The land of endless war

A shrine to the jihad in Herat serves as a bridge between Afghanistan’s violent past and uncertain future.

Jean MacKenzieApril 24, 2009 08:09Updated May 30, 2010 11:53

An Afghan policeman sits next to a container with the picture of slain jihadi commander Ahmad Shah Massoud and election leaflets in Panshir, 74 miles north of Kabul Sept. 9, 2005. (Zohra Bensemra/Reuters)

HERAT, Afghanistan — The elderly guide warned the visitors not to take flash photographs of the gracefully displayed weaponry on the first floor of Herat’s jihad museum.

“They have not yet been defused,” he explained, pointing towards the delicate spirals of grenades, bullets and small rockets in the glass cases. “They could explode.”

The same volatility pervades the entire exhibit, a shrine to the mujaheddin who fought and defeated the mighty Soviet Union in the 1980s, a period known as the "jihad," or "struggle."

Anyone familiar with the popular film “Charlie Wilson’s War” knows the broad outlines of the tale: A plucky band of warriors, armed only with their courage and about $2 billion in military assistance from the United States, brought the Soviet giant to its knees.

But, like the movie, this soon-to-opened museum in Afghanistan’s second largest city is as much about myth as it is about reality.

Conceived in early 2002, just months after the routing of the Taliban, the multi-million-dollar complex is the brainchild of Ismail Khan, who at the time was the all-powerful governor of Herat and known among both admirers and critics as the “Emir of the West.”

It is a circular, domed structure, lined on the outside with 700 marble plaques, each containing the names of three “shahid,” or martyrs. The grounds around the building display helicopters, anti-aircraft guns, even an airplane used in the fight against the Soviets.

In addition to weaponry, the museum features portraits of the fallen, photographs of jihadi heroes, letters and other memorabilia, along with a vast, panoramic display made up of dozens of meticulously fashioned figures acting out the events in Herat on March 15, 1979 that helped kick off the first Afghan war.

It is known, according to the Afghan solar calendar, as “24 Hoot,” the day when a group of Heratis revolted against the Soviet-backed communist central government. They were soon joined by a mutinous army division, which raised the heat considerably.

The government responded with a fierce bombing campaign that killed hundreds, perhaps thousands, of civilians. The guide insists that 26,000 Heratis died in one week, but the figure has never been substantiated.

The Herat uprising is thought to be one of the major precipitating factors in the Soviet decision to invade the country in December 1979, an event whose consequences are still being played out today.

In the highly charged context of 2009, the echoes are all too familiar: a puppet government, a foreign invasion, a siren call to defend Islam against an outside threat. Today’s Taliban even use the same terminology: they call themselves mujaheddin — holy warriors — and their fight against the western “occupiers” is known as “jihad.”