Dear Rory Stewart,

My name is Fatima Lasay, artist-writer based in the Philippines.

I would like to bring to your attention a BBC News article "Celebrating art in Afghanistan" announcing the launch of a project by your organization, Afghanistan's first contemporary art prize -- in particular a number of statements made in the News article which I consider propaganda that reinforces damaging perceptions upon the public.

1. Symbolic and representational language in art

According to the BBC article, "Contemporary art in Afghanistan is far removed from the world of contemporary artists such as Jeff Koons, Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin. It has roots in the period when the former Soviet Union occupied the country. "Contemporary art is difficult for most Afghans to understand," said Timor Hakimyar, a former president of the Artists Union of Afghanistan. "But it is a good thing to start, to encourage people to learn about the arts." "

I find it insulting that Hakimyar's positive approach to learning in the arts is loosely placed within the Western, English-speaking world's roster of celebrated contemporary artists such as Jeff Koons. Hakimyar might be correct that these "Jeff Koons" type of contemporary arts is difficult for most Afghans to understand and perhaps this is because such contemporary arts is drawn from a set of foreign aesthetic values entered into Afghan life through conflict and war. Therefore, Afghans correctly understand contemporary art only within the context of suffering, force and uncertainty and as an imposition from outside.

Within such a condition it makes the "celebration of contemporary art" and the methodologies of the contemporary art prize, as well as the methodologies of western contemporary art itself, questionable. Is it possible to discuss this problematic within your organization? Why is connecting with modern contemporary art "a good thing", as the BBC article claims it is?

The BBC article said, "All art forms suffered heavily during the Afghan civil war and then during the Taleban takeover. The Taleban movement regarded most art as "haram" - forbidden in Islam - particularly work that showed any depiction of the human form. "

It s disturbing to see Islam and Taliban ideology lumped together as is done by the BBC above in order to satisfy the BBC's own inability to understand the values of Islamic art.

In this context, it is very disturbing to see the BBC article highlighting certain artworks entered into the contemporary art prize, in particular those that depict human and recognizable forms, because it consciously or unconsciously puts the Islamic concept of non-representational art in line with the oppressive political ideology of the Taliban and opposes traditional values.

Instead of the propaganda in mainstream news, the public would benefit more to know exactly how the programming of the Afghanistan contemporary art prize and how the position of your organization in Kabul, the Turquoise Mountain Foundation, and your experience and talents as an Officer of the British Empire (OBE), are attempting to increase philosophical and practical understanding between the different contexts and aesthetics of the symbolic /representational language and the syntactic/abstract language in the arts.

2. The concept of money and the future

I wonder if the BBC or anyone in your organization ever found the US$2,000 contemporary art prize disturbing.

Within some sectors of Indigenous Philippine communities, such an amount would be seen as "sell-out of sovereignty." In many tribal communities here, the sudden flow of money hastens the erosion of the cultural fabric and the degradation of its ability to continue to develop mechanisms for creative problem-solving and survival in times of conflict.

The contemporary art prize also gives its organizers access to a force more powerful than guns: money. But the effect is the same as that in the Russian Occupation, the Civil War in Afghanistan, the Taliban Insurgency and the US-led invasion of October 7, 2001.

The force of money, along with corrupt use of studies made by social scientists, art historians and anthropologists, have been used in my country as a substitute for guns in compelling communities to give up their minds and their lands to powerful foreign-invested corporations and in replacing local social organization with socializations based on the inequalities of cash, patronage and prestige. Some communities have stood up against this and succeeded but there are others that did not. Those that did oppose were branded as "terrorists". Standing up against violence was easy; resisting cultural manipulation of economic and political conditions is much harder to resist.

The BBC article said, ""Art is an important communicator and reflects what's going on in society," said Jemima Montagu, one of the organisers of the prize. "

Did Montagu or any of the organisers ever stop to think how prizes or US$2,000 might influence what is communicated and reflected through contemporary art?

What does the US$2,000 contemporary art prize really intend to accomplish in Afghanistan?

3. The destructive power of belief

The BBC News article said, "Afghanistan has been wracked by 20 years of war and there is currently an insurgency in many parts of the country. Organisers believe that contemporary art offers the Afghans a way of channeling their trauma and discussing topics that are still largely taboo in society. "

Do the organisers of your project have any means of recognizing the destructive power of their belief in contemporary art and the "channeling (of) their trauma" away from the more urgent questioning of the political and ideological sources of the destruction of their lives through decades of war?

Do the organisers of your project have any means of knowing what their own taboos are within their own organizing principles, politics and agendas?

While on the ground in Kabul and the rest of the country, we hope that people will remain determined to creatively solve old and new problems of the realities of life and continue to rise up against the illusions of western contemporary art and culture (is this why a prize is being offered?). In th e meantime, one is forced to ask if the reportage of the BBC presents a romanticized and distorted picture of your organisation or a true picture of yet another illusion and extended fantasy of the faded British Empire.

Sincerely,
Fatima Lasay