"Taliban " Magnum photos
Dworzak is a world recognised photojournalist, born in 1972. Awarded World Best Press Awards in 2001 and 2018. President of Magnum Photography 2017; Having covered conflicts in Northern Ireland, Israel, Palestine and the Balkan wars in the former state of Yugoslavia.
However it is not as a photojournalist, I have selected the work of Dworzak but as a curator. For whilst working in Afghanistan in 2002, he purchased images of Taliban fighters taken in a small photographic studio in Kandahar. The images were supposedly taken in November 2001 for the purpose of passport images.
The fascinating part of this story is the Taliban interpretation of Islamic law states any depiction of a living being (human or animal) is illegal. These images were taken discreetly in a room at the rear of the studio and could not be retrieved by the Taliban fighters due to the speed of the American forces attacking Kandahar and sustained air attacks.
Apparently the Taliban fighters required their images to be re-touched with flattering background scenes and props. Many of the images to western society would be regarded as feminine not what would be expected from hardened soldiers. From the Islamic religion which is totally a male orientated gender religion in the views of the Taliban.
The inclusion of religiously driven fighters being photographed with bunches of flowers, backdrops of seascapes and houses from a developed western country seems slightly bizarre as it was the western style of life they were supposedly fighting against. In fact any of their own people found enjoying western based art, media etc were often brutally imprisoned, beaten or executed.
The fighters are made up with painted nails and was covered by Magnum, The Guardian and many other media outlets. This style of images can be found around India, Pakistan and Asia but bizarrely not expected from one of the most violent and extreme religion based groups who have lived in the 20th century.
It is the brilliance of Dworzak in purchasing these images from the Kandahar photographer in seeing the distinction between the styles of the Taliban wish to be portrayed as individuals and how the rest of the world sees them. Writing a book called "Taliban", Dworzak almost ridiculed the images but there is far greater questions to be answered from these images. Particularly how close do these feminised images really portray the reality of the Taliban fighters. Male orientated sexuality? compared to the image they portray behind the mask of extreme Islamic religious beliefs? For it has to be remembered that Taliban insisted all women cover every part of their bodies except their eyes and are treated a lower class of citizen, not be able to even walk without male accompaniment or permission.
"It is haram for Muslim men to wear make-up. Wearing make-up is the practice of women and it is haram for men to imitate women. It is narrated in an authentic tradition that the Prophet (SAS) cursed those men who imitated women.
And Allah knows best," Mufti Waseem Khan
27/11/2012 (https://darululoomtt.net/is-permissible-or-haraam-for-muslim-men-to-wear-makeup-in-islam/)
The above quote clearly shows it is forbidden "haram", under Islamic law for men to imitate the practice of women and wearing make up in Islam is the practice of women....homosexuality in Islam is also punished in all but the most liberal countries with imprisonment, public beatings, shame and even possibly execution, so it is difficult to form an educated opinion on the behaviour of the fighters photographed. An unanswered phenomenon, which could only be answered by those photographed and the fact it was done so secretly makes these images even more interesting?