Afghan exiles find snowboarding freedom in France

LA ROSIERE, France: Snowboarders Musawer Khanzai and Nasima Zirak used to drag themselves up the thick snowy slopes of Afghanistan’s Hindu Kush mountains on foot before basking in the “freedom” of gliding back down.

But the return of the puritanical Taliban to power in Afghanistan put an end to their dreams and sent them fleeing into exile amid death threats, with the new rulers condemning the “Western” practice. “Snowboarding was a reason for me to survive,” Khanzai told AFP from France, where he has lived for the last two years.

“And it’s a motivation for me to keep up (boarding), although I lost everything back in the country,” he lamented of his homeland, more than 5,000-kms away. Khanzai grew up in Kabul. He was 18 in August 2021 when the United States pulled its troops out of Afghanistan, leading to the rapid collapse of the Afghan National Security Forces and the Taliban’s feared return to power following two decades of bloody guerrilla insurgency.

At that time, Khanzai was part of a small band of around 20 enthusiastic amateur Afghan boarders. Their vast playground was the imposing Hindu Kush range with its towering peaks of more than 6,000 metres above sea level.

Snowboarding in Afghanistan was a labour of love, though, due to a lack of winter sports infrastructure, or even instructors, meaning that enthusiasts would have to hike up mountains to ride the slopes, using techniques they had learnt by watching Youtube videos.

The effort was worth it for “the freedom when you get on the snow”, said Khanzai. Before the return of the Taliban, snowboarding provided respite in a country that even then was unstable and violent. “Sport has always been aimed for peace, not for war,” said Khanzai. A chance meeting with French professional snowboarder Victor Daviet at an international competition in Pakistan would eventually lead to their exile to France.