Taliban, the new Shakespeare

Oh my homesick and exhausted lover You still need to walk to reach your pretty house This world full of darkness seeks your red bloodrsquos huerdquo u00a0Shakespeare No Taliban member Abdul Basir Ebrat ldquoThe Taliban listen to poems everywhererdquo explains Felix Kuehn a German researcher who lives in the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar ldquoThey listen to it in their cars and on their phones Even people whorsquore not Taliban and who may even have fought against the Taliban listen to Taliban poetryrdquo A former Taliban fighter looks on after joining Afghan government forces during a ceremony in Herat province on March 26 2012 Twelve fighters left the Taliban to join government forces in western Afghanistan The Taliban ousted from power by a USled invasion in the wake of the 911 attacks announced earlier this month that they planned to set up a political office in Qatar ahead of talks with Washington PicAFP Photo The Taliban publish their poems on the Internet too mdash in fact their websites have entire sections dedicated to poetry But when Kuehn and his research partner Felix Strick van Linschoten arrived in Kandahar several years ago they noticed that while Western analysts poured through every sentence on the Talibanrsquos websites they ignored the poetry Now Kuehn and Strick van Linschoten have collected the best poems in the anthology Poetry of the Taliban published in English this month May Some of the poems are romantic ldquoYour love aside what else is there It is like approaching the desertrdquo Some are religious while express despair over life Yet others are true warrior poems ldquoThey smash the foreheads of our people without guilt I swear that Irsquoll bring earthquakes to your homerdquo writes a fighter named Nasratu00a0Taliban have been writing poems ever since their earliest days in the 1980s ldquoTheyrsquod fight a battle and sit down and write a poem afterwardsrdquo says Kuehn ldquoIn that way theyrsquore not different from soldiers elsewhererdquo But a book with Taliban poetry is not uncontroversial ldquoIt doesnrsquot do anything but give the oxygen of publicity to an extremist group which is the enemy of this countryrdquo Britainrsquos former commander in Afghanistan Richard Kemp told a British newspaper ldquoBut more often than not the release of this kind of material sheds light how extreme hypocritical or bizarre these groups arerdquo notes Dr Jarret Brachman who advises governments on terrorist threats ldquoSunlight is often the best disinfectant Taliban poems offer a rich set of data that might help policymakers make smarter decisionsrdquou00a0And insists Kuehn ldquoPoetry makes people have a conversation about the Taliban that they otherwise wouldnrsquot have hadrdquou00a0 Good and bad Taliban The international community lead by the United States hopes to end violence in Afghanistan by dealing with moderate Taliban The Taliban have even opened their first ldquoembassyrdquo in Qatar ldquoRecently the Taliban broke off the negotiations with the United Statesrdquo notes Dr Sajjan Gohel an Afghanistan expert at the AsiaPacific Foundation ldquoBut it should have been the United States who ended the negotiations You canrsquot negotiate with the Taliban and even if you reach an agreement therersquos no guarantee that the Taliban will honor it after international forces leave Afghanistan in 2014rdquo But says James Dobbins Bill Clintonrsquos and George W Bushrsquos special envoy to Afghanistan ldquocivil society Afghan womenrsquos groups and the international community will all press for womenrsquos rights to be protected in any peace accord I doubt the end result will fully satisfy these groups but it will likely represent an advance upon womenrsquos roles under most of Afghanistanrsquos previous regimes Warrior poets on the other side Where therersquos a war therersquos a poem Soldiers wrote poems during World War I World War II and the Vietnam and Iraq wars Roman and Greek warrior poems of course remain a stable of Western literature Todayrsquos soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan have poetic talent too ldquoPoliticians usually have much to say No sign of them near here this day They hide away and out of danger Much easier if the hero is a strangerrdquo composed one officer in Afghanistan after the death of eight soldiers Injured an anthology of war poetry by British soldiers was published last yearu00a0Sarah Browning poet Director of Split This Rock How good are the Talibanrsquos poems The strongest poems are the ones about human cost and discontent Theyrsquore very alive have plenty of imagery and a lot going on The pastoral poems have a lot of clicheacutes while the ones about war and religion When you ldquogo to jihad with your penrdquo as one of the poets writes you compromise your art Isnrsquot it surprising that savage Taliban fighters would write poems Afghanistan has a rich poetic tradition so if yoursquore born there of course yoursquoll be touched by it Therersquos a line in one of the poems ldquowe love these wounded mountainsrdquo We all have a strong attachment to our homes and that comes through in the Talibanrsquos poems Irony and satire comes through very well in their poems too What about their love poems The Taliban are known for their discrimination of women Most of the poems are by men so thatrsquos a shortcoming On the other hand thatrsquos a shortcoming even in countries like the United States The Talibanrsquos love poems have too many clicheacutes and abstractions but the fire references are good Therersquos a very beautiful line in one of the poems ldquoThe tongue of the nightingale is a flamerdquo