What I'm Reading Lately

taliban
Originally uploaded by Randuwa.

Reading is a bit of a stretch, as this simple volume is mostly the chronicle of the final days of the Taliban Regime in Afghanistan. Collected and assembled by Photographer Thomas Dworzak, this ironic collection of portraits comes from clandestine photographers living in Kandahar.

To quote Jeff McMahon from his review of the book in the January-February 2004 'The Gay & Lesbian Review', "The photographs [Dworzak] collected were commissioned by Taliban warriors wishing to commemorate their heroism, bravery, and (perhaps less consciously) youthful beauty during the American invasion in the fall of 2001. The soldiers on the brink of defeat wanted to record who they were....[now] abandoned photos whose subjects....were mostly now dead."

It's an odd and very affecting collection in many ways. The Taliban, you will recall forbade any depiction of the human image, right down to spray-painting off the circle heads of stick figures on public safety signs identifying crosswalks! And these, the glorious warriors and adherents, in their hour of dire need, found the desire to be remembered more essential.

Many of the young men wear make-up (eye-liner, and in watercolor touched up photos what comes to look like lipstick). In a culture that maintained strick separation of the sexes, fascinating that any expression of feminization of the male image should seem so non-chalant.

And ultimately, you have to realize that for whatever evil these men participated in and represented to the west, they themselves could no more have attact the World Trade Center than I Hagia Sophia!--And my chances would still be miles ahead of theirs. I have no sympathy for the Taliban in terms of ideology, but as a Christian I do know enough about my faith to know that I can recognize their personhood and feel compassion toward even these, my enemies.