AUTHOR Simon Urwin
ALI SHAH FARHANG, LE CHAMPION AFGHAN DES PISTES DE SKI
D’une beauté frappante, digne d’une star de cinéma, Ali Shah Farhang arrive sur sa moto et nous nous asseyons pour bavarder au bord des ruines d’un ancien hôtel, non loin des niches du 6ème siècle qui abritaient les immenses bouddhas que les talibans ont dynamités en 2001.
Sri Lanka : Lady Di & le mineur
On est au cœur du «pays des joyaux» de l’île de Ceylan dont les saphirs bleus ornent la couronne britannique, la princesse Diana en portait un au doigt. Cette terre est si riche en trésors que des pierres précieuses peuvent parfois étinceler dans la boue après une pluie tropicale torrentielle.
The Afghan Athletes & the Ski slope Champion
These homoerotic hoardings, designed to catch the eye of every passing bodybuilding fanatic, are all the more surprising in a land where any kind of sport is often decried as un-Islamic by the many holier-than-thou who consider it morally corrupt and too ‘Western’.
Tile Giant
By Simon Urwin “Working with ceramics every day is like a form of worship for me, it helps me feel closer to Allah,” Omid announces proudly. This is not the kind […]
Afghanistan: a burqa for Barbie
The burqa has been ‘on trend’ here for hundreds of years. Like the local equivalent of a Hermès scarf or a Louboutin red heel, it first became popular as a status symbol, with the impractical billowing folds of the upturned shuttlecock clearly signalling that the wearer was a wealthier Metropolitan woman who’d never be seen dead working in the fields like her poorer Afghan sisters.
