A Painful Memory of Temor Shahi Bazaar
An old part of Kabul called “Temor Shahi Bazaar,” or simply ‘Temor Shahi,’ Known for its bustling shops. Temor Shahi has lots of buried memories deep into its alleyways, corners, and warrens of mud houses. This photo evokes a painful memory for me. Back in 1995, during the civil war, my friend and I biked through this Bazaar and towards the end of it, five people attacked us. They beat us up physically and damaged our bike by kicking in the wheel spokes. They called us dirty Hazaras, mouse eaters and flat nose people. We couldn’t not ride our bikes, so we had to pull them along.
We wanted to go to the market to buy school supplies. At the front of “Foroshgah-e Bozurg Afghan” (Afghan grand market), three armed guards in woodland military uniform (belonged to the Tajik-ruled government) and armed with Ak-47, did not permit us to enter into the building. “The Hazaras are not allowed to shop here,” one of the guards boldly announced.
During Burhanuddin Rabbani’s role, certain areas under the control of Shura-e Nazar that was led by Ahmad Shah Massoud, were closed to Hazaras, one of them was Foroshgah-e Bozurg Afghan.