PAK-AFGHAN tensions are simmering. Talks in Istanbul this weekend focused on improved alignment and coordination for counterterrorism. Also hanging in the balance is the fate of over two million Afghans facing expedited expulsion from Pakistan. This is a fresh trauma for this community, layered upon Afghanistan’s near-perpetual state of conflict, the persistent militant threat, insecurity on both sides of the border and the erasure of women from public life. Many people facing deportation have only known Pakistan as home. However, in the current geopolitical context, they are recast as Afghans who enable cross-border militancy in Pakistan. But those being cast out of the 54 Afghan refugee villages that Pakistan decided to close this month fear they will be unwelcome and perceived with suspicion in Afghanistan.
This terrible predicament of un-belonging, displacement, impoverishment, trauma, muddled identities and uncertain citizenship is compounded by valid fears of harm, which could stem from multiple actors: security forces on both sides; resentful compatriots in Pakistan; insecure foot soldiers of the Afghan Taliban as well as anti-Pakistan militant groups.
The dilemma Pakistan’s Afghan population faces is difficult to comprehend. But this is why art endures in the face of conflict. Art — in its widest sense, encompassing fine arts, poetry, singing, and all other forms of cultural expression — seems the last thing that anyone would want to produce or consume in the face of war, violence, destruction and displacement. And yet, it is often the only recourse left to those who have to suffer horrors that remain unimaginable to most of us. For those who must experience those horrors, the need to describe them and compel the rest of us to imagine them is urgent.
The link between art and conflict has been repeatedly highlighted.
This link between art and conflict has been repeatedly highlighted in Palestine. Even while war and famine ravaged their land and society, Palestinians did not cease cultural production. Despite the systematic destruction of ancient sites, cultural centres and museums, and the killing of artists, writers and musicians, Palestinians have continued to produce art. In February, Al Jazeera’s Asim el Jerjawi reported from refugee tents, where artists were using flour sacks as makeshift canvases and painting portraits on humanitarian aid boxes. More recently, children in refugee camps across Gaza’s Khan Younis and Deir Al Balah turned to theatre and puppetry, funded in some cases by Unesco, to process their trauma.
For Palestinians, art is both therapeutic and a form of resistance. When threatened with erasure, artistic production allows them to preserve their cultural heritage and reify an identity. In an article on theatre, music and puppetry in Gaza’s camps and shelters, Bilal Hamamra concludes that art forms allow Palestinians to preserve “dignity, identity and memory, resisting the Israeli attempts to erase Palestinian civic life. Cultural labour in Gaza must be recognised as essential civic infrastructure, indispensable for mental health, political agency, and collective endurance”. Art is also the medium of solidarity and empathy — the basis for further political engagement and activism. Resistance posters, which have a long history as a visual and emotional document of the Palestinian struggle since 1948, have again proliferated during global pro-Palestine protests.
Decades of violence in Afghanistan and along the Durand Line have similarly led to a conflict-driven cultural production. The British Museum recently hosted an exhibit of Afghan war rugs, beautiful yet troubling works in which traditional flowers and geometric motifs are replaced by AK-47s, tanks, helicopters and anti-aircraft missiles. The rugs date from the 1980s to the present day, with phases of conflict represented through the inclusion of Soviet, Pakistani and US flags, and the gradual replacement of tanks with drones. The effect is chilling, showing how conflict can literally be woven into the fabric of a society.
Similar themes exist in the art — ranging from poetry to painting and embroidery — made in the refugee villages within Pakistan today. And new voices are opting in to preserve sanity and identity in times of violence and upheaval. A few years ago, Manizha, a young Afghan woman forced to flee the Taliban and seek refuge in Pakistan, made news for her paintings, including a series depicting the plight of Afghan women living under Taliban rule. As thousands of Afghans are forced across the border, art and other modes of cultural production will seem low among their hierarchy of needs. But this human instinct to create and narrate trauma must be supported. Let’s hope political progress improves the refugees’ predicament, giving them space to process the experience.
The writer is a political and integrity risk analyst.
X: @humayusuf
Published in Dawn, October 27th, 2025