She described it as a time of celebration because she was preparing to graduate from her secondary education. But when Gawhary arrived at school that day for graduation photos, she noticed that no one was there:
“I saw that the books and notebooks were left behind on the chairs… [as] the students heard the Taliban arriving.”
Gawhary’s school would quickly be closed. She completed the majority of her secondary education before this happened, but the Taliban’s arrival denied Gawhary the opportunity to formally graduate. In addition, the Taliban burned every piece of student art stored at the school, including Gawhary’s work.
When Gawhary returned home on 15 August, she experienced feelings of confusion, uncertainty, and depression. These, she noted, would follow her and her family for years:
“I was thinking… ‘will I not be able to come back to school’? As my hands were shaking on the way home, and I arrived, I was thinking that I was trapped in a cage.”
The Taliban then banned women from most professions, schools, and activities. Creative activities, including most works of art and music, were also censored across the country:
“When the Taliban banned music, it… made me so sad and depressed.”
Gawhary did not feel free to explore the world or the arts during the first few months of Taliban rule. She attributed this to a combination of cultural repression, violence against women, and the destitution that her family experienced.
At that point, according to Gawhary, “the only thing that I could do was send messages to different people who were trying to help Afghan women, Afghan musicians, [and] Afghan artists. I reached out for help… and for two months I didn’t receive even one reply”. But things began to change when Harrison answered the call.
Harrison’s interest in Afghanistan dates to 2001, when the Taliban destroyed the Buddhas of Bamiyan. She believed that this was an attempt to “rip out the heart and the identity of the Afghan people”, and it moved her to solidarity. Before meeting Gawhary, she admired the country’s music from a distance, “But with Alina, it became something so intimate and personal.”
In late 2021, Harrison herself had felt “saturated” by “so many [desperate] messages from so many people, musicians or not”. However, Gawhary’s appeal stuck out to her:
“Alina’s message just said: ‘Hello, my name is Alina Gawhary. I live in Kabul’”, Harrison recalled. She returned the hello, to which Gawhary replied with a picture of her drawings that were in flames: “And that’s something to quite catch your eye, really.”
This ignited what Harrison described as an “artistic, personal, wonderful little… collaboration” that spans a hemisphere and has only strengthened over the last two-plus years. Gawhary and Harrison have exchanged ideas, positive affirmations, and art, helping them persevere through the darkest times of Taliban rule together:
“When I felt that Alina was flagging and getting overwhelmed and sad, I would say, ‘why don’t you draw me a little picture and I’ll write you a piece of music?’”
In exchange for sketches or poetry, Harrison would write, record, and send to Gawhary pieces of piano music. Harrison also leveraged her professional connections to provide Gawhary with money, which she used to purchase art supplies, support her family, and operate an underground school in her home.
“[I made the school] in the corner of my home for the girls who couldn’t go to school and for the boys who were working on the street”, Gawhary shared. She welcomed about 200 students to this school, where they learned art and English.
“It was such a joy that I could help others and help myself to be strong [and] to fight… violence against women and children”, she added.
Harrison gave all the credit for running the school to Gawhary, who taught and used her funds “under jeopardy” at all times. Beyond resisting the Taliban’s mandates, Harrison added other important purposes of this school: “to keep the kids warm” and “to give them somewhere beautiful and welcoming”.
Gawhary’s work positively impacted herself, the Kabul community, and her own family. Harrison helped facilitate the sale of Gawhary’s paintings outside of Afghanistan, which brought the family greater financial stability.
“I was helping my family to make the best of the situation”, said Gawhary.
Ferguson has helped smuggle out art from Afghanistan for other artists; he provided more detail about the “teamwork and trust” this “grassroots” process entails: “All the risk is on [the Afghan] side… Women have to trust men to get post, and there’s an extra layer of trust when it comes to money.”
Ferguson also reflected on his felt obligation to help, as a native of Belfast, which shortly after the Taliban takeover was named a UNESCO City of Music:
“It’s not just a badge… there’s responsibility that comes with that title that we should use to preserve, protect, and celebrate Afghan heritage, and help rebuild it here, because they can’t do it in Afghanistan.”
Gawhary fought against more than the Taliban using art and education. She also faced social stigma from members of her community who share the Taliban’s attitudes towards women and girls. In a way, she felt that expressing herself was contrary to norms:
“When a lot of people in front of you are saying that this thing is bad, that you have to be silent, you have to be like ‘this’, you have to be a woman… and do everything that a man says or the government says, it makes us think that we’re like criminals.”
While Gawhary’s family was largely supportive, she faced pressure from her own grandfather to conform to a strict gender role. According to Gawhary, he wished for her and her sisters to find husbands and conform. He never waivered, and according to Gawhary, he “turned his face away” when she left for Bangladesh.
It took approximately a year and a half of planning for Gawhary to emigrate from Afghanistan with Harrison’s guidance. Gawhary decided to leave because she wanted “to have peace and experience a good life”. According to Harrison, everything Gawhary experienced through this period could fill a novel:
“This young lady got herself in a taxi, and in buses, and she travelled halfway across the country to get her biometrics done,” Harrison remembered. Gawhary made this trip several times, passing through Taliban checkpoints during each journey. Through it all, Harrison concluded, Gawhary showed incredible bravery.
Harrison highlighted the complicated feelings that have accompanied Gawhary’s freedom. Gawhary may be free to paint, dance, study, and listen to music, “but the other side of course is that her family is still in Afghanistan. So every day for [Gawhary]”, she added, “is tinged with guilt.”
Nevertheless, Gawhary recognised how her life in Bangladesh is happier and more secure than it was in Kabul, for which she expressed gratitude. “Right now, I never want to fly back to Afghanistan in my imagination”, Gawhary shared. “It is really hard for me to think about it.”
INCORE placed several of Gawhary’s paintings on display for the audience, many of which featured one of Gawhary’s favourite subjects: musical instruments and musicians. She cited the practice and risks of her underground musical education as inspiration behind these motifs.
For three months, while still in Kabul, Gawhary visited a “secret shop” every day to practice and study music. But one day, the Taliban suddenly entered the shop because they heard the sound of music from outside. Gawhary escaped, but they arrested and publicly humiliated her teacher.
“They put my teacher on the street… like a person who does the baddest [sic] crime. He was standing there… and they were showing to the people… ‘If you’re gonna be a musician, [this is] your result’”.
This event discouraged her from continuing to play, but she still felt motivated to capture her love of music. “The only thing I could do was [paint] the musical instruments because I couldn’t play”, she added.
The idea of hope dominated the discussion, which the panel agreed has been pivotal to Gawhary’s accomplishments. One audience member asked Gawhary to elaborate on her hopes and dreams for the future.
“In the future, I want to be a big symbol for my country, myself, and my family that my grandfather never trusted me to be”, Gawhary responded. But Harrison believes that Gawhary is already paving the way forward for Afghan women.
“You are holding a torch and a beacon… for other Afghan women to see”, she told Gawhary. “And at the minute they cannot see it close-up because they are in Afghanistan, but you are absolutely such a positive force. And what you do now is going to have an effect on those women.”
According to Gawhary, Afghan women, including herself, “imagine a life without the Taliban. A life with music. A life with dancing. A life with a lot of hope and making a better future for ourselves, for our country, and for the world”.
The INCORE panel was just one of several art-related peacebuilding events across Northern Ireland in which Gawhary, Harrison, and Ferguson participated last week. The panel also visited Derry/Londonderry, met with a loyalist working men’s club in Belfast, and attended an International Women’s Day rally in Belfast, at which Gawhary delivered a speech. Ferguson commended Gawhary for the immense impact her work is delivering both within and outside Afghanistan:
“For a young woman from Afghanistan who’s been here a week, doing community relations and peacebuilding and raising awareness, bringing people on board with her, it’s been absolutely phenomenal”, he declared. “She leaves a real legacy here”.
