From Kabul to Paris, Afghan women on the Champs-Elysées
They are called Malalai, Mashal or Ziba. They were taekwondo champions, nurses, footballers or dreamed of being journalists until August 15. They lived the normal life of women in their twenties in the Afghan capital. Since that date, his women have been faced with a life that they did not choose, that they had never known and to which they do not adhere. Their words are reported from Kabul to France by Ava Djamshidi with strong clichés that Philippe of Chicken met in light on the Champs Élysées. Women who today no longer have the right to be seen. Meeting with those who risked their lives to tell those of these women.
Twenty years ago in 2001, an Afghan woman in her blue burqa was on the cover of the magazine She. So, on August 15, 2021, the editorial staff of the magazine naturally expressed the wish to devote an issue to the women of Kabul. “It is our duty as a women’s magazine to tell, analyze and inform. Obviously, there was a lot of risk. As everyone left the country, we sent our reporters there. It was therefore a difficult decision to make, but putting these women on the cover was a strong gesture not to forget them. At She, we are alongside all women. Our mission is to support them in their battles ”declares Speedwell Philliponnat, editorial director She.
From the resumption of Kabul by the Taliban, the two reporters, decided to go there to talk about the Afghan situation. To pay Philippe of Chicken, photographer and major reporter at Le Parisien: “we had to go, we had to tell what was due there, and even if many told us that it was not the time, we decided to go”. To pay Ava Djamshidi, major reporter at She : “There was no questioning it was quite obviously that it was necessary to go to Kabul, but it was especially necessary to check the risks that there could be, it was necessary to prepare the documents which it was necessary to have, to that our report can see the light of day.
As a woman in Kabul, Ava Djamshidi, had to comply with the rules imposed on women by the Taliban. “I really felt the gender difference. It was, for me, a real immersion in the lives of his women. It was over thirty degrees and like the Afghan women, I must have been covered with abaya, I felt hampered. I was shocked to see that under their abayas, these women who lived free and independent for 20 years now have to take antidepressants to keep up. “
To the question, how men experience this situation vis-à-vis their wives, the reporter explains that there are very few men who resist for women’s rights. And although during their report Ava and Philippe have met some men outside of the current situation who dare to say it, they remain exceptions.
Among the photographs that take pride of place on the famous Parisian avenue, a few photos of the Taliban are lost in the midst of those of women who desperately resist, for the photoreport, putting them in a neutral way in this exhibition was an important and considered choice. It was necessary to show who the oppressors are, against whom his wives are fighting without putting them in the spotlight, without their success as warlords.
Today displayed for all to see, on Champs Élysées, the photographs of Philippe declare Afghans with uncovered faces and yet on the spot, the journalists explain to us that “What in Kabul is that we do not see them [les femmes NDLR]. In the streets, we see only a few silhouettes of women under their abayas that sneak up quickly, ”says Ava. They made the choice to pose without their veil despite the risks, because for her, “if we did not let them appear with their faces uncovered, for them, we did exactly like the Taliban, we hid them. These women when they come into the beauty salon, they take off their abayas, they take off their black baskets, they discover and become again the young feminine women they were before this summer, they put on heels, they are in cropped top, they wear makeup and it is this femininity that I wanted to photograph. For us, with our Western prism, these are normal things, but for them, it is practically an act of resistance. So it was not only to take hidden Afghan women as we could see and see again, my goal was to go beyond the clichés, we wanted to photograph his women as they really are ” Explain Philippe.
For the two reporters, this exhibition has a strong symbolism. When we know that the women represented in the fronts of or of beauty salons have been erased either by the owners for fear of reprisals or by the Taliban who have erased with paint “the eyes and the mouth, as for the make women blind and dumb ”. “Seeing them there, at this location, in the land of the free, it’s striking. Putting them on this avenue is putting them back in the public space and it was really important not to forget, ”says Ava.
Exhibition until January 17, 2022 on the Champs-Élysées, from avenue de Marigny to the Champs-Élysées roundabout.
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