First week in
These are pics and stories to Early Days of the Emirate, Chapter 3 of Hollie McKay's and my photobook on Afghanistan. Hollie's writing is in the book and this substack is my account and story behind the images.
The Taliban quickly set up their laws. The first and the major one was on women. The Ministry of Women's Affairs closed. It became the returned Ministry of Vice and Virtue. Most women were to laid off from their jobs and public high school to be closed.
Music was also barred and musical instruments were destroyed. Musicians fled their shops and went underground.
There was flash protest in the street condemning such action. This brought utes filled with Talib enforcer with crude tyre whips to chase them off or beat them. Otherwise it was gunfire in the air. The first protest had men with the women and they were the ones who bared the brunt of the punishment. It is rare to see a woman hit in public by them.
It was almost hard keeping up with them as they would disperse and re emerge in Share Nau. In the old city areas, people just moved on with their lives. It goes down to people who have daily goals and people who have future ambitions.
Most of the country suffers from poverty and it would be lucky if they made a hundred dollars a month. Food prices now that Afghanistan was being hit by sanctions was going to rise. Banks shut down overnight and the money was held.
The queues for withdrawing money was in the hundreds with people waiting to merely pull out $100 or $200 a week. People waited in the middle of the night to be in line.
I knew I would have to rely on hawala or other methods to try and get money to pay bills and funding running around the country. We had a steady income of news places we could submit to every day. Hollie toiled through the night writing articles as I graded and prepped the photos each day for choices for publication.
Our main company we worked for was the New York Post. Most of their stuff I see online is tabloidy stuff but I was glad Afghanistan was getting a mention. I guess people were engaged with the fallout and how the Taliban would govern. Would it go back to old times and their punishments be open and on display.
But I knew with working with news gathering, it was limited. The people would get disinterested or a new war or famine would come. Anyway I came to make a book and this was the focus. To see all of Afghanistan. Most of my friends had fled and if not, I did what I could to find the right paper work. The problem was passports, paperwork and bureaucracy.
The real estate guy's wife was in Ukraine for months mainly cause her brother who came along didn't have paperwork for Australia. It takes alot of lobbying and messaging people in Parliament. The mental toll is exhausting.
Most of the young people want to escape mainly cause their opportunities in life was diminishing. I had several Afghans arrogantly approach me and ask me for a visa out. To me, I can't do anything. I am a simple photojournalist. Not a very good one or socially active in politics.
A few times I have spoken to government officials on certain policies especially migration. I understood what most people were running from. Running for economic reasons isn't one of them what law makers are looking for. The biggest organisation with success getting through people's visas, were the LGBT lobby making sure their community got out.
The first weeks were hectic with plenty of stories. I made stick up notes of all the stories we wanted to get. Our main one was Hibatullah Akuzada, the Supreme leader of the Taliban and I put Al Qaeda next to that. Was there an Al Qaeda link to the Taliban still?
Mining rights. China. Russia. The two countries who stayed when every embassy fled. Their interests to dominate foreign relations in Afghanistan out weighed the danger that people expected.