Holed up in a dormitory in Kabul, Qudrat Frotan breaks down remembering the final time he stepped outdoors. The 23-year-old was among the many determined Afghans who swarmed the worldwide airport on Monday to flee the nation after the Taliban captured the capital. An explosion, the ensuing stampede and accidents to his roommate made Frotan retreat.
Qudrat Frotan returned from the Kabul International Airport after his pal suffered accidents on Monday.
“My friend has 16 stitches on his head. His right arm is broken. I saw two girls lying on the ground but no one dared to pick them up and take them to the hospital,” Frotan tells The Indian Express. “I rushed back to the dormitory and haven’t left. I am like a prisoner. All I’m hearing is that the Taliban are inspecting houses and people on their list are being taken away.”
Frotan has purpose to be apprehensive.
“We worked for peace and equality among the boys and girls of Afghanistan through parkour. That is against the will of the Taliban, and anything against their will is punished.”
Frotan, one of many architects of Afghanistan’s vibrant parkour scene, taught younger acrobats to leap, roll, vault over and beneath the obstacles within the urbanscape. In 2018, he based the Afghan Parkour Society which organised workshops and exhibits in 18 provinces. Last 12 months, he was adjudged ‘Peace Ambassador’ by the International Parkour Federation.
“I don’t think we will be able to work with Afghan youth anymore,” Frotan says. “Most of our active members have gone to Iran, Pakistan… I am scared and waiting for help. If nothing happens, I will have to go to Iran illegally.”
From its roots in navy coaching in pre-World War I France, parkour, or free-running, advanced into an underground excessive sport, then a metaphysical martial artwork, earlier than changing into the most recent health craze amongst health club rats. Its exponents are a part of Madonna’s dance troupe and James Bond’s rogues’ gallery. They are topics of documentaries and YouTube movies of daredevilry and one-upmanship.
In Afghanistan, nevertheless, parkour meant freedom. The practitioners, at the moment operating away and laying low, have spent their lives operating by way of obstacles and by no means staying nonetheless. The streets patrolled by gunmen now had been a playground and canvas rolled into one. Wide-eyed pedestrians and motorists stopped to observe because the teams scaled drainage pipes and backflipped off partitions. Kabul was the pleasant neighbourhood and the pioneers of parkour its Spider-Men.
“The kids really admired us. They would tell us, ‘You are jumping, flying like Spider-Man’,” Jamil Shirzad affords a weak snort. “They saw the cartoons and films and witnessed the stunts in real life. That inspired them.”
Shirzad, 28, based the Kabul Boys Parkour near a decade in the past. What started as a three-man operation grew to incorporate 60 members. The group’s progress has been catalogued by a number of documentaries.
“We made motivational videos for those who are really hopeless in Afghanistan. We performed for kids in orphanages and on live television. There were competitive events as well,” says Shirzad. “The talent in Afghanistan attracted foreign journalists, parkour athletes to come here and make documentaries. We filmed with BBC, Voice of America, Discovery. Journalists and parkour enthusiasts from Czech Republic, Germany, China, Japan, Pakistan and Iran came to visit us.”
With nice energy, got here nice duty.
“Parkour was about introducing a new sport to the youth and also to show the positive side of Afghanistan to the world,” Shirzad says.
With a scarcity of health club and coaching amenities, Afghan parkour took to the battle ruins on the sting of Kabul. Scaling and leaping from one level to a different within the dilapidated buildings served two functions: more durable ‘obstacle courses’ and reminders of the nation’s strife-filled historical past.
“The youth of Afghanistan didn’t want to go back to the bitter history. These wars in Afghanistan had left everyone traumatised. They were all looking for peace and freedom, which they found in parkour,” says Frotan. “Young people were very frustrated and there was no trust among them. Everyone was facing psychological challenges. By doing parkour, they learned how to get over the mental blocks as well as the problems in their lives. Thinking is the solution, not violence.”
The parkour collective was additionally a struggle for gender equality in Afghanistan. The teams imagine that the act of instructing girls has made them targets of the Taliban.
The parkour collective was additionally a struggle for gender equality; the teams imagine that the act of instructing girls has made them targets.
“We fought for gender rights, to train girls to be active, to train girls in self-defence. They would perform on the streets,” says Shirzad. “It was about going towards a better future and a better life but that dream has been shattered. We are living in a nightmare now.”
As of Friday night, Shirzad hasn’t slept in 60 hours. Like the remainder of his Kabul Boys Parkour colleagues, he too is in hiding. The days are spent awaiting calls from his mom and siblings and directing his teammates to completely different, safer areas.
“In Taliban’s minds, we were breakdancing, free-running with foreigners and journalists. We were introducing the culture to them, which is out of Islam. That we were informing them,” he says. “They are with their cars everywhere, carrying guns. It is a very scary situation for us and our only dream is survival right now.”
Survival, even day-to-day, is difficult.
“There’s no market for the vendors. There’s no food on the table of poor people. The banks are closed, ATMs are closed. Everything’s frozen. Nobody has any cash. To even get some food is becoming difficult. We have four hours of electricity and the internet is very expensive. There’s no way of staying connected with each other.”
Shirzad says he takes a threat each time he posts on Instagram, asking for serving to palms and secure passage. The parkour fraternity has been supportive however the group requires tangible help.
“I will be a loser leader if I leave Afghanistan before my members. The embassies are only evacuating those who work with them. We were activists for sports, we were activists for gender rights, we were activists for motivating the youth, performing and teaching free of cost. But we will not be considered.”
Shirzad spent years instructing a mantra to the Afghan youth: “you can jump over any obstacle.” He admits the present problem although appears insurmountable.
“As a leader, I cannot accept failure. But the reality is that this isn’t just the end of parkour in Afghanistan. It feels like the end of all life.”