Photo: Kabul, 2005. A body building gym new Shah do Shamshira Mosque. © Stephen Dupont, courtesy of Steidl.
Stephen Dupont is a warrior. Ready for battle, on the field, armed with a camera and nerves of steel. For twenty years, he has braved the harsh and unforgiving landscape of Afghanistan, after being inspired by the Mujahideen rising to defend their nation from a Soviet invasion in the 1980s. The Afghani never say die, and they sent the Soviets home, just as they drove back the British during the height of the Empire.
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In 1895, Rudyard Kipling famously penned a little ditty that goes: When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains, And the women come out to cut up what remains, Just roll to your rifle and blow out your brains, And go to your God like a soldier.
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A century later, ain’t a damn thing changed.
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