Lifestyles of the Rich and Infamous
Check out “Narcotecture in Herat,”
Monocle’s excellent
narrated
slideshow of the gaudy mansions blooming in Herat.
Journalist Rachel Morarjee (better known for her work at the Financial Times) accompanies
photographer Ash Sweeting inside some of these lavish shrines built on opium.
It’s not pretty...
A premise of the piece is that “Herat’s
past glories are slowly being erased by new fortunes,” and they speak with
groups like Agha Khan who are “waging a
losing battle to prevent the city’s
heritage being bulldozed to make way for acres of glass and candy colored
mansions.” Unfortunately, the piece doesn’t
offer many details about what specifically is being destroyed, and my sense was
that these mansions--objectionable as they might be--don’t necessarily threaten Herat’s
cultural heritage.
The conclusions asks “whether the rest of the city’s
heritage survives the outbreak of peace and prosperity the way that it
outlasted three decades of war remains to be seen”…clever, but more than a bit
cynical. Whatever aesthetic or moral objections it might provoke, the
construction
boom comprises roughly half of Afghanistan’s
economic growth and has a multiplier
effect which helps a lot of ordinary Afghans. Even with many of the funds are
leaving the country, as Sweeting keenly observes with a shot of a “Made in
China” tag on a bouquet of plastic flowers, and even with impunity and growing
inequity, I imagine few Heratis would wish to end their recent peace and
prosperity.
Nevertheless, these words and images are striking, and give us a glimpse at an under told story of the new Afghanistan.
Photos: Ash Sweeting, Monocle (c).
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