Nobody knows just when a board game titled “Safe Travel through Afghanistan” was invented. Most likely, it was some time in the 60s or 70s, when it was safe to travel in Afghanistan.  Not earlier, given the presence of the Ariana Boeing 727 in the center of the image. Nevertheless, here it is, reproduced in the form of a carpet, probably made in the last few years.

Perhaps it was some mad spirit of ironic optimism that caused this to be transformed into a furry picture?  Or some lost-in-translation lack of understanding of the contemporary implications of the original graphic? Whatever, it certainly confuses one’s understanding of the emblematic use of the map of Afghanistan in all its other different political contexts. No matter what was its makers’ intent, iconophilia here shares it with you (wherever you may be) in our well-intentioned and peaceful tradition of greetings for the festive season…

(and thanks to Rob Little for the photograph).

Some months ago I wrote about the growing phenomenon of “street art” at the KAF base in Kandahar, in south-eastern Afghanistan. There was even a response to the incarceration of Ai Weiwei here and there on the concrete blast walls.  Now we find the Australian official war artist Ben Quilty getting in on the act. His variation on the Australian coat of arms is a radical challenge to iconographic analysis. While the Australian War Memorial has mentioned his mural in passing in last week’s pre-publicity, we are yet to see them publish a photograph of the work, or to offer an account of the meaning of its symbolism. The inclusion of skulls and serpents (locally symbolising the infidel crusader) may pose a challenge to officialdom. This may yet prove to be the most radical “war art” yet. We look forward to the official account. Here’s what they say thus far… (This photograph was published in Air Force: the official newspaper of the Royal Australian Air Force, (Vol 53, No 22, Nov 24, 2001, p.17).

And this is the first version of the image: the one above has (for better or worse) been made specific to the KAF context:

Ben Quilty, Landcruiser, 2007, Chinese Ink and Gouache on Aquari paper, 188 x 282cm (from the QUT Ben Quilty Interpretative Guide)

This text by Don Walker accompanies the image: “It’s an old trick. Take a universal, publicly owned snatch of melody, fanfare, phrase or image and pervert it. Ben Quilty has used the Australian coat of arms, an image so official and hoary it’s almost invisible, and mounted it on a mesa piled with skulls. The shield-bearers are presented as road-kill, the kangaroo muzzle flattened by a double bogie. Between them now is a cairn of skulls knitted by worms and lies. The crest is a convict shackle, looking as though it was cut from a kerosene tin, just to make it clear that not all the bones belonged to Indigenous Australians. Like most people, Ben Quilty defies caricature. A bogan who chose to pursue a degree in Aboriginal culture. A petrolhead who buys his art supplies at Bunnings, yet carries tiny notebooks full of the most exquisite pen-and-ink sketches of Venice done in his recent youth. Close in, where Quilty works, his paintings look like a bad paving job. Step back twenty feet and he’s caught the whole sorry tale, a country built by the survivors of pogroms, massacres and land clearances elsewhere, who found a haven here on land cleared by massacres of our own.”

The image and text above was found here.

Our translation of the Arabic texts above does not substantiate the claim made in the subtext on this page. The words on the atlas are the names of countries and oceans.  The text above the map on the left wall reads: “What do my enemies do to me, I, [with] my paradise and my orchard…” And above the map on the left the text appears to read: “The Crusaders’ occupation [and the] Muslim’s initiatives”

The former quote would seem to be a version of a text attributed to Ibn Taymiyyah: “What can my enemies do to me? My paradise and garden are in my chest, and do not leave me. My imprisonment is seclusion with Allah, and my death is martyrdom, and my expulsion is tourism.” While it is said that the thoughts of Ibn Taymiyyah have been influential on contemporary fundamentalist thought in Islam, such as Wahhabism and Salafism, the murals above could hardly be seen as targeting instructions…

And Boetti? Clearly, this Mappa has nothing to do with Alighiero Boetti, but it’s a provocative thought, given the claims of contemporary writers to his influence on other aspects of Afghan culture. Relax, we won’t be claiming a connection to al-Qaeda. On the other hand, it is of interest to see how atlas images circulate within Afghanistan.

(This page is from John F. Burns and Ian Fisher (Photographs by Tyler Hicks) Histories are Mirrors: The Path of Conflict through Afghanistan and Iraq. Umbrage Editions, New York.)

We can deduce this photographic postcard of the Khyber Pass was taken at some time before 1923, on the evidence of the Annual Report of The Christian and Missionary Alliance of Chicago, Illinois (1922-23), which reads: “The heroism of our pioneer missionaries shames and stirs us.  How dare we forget those who are invading Moslem strongholds at the peril of their lives!  Can we pray for our paltry needs and forget the missionary who never leaves his home on the frontier of Arabia without giving his wife a farewell kiss, for they both know that, in all probability, some day he will not return?  Can we turn away from the secret place of prayer without thinking of those brave young men who are determined to carry the light into a land at the entrance to which is a placard which reads: “It is absolutely forbidden to cross over this border into Afghan territory”?

The borders of Afghanistan were closed following the 1919 War of Independence (aka the Third Anglo-Afghan War).

…such signs of modernity abound at the University of Nebraska Omaha Library, in the Arthur Paul Afghanistan Collection. The design for this postage stamp was by Victor Vasarely.

This work is by Simon Gende who is a painter who lives and works in Goroka in the PNG highlands.  Tony Oates writes: There are several fascinating things about the work – firstly it is initially quite difficult to read if the artist is pro America or pro terrorist, as the planes causing the destruction feature local tribal highland groups as well as US flag designs.  From my conversions with Simon at the time and looking into his other works, plus the influence of his teacher Mathias Kauage, the painting does not really takes sides but just meant to document the event. So the inclusion of the highlander clans within the planes is pretty much just the way that he has always drawn planes, car or boats (a Kauage-esque style of motif).  Secondly, the airplane itself resonates strongly with the highlanders own history and symbolises how their society has changed so drastically in 60 odd years – their introduction to western civilisation and all contact with the outside world has been through airplanes (no easy road to Port Moresby!). Simon’s other work is often about history of the area and examining social and global issues – there is a real social conscience – you can find a few more of his things on my friend’s website – the other guy worth looking at on this site is Ratoos – some wild paintings (of varying quality)!

The details of the work are as follows: Simon Gende, Long 11-9-2001 tupela balus I bumpim twin tower long U.S.A, 2006
(acrylic on calico) 73 x 113 cm Collection: Tony Oates and Kerryn Wagg

Photographed on 7 October 2001 (Reuters/Zahid Hussein). Read Sally Neighbour, in The Monthly Sept 2011…

How did this happen? Read the full story here on Rugs of War…

In conventional histories of European avant-garde art the Italian arte povera artist Alighiero e Boetti (and here) has often been credited by cult followers with having triggered the contemporaneous production of Afghan carpets depicting the world map (see below), and even the war carpet genre of Afghanistan in the 1980s. Boetti’s work first came into prominence following the showing of one of his first two Mappa del Mondo (maps of the world) embroideries in the 1972 Kassel Documenta 5, which was curated by Harald Szeemann. Boetti’s work, exhibited in the section titled Individual Mythologies, was (so the story goes) produced in Afghanistan by a team of women from an “embroidery school” in Kabul.

Various recent published accounts (notably that by Luca Cerizza: Alighiero e Boetti: Mappa. Afterall Books, London, 2008) assume that the virtual industry established by Boetti, when the designs for his world maps and his later imagery were outsourced to as many as 500 women embroiderers, first in Kabul, and later in the Afghan refugee camps of Peshawar and surrounding districts, and is assumed to be the stimulus for other forms of innovation in carpet-making. In reality there is but a single point of coincidence. Just as Boetti’s first coloured-in cartoon of flags drawn in biro on a school wall atlas, (Planisfero politico, 1969) was the design for his first Mappa, so the myriad other printed precedents, both in school rooms in Afghanistan, and in libraries and on walls the world over, have in turn served as the model for images such as this extraordinary example we saw on Tanna last week.

This mural on the wall of a schoolhouse of the Loukatai Center School flashed into view from the back of a truck as we zipped along the main north-south road a couple of kilometers north of Tanna’s main town Lenakel. From the road its brilliant coloration attracts the eye, and in its detail signals a level of cosmopolitan sophistication otherwise rarely visible in the material fabric of Tanna society. 

Whoa! Stop! This proto-Boetti deserves closer examination!

As we approached this mural, all seemed to be in order. Even the little square panel of text (lower right, usually a graphic description of the details and specifications of the map) seemed to be in a conventional relationship to the whole. And so, imagine our surprise when we came close enough to read this text, which was itself joined by a piece of string to the country of Pakistan!

As an icon of the contemporary moment, this ensemble beautifully represents how modernity’s reach has made it to every corner of the globe. And how clearly does this demonstrate that the intelligentsia of LDCs (Less Developed Countries), the teachers, artists, etc. in countries such as this, are engaged in the world at large, despite being so remarkably remote from the cosmopolitan origins of such iconography. And that self-representation keeps pace with globalisation. So there’s no need to assume an external stimulus in a society such as this, (as is believed by the followers of Boetti), especially when the members of local “cargo cults” can now communicate with each other by mobile phone…

This remoteness, signaled here as the representation of mere graphic specks in the vastness of the Pacific Ocean, is itself picked out with precise detail.

The origins of the text, authored by Scott Wilson and Craig Whitlock, extracted from the Washington Post, is not yet clear. And yet the contemporary interconnectedness of every corner of this world is demonstrated here with iconographic clarity.

Addendum: 29 August, 2011.

Last night your iconophist (she who first spotted this mural) and I were searching world maps online when she discovered this image as a part of a brochure published by the Peace Corps Information Collection and Exchange R0088 July 1994. (R0088_worldmapproject). It’s a manual detailing how to make a world map mural, with strategies how it might be used. This project was first initiated by Barbara Jo White in the Dominican Republic in 1987, and you can find more examples here…

As a consequence my interpretation and reactions above (which for the sake of consistency I have left unedited) are now several degrees more complex and interesting. It appears I was wrong to assume “there’s no need to assume an external stimulus in a society such as this”. Clearly our fleeting visit (as tourists on the run) was a distorting perspective, which leaves a number of questions hanging. Who initiated the painting of this mural? Was this mural map the result of a Peace Corps program? When? Is it (plus the current affairs attachment) ongoing? To what extent have the Ni-Vanuatuan teachers embraced this methodology? Perhaps its existence on this school wall is as much a reflection of First World reach as it is an icon of self-identity.

The brochure itself claims: “Since 1988, enthusiastic Volunteers have carried this highly acclaimed program to over 40 countries around the world. Returned Volunteers have spread the idea across the U.S. as well. Because of the wide appeal of the activity, this guide (a revision of an earlier manual) has been written for many different groups: U.S. teachers, Peace Corps Volunteers, Returned Peace Corps Volunteers, scout leaders, youth workers, and others. ” And: “Peace Corps Connection: Have your group pay particular attention to changes in the political geography of the Volunteer’s host country or region. Encourage your group to share its findings with the Volunteer. Have group members ask the Volunteer to provide more detail, if possible, or to explain even earlier instances of change in that nation’s political geography.”

And the purpose of the Not Alighiero Boetti Society? To celebrate those contemporary examples of world maps which have nothing to do with Boetti’s Mappa del Mondo, wherever they may be found… And so here’s a starter…

This Mappa del Mondo is an undated carpet from Afghanistan. Some suggest its material qualities (colour, materials, structure) actually predate the Boetti era. Translation of the details (here written in Dari) may reveal more to help us set some date parameters…

Addendum #2: 1st September

Text translation of this carpet reveals a number of things: The old Soviet Union is identified as both the “Socialist Soviet Unions of Russia” and the “Federative (sic) Republic of Russia”. Given that the old USSR became The Russian Federation in 1991, this would seem to provide a terminus ante quem – the date before which the atlas (and therefore the carpet) could not have been made. And this example also demonstrates, at least in this instance, that the atlas carpets of the 1990s derive from the kind of atlas found in schools – the translation of the text blocks reads: “The Political Map of the World” “The Map no. 14 (or 140)” and in the right hand box such words as: “Guide, Capital, International border, Centre of State, Border of State, Important City, and Main Path”. In the addition international time zones are indicated by the rows of clock faces above and below. Thanks to MR for the translation.

Addendum #3: 5th September

To further bracket the date of the original atlas (from which the carpet was copied) the country of Zaire (which existed from 1971 to 1997) is to be found in a disproportionately small patch of territory in central Africa titled “Zir” – to the east of “Congo” (which is the Republic of the Congo). And so we can deduce that the “cartoon atlas” from which this carpet was made dates from between 1992 to 1997 – the only period in which both countries coexist.