No Afghan will ever forget the day after the Taliban took Kabul. It was the day they witnessed some of their countrymen – desperate men and boys clinging to the wheels of evacuation planes – fall from the sky.
So much of the country’s treasure and talent was on those planes – not only its university professors and their students, or business owners and their capital, or outspoken human rights defenders, but also many of its artists and musicians. Social media was packed with selfies of Afghan singers and instrumentalists in cargo planes and in refugee camps. Two hundred and seventy-three students and faculty members of the Afghan National Institute of Music, as well as their families, were evacuated to Portugal.
The wretched boys who fell back onto the tarmac – back into their country’s reality – seemed the ultimate symbol of Afghanistan’s terrible plight. They were a sampling of the millions who lacked the skills, the connections, the resources or the cunning to get a seat out, and who would be condemned to die in Afghanistan’s new vacuum.
A cascade of tragedies has befallen Afghanistan since, including a string of targeted killings (suspected to have been carried out by operatives of the ruling Taliban), as well as a shattered economy and an accompanying hunger crisis. Last month, a BBC camera in Kabul captured a video of a lonely beggar playing the flute. He was playing Sarzamine Man (My Homeland), an old song about the perennial struggle of Afghans forced to flee war. It has made a comeback since August. Throughout the past four months, it has been sung by Afghans on the runway at Kabul Airport during the evacuation, by Afghan refugees in camps in the Middle East and by diaspora Afghans protesting in old European city squares.
A line from its lyrics speaks of a nation rendered without any tune or melody. It is especially poignant considering the way the Taliban government has sought to silence any musicians who have been unable to leave the country, and ban music and nonreligious art from public spaces.
As The Nationalreported in November, Kharabat Street, the heart of Kabul’s musical quarter, has fallen silent. Zabiullah Mujahid, a senior Taliban spokesman, has said repeatedly that music is prohibited, and in some towns, Taliban police as well as their vigilante supporters have punished those caught playing. In Andarab province, north of Kabul, families speak in whispers of the local singers who have been disappeared – presumably murdered – by the Taliban.
Kharabat Street, the heart of Kabul’s musical quarter, has fallen silent
Yesterday, Taliban authorities passed a directive banning the playing of any music in private vehicles.
The absence of music on the streets may seem a trivial affair in a country faced with mass starvation and continued violence. But as Sarzamine Man suggests, music can be nourishment for the soul when none for the body is forthcoming.
Even the Taliban’s foot soldiers are aware of this, when they are not busy threatening musicians. Some of them have learnt the fungibility of one kind of nourishment for the other. A visitor from Kabul to Abu Dhabi recently told me of a wedding he attended in the Afghan countryside in October. I asked if there was live music. To my surprise, he told me that there was, and that it was made possible by the groom’s father offering free food to the Taliban patrols who passed by in exchange for them looking the other way. The Taliban soldiers, he said, were severely malnourished, not having been paid salaries in months. And actually, he noted, times in Afghanistan are so sad that people feel willing to take huge risks just to hear a little music.
Another Afghan, an instrumental musician, has told me of his inability to compose anything in the days after the Taliban came to power. He was in too much shock. But then one day, he woke up and felt all of the bottled-up feelings overflow, and he has been writing more tunes than ever.
There is a fortunate irony in all of this for those who would mourn the destruction of Afghan cultural treasures under Taliban rule. It is the reason that so many popular Afghan songs speak of tragedy and hardship. Some of the best music is born of these things, and develops in response to them. Music is a unique property of culture in that the more it is suppressed, the more it proliferates. The lonely flautist on the street, wedding parties’ hunger for levity even at the cost of security and the new pages of musical composition being written every day by those who retain the country’s cultural memory all demonstrate that.
It remains the case that the vacuum created on the day of the Taliban’s takeover threatens and consumes huge swathes of Afghan life. If there is any optimism at all to be found in such circumstances, some of it lies in the fact that cultural memory is often strengthened, not lost, under duress. There are still many facets of Afghanistan’s cultural wealth the Taliban can destroy, and indeed has destroyed. But music is not one of them.
Match info:
Manchester City 2
Sterling (8'), Walker (52')
Newcastle United 1
Yedlin (30')
The biog
First Job: Abu Dhabi Department of Petroleum in 1974
Current role: Chairperson of Al Maskari Holding since 2008
Career high: Regularly cited on Forbes list of 100 most powerful Arab Businesswomen
Achievement: Helped establish Al Maskari Medical Centre in 1969 in Abu Dhabi’s Western Region
Future plan: Will now concentrate on her charitable work
- At 9.16pm, three suicide attackers killed one person outside the Atade de France during a foootball match between France and Germany - At 9.25pm, three attackers opened fire on restaurants and cafes over 20 minutes, killing 39 people - Shortly after 9.40pm, three other attackers launched a three-hour raid on the Bataclan, in which 1,500 people had gathered to watch a rock concert. In total, 90 people were killed - Salah Abdeslam, the only survivor of the terrorists, did not directly participate in the attacks, thought to be due to a technical glitch in his suicide vest - He fled to Belgium and was involved in attacks on Brussels in March 2016. He is serving a life sentence in France
MATCH INFO
CAF Champions League semi-finals first-leg fixtures
Tuesday:
Primeiro Agosto (ANG) v Esperance (TUN) (8pm UAE)
Al Ahly (EGY) v Entente Setif (ALG) (11PM)
Second legs:
October 23
TOURNAMENT INFO
2018 ICC World Twenty20 Asian Western Regional Qualifier
The top three teams progress to the Asia Qualifier
Thursday results
UAE beat Kuwait by 86 runs
Qatar beat Bahrain by five wickets
Saudi Arabia beat Maldives by 35 runs
Friday fixtures
10am, third-place playoff – Saudi Arabia v Kuwait
3pm, final – UAE v Qatar
COMPANY PROFILE
Name:Airev
Started: September 2023
Founder:Muhammad Khalid
Based:Abu Dhabi
Sector:Generative AI
Initial investment:Undisclosed
Investment stage:Series A
Investors:Core42
Current number of staff:47
ABU DHABI T10: DAY TWO
Bangla Tigers v Deccan Gladiators (3.30pm)
Delhi Bulls v Karnataka Tuskers (5.45pm)
Northern Warriors v Qalandars (8.00pm)
The biog
Age: 19
Profession: medical student at UAE university
Favourite book: The Ocean at The End of The Lane by Neil Gaiman
Role model: Parents, followed by Fazza (Shiekh Hamdan bin Mohammed)
When: The one-off Test starts on Friday, May 11 What time: Each day’s play is scheduled to start at 2pm UAE time. TV: The match will be broadcast on OSN Sports Cricket HD. Subscribers to the channel can also stream the action live on OSN Play.
Starring:Sydney Elizebeth Agudong, Maia Kealoha, Chris Sanders
Director: Dean Fleischer Camp
Rating: 4.5/5
Global institutions: BlackRock and KKR
US-based BlackRock is the world's largest asset manager, with $5.98 trillion of assets under management as of the end of last year. The New York firm run by Larry Fink provides investment management services to institutional clients and retail investors including governments, sovereign wealth funds, corporations, banks and charitable foundations around the world, through a variety of investment vehicles.
KKR & Co, or Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, is a global private equity and investment firm with around $195 billion of assets as of the end of last year. The New York-based firm, founded by Henry Kravis and George Roberts, invests in multiple alternative asset classes through direct or fund-to-fund investments with a particular focus on infrastructure, technology, healthcare, real estate and energy.
GAC GS8 Specs
Engine: 2.0-litre 4cyl turbo
Power: 248hp at 5,200rpm
Torque: 400Nm at 1,750-4,000rpm
Transmission: 8-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 9.1L/100km
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh149,900
Tightening the screw on rogue recruiters
The UAE overhauled the procedure to recruit housemaids and domestic workers with a law in 2017 to protect low-income labour from being exploited.
Only recruitment companies authorised by the government are permitted as part of Tadbeer, a network of labour ministry-regulated centres.
A contract must be drawn up for domestic workers, the wages and job offer clearly stating the nature of work.
The contract stating the wages, work entailed and accommodation must be sent to the employee in their home country before they depart for the UAE.
The contract will be signed by the employer and employee when the domestic worker arrives in the UAE.
Only recruitment agencies registered with the ministry can undertake recruitment and employment applications for domestic workers.
Penalties for illegal recruitment in the UAE include fines of up to Dh100,000 and imprisonment
But agents not authorised by the government sidestep the law by illegally getting women into the country on visit visas.
Indoor Cricket World Cup – Sep 16-20, Insportz, Dubai
16 Indoor cricket matches are 16 overs per side
8 There are eight players per team
9 There have been nine Indoor Cricket World Cups for men. Australia have won every one.
5 Five runs are deducted from the score when a wickets falls
4 Batsmen bat in pairs, facing four overs per partnership
Scoring In indoor cricket, runs are scored by way of both physical and bonus runs. Physical runs are scored by both batsmen completing a run from one crease to the other. Bonus runs are scored when the ball hits a net in different zones, but only when at least one physical run is score.
Zones
A Front net, behind the striker and wicketkeeper: 0 runs
B Side nets, between the striker and halfway down the pitch: 1 run
C Side nets between halfway and the bowlers end: 2 runs
D Back net: 4 runs on the bounce, 6 runs on the full
Zakat: an Arabic word meaning ‘to cleanse’ or ‘purification’.
Nisab: the minimum amount that a Muslim must have before being obliged to pay zakat. Traditionally, the nisab threshold was 87.48 grams of gold, or 612.36 grams of silver. The monetary value of the nisab therefore varies by current prices and currencies.
Zakat Al Mal: the ‘cleansing’ of wealth, as one of the five pillars of Islam; a spiritual duty for all Muslims meeting the ‘nisab’ wealth criteria in a lunar year, to pay 2.5 per cent of their wealth in alms to the deserving and needy.
Zakat Al Fitr: a donation to charity given during Ramadan, before Eid Al Fitr, in the form of food. Every adult Muslim who possesses food in excess of the needs of themselves and their family must pay two qadahs (an old measure just over 2 kilograms) of flour, wheat, barley or rice from each person in a household, as a minimum.
The specs
Engine: 4.0-litre V8 twin-turbocharged and three electric motors
Power: Combined output 920hp
Torque: 730Nm at 4,000-7,000rpm
Transmission: 8-speed dual-clutch automatic
Fuel consumption: 11.2L/100km
On sale: Now, deliveries expected later in 2025
Price: expected to start at Dh1,432,000
A new relationship with the old country
Treaty of Friendship between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United Arab Emirates
The United kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United Arab Emirates; Considering that the United Arab Emirates has assumed full responsibility as a sovereign and independent State; Determined that the long-standing and traditional relations of close friendship and cooperation between their peoples shall continue; Desiring to give expression to this intention in the form of a Treaty Friendship; Have agreed as follows:
ARTICLE 1 The relations between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United Arab Emirates shall be governed by a spirit of close friendship. In recognition of this, the Contracting Parties, conscious of their common interest in the peace and stability of the region, shall: (a) consult together on matters of mutual concern in time of need; (b) settle all their disputes by peaceful means in conformity with the provisions of the Charter of the United Nations.
ARTICLE 2 The Contracting Parties shall encourage education, scientific and cultural cooperation between the two States in accordance with arrangements to be agreed. Such arrangements shall cover among other things: (a) the promotion of mutual understanding of their respective cultures, civilisations and languages, the promotion of contacts among professional bodies, universities and cultural institutions; (c) the encouragement of technical, scientific and cultural exchanges.
ARTICLE 3 The Contracting Parties shall maintain the close relationship already existing between them in the field of trade and commerce. Representatives of the Contracting Parties shall meet from time to time to consider means by which such relations can be further developed and strengthened, including the possibility of concluding treaties or agreements on matters of mutual concern.
ARTICLE 4 This Treaty shall enter into force on today’s date and shall remain in force for a period of ten years. Unless twelve months before the expiry of the said period of ten years either Contracting Party shall have given notice to the other of its intention to terminate the Treaty, this Treaty shall remain in force thereafter until the expiry of twelve months from the date on which notice of such intention is given.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF the undersigned have signed this Treaty.
DONE in duplicate at Dubai the second day of December 1971AD, corresponding to the fifteenth day of Shawwal 1391H, in the English and Arabic languages, both texts being equally authoritative.
Signed
Geoffrey Arthur Sheikh Zayed
The specs
Engine: Long-range single or dual motor with 200kW or 400kW battery
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
