Key Points
- The Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in August 2021.
- They immediately disbanded the Afghanistan’s National Institute of Music (ANIM).
- ANIM has since moved to Portugal and is planning an Australian tour.
When Dr Ahmad Sarmast came to Australia in July 2021 to spend the Afghan schools' summer break with his family, he says he could’ve never imagined the republic would fall "so easily" and the Taliban would return to power after 20 years.
He said he was still in his 14-day mandatory hotel quarantine when the Taliban began advancing towards the capital of Kabul.
"At first, I was thinking, 'well, this is a war, one district and one province would change hands, the government would regain control of this district or province', but unfortunately, every day that passed, we saw the Taliban getting closer to the gates of Kabul," he told SBS Dari.
Dr Ahmad Sarmast with members of ANIM's Zohra Orchestra. Source: Supplied / Ahmed Naser Sarmast
"Despite all the whitewashing of the Taliban that was happening at the time", he says, "it was clear that the Taliban hadn’t changed and will not change" and their return would mean that music has no place in Afghanistan.
‘The soft power of music’
Dr Sarmast, who had come to Australia as a refugee in 1994, said he decided to dedicate his life to rebuilding his birthplace’s musical heritage after achieving his PhD in music at Monash University in 2005.
"The plan to establish ANIM was part of a big project which was initiated by me at Monash University with the support of the music department, the centre for Asian studies and the centre for science," he said.
For his work in founding ANIM and the Zohra Orchestra, Dr Sarmast (L) has won several music awards, including the 2018 Polar Music Prize. Credit: Supplied/ANIM
By "creatively using the soft and transformative power of music", he says the school was able to better the lives of hundreds of children and teenagers from orphanages and the streets of Kabul in a short period of time and became one of "the most active, prominent, influential cultural and educational institutions" in Afghanistan.
School draws Taliban's ire
But the fame and success attracted the attention of the Taliban and made it a target for the extremist group.
According to Dr Sarmast, between 2014 and 2021, the Taliban tried to target the institute four times.
In 2014, the Taliban’s attempt to silence Dr Sarmast permanently by sending in a suicide bomber to one of the institute’s events, resulted in him incurring a temporary loss of hearing.
The Islamist extremist group has had a long-standing enmity with music, considering it a cause of "moral corruption". During its first rule in the late 1990s, the group declared playing, listening, broadcasting music, as well as buying and selling musical instruments as "haram", an Arabic term meaning forbidden or unlawful.
For Dr Sarmast, it was a nightmare becoming reality.
"On the first day of the Taliban’s return to Kabul, one of the educational, scientific and cultural institutions that came under their control to be used as a military centre was Afghanistan’s National Institute of Music," he said.
"The Taliban’s armed groups were stationed in both campuses of the ANIM, the original campus, and the new campus that we had just built and had begun using."
Members of the Taliban setting fire to a pile of musical instruments and equipment on the outskirts of Herat, Afghanistan, 30 July 2023. Credit: Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice/EPA/AAP Image
But what hurt him the most was the fact they destroyed the first ever classical guitar that had been brought to Afghanistan by a prominent Afghan singer, musician and music teacher, Mohammad Hussain Arman.
"The guitar was gifted to the institute and was being kept as a 'valuable' in one of its hallways," he said.
Members of Zohra Orchestra perform at Monash University's Robert Blackwood Hall in Melbourne in 2019. Credit: SBS Dari/Sam Anwari
They even went further, gathering musical instruments and USB drives containing songs and setting them on fire, Dr Sarmast said.
In their latest crackdown on music, the Taliban’s morality police asked drivers in Kabul to refrain from playing music inside their taxis.
How members of the ANIM community fled Afghanistan
Dr Sarmast says that from 10 or 11 August 2021, when he had concluded that Afghanistan would fall into the hands of the Taliban again, he started working to save the institute and its students.
His efforts led to the creation of a "grand coalition" of prominent politicians, artists, music advocacy groups and human rights organisations from around the world.
The only way we could see was to get the institute's students out of Afghanistan first.Dr Ahmad Sarmast, founder and director, ANIM
"With the cooperation of a very large network, we sent a group asylum application to several countries.
"The only country that responded positively and was willing to accept the institute as an organisation and a community was Portugal."
Dr Sarmast says ANIM is back on the world stage, showcasing Afghanistan's rich musical heritage. Credit: Supplied/ANIM
This institute has since resumed its activities in Portugal.
Dr Sarmast said he expected 380 others to join the school community in Portugal in the near future.
Planning for a second tour of Australia
Zohra, Afghanistan’s first all-female orchestra, which was created by ANIM in 2015, debuted in Australia in 2019.
They were the first Afghan musicians to perform at Sydney’s iconic Opera House.
Dr Sarmast says they are currently in the planning stages for the school’s Youth Orchestra to tour Sydney and Melbourne in the near future.
