Sky's the limit for capitalism

Without laws against everything from kites to hairdressing, Afghan entrepreneurs are giving people the business

01/06/2002

By TOD ROBBERSON / The Dallas Morning News

KABUL, Afghanistan – As soon as they made fun legal again, Muhammad Zamon knew he was going to become a very busy man.

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As one of Kabul's premier kite makers, Mr. Zamon says he never has seen business soar higher than in the six weeks since the Taliban's fall from power and, with it, an end to the kite-flying ban.

"We used to have huge stocks and no customers. Nothing was selling because of the ban. Now, I can't make them fast enough," said Mr. Zamon, 57. "As soon as I put one together, somebody comes and buys it."

In post-Taliban Afghanistan, market-savvy men and women are taking measure of the popular hunger for all the pastimes and pleasures that used to be regarded as forbidden fruit.

Entrepreneurs young and old have quickly begun filling the marketplace with goods and services that, little more than a month ago, could have brought punishments ranging from imprisonment to public flogging.

The newly revived music industry is pumping up the sales volume with an almost daily release of new hits to meet demand. Public bathhouses are overflowing with customers. Movie houses are projecting full houses for the foreseeable future. And people such as Mr. Zamon say the sky's the limit for kite sales.

"My business demand has gone up at least a hundred-fold in the last three weeks," said the 30-year veteran kite maker.

Sitting on the ground outside his Kabul shop, stripping bamboo sticks with a knife to make lightweight crossbeams for his kites, Mr. Zamon said unprecedented demand is forcing him to work night and day filling orders.

In the United States, a kite-selling business probably wouldn't get a second glance even from the local high school Junior Achievement club. But in sensory-deprived Afghanistan, anyone who can quickly produce a product or service that once had the Taliban seal of disapproval is reaping huge profits.

"I used to sell stationery, but I didn't do so well," said Aurash Azizi, one 16-year-old vendor. "I switched to kites a few weeks ago, and I'm selling 20, 30, maybe 40 a day."

With an initial investment of 800,000 afghanis, or about $40, Mr. Azizi was able to purchase a few dozen kites, spools of string and other accessories. Within a week, he had recovered his investment. He estimates his profits at around $40 per day.

In a country where the per-capita gross national product is $256 a year, people such as Mr. Zamon and Mr. Azizi are veritable tycoons.

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Many small businesses survived during Taliban rule, but music stores, public wedding halls, women's hair salons, movie houses, television-repair shops, and kite businesses were quickly driven out of business or forced underground.

The reasons for some of the bans varied widely, often based on reasons that many Afghans say they never understood.

Kite-flying, for example, was banned because the Taliban's Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Supression of Vice suspected that boys could use kites as an excuse to climb on rooftops and sneak a peak into the back yards and houses of neighbors. There could be women walking around without their head-to-toe burqas, the Taliban reasoned, and therefore, kite-flying had to be banned.

The Taliban also prohibited anything having to do with photography, television, film, or videotape because Taliban scholars believed the Koran forbids any re-creation of the human image. The government made a special exception for passport and identity-card photos.

Music recordings, studio sound equipment, radios, and stereos were forbidden because ear-pleasing melodies were considered a distraction from a Muslim's principal duty, the worship of Allah. At one point, the Taliban even attempted to ban the sale or possession of caged canaries or other songbirds.

"We were in our studio one day, and the Taliban came in with bats and sledgehammers. They smashed everything we had," said Aziz Ghaznabih, one of the country's most popular singers. "They burned our speakers and our microphones. They took our guitars outside and had a ceremonial public hanging. Can you believe that? Our musical instruments were hanging from nooses like they had been executed.

"For the first two years of the Taliban, I didn't sing a note," he added. "I grew a beard and sat around doing nothing. Music is all I know."

Band on the run

"I went immediately on the radio and sang. It was difficult because we still had no instruments – only some drums and an old guitar," he said.

Mr. Ghaznabih refused to say how much money he makes for his appearances, but he insisted he will have no trouble making money for a long time.

Hamidullah Sherzai, one of the vendors who sells Mr. Ghaznabih's old recordings on Kabul streets, said he has never seen sales as good as they are today.

"We weren't totally out of business when the Taliban was around, but things were a lot riskier," he said. "I kept my shop open, but all I was allowed to sell were Taliban tapes of men reading Islamic poetry."

Customers were scant, and Mr. Sherzai scraped together extra income by keeping a few contraband music cassettes and videotapes hidden behind the counter. He would sneak out a music cassette and pass it to a customer while keeping a lookout for any Taliban Vice and Virtue agents lurking nearby.

The illegal item might have been a cheap Indian or Pakistani imported cassette.

"You had to be careful, because they sometimes worked undercover to set you up," he added.

It took Mr. Sherzai less than a day to stock his shelves with tapes after the Taliban left Kabul.

Truckloads poured into the country from Pakistan. His sales went from around $10 per day to $100.

"I had no idea I would make as much money as I did. It honestly came as a big surprise," he said.

A head for business

She used to disguise the shop by placing a "tailor" sign over the entrance. Women cloaked in burqas would enter her tiny shop to have their hair washed, trimmed, or permed, then put the burqa on to go back to their homes.

"It was a very hard life, but I had no choice," Ms. Rahmani said, explaining that she was the sole breadwinner for a family of seven.

She was lucky to make $30 a week under Taliban rule, but now, she said, her income is up to more than $120 a week.

"I plan to make a big sign so that people know I'm still in business," Ms. Rahmani said. "My customers know me. They'll come back because they know I'm good."

Change is good?

Saeedrahim Saeedi, a wedding video photographer, said his income was actually higher when his business was banned. Clutching a 14-year-old Panasonic M3500 video camera, Mr. Saeedi said he used to be one of the few video photographers in town, meaning he could charge high prices for the risk involved in illegally taping a wedding.

In a typical week, he could make $200 from his illicit trade. Now that the business is legalized, he said, "Everyone is doing it. To be honest, I made a lot more money when I was the only cameraman in town."