Comrade Fatima: "I went to Taverna several times when I was in Kabul last year, for the hummus and the chocolate cake, for the convivial atmosphere. It’s the violence in Kabul that makes the news, but before last Friday Taverna represented another side of the city. Expats go to restaurants like Taverna to feel as if they are somewhere else, an option not available to the vast majority of the residents of the war-torn city. Taverna was often full of locals, but a lot of the restaurants in Kabul won’t let you in unless you show a foreign passport at the door. The armed guard at another popular place once told me I needn’t worry because they didn’t let Afghans in. I asked him what he meant. ‘I didn’t mean to offend you,’ he said. ‘I just meant that you could enjoy your evening without worrying about Afghans bothering you.’
Aside from the injustice of it, the segregation leads to suspicion. Most Afghans – poor before, even poorer since the Nato occupation – couldn’t afford to eat at these places even if they were allowed through the double-gated doors. Taxi drivers go in circles trying to find the often unmarked restaurants; chauffeurs are told to wait in their cars as their expat employers dine inside the fortified walls. Afghans would ask me: ‘What is it like inside that place? What do you do there?’ After the Taverna massacre, the Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid issued a statement claiming responsibility for the attack on the ‘hotel’."
Aside from the injustice of it, the segregation leads to suspicion. Most Afghans – poor before, even poorer since the Nato occupation – couldn’t afford to eat at these places even if they were allowed through the double-gated doors. Taxi drivers go in circles trying to find the often unmarked restaurants; chauffeurs are told to wait in their cars as their expat employers dine inside the fortified walls. Afghans would ask me: ‘What is it like inside that place? What do you do there?’ After the Taverna massacre, the Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid issued a statement claiming responsibility for the attack on the ‘hotel’."
