Musicians Flee Afghanistan, Fearing Taliban Rule


More than 100 young artists, teachers and their relatives affiliated with Afghanistan National Music Institute, a famous school School leaders said the Taliban, who had been targeted in part by their efforts to promote girls’ education, fled the country on Sunday.

According to school principal Ahmad Naser Sarmast, the musicians, many of whom had been trying to leave for more than a month, boarded a plane from Kabul’s main airport to arrive in Doha, the Qatari capital, at around noon Eastern time. , which is currently in Australia. In the coming days, they plan to settle in Portugal, where the government has agreed to issue them visas.

Mr. Sarmast, who opened the school in 2010, said in a statement, “It is already a great step forward and a very, very great achievement in liberating Afghan musicians from the tyranny of the Taliban.” “You can’t imagine how happy I am.”

The musicians have joined a growing number of Afghans who have fled the country since August. consolidated control of the country in the middle Withdrawal of American forces. There are also members of a women’s football team among the names who have escaped from the world of art and sports. settled in Portugal and Italy.

Yet hundreds of school students, staff, and alumni remain in Afghanistan and face an uncertain future amid signs that the Taliban will take action to restrict non-religious music, which they banned completely when they ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001.

Supporters of the school, a global network of artists, philanthropists, politicians and educators, plan to continue working to get the remaining musicians out of Afghanistan. “Mission is not completed,” said Afghan music scholar Mr. Sarmast. “It’s just begun.”

Famous cellist Yo-Yo Ma helped raise awareness among politicians and other artists about the plight of musicians. He said he was “trembling with excitement” at the news that some had fled.

“It would be a terrible tragedy to lose this core group of people who are deeply motivated to have a living tradition,” Mr. Ma said in a phone call.

“I think about them every hour of the day,” he said of the musicians stranded in the country.

The National Institute of Music of Afghanistan was a rare institution: a coeducational institution dedicated to teaching music to students from both Afghanistan and the West, particularly those from impoverished backgrounds. The school is recognized for supporting the education of girls, who make up about a third of its student body. The school’s all-female orchestra, Zohra, traveled the world to great acclaim and became a symbol of Afghanistan’s changing identity.

The school has faced threats from the Taliban for years and in 2014 Mr. Sarmast was injured by a Taliban suicide bomber.

Since the Taliban returned to power, the school has come under re-examination. Mr. Sarmast and his school supporters worked for weeks to help get students, alumni, staff and relatives out of the country, fearing for their safety.

Several students and young artists affiliated with the music institute said in interviews with The Times in recent weeks that they stayed at home for fear of being attacked or punished by the Taliban. Many stopped playing music, hid their instruments, and tried to hide their ties to the school. They requested anonymity to comment due to fear of revenge.

Inside the last days of the american war In Afghanistan, school supporters, along with their relatives, led a frenzied and ultimately unsuccessful attempt to evacuate the nearly 300 school-bound students, teachers, and staff. The operation was supported by prominent politicians and security officials in the United States. At one point, the musicians sat on seven buses near an airport gate for 17 hours, hoping to board a waiting plane. However, the plan fell through at the last minute, as the musicians were unable to enter the airport and fears of a possible terrorist attack grew.

The Taliban tried to encourage an image of tolerance and moderation sworn not to retaliate against his former enemies after he came to power, and will be allowed to work and read “Within the boundaries of Islamic law.”

But they have signaled that they will implement some tough policies, including culture. Recently, a Taliban spokesperson said: music will not be allowed in public.

“Music is forbidden in Islam,” spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told The Times in August. “But instead of forcing people not to do these kinds of things, we hope we can convince them.”

Ethnomusicologist John Baily from the University of London, who studies cultural life in Afghanistan, said that after years of allowing the arts to flourish, it would be difficult for the Taliban to completely eliminate music in the country.

“There are thousands of young people who have grown up with music,” he said, “and they won’t be turned off that way.”



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