BBC News

In cities across Britain and Europe, kite festivals marking the one year anniversary of Afghanistan’s fall to the Taliban raise awareness of the plight of Afghans fleeing their country in an “aerial act of solidarity.”

Organized by the producers behind the Giant Marionette, Little Amal’s epic 8,000-kilometer European journey, and Good Chance Theater, Fly With Me Festival also offers an opportunity to celebrate Afghan culture.

Taking place on August 20th at 15 locations in the UK and Europe, the festival celebrates the country’s 800-year-old kite-flying tradition alongside music, poetry and dance by Afghan artists and other community groups. Incorporated storytelling and craft-making workshops are held.

Feel Afghan culture between your fingers‘

Sanjar Kiam, a British kite maker from Afghanistan who developed Fly With Me, said: The National The festival is an opportunity for everyone to ‘feel between your fingers the thread that connects us to our wonderful country’.

“In all cultures we have a way of forming relationships and connecting with each other. Engaging in handicrafts is one way Afghan people socialize,” he said from his home in Brighton. He says he has been running the toy store for over ten years. in front.

Held in cities across the UK and Europe, Fly With Me is an Afghan kite festival in solidarity with the people of Afghanistan. Photo: Fly With Me

“It’s what you do with your brothers, sisters, neighbors, friends and uncles. It’s a collective activity, a form of cultural art that brings everyone together. There is, and you build something very simple, and this simple thing does an amazing thing: it flies.”

Qiam wants to spread the meaningful joy of ‘bamboo sticks and paper stock’ across the UK.

Organized by Afghanaid, Fly With Me raises funds for the development organization’s By Her Side Match Fund campaign to support women in rural Afghanistan.

The London version of the festival will be held at Parliament Hill, Hampstead Heath, and Qiam will be there to teach people how to make and fly a kite.

Life lessons learned from the ‘magic of flight’

It’s a skill he’s honed ever since he flew his uncle’s giant kite as a child, pulling strings and coming home with bloody hands.

“I was very excited, but my grandmother was not very happy,” he laughs.

Qiam brought his fascination to England in 2011 when he moved there as an entrepreneur with 10,000 kites.

Children with Afghan kites. Photo: Fly With Me

“I may have overestimated British enthusiasm,” he says.

He also failed to take into account the zeal of the British border customs officers. They did the same with his kites, drilling holes in the shipping crates to see what was inside.

Qiam shrugs off the ruin of his painstakingly refurbished merchandise with the same peaceful acceptance he employed with kite flying.

“The problem is that you can make very good kites. And that’s the magic of flight, and you have to deal with that disappointment. You have to be polite to deal with frustration,” he says. The National.

“I think that’s one of the reasons why it’s so popular in Afghan culture, because it’s associated with very contrasting things. It flies, but it’s also very unreliable.

“There are chance encounters in kite flying, but there are also battles with kites. On the other hand, Afghans are also very peaceful people.”

Qiam first arrived in the UK in 2008 to pursue a master’s degree in Scotland. He returned to Afghanistan the following year and decided to return to the UK in 2011 after running his own media company in Kabul. Army and he felt “written on the wall.”

Decades of conflict and foreign occupation have left Afghanistan in people’s minds as a country of violence and pain. But Qiam, who runs kite-making workshops across the UK, wants Fly With Me to: ““Communicating Afghan culture” often lost in the noise of the news.

But few can escape the harrowing headlines about Afghanistan, especially about people desperately trying to escape life under Taliban rule and a devastating humanitarian crisis.

‘The unfair treatment of Afghan refugees hurts’

Some 12,000 Afghan refugees have arrived in the UK since the fall of Kabul, leaving few avenues for others seeking refuge in the UK. , say they have not fulfilled their duty to help the Afghans they left behind.

“I think the correct view is that the British government abuses, endangers and fails to protect people fleeing persecution. A similar program must be put in place to protect Afghans fleeing a brutal totalitarian regime, and that is the message we must send out. I think,” says Qiam.

He doesn’t want “one group of victims to fight another”, but says there are divergences in the government’s policy towards those fleeing Ukraine.

Anglo-Ukrainians can sponsor their families to come to the UK, but Qiam, a British citizen, cannot sponsor his parents, who are currently displaced in Pakistan.

He says the government has failed to deliver on promises to help those fleeing Afghanistan.

Qiam acknowledges that treatment differences are “harmful” and that there are no easy solutions to the global refugee crisis, but “sometimes there are easy solutions,” he said.

“Creating a meaningful and culturally connected diaspora community to support them and ultimately help them balance the Taliban, which is only one page of history,” he says.

As he sees it, protecting Afghanistan’s bright and capable minds now will ensure the prosperity of the country in the future as the post-Taliban era comes.

Two talented members of the exile community who will perform at the Fly With Me Festival are Afghan actor, storyteller and director Elham Ehsaus and Afghan musician Elah Solor.

While raising awareness of the plight of Afghanistan and its refugees, Qiam said the main purpose of the day was to “play games and have fun.”

“At the same time, we bond, we talk a few things, we share our joys and our pains. It’s a way to bring everyone together and have fun,” he said.

Fly With Me takes place on August 20th in Brighton, Bradford, Dover, Folkestone, Glasgow, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Northamptonshire, Scunthorpe, Sheffield, Berlin, Pas-de-Calais, Paris and Copenhagen.

Updated: Aug 16, 2022, 11:11am