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The National Museum of Afghanistan is reopening, and the Taliban, whose members once destroyed facilities that destroyed irreplaceable parts of the country’s national heritage, are now guarding the building, now located in the capital Kabul.
Today, about 50-100 people visit the museum every day, some of them Taliban.
From the Paleolithic period to the twentieth. The museum, which houses artifacts from the 19th century, opened more than a week ago for the first time since the Taliban took over Afghanistan in mid-August, amid chaotic retreats by U.S. and NATO troops.
Its director, Mohammad Fahim Rahimi, and his staff have so far been allowed to continue in office, even though they, like many Afghan officials, have not been paid since August.
Afghanistan faces a banking crisis as the US freezes billions of dollars in Afghan assets and cuts financial funding for international projects by Afghan financial institutions.
Only security guards have changed, Rahimi said, adding that the Taliban have replaced the police contingent guarding the building and are providing female security guards to check on the women who were visiting.
Power outages occur frequently and the museum’s generator has broken down, leaving many of the exhibition halls plunged into darkness.
On Friday, several Taliban, some with assault rifles hanging from their shoulders, used mobile lights among the visitors in the old pottery and 18th century.
“This is our ancient history, so we came to see it,” said Taliban fighter Mansoor Zulfiqar, a 29-year-old from Khost province in southeastern Afghanistan who has now been appointed security guard at the Interior Ministry.
“I’m very happy,” he said of his first visit to the museum, impressed with his country’s national heritage.
Zulfiqar said he spent 12 years in the famous Pul-e-Charkhi prison in Kabul, the largest in Afghanistan. While he was there, he said that someone had informed him of the museum and that the Taliban was dreaming of a day when Afghanistan would rule again and that he would be able to visit the museum.
During his first tenure in power in the 1990s, the Taliban searched the museum, smashing priceless states, especially those that were not considered Islamic. One of these artifacts, the remains of a limestone statue believed to belong to a second-century king, is located at the entrance to the museum building, which has now been restored by French experts and the museum’s restoration department.
In 2001, a Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar ordered the destruction of a giant Buddha statue carved out of the cliffs of Bamiyan in central Afghanistan in 2001 by Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, a movement that sparked international outrage.
So as the Taliban crossed Afghanistan earlier this year, taking it from province to province, there was great concern that a fate similar to the country’s cultural heritage was expected, especially anything from the Islamic era. So far no one was able to send in the perfect solution, which is not strange.
Saifullah, a 40-year-old Taliban from Wardak province and a teacher at a religious school, said he believed the destruction of the museum’s artifacts in 2001 was carried out without the orders of senior officials.
On his first visit to the museum, Saifullah, who has only one name, said he would encourage his students, some of whom are now museum patrons, to visit the National Museum in Afghanistan.
“Generations can learn from this and what we had in the past,” he said. “We have a rich history.”
Perhaps the new government in Afghanistan now coincides with an inscription engraved on a plaque on the outside of the entrance to the museum building: “A nation survives when its culture survives.”
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