The wushu women of Kabul
KABUL: Sima Azimi frowns as she pirouettes in the snow, suspended for a moment against the sky on a hill overlooking Kabul and above the conservatism of contemporary Afghanistan.
There is still a need for boldness among young Afghans who wish to indulge in sport – even more so with a martial art like wushu, popularised by stars such as Jackie Chan and Jet Li, which Azimi has taught for a year in the war-torn capital.
Earlier this week the 20-year- old woman left her club in western Kabul, sheltered from prying eyes by a discreet but heavy metal door, to train her young pupils in the open air.
In black or pink satin pyjamas, their hair covered, they practise the modern sport derived from traditional Chinese arts mastered by, among others, the flying monks of Shaolin in northern China.
Mixing boxing and blade control, sabres and daggers, wushu can be a choreographed exhibition of acrobatics or a full- contact sport, a challenge to gravity that requires bodies of steel and rubber.
On the warm-up mat, faces sometimes twist under stress and pain as Azimi, a black belt, presses and pushes them.
Azimi’s family took refuge in Iran when she was two years old, with Afghanistan still under the Taliban regime.
When she returned one year ago she immediately opened her club in a stronghold of the ethnic Hazara community, of which she is a member, in Kabul.
“Unfortunately, we have only Hazara students here and I don’t like this, I am not comfortable with this solo ethnicity in my club,” she tells AFP, adding she wants to welcome girls from other communities. Hazaras, a long persecuted Shiite minority, are among the most open people in Afghanistan.
Women are freer in their movements and more independent; men less oppressive to them.
As a result, they are typically found in the young teams of cyclists, climbers, and runners in the country who are often anxious to ‘open the way for others’. — AFP