January 28, 2010--Hamid Karzi's Karakul

I used to think Hamid Karzai was pretty cool. He cut a dashing figure when in 2001 he reemerged as president of the new Afghanistan. He had been living in exile in Pakistan after the Taliban defeated the Russians and then when they were subsequently overthrown by a coalition led by the United States returned to lead his country on a wave of optimism and high fashion.

I admit I thought he was cool as much because of the way he dressed as by the way he appeared to be governing. Even designer Tom Ford called him “the chicest man on the planet.” What with those flowing robes and lambskin hat. Right out of central Afghani casting.

That was then—the Taliban were tossed out by the U.S. military, women could get out of their burkas if they wanted to, even go to school, and it looked as if things were working out among the various ethnic tribes and militias that for many, many centuries had ruled and ruined that beautiful country.

But this is now—the Taliban are resurgent, the tribes are at each other’s throats again, what had been a quasi-democratic government has more and more come to resemble a central Asian monarchy, Karzi’s brother has been exposed as one of the country’s leading dope barons, Karzi himself after a rigged national election can’t manage to appoint a cabinet that his own legislature will approve, and no one any longer is wearing that cool karakul hat.

This is important because the karakul was more than a dashing fashion statement. It was a symbol of national unity.

In a country that was created during the middle of the 19th century by Briton and Russia as a consequence of their ruinous Great Game, as a gesture of hoped-for national unity, an inspired Karzi came up with a hat that would be pan-tribal. It was not indigenous to any of the many Afghani tribes. And so sales of the karakul took off. Anyone who was anyone or simply wanted to make a statement that the days of fierce division were over sported one.

But now that Karzi’s star has faded (an understatement), they are disappearing from the streets of Kabul. Where once there were dozens of hat stores on trendy Sha-e-do-Shamahera Wali Road, now all but 12 are closed and no one is expecting any of them to renew their leases.

According to a report in the New York Times (linked below), when a Karzi supporter returned to his village of Logar wearing his karakul hat, people laughed. They mocked, “There goes an old man who thinks he’s president.”

But Karzi persists in wearing his. In fact, he has dozens of them in various shades of gray and black and black and white. And they are quite dear. Along Wali Road they can go for as much as $3,000 each. Especially those on which the lambskin curls appear to read Allah in Arabic script.

But even with caps this miraculous (recall the piece of toast that sold on eBay for thousands because it appeared to have an image if the Virgin Mary etched in it?), the ultra-religious community is up in arms. It seems that the lambs that get slaughtered to make the hats are not done so in a way prescribed by Islam and thus the meat as well as the skin is “prohibited.”

Another problem, speaking anonymously so as not to get into trouble, one hat store owner where Karzi shops revealed that when he first took over as president the circumference of his head was 22½ inches; now it has apparently swollen an inch to 23½.

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