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Kabul, Afghanistan – On Monday evening, Ahmadullah Azadani climbed onto the roof of his home in Herat, western Afghanistan, and waited for something that would have been unthinkable in the city even a week earlier.
He waited on his rooftop overlooking the ancient city, until he heard a single voice cry out, “Allahu Akbar” (God is the greatest), over and over again.
At first it was just a voice in the distance, then suddenly the voices multiplied until it became a cry echoing throughout the city which just a few days ago was about to fall to their hands. of the Taliban.
Azadani, who returned to his native Herat from the Afghan capital Kabul several months ago, said he had never seen anything like it before.
“I have never seen our people join in such support for their troops and the people fighting alongside them,” he said, referring to the voluntary militias known as the “uprising forces” who took up arms with the Afghan national security forces in their fight to expel the advancing Taliban towards the city.
To young people like Azadani, these cries recalled the stories their parents had told them about the Communist regime and the Soviet occupation that followed in the 1980s.
Then, as now, people took their rooftops in contempt of the brutal Soviet-backed Communist regime in their country. At that time, Herat was one of the first cities to see the public rise up against what was seen as an un-Islamic regime by millions of Afghans across the country.
“Last night’s event resurfaced all these stories for those who were alive in the days of the Communists, and they, in turn, reminded younger generation like me of these kinds of events in the past.” , did he declare.
Azadani described the experience as a unique moment.
“I felt a sense of hope, of community and of belonging, all at the same time,” he said.
But Azadani said last night’s event was crucially different from the practice of previous decades.
“In the past, people did this against the Communist State, including against its army. Now we are doing it to support our Afghan national security forces and the national resistance movement, and to say a big ‘NO’ to the Taliban, ”he said.
‘Cry of challenge’
Within hours, video of the screams filled Afghan social media, as Afghans at home and abroad expressed similar feelings about the footage.
The fact that last week saw Taliban assaults on the cities of Herat, Kandahar and Lashkar Gah only added to this collective sense of pride.
On Tuesday morning, President Ashraf Ghani expressed his support in a speech to the media.
“Last night the people of Herat showed exactly who represented the cries of Allahu Akbar. “
Afghan security forces have deployed and launched operations against the Taliban around the Torkham border point between Afghanistan and Pakistan in Nangarhar province [File: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images]Ali A Olomi, an Afghan-American professor of Middle Eastern history and Islam, said that the people’s choice of “Allahu Akbar” as their cry of defiance against the Taliban is particularly profound.
“It is a declaration that God, whatever the circumstances, whether in victory or defeat, is greater than all. It is a cry of defiance in the face of an overwhelming oppressor or in the face of the vicissitudes of persecution, ”he told Al Jazeera.
“Even in these dire circumstances, God can overcome. In victory, it is a reminder of humility and a cry of thanks. In defeat, it’s a proclamation of hope and challenge, ”Olomi said of the meaning of the phrase.
In recent months, social media has become a new breeding ground for both sides of the Afghan conflict, and on Monday evening several accounts supporting the Taliban attempted to claim that the screams supported the group.
However, Azadani does not accept this claim.
“I talked to people. I live here. I can say for sure that no one was doing it for the Taliban, ”he said.
“It was a very clear message to the Taliban that we don’t want you… everyone said they did it to show their challenge.”
Tuesday evening, it was Kabul’s turn.
Despite a loud explosion just one hour from the 9:00 p.m. (4.30 p.m. GMT) start time, people still took to their rooftops and the streets to chant “Allahu Akbar”. For more than 40 minutes, voices of children, men and women echoed from the town, even as sounds of gunfire and smoke rose from the site of the explosion.
Video online showed people gathering on the streets in various parts of the capital, waving the country’s tricolor.
#I accept residents show courage by singing #God is big across town despite a reported explosion just an hour ago. #Afghanistan pic.twitter.com/c3sVGFpWUl
– Reporterly (@Reporterlyaf) August 3, 2021
But Kabul was not alone, Afghan social media was suddenly filled with videos of similar actions in Nangarhar, Khost, Kunar and Bamiyan provinces.
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