Page 29 - ARUBA TODAY

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PEOPLE & ARTS Saturday 18 auguSt 2018
Afghan rock band struggles to hit right note in Iran

on stage. I was stressed out March 2001. To get to the
that I might ruin it.” area, some 130 kilometers
That stress only multiplied (80 miles) west of Kabul,
when the band decided however, the band had to
to play a show at a July cross through Taliban-held
2015 music festival in Ba- territory. They described
myan, Afghanistan, where passing through various
Ebrahimi lived until age 10. Taliban checkpoints, keep-
They had looked forward ing their eyes down. But
to performing beneath the at one, an accompany-
ruins of the great Buddha ing Afghan documentary
statues of Bamyan, a UNES- filmmaker’s errant glance
CO World Heritage Site de- caught the attention of a
stroyed by the Taliban in Taliban fighter.q

In this July 20, 2018 photo, Afghan musicians Mohammad Rezai, Hakim Ebrahimi, and Soraya
Hosseini, members of Arikayn rock band, play music at a furniture workshop in Eslamshahr,
outside Tehran, Iran.
Associated Press
By AMIR VAHDAT according to United Na- song “Afghanistan.”
Associated Press tions estimates. Afghan “Here is Afghanistan, hu-
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — The refugees began arriving in man’s life is cheap; the way
band gathers in a small Iran in 1978, following their to heaven is from here, kill-
carpentry shop on the out- country’s Communist mili- ing a human is easy here,”
skirts of Iran’s capital, with tary coup and the subse- he sings.
sawdust still in the air but quent Soviet occupation. By day, Ebrahimi works in
the buzzing of the jigsaws The occupation ended in the carpentry shop to sup-
now exchanged for the 1989, giving way to years port himself. Other band
soft feedback of an ampli- of civil war and ultimately a members have day jobs as
fier. A drummer strikes his Taliban-controlled govern- well, though Hosseini relies
snare four times and Hakim ment. Then came the Sept. on help from her mother.
Ebrahimi opens with the first 11, 2001 terror attacks on Like other Afghans, they
dreamy notes of “Afghani- New York and Washington, face challenges in finding
stan,” the sound of their and the subsequent U.S.- work in a country that had
Metallica-inspired rock bal- led invasion targeting al- high unemployment even
lad filling the air. The four Qaida leader Osama bin before President Donald
rockers that make up the Laden, whom the Taliban Trump withdrew from the
band, known as Arikayn, harbored. 2015 nuclear deal and be-
are Afghan refugees, and Three of the band’s four gan restoring sanctions.
their struggles mirror those original members were Afghans also face discrimi-
of millions of other Afghans born in Iran, including fe- nation in Iran. The band
who have fled to Iran dur- male guitarist and vocalist says they were turned away
ing decades of war. Soraya Hosseini, drummer from a once-popular Teh-
They once had to sneak Akbar Bakhtiary and Rezai. ran concert series because
through a Taliban check- Ebrahimi came to Iran as they were immigrants. Like
point to pay a gig in their a child. They formed the others in Iran’s vibrant arts
home country, and they band Arikayn, which is Dari scene, they must contend
face discrimination in Iran, for “Lantern,” in 2013. with hard-liners who view
but they say that hasn’t “When I was a child, we Western culture as corrupt
stopped them from playing used Arikayn to find our and object to women per-
the music they love. way in dirt alleyways at forming in public. At one of
“This is very hard for all of us, night,” Ebrahimi said during only two Tehran concerts
but when we play a song, a recent practice session the band gave, at Tehran
we become the person at the carpentry studio. University, Hosseini said she
that we want to be,” bass- Arikayn’s music recalls was not allowed to play
ist Mohammad Rezai said. Metallica, not the speed- her guitar on stage, and
Iran is home to one of the metal shredding of “Mas- was only able to sing back-
world’s largest and most- ter of Puppets” but rather ground vocals.
protracted refugee cri- the introspective ballad “They did not tell me direct-
ses. More than 3 million of “Nothing Else Matters.” ly that I cannot play the
Afghans, including over 1 Ebrahimi, who said his guitar on stage, but they
million who entered with- icon is Metallica frontman made me understand,”
out legal permission, live James Hetfield, evokes his she said. “I felt strange be-
in the Islamic Republic, guitar work in the band’s cause it was my first time