After the Taliban took control over Afghanistan, fear has been looming large across the?country. While the most affected are the women and children of the country, people from the creative industries have also been under a lot of pressure.?
Recently, an Afghan film director and current general director of Afghan Film, Sahraa Karimi issued a letter to all the film communities across the world to help the film community in Afghanistan and the women and children who are in deep danger. She said,?¡°It¡¯s a humanitarian crisis, and yet the world is silent¡They will ban all art. I and other filmmakers could be next on their hit list.¡±
Taliban is set to impose barbarian rules that have nothing to do with art and culture. In fact, the militant group looks down upon the same and may target people who have accomplished in the field of art in the past twenty years.??
Based on this, Omaid Sharifi shared on Twitter how artists across the country are destroying their art. He wrote, "My heart shatters to see and talk to Afghan artists who have started destroying their own art out of fear. #Afghanistan is becoming black and white again. It¡¯s losing its beauty, diversity and colours. I am afraid the world will let this happen again!"
?People on the internet were saddened to see this vision.?
Afghan designer Shamayel Pawthkhameh Shalizi told DW that?her musician friends in Afghanistan told her that the Taliban are now breaking down their studios and hiding everything.
But she has also been in touch with other artists who continue their art as a form of resistance, doing music or graffiti in Kabul as?the Taliban take over?the city, "as a swan song," the last thing they?do?before?going underground.
Artists depicting the Taliban regime negatively are under extra heightened threat, Shalizi said, but art, in general, is perceived as a threat by the Taliban.
Even though the Taliban has implied that they will change this time around, let's hope that history doesn't repeat itself.?