{"id":26833,"date":"2021-09-21T00:59:00","date_gmt":"2021-09-21T00:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=26833"},"modified":"2021-09-22T07:45:16","modified_gmt":"2021-09-22T07:45:16","slug":"afghanistans-war-rug-industry-distorts-the-reality-of-everyday-trauma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/afghanistans-war-rug-industry-distorts-the-reality-of-everyday-trauma\/","title":{"rendered":"Afghanistan\u2019s war rug industry distorts the reality of everyday trauma"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Jamal J. Elias<\/a>, University of Pennsylvania<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The end of the U.S.-led military intervention in Afghanistan<\/a> has resulted in the withdrawal of most foreign aid workers and contractors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It may well also spell the demise of the country\u2019s war rug industry<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a specialist in the visual and material culture of the Islamic world<\/a>, I first became aware of war rugs when I was working on a book on truck decoration<\/a> in Pakistan and Afghanistan in the 1990s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since that time, I\u2019ve followed changes in this industry and cultivated relationships with Pakistani and Afghan rug sellers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

War rugs \u2013 with symbols of war \u2013 are distinctive and dynamic in their styles. But they\u2019re often misunderstood by buyers, journalists and curators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The growth of the war rug market<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

There is no evidence of the existence of Afghan war rugs prior to the late-20th century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The earliest rugs seem to have emerged shortly after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 from refugee camps in Pakistan, where millions of Afghans had relocated. Featuring guns, helicopters and tanks, they were small and shoddily made with coarse wool. Rug sellers and souvenir shops pitched them to workers for non-government organizations and Western government officials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The designs have become more sophisticated over the years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

English words were added, intentionally or accidentally garbled with Cyrillic words and letters<\/a> to evoke a Soviet connection. After 9\/11, fixed patterns started to emerge \u2013 a sign that weavers were adhering to templates provided by rug merchants. The images made it clear that they were hoping to primarily appeal to an American souvenir market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One popular design commemorates the 9\/11 attacks<\/a>, pointing out that it was not Afghans who were responsible, but terrorists from other countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another depicts a map of Afghanistan, professing Afghanistan\u2019s friendship with the U.S. with text and images. It has the misspelled word \u201cterrarism\u201d written on the region of the country associated with the Taliban.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Rug
After 9\/11, merchants started trying to appeal to an American souvenir market. Kevin Sudeith, courtesy of WarRug.com, CC BY-SA<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The writing on some rugs declares that they\u2019re made in Sheberghan, a city in northern Afghanistan famous for its Turkmen weavers<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s unlikely that they\u2019re all made there. However, whether they\u2019re made in northern Afghanistan or in Afghan settlements in Pakistan<\/a>, the word \u201cShebergan,\u201d written in English, is supposed to signal that these rugs are authentically Afghan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Such rugs are readily available on eBay and were \u2013 until recently \u2013 sold by souvenir sellers in Kabul and Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan\u2019s cities with the largest number of foreign workers and tourists. With the Taliban\u2019s return to power, it remains unclear what the future of rug making and its market will be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the years, war motifs have found their way into higher-quality, larger carpets, with small tanks appearing where rows of medallions<\/a> might traditionally have been. Other rugs feature a more comprehensive integration of modern and traditional patterns<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While these larger carpets take substantially more time to make and cost more money than the far more common smaller, coarser rugs, they nevertheless don\u2019t meet the standards of fine carpets, which suggests they\u2019re geared more to souvenir collectors than those seeking luxury home furnishings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Misreading the meaning of the rugs<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Over the past 20 years, Afghan war rugs have garnered considerable attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Books in German<\/a> and English<\/a> describe, catalog and contextualize<\/a> them. Magazines<\/a> and major newspapers<\/a> have run features on them, and university art galleries<\/a> have exhibited them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Within the coverage, there\u2019s a tendency to see war rugs as a reflection of the emotional lives of the weavers, who, wracked by war and violence, felt compelled to incorporate these motifs into their designs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Rug<\/a>
Some rugs incorporate war motifs, like tanks, into traditional designs. Kevin Sudeith, courtesy of WarRug.com, CC BY-SA<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Articles and exhibits often ignore the reality that rug brokers and dealers \u2013 not weavers \u2013 are the ones who are attuned to fickle market tastes. Studies on labor in the rug industry<\/a> note that they\u2019re normally the ones who supply weavers with new patterns, color schemes and yarn. I\u2019ve seen the same dynamic in my own long-term observations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ultimately, Afghan war rugs are produced for the market. It\u2019s that simple.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet you\u2019ll still see exhibit curators describe war rugs<\/a> as combining \u201cancient practice with the latest in the daily lives of the weavers,\u201d or as windows into the perspectives of everyday Afghans \u2013 the \u201cunderdogs\u201d in a country subsumed by strife.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2014, The New York Times reported that weavers had incorporated<\/a> \u201cthe grim realities of life in a war zone into their traditional craft.\u201d Six years earlier, Smithsonian Magazine buried a brief acknowledgment that the rugs are for tourists under claims \u2013 with scant evidence \u2013 that the earliest war rugs were intended for Afghan buyers who resented the Soviet invasion<\/a>. Later, the writer notes that female weavers drew from their own lives when they incorporated symbols of violence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The appeal of the trauma market<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

With so much evidence showing that Afghan war rugs are produced in response to market demand, why do claims that they\u2019re based on the weavers\u2019 experiences of war persist?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part of the answer lies in the global market for handicrafts. Buyers want to feel like they\u2019re purchasing artisanal products when, in reality, they\u2019re sold by the thousands in chain stores and through online storefronts such as Ten Thousand Villages or Etsy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Implying that rugs are a source of income for traumatized and destitute Afghan women ignores the reality that the overwhelming majority of profits go to middlemen and dealers. A work-from-home model encourages workers to devote all available time to rug production. It also encourages child labor<\/a>: Children are either tasked with making the crude rugs or are forced to take up the responsibilities of adults.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The appeal of war rugs \u2013 and the insistence that their designs represent a victim\u2019s experience of war \u2013 seems to reflect a vicarious desire to peer into the emotional experience of Afghan civilians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In reality, though, this gives primacy not to the actual experiences of Afghans, but to the viewers\u2019 and customers\u2019 ideas of victimhood. The granular realities of the loss of home and animals<\/a>, family deaths<\/a> or food insecurity<\/a> aren\u2019t represented in the rugs. Nor should we assume weavers would wish to put their own traumas on display for the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Modern rugs are not venues for self-expression, and the designs tend to contain an index of symbols that reflect an outsider\u2019s understanding of war: AK-47s, 9\/11, security politics and drones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nowhere in the rugs do we see the well-documented psychological and health impacts<\/a> on Afghanistan\u2019s population caused by decades of deprivation and violence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Real trauma is not only hard to turn into a commodity, it is also hard to live with \u2013 even in souvenirs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[Over 110,000 readers rely on The Conversation\u2019s newsletter to understand the world.<\/em> Sign up today<\/a>.]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jamal J. Elias<\/a>, Walter H. Annenberg Professor of the Humanities and Professor of Religious Studies, University of Pennsylvania<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jamal J. Elias, University of Pennsylvania The end of the U.S.-led military intervention in Afghanistan has resulted in the withdrawal of most foreign aid workers and contractors. It may well also spell the demise of the country\u2019s war rug industry. As a specialist in the visual and material culture of the Islamic world, I first […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":26834,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[293,8025],"tags":[538,2443,3130,8557,7528,10499,2297,7442,10498],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26833"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26833"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26833\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26840,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26833\/revisions\/26840"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}