WORDS AND PHOTO BY HENRY LANGSTON Zablon Simintov lives alone—and worships alone. As the sole Jewish resident in Kabul, he has particular reason to fear the resurgent Taliban. Not that he thinks racism is all bad.
For three weeks this summer, Conor Creighton and I hung out in Kabul meeting ordinary Afghans and seeing how they were handling their own security (not very well). Between running over minefields, buying lots of ketamine and dodging suicide bombs, we spoke to Afghanistan’s last remaining Jew to find out what it’s like to be the only guy in the country to celebrate Hanukkah. Before we spoke to him, we had to buy him a black-market bottle of Absolut Vodka and hand over $80 in cash. Born in Herat in 1959, Zablon Simintov lives on Flower Street in Kabul in a small flat next to his own Synagogue. Asked whether, as a Jew, he received harsh treatment from the Taliban, he claimed that it was the same for everyone: “Jews, Muslims, the birds—everyone got hassle from the Taliban.” According to Simintov, Jewish people settled in Afghanistan between 1,800 and 2,000 years ago when the majority of the population were Buddhist. When Israel was created, many of Afghanistan’s Jewish population left the country. Asked why he never left to join his wife and children in Israel, he said, “I’m an Afghan and why should I leave my own country and my friends? Other Jews left because they don’t have the heart or courage to stay here.” The conversation soon moved to the current state of Afghanistan, on which Simintov had some interesting views. “The Americans and the English have done nothing good for Afghanistan,” he said. “They haven’t finished building the Afghan army and they never finished the job here before they attacked Iraq. Saddam Hussein was a strong leader and a deadly enemy to Iran. It was a mistake to topple him. When you leave, everything will be destroyed, there will be another civil war and Afghanistan will be forgotten. It’s all your fault. We need 400 fighter planes and 4,000 tanks and then we will be fine.” Before we departed, Simintov left us with this: “I have a message for the American people: you should not re-elect Obama, he will destroy America, God willing. He doesn’t know anything and he has no right to be president. He is a black man. He should be cleaning the streets of America.” We’ll be sure to tell them. See more of Simintov on VICE.com this winter.
Annons
BY JULIEN MOREL
PHOTO BY MACIEK POZOGA If you believe everything you read, France’s Mount Bugarach is the only place on earth that will survive the apocalypse, Mary Magdalene and Jesus Christ’s former love nest, and a hanger for UFOs. There’s legitimate concern that more than 10,000 true believers will seek refuge here in the lead-up to Armageddon, and some of them have already arrived. Self-proclaimed gurus of all sorts have sprouted up in the triangle formed by the villages of Bugarach, Rennes-les-Bain, and Rennes-les-Château, offering products like hydrating cream supposedly made from Mary Magdalene’s DNA ($215) and “initiatory training” for the coming cataclysm (anywhere from $715 to $2,900). The tourist boom has permanently altered the town’s economy. In the past five years, the price of land has tripled, local restaurants are now more expensive than those in Paris, and organic co-ops sell lavender-flavored biscuits for $5.75. This inflation has pissed off some natives, like the local kids who call hippie tourists “a bunch of cunts” and say the mayor of Bugarach “talks to journalists hoping the prices of the houses will soar.” Even the older New Agers are somewhat put out. Uraine, a hippie who has lived here since the 70s, has been fighting eviction for 15 years. “They wanted to demolish my house to build an apartment complex for rich Scandinavians and Americans,” he says. Not everyone is complaining. A hotel owner in Rennes-les-Bains says of his new clientele, “They’re not bad people. They come here to bathe in the spa and do stuff with rocks. They choose their meals by dangling a pendulum above the menu.” On our last day here, we took a walk in the forest and found a group of Germans, Swiss, and Austrians who had pitched a tent in a clearing. When asked how much they spent on the trip, they replied, “Not that much. Hardly $14,000.”
Annons
BY HANS WETZELS
PHOTO BY HENRY LANGSTON On the thorn-bush- riddled sand dunes of Calais, France, refugees escaping from places like Iran, Afghanistan, and Somalia shack up in huts made of wood and plastic, waiting for a chance to board a ferry and illegally enter England. We talked with a survivor of this treacherous trek about his journey from Iran to Great Britain. VICE: Why did you flee Iran?
Reza: I’m from Tabriz, an area with a large Azerbaijani minority. The government discriminates against us. As an activist, I wrote critical articles about it. When the secret service threatened to kill my family, I decided to move abroad. Where’d you go?
First, I fled from Tehran to Turkey. Then I traveled through the mountains of Kurdistan on foot, slept in rock shelters, and hid in caves when Kurds shot at me. They expect you to pay to travel through their region. Turkey is hell for Iranian refugees. But because of its geography you have to travel through it. The Turkish prime minister is Ahmedinejad’s buddy, so Iranian secret service are all over the place. How’d you make it to Europe?
I stole a shabby wooden rowboat off the Turkish coast in the middle of the night. Looking back, I wonder what the hell I was thinking crossing the Mediterranean Sea alone. There were times when I thought I was lost and would never see land again. It was dangerous, but sometimes you have to take risks. Sounds like you took a lot of risks.
Yeah, like when I misled the Greek border patrol after my boat trip. The Greeks don’t see the difference between a Turk and an Iranian, so I walked in with a group of Turks who were on vacation or something. I snuck through customs and then I climbed on a truck to get some sleep. How do you sleep on a truck?
There’s a flat part on top of the cabin of some trucks that you can lie on. I rode like that for 16 hours. It felt like I was freezing to death, but I made it through Italy to the French border. I could have fallen between the wheels—that happens regularly. I pounded on the roof of the cabin when I wanted to get off, but I was so stiff from lying up there in the cold that I fell off the truck and broke my ankle. You’ve made it to England. Now what?
I’m trying to learn English. That’s the only way to get somewhere. I go to the library every day for free internet and I watch as much English television as I can in
the evenings.
Annons
BY WILBERT L. COOPER
ILLUSTRATION BY JOHNNY RYAN Reports of rampaging rapists pop up nearly every week in Zimbabwe, but this time it’s not President Robert Mugabe’s troops or even men who are forcing fornication. Instead, police are hunting down a group of women who capture their male victims by offering them lifts in a fancy car. Then they drug the men and rape them at gunpoint, sometimes for several days. These ladies like to keep sperm souvenirs, which has led authorities to think this raping spree could be part of some sort of ritual. Earlier this year, a 24-year-old reported being raped at snake-point, after getting a ride from a tattooed woman with an oversize reptile in the backseat of her white Honda. All the victims have maintained their anonymity, although one victim was reportedly a police officer. No suspects have been arrested, but even if they’re apprehended they’ll probably get off easy. In Zimbabwe, the law doesn’t consider a woman raping a man to be a crime.
BY WILBERT L. COOPER “Nigger” was a hot toponym for the early settlers of North America, being used in the names for everything from a mountain in British Columbia (Niggertoe Mountain) to a stream in Texas (Dead Nigger Creek) and, until recently, a lake, road, and river in upstate New York. At the behest of organizations like the NAACP and uncomfortable white people everywhere, local governments and federal agencies have been purging or softening these crude landmark monikers. Texas cleverly changed Dead Nigger Creek to Dead Negro Draw, the United States Board of Geographic Names went old school and swapped all of its nearly 200 “nigger” entries with “negro,” and New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation just decided they would completely erase all the “nigger” names from their official documents.
Annons
BY VICE STAFF
PHOTO COURTESY OF GEHEIMAGENTUR Geheimagentur is a theater group based in Germany that, together with Fundus Theater, came up with the best idea ever: Get a bunch of pirate-loving kids to submit questions for real-life Somali pirates to answer. The resulting dialogue was turned into a multimedia performance and will be shown at the Vienna Festival next year. Here’s a preview. Kid: I like playing pirates and fighting and killing. Is being a real pirate fun too?
Pirate: It’s a tough life. On the one hand you have the money, but on the other you can’t hardly eat anything all day because you’re always afraid. What do you use for fighting?
We use antiaircraft machine guns. Do your kids play pirates too?
Some of the pirates, when they return to their village with their booty, drive around in their big fancy cars and display their guns and walk like they’re everyone’s boss. The kids put together toy cars and try to walk like the pirates. How did you end up being a pirate?
My uncle used to have a boat. He was a fisherman. Then his boat broke and his net was destroyed by bigger ships. When the big ships of the fishing companies encountered the small boats of Somalis, they shot us with hot-water guns. After that happened a couple times, we fishermen sat together and decided that we should fight back and defend ourselves against these people who destroy our nets. Apart from that, some of the pirates see the ships of the companies as their enemies because they dump poisonous chemicals into the sea. How many ships did you attack and how much money did you get?
When I was a pirate, I captured one ship. I was the youngest one and didn’t know much about piracy. That’s why I said I’d take what they want to give me. They gave us $15,000. Then I decided to leave. On my way back I was mugged by land pirates. They took away the money. Do you feel bad about capturing these ships?
People are different. Some just care about the money. Some are more human and they sense that their hostages have feelings and treat them like humans. And then there are the central Somali militia. They don’t care if they hurt someone. They were used for killing by their clan, by the warlords. They just get to the point where they can’t go back anymore.
BY BLAGOVEST BLAGOEV
PHOTO BY JASMIN STEIGLER Ruen, Bulgaria’s only official grease-wrestling club, exemplifies all that is glorious about oiled and near-naked men, paralyzing grapples, and thumbs in the ass. Intrigued, we went to a fair in the village of Vaklinovo to see the brutal boys go at it. Thousands had gathered to see athletes from around the country compete on a makeshift mat of grass and rope. Amateur athletes of all ages wrestle at these events, but the main draw is the baspehlivans (“proper wrestlers”), whose matches close out the event. The baspehlivans prepare for matches by donning their kispets, rough-textured pants made of water-buffalo hide. The wrestlers douse their crotches with olive oil and help each other tie their kispets. A tight kispet is crucial if you want keep your opponent from getting to your naughty bits, which is why grease wrestling isn’t a “gay” sport. If it were, no one would be protecting his asshole that thoroughly. The bout starts with a ritual dance called pesraf, which involves strutting around the ring, waving your arms like a bird, and slapping your kispets. (Again, not gay.) After pesraf, the wrestlers face off on the mat. That’s when things get serious. The wrestlers get stuck in a doggy-style position while the top athelete gropes for opportunities in the bottom wrestler’s behind. The top slips his arm elbow-deep into his opponent’s kispets, across his loins. With a sudden jerk, he lifts his opponent in the air and flips him to the ground. The audience loves it when the winner pulls the opponent’s kispets off, and the matches end with the traditional salutation in grease wrestling—forehead to forehead, left and right—and then the wrestlers go wash themselves off.