london/kabul: It is arguably the most chilling exhibit collected by a UK museum in recent times. A suicide bomber’s vest, primed with explosives but seized by police last year, is among hundreds of objects that have been acquired in Afghanistan by the Imperial War Museums — the first time since the first world war that its curators have visited an active theatre of conflict.
The museum’s latest mission — amassing a collection that tells the story of Britain’s participation in the Afghanistan conflict —has involved putting together more than 1,100 objects as well as thousands of films, videos and photographs.
From these, they have chosen exhibits for display in a forthcoming exhibition marking this year’s withdrawal by British and international troops from Afghanistan after 13 years of conflict.
The suicide bomber’s vest, which had been made even more lethal by attaching packs of ball-bearings, was worn by one of four terrorists who were captured by the Afghan national police. Three of them had such vests, but their target remains unclear.
Louise Skidmore, a museum curator who heads the Afghanistan project, said: “When you see the hand-stitching, you think ‘what was someone thinking when they did that?’... We needed to try to tell the whole story. It is the ‘signature weapon’ of this conflict.”
She was among three members of staff who took part in three collecting expeditions to Afghanistan between 2012 and 2014. They returned home with objects that reveal something of the human beings caught up in the conflict - from teddy bears kept by soldiers as good luck charms to a makeshift sofa which one regiment constructed as a homely reminder in the harsh environment.
“You’re in the middle of the desert,” Skidmore said. “There’s nothing to sit on ... The guys are ingenious when it comes to making life a little more comfortable.”
Other acquisitions include an elaborate beaded lamp made by Afghan prisoners. “We call it the ‘Taliban lamp’,” she said. “It was made in one of the workshops which Britain helped to fund ... to provide future employment skills to some of the prisoners, many of whom will have been political prisoners or former Taliban ...
“This lamp is quite stunning, really unique. It’s a little gaudy, over the top. But the Afghan soldiers love to decorate everything. They decorate guns with flowers and coloured threads. Some of the confiscated weapons from the Taliban are very decorated.”
Photographs, film and video interviews will be exhibited in a year-long small exhibition, called War Story: Afghanistan 2014. It will focus on the current role of British forces, from their mentoring and training of the Afghan National Security Forces to the legacy of the war.
More than 1,800 soldiers and family members have registered to share their stories in coming years. About 70 interviews have been recorded so far. They include Sergeant James Shimmins, 3rd Battalion, the Parachute Regiment, recalling a 2006 Taliban rocket attack on Sangin:
“The fellow to my right lost some of his fingers, another hadwounds to his pelvis. Three lads ... just behind me were killed; one of them was an interpreter. I got blown clear across the roof, but I didn’t have any injuries, just bits of shrapnel that I pulled out of my webbing, day sack and kit.”
Many expressed their optimism for Afghanistan. Martin Farquhar, senior prison adviser seconded from the UK prison service, described improved conditions at Lashkar Gah prison - transformed from “a field with a fence round it ... open sewers, no sanitation, no clean water” to “the best prison in Afghanistan ... with vocational training, education ...purposeful activity, healthcare”.
British servicemen and women have been particularly keen to participate in the project because they do not believe that television and films show “the personal aspect”, Skidmore said. “They want the public to understand a bit of what they’ve gone through.”Guardian News
