With a suitcase in hand and a bag on my shoulder, after an eight-hour train journey, I arrived at the entrance of Regina Theater in Uppsala, a city 70 kilometers north of Stockholm. The theater's doors were closed, and one of the guards said there were no available seats. The only option was the balcony on the second floor, where there were no seats either, but I could stand and watch the event. When I looked at my watch, the program had already started 20 minutes earlier. From the second-floor balcony, it was difficult to see the stage. Down there, a group of young girls and boys, holding damburas, guitars, tablas, and violins, wearing colorful clothes, were singing under the bright lights of the hall: "Even if we are displaced, let us not be desperate... Even if we are far apart, let us not be torn apart."
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| Group +93 |
For me, after a dull week, watching a festival full of surprises and beauty from the second-floor balcony was unpleasant. My small camera lens wasn’t helping to capture footage of the stylish, well-dressed, and melodious girls and boys. I told the guards that I was a journalist and needed to record the performance. They opened the door for me, and I entered the hall, which was completely packed.
The music group "+93" composed of young Afghan migrants living in Stockholm, performed the song "Watanadar," and many attendees joined in singing parts of the song with this young band.
This was the third Dambura Salsal Festival held in Uppsala, organized by the Salsal Cultural Union and financially supported by Afghan migrants and a Swedish study association (ABF). The theater, designed to hold 260 people, had over 300 attendees, with many left outside.
Uppsala is a small city, where part of the population consists of academics from all over the world. It houses one of the oldest universities in Scandinavia and is known as a center for science in the region, once home to the Vikings. Uppsala was a place for coronations of Swedish kings for centuries and remains the religious center of the country.
Sweden is known for its associations and festivals, with billions of Swedish crowns spent annually on maintaining associations and organizing festivals. However, the Dambura Salsal Festival, now in its third year, largely relies on the efforts of those who, for various reasons, have been displaced from their homeland and now, in exile, seek to create moments and hours where they feel at home through celebrations and festivals.
The members of the "93+" music group ended their song "Watanadar" with the line, "Wherever there are compatriots, that is our homeland," and the audience greeted this performance with indescribable enthusiasm.
The Dambura Salsal Festival was launched three years ago when the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan and declared music haram and banned. Ali Rezaei, head of the Salsal Cultural Union based in Uppsala, which hosts the festival, told Independent Persian that the Dambura Salsal Festival is essentially a continuation of the Dambura Bamiyan Festival, which used to be held in Bamiyan before the Taliban's return to power.
The Dambura Bamiyan Festival was launched in August 2017 and was one of the most vibrant music festivals in Afghanistan. It was managed by figures like Waheed Qasemi, a well-known personality in Afghan music, and until the collapse of the republic, it gathered thousands of men and women in Bamiyan annually, near the fallen statues of Salsal and Shahmama, with musicians, singers, and well-known Afghan musical figures participating. Although traditional and conservative clerics in Afghanistan tried to stop the festival in Bamiyan with fatwas, they couldn’t prevent its occurrence until the Taliban's return. The Taliban's resurgence once again turned Afghanistan into a silent and image-less country. However, in the past three years, the Afghan migrant community has been working through various channels to oppose the Taliban’s decrees and prevent the extinction of elements that the Taliban have banned. The Taliban view music as a tool of corruption for youth and society, and as a promoter of immorality.
Two weeks ago, the Taliban’s Ministry of Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, in a report, outlined its achievements over the past year, stating that it had burned 21,000 musical instruments. The Taliban not only destroyed musical instruments but also dismantled every kind of art-related festival. In the Ministry’s recently published law, the face, voice, and body of women are described as "awrah" (parts of the body that must be covered). The law stipulates that a woman's voice, even if she is reciting the Quran, should not be broadcast.
Ali Rezaei said the Dambura Salsal Festival has three key goals: to preserve the art of dambura playing, continue the festival similar to what was held in Bamiyan, and protect the cultural and artistic symbols of the Afghan people, especially the native art common among the Hazaras of Afghanistan. According to Rezaei, Hazara music originally had seven instruments, but now only the dambura remains. While the Taliban have declared an all-out war on art, people and cultural organizations around the world must support the artistic and cultural elements that are part of Afghanistan’s identity.
Rezaei added: "The Taliban's ban on music and their classification of women's voices, faces, and bodies as 'awrah' has led to widespread support from the Afghan migrant community for art and music festivals like the Dambura Salsal Festival." Rezaei sees this as a collective reaction to the Taliban’s decrees, which target literature, art, music, women, and human rights.
"Dambura is like a mother tongue for me."
Ali Yari, one of the musicians at the third Dambura Salsal Festival who captivated the audience with his performance of the song "Our home is illuminated tonight - my sweet beloved has come as a guest," told Independent Persian that he became familiar with the dambura during his childhood while working as a shepherd alone in the mountains. "When I was a child, one of the other shepherds made a dambura from a plastic bottle and sang songs in Pashto. That was the first time I encountered something called a dambura. The sound that came from its strings fascinated me, and after that, I couldn’t find anything else to fill my loneliness."
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| Ali Yari |
Ali Yari said he grew up with the dambura, and for him, the instrument is like a mother tongue with which he can express anything. Ali Yari is 25 years old and has spent most of his life as a shepherd in Afghanistan, a laborer in coal mines and carpet factories in Pakistan, a farm worker in Iran, and uncertainly waiting in Sweden. Most of this young dambura player’s songs are inspired by the hardships he has endured. After being rejected 13 times by Sweden's immigration department, he finally received residency in 2019, and since then, he has participated in numerous festivals.
In the third round of the Dambura Salsal Festival, other musicians and singers, including Asad Surkhosh, Nabi Delnawaz, Adela Delnawaz, Morteza Mirzaei, and Laila Tabassum, also performed songs with enthusiasm and excitement.
Abbas Noyan, Afghanistan’s ambassador to Stockholm, who continues in his role after the fall of the republic, delivered a speech at the end of the Dambura Salsal Festival, reminding the audience that the Taliban burned musical instruments in Afghanistan. He stated, "No group in history has been able to destroy human art and civilization through hostility and confrontation." He praised the organizers of the Dambura Festival, saying: "As long as humanity exists, so will music, and the heirs of Afghanistan's art and civilization will not remain silent in the face of the oppression occurring in this country."
- The original version of this report was published in Persian on Independent Persian.
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