SPOTLIGHT ON... HERAT
The western Afghan city of Herat fell to the Taliban on 12th August. (Two days later the capital Kabul also succumbed.) Famously, Herat was once a city of poets, artists, philosophers and patrons to rival Medici Florence; latterly it has been a city with a thriving civil society, and deep pride in its heritage of culture, literature and Sufism. Herat fared badly under the Taliban’s previous Emirate (1996-2001), not least because as a majority Persian-speaking city of Tajiks and Hazaras, its residents had difficulty understanding what their Pashtun overlords were saying. I lost count of the number of times Herati friends broke down in tears when discussing Taliban rule. The sight of two suspected thieves, faces blackened by tar (a punishment that dates to medieval times), being paraded through Herat by triumphant Taliban in August may be a sign of things to come.
Since the time of Herodotus, Herat has been fabled as “the breadbasket of Central Asia.” From 15th-century Chinese diplomats to 19th-century British soldiers, to travellers from the 1960s and 70s taking photos and videos, generations of writers have marvelled at the splendour, albeit lately decaying, of the oasis city. Alexander the Great was said to have built the great citadel, a huge fortress, painstakingly restored between 2006 and 2011 with German development money.