THE BARKING OF MULLAHS

THE MASTERPLAN (of yesterday)

In short: Nielsen come walking down from the mountain carrying the Flag into the capital of Afghanistan, he walks through the city to the National Theatre, he enters and step onto the stage in the last moment of the performance the Parliament, and after five years of wandering the world political reality he has finally come back home into fiction.

Beautiful story, isn’t it? It was. Yesterday we tried out the End on stage without having informed the native actors on beforehand. Nielsen just walked in carrying the Flag, he was received by one of the 13 children that our Norwegian allied has added to his staging to please the native’s wish for an “end with hope!” The child gave me his hand and brought me on stage and took the Flag and put it carefully on the ground and bade me sit down with every one else in the circle, the traditional Afghan “jirga”, which is the native form of democracy.

Then the rebellion began. The actors revolted: - This person cannot come into our performance! said the actor who plays the Architect and pointed at me, - he is a foreigner, and we cannot allow any foreigner to sit with us in the jirga! last time was when the British sat down in our jirga, and since then our history has been only war!

Meanwhile the secret information agent among the theatre workers had long since entered the second floor and informed the director and after the rehearsals we were invited to a meeting in his office. I carefully explained him the history of the Parliament, starting in a theatre play in Copenhagen, where I played the part of the People, the white man in the grey suit, who left the stage, the theatre institution carrying the Flag of the Democracy (which, in this context, I chose to call it) and who since then has been travelling the world stage, through Kuwait, Iraq, Jordan, the US, Dubai, Iran, and who finally, one of these days is to arrive at the theatre carrying the Flag and enter the stage and take place.

Impossible. Said director Qadr Faruq (minor star in the major motion picture the Kite Flyer). I might well, he said, have walked from city to city in all other countries in the world, in Europe, in the US, in Iran and even Iraq, but, he said (through his translating medium), this country is very different situation from all other countries in the world. This country have so many nationalities, who in the last thirty years have been at war with each other, and in the new so called parliament, Mister Faruq said, only two months ago, the parliamentarians were throwing bottles at each other. And so, said Mister Faruq, you cannot walk with this flag here in Afghanistan, because 1, he said, you are a foreigner, 2, maybe the different nationalities don’t like you and they will attack you and maybe kill you, 3. the Taleban might kidnap you. And, Mr. Faruq said, about this flag,

the true Meaning of the Flag

In all other countries of the world the white flag means peace, but here in Afghanistan, he said, the white flag is the flag of Taleban. And, Mister Faruq said, the hole in the flag means that in the dialogue there is no response, when you talk the people on the other side don’t like to listen, and the government won’t do anything to respond. Aha ...? I said. And, said Mister Faruq, in all other countries in the world they have something in the middle of their flag, some sign, like swastika or moon or maybe cross, but if you carry white flag with this hole into Afghanistan, means that something is missing in Afghanistan, means that in Afghanistan we have no democracy and nothing. So, Mister Faruq said, and his mobile phone started a spaghetti western motion picture melody, and he answered and talked in Dari, and switched of, and so, he said, to walk into Kabul with this flag means you are Taleban, and when you are Taleban, many people wants to kill you, the Hazars, said Mister Faruq, the Hazars will attack you, well, I said, then I’d better avoid the Hazar area, and I laughed politely, oh, no, said Mister Faruq, you cannot, impossible, cause, Mister Faruq said, the Hazar people are all over this city, all over Kabul, and so they will attack you and probably kill you. Aha, I said, and then maybe another, aha ...

At the end of the day in the darkness behind the walls and the guards in the opulent Pakistan-style villa with it’s kitschy pastel colours and semi-transparent bluish windows we had a meeting with our Norwegian allies who do obviously not like my Masterplan and who have troubles enough for a lifetime here and would be at least a little easier off without my being here with my sharp nose in my grey suit carrying this indecipherable Flag, that only inside the Beckwork has a bearable meaning, but to almost all other people on the planet means almost anything else, or worse: nothing, an enigma, provoking, threatening and insulting with it’s opaque Nothing opening a circular abyss in the centre, and so our Norwegian allied suggested that maybe I maybe could choose another way to the stage, that maybe I could go directly from the small, bare mountain behind the theatre and right down in and on stage, that maybe I do not necessarily have to walk all the way through the entire city centre with it’s multiple nationalities and clans and hates and fears and dark eyes, that would “høist sannsynlig!”, most probably kill me.

Well, so, here we are, at the end of another day that like all other days before this started bright and prosperous to the sound of the Mullahs, the helicopters and the barking of dogs, and from there on descended and ended beyond hope, beyond exhaustion in the darkness of yet another dead End (to the sound of the moaning mullahs, the helicopters and the barking of dogs)