Portraying the dread, dreams through eyes

Afghan photographer Zalma finds hope and resilience amid the ruins of his war-torn homeland

My work is not about war but the war is in my work, Zalmaï says of his photographs documenting the consequence of conflict on the daily lives of the people of Afghanistan. There are very few images of the military in Dread and Dreams, his forthcoming book of photographs taken in Afghanistan between 2008 and 2013.

Zalmaï, 51, was much more interested in portraying the locals, although he decided it was necessary to acknowledge the presence of the coalition forces to put everything in context. The powerful, bleak images depict scenes that could be 2,000 years old and are often biblical in appearance. They describe the struggle, pain and resilience of a people who have lived with generations of conflict.

The landscape of the capital, Kabul, has changed dramatically over the past two years, Zalmaï tells me on the phone from a guest house there. The diminished international force makes the city feel more normal, he says.

It is less like living in a war zone, but you do feel more insecure on the streets. Where once there were checkpoints throughout the city – a car might be stopped four of five times over a distance of three miles – now there is almost nothing. ‘I was advised to be extremely careful taking pictures in the street, and not to leave home at the same time every day because the risk of kidnapping is so high,’ he explains.

Three days earlier, Zalmaï had driven through Kabul to take pictures at a local school. The city was quiet, people were going about their daily lives, shopping in the market, when a suicide bomber targeted a car from the Turkish Embassy, killing three people. Driving back to the guest house a few hours later, Zalmaï passed through the street where the bomb had exploded and saw that normal life had almost completely returned.

To borrow a term used about the great chronicler of the Vietnam War, Larry Burrows, Zalmaï is a ‘compassionate photographer’. He is also a passionate, authoritative storyteller, and you can sense his hackles rise when discussing the country’s politics, even though his language is lyrical.

‘In the past few days, it has been snowing and cold, and the snow covering the landscape of war was beautiful to see; it was metaphorical, the snow erasing war for a moment.’ The conditions were desperate: extreme poverty; children wading ankle deep through freezing mud wearing only flipflops. More than 6,80,000 people have been displaced by the conflict, which has affected 30 of the 34 provinces.

Zalmaï in 2009 won the prestigious Visa d’Or at Visa pour l’Image, the international festival of photojournalism held annually in Perpignan, for Promises and Lies: The Human Cost of the War on Terror in Afghanistan. He works closely with a number of NGOs, including the UN Refugee Agency and Human Rights Watch, and his photographs have appeared in The New York Times Magazine and The New Yorker.

Zalmaï has first-hand experience of the impact of war on a family. Born in Kabul in 1964, he describes a happy middle-class upbringing. ‘I have very colourful memories of my childhood: normal stuff, playing with friends, going to school, enjoying picnics in the mountains with my family,’ he says.

The situation changed dramatically in December 1979, when the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan and remained there for the next 10 years. Zalmaï’s father was a high-ranking government official and his mother, a teacher, was very active in women’s rights. It was decided Zalmaï and his brother should leave Kabul as soon as possible; they were forced into hiding in the basement of his grandmother’s house for two months.
‘At that time I was tall for my age and the Soviet-led Afghan army were situated on each corner of the city with trucks picking up all the young kids to fight against the Mujahideen,’ Zalmaï says.

‘It was too dangerous to go to school, as they rounded up boys there also. In one day I lost my family, friends, my home and my country – it was a very difficult time for me. Afghan people describe it as losing your sky and your mountain.’

Disguised in traditional Afghan clothing and taking only a small backpack holding his precious Zenit camera and a broken flash unit (both were later confiscated by the Mujahideen on the journey), he and his brother walked for eight days, guided by a smuggler. The harrowing journey took them through the mountains to the border with Pakistan, near Kandahar. They travelled by night, hiding from the Red Army helicopter patrols.

‘Approaching the border was terrifying. I was escaping the war, but at the same time I felt as if I was losing everything that was very dear to me,’ Zalmaï recalls. The border was only a small remote mud building and teashop for travellers, but with no guard checking passports.

‘To my right side were the mountains of Afghanistan and on the left was Pakistan. Suddenly I realised the border is just in our mind: it is not real; we built it. I see this as the main problem of this planet today.’ Zalmaï never saw any of his classmates or friends again. ‘I don’t even have a childhood photograph. It’s as if I lost my childhood absolutely.’ Two years later his parents also left Kabul.

Journey of exploration

About six million people were exiled following the Russian invasion of Afghanistan. Zalmaï travelled to India from Pakistan and then found his way to Switzerland, where he had an aunt. As a teenager in Kabul he had been a passionate photographer, producing his own prints, and he attended the school of photography in Lausanne between 1984 and 1986. Then he began to travel.

‘I felt I could call anywhere home, and for almost eight years I travelled for six months of the year. I lived with pygmies, with nomads in the desert; I learnt who I am. I was not interested in going back to Afghanistan, I had been so traumatised by the journey when I left.’

He returned to Afghanistan for the first time in 2001 after the bombing of the Twin Towers on September 11, on assignment for Newsweek. He landed in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan, to try to enter the country though the north. 'For years the Taliban had been systematically destroying the country but no one paid much attention. Suddenly I found myself in a convoy of 500 journalists, photographers and TV crews. I don’t know how many cars crossed the border that day.’

While many journalists were becoming embedded and taking spectacular images of the military action, Zalmaï chose instead to focus on the suffering of the population. ‘When I left it took me years to mourn the loss of my country,’ he says. ‘I did not come to Afghanistan as Zalmaï coming home; I was a professional photographer who was covering a story for Newsweek. It made me very proud.’

In 2012, travelling in Bamyan Province, he came across two peasants walking in the mountains. One was carrying a big rock, which was to become a foundation stone for his new house. I asked him if he was afraid of what would happen when the coalition force withdrew. He told me he had been displaced twice before by the Taliban so it didn’t worry him. He has hope, and will build his house and stay. ‘The power of the Afghan people faced with fear and uncertainty is their human spirit, their utter dignity,’ he adds, before the line goes dead.