Again and again the conversation is interrupted by the ringing of a phone. “When it comes to music, people turn to me,” explains Ahmad Sarmast. The director of the Afghanistan National Institute of Music – so far the only higher music school in the country – sits in his office in Melbourne with framed diplomas hanging behind him. Sarmast found asylum here in the 1990s and later returned to Kabul to set up the institute. He left Afghanistan on July 12, just a few weeks before Kabul fell back into the hands of the Taliban. The 58-year-old left for medical treatment and wanted to visit relatives in Australia.
The many Afghan cultural workers who are now seeking contact with the musicologist are calling for two main reasons: fear and hope. They are afraid of the Taliban’s intolerance towards music; their hope is that Ahmad Sarmast, who is well connected abroad, can somehow help them. “A whole system, a whole country, which was built up over twenty years by the victims of many Afghans, simply collapsed overnight,” says Sarmast, describing the events of the past few weeks.
Today the Taliban promise to take a more tolerant approach than during their first rule, which began 25 years ago. They did not intend to retaliate against their former enemies and declared that women were allowed to work and study within the limits of Islamic law.
Ahmad Sarmast also sees making music together as a project of national reconciliation.
(Photo: Regina Schmeken)
But the violent past of the Islamists made many Afghans doubt their promises from the start – especially artists and musicians were skeptical. From 1996 to 2001 the Islamists destroyed instruments, banned cassettes and sound carriers with non-religious content, and killed musicians. As a result, there was an exodus of artists. Music education collapsed completely, says Sarmast, who went to the conservatory in Moscow after his escape and did a doctorate in musicology in Australia.
The Taliban are no longer dependent on concessions
This development is now being repeated. As early as March of this year, the Afghan Ministry of Education ordered that women and girls from the age of twelve were no longer allowed to sing in public. At the time, the decision was considered a concession to the Taliban. After their invasion of Kabul, they are no longer dependent on them – they now dictate the rules. And reports are already mounting that a new music ban has come into force in Afghanistan and that educational institutions have been closed. Photos of destroyed instruments in music studios can be found on Twitter.
Again and again it is claimed in the social media that these pictures of the destruction come from the Afghanistan National Institute of Music by Ahmad Sarmast – but fortunately this is still misinformation, as the director assures. According to informants, the instruments and the school building are still intact. But he too regards the Taliban’s promises with skepticism – fearing that his institution is now about to end. The guards posted in front of the school disappeared after the Taliban invaded Kabul, and the Islamists are now controlling the facility.
Since the school opened in 2010, it has been a symbol of Afghan change. At the Ministry of Education facility, hundreds of young artists – including many orphans and street vendors – were trained in traditions that the Taliban had once banned. For example in playing the rubab, which resembles a lute and is one of the national instruments of Afghanistan. Western sounds, however, were also on the curriculum.
Attacks were carried out on the director of the institute
But not only the music itself is likely to disturb the conservative faction under the Taliban, but also many other things at Sarmast’s institute: a purely women’s orchestra was formed under the name Zohra, wearing headscarves on the school campus is voluntary, girls make up a third of the student body out – if only because Sarmast and his colleagues wanted to support disadvantaged children. The Afghanistan National Institute of Music, so its founders had resolved, should provide education regardless of social circumstances, ethnicity or gender.
This is probably one of the reasons why the institute was a target of the Taliban from day one. Sarmast himself was injured in 2014 by a suicide bomber who snuck into the front row of a school performance. A German spectator died, Sarmast survived – but temporarily lost his hearing as a result of the attack. The Taliban said they would keep trying to meet the director of the institute. In the years that followed, the school was attacked several times.
In addition to western music, the institute in Kabul also taught the rubab, the national instrument of Afghanistan.
(Photo: Regina Schmeken)
As a result, security measures became increasingly strict, but the school community continued to play, says Sarmast. “The Afghan nation and people have the right of access to musical education, to the performance of music and to a livelihood through music.” To stand against the music of Afghanistan means to stand against the culture and heritage of the country. Many of the employees and students who remained in their home country are currently in hiding, says Sarmast, he is in constant contact with them.
Higher walls alone will not be enough
In trying to get the artists to safety and to help them stand up for their rights, Sarmast hopes above all for support from the international community. The institute has a special relationship with Germany in particular. Not only have the students of the institute performed on German stages many times, but have received great support from the government over the years – even in times of the pandemic. Sarmast hopes that this partnership can continue.
Sarmast and his colleagues have yet to fathom what support from abroad can look like. In the last few weeks before the Taliban came to power, the school’s foreign network of supporters tried to increase security on campus through measures that were more geared towards repelling attacks – for example, by installing a guarded gate and reinforcing the walls. But what kind of help will be necessary and possible now, since the group that carried out the attacks so far provides the government itself and wants to ensure security?
Until he can give an answer to this question, Sarmast relies above all on courage and perseverance. Above all, he asks his colleagues and students: “Don’t stop singing, don’t stop practicing. Keep doing it. Stop censoring yourself. Stand up for your rights.” After all, music is more than just entertainment and art. You could create unity, make a feeling of solidarity tangible beyond ethnic differences. “We are all aware of the healing power of music,” says Sarmast. And he is convinced that a country like Afghanistan traumatized by years of war would “benefit from this healing power.” Just now.