BLACK FANTA
In April 2011 I began the portrait project, BLACK FANTA, about the Afghan National Security Forces in the Helmand Province.
In Afghanistan Coca Cola is called a Black Fanta. The Fanta was the first soft drink to be imported into Afghanistan and when Coca Cola was later introduced, the Afghans decided to call it Black Fanta. This speaks volumes about the Afghans’ practical approach to everyday life – and not least about the situation that many Afghans are facing: The illiteracy rate in Afghanistan is over 80 percent. Among police, some 90 percent are unable to read or write. Few Afghans can read the name of a soft drink. Therefore, they find alternative solutions – both linguistically and in everyday life.
Since 2001, when the war against the Taliban and al-Qaida started in Afghanistan, there seems to have been a lack of focus on the Afghan security forces, which played an ever increasing role in the conflict during the war, and are now left to fight the war alone.
Afghan soldiers and police come from all provinces in Afghanistan and many factors play a role in their decision to sign up and in determining which branch of the Afghan Security Forces they end up in.
They all decide to leave their families to take part in the conflict on the side of the Afghan government. Some stay for months at the same small checkpoint living only with a few other policemenand no contact to their families.Others board a plane in the capital Kabul only to find out later that their destination is the Helmand Province, one of the worst parts of the war-torn country. They receive three weeks of training before they are sent to the front lines of the war.
