War Rugs and Dramatic Interpretations
June 11, 2008
At the art museum here at Denison University is a show featuring Afghan war rugs. The reason for their name will become apparent as you let your eyes rest on the patterns and notice that the repeated elements are tanks and helicopters and guns. It is somewhat disorienting to see these tools of modern warfare worked into a traditional style. Somehow it would feel more natural to see swords and bows and horsemen.
To have this military stuff woven into carpet designs is surely a bad sign: too much contact with warfare. Kalashnikovs and tanks in the ordinary course of things should not present themselves as subjects for decorations.
The program for the exhibit hints at another point about these rugs:
Her aunts began weaving designs that depicted traumatic life events living through the tumultuous and violent 1980s and 1990s (Soviet-Afghan War and Taliban era). The aunts retell the details of personal memories illustrated in their rugs. Michgan acknowledges that she began weaving as a form of expression and for use in the home, but now weaves the rugs in part "because they will sell," a fact discovered by her family when their rugs were introduced to the marketplace.
So yes, these rugs originate in the experience of a war.. but their continuation was a result of popularity in the global marketplace. This exhibit at Denison's art museum could—to the eye of a cynic—be interpreted as something of a marketing plot. The serious business end of these rugs can be glimpsed at the website Afghan War Rugs, which offers some rugs for sale and provides details about collecting them.
Once I got over my surprise at seeing modern weaponry in the midst of traditional rugs I began to think about all the places in American life where weapons are present. I am thinking of the usual suspects: military toys for children and coffee table books at Barnes and Noble on Air Force jets or World War II. Meeting at the same time as our small NITLE sponsored al-Musharaka workshop is another workshop attended by a large contingent of guys in military uniforms.. along with others of undetermined affiliation. Above is a copy of their Tuesday schedule and you can see that their meetings are dedicated to technical matters related to weapons systems. So our carpets may not be lined with weapons, but American life is strangely infiltrated by the military.
Above you can see a few of the attendees for this parallel workshop learning about new systems for calculating torque, air pressure, and other necessities. What this stuff does is beyond me (and I was not going to ask anyone). But the presence here of this workshop is a reminder of the extent to which military applications creep downward into our lives.. and become something we take for granted.
Tonight as part of the al-Musharaka workshop we watched a drama performed by Laila Farah from Depaul University in Chicago, Illinois. It was a drama that wove together her own experience coming of age during the Lebanese Civil War with the voices of others who have had to affirm themselves against militaries and border guards (of all kinds). In a way it felt small as our audience of only about 20 people watched her perform and in performing resist. But it was brave and in the end a model for all of us to follow. How else can we begin to protest our militarized world than by simply speaking to whoever will listen?
