Buzkashi, Or Quidditch, Kabul-Style

http://www.dangerousminds.net/index.php/site/comments/buzkashi_or_quidditch_kabul-style/

Buzkashi, Or Quidditch, Kabul-Style
11.18.2009
Bradley Novicoff

“Bloody, barbaric, free-for-all,” or the must-see ticket for the 2012 London Olympics? Welcome to the wonderful and frightening world of Buzkashi, a sport which, thanks to our prior scrubbing of the Taliban from Afghanistan, is now bigger than ever:

Is the world ready for a sport played with a headless goat carcass? Haji Abdul Rashid thinks it is and has big plans: corporate sponsors, television rights and beyond. “We want it to become an Olympic sport,” says Rashid, who heads the Buzkashi Federation.

To understand how ambitious — even crazy — this is, consider the game. Buzkashi, which means “goat grabbing,” is a violent sport with virtually no rules. Players, called chapandaz, gallop at breakneck speed over a dusty field, fighting over a dead animal without a head. Once dominated by powerful warlords or tribal leaders, buzkashi is attracting a new generation of businessmen who are using the game to meet contacts and get clients, explains Said Maqsud, who owns a Kabul-based security company that employs more than 1,000 people. “That is a new concept,” Maqsud says. “Now businessmen like me can be involved.”

Rashid knows the game needs to be standardized to export the sport, played principally in Afghanistan and some Central Asian countries. Previous efforts to impose consistent rules have gone nowhere. The game has no rounds or time limits. Galloping horses regularly spill off the field, sending terrified spectators running for safety. Some games are played with 12-man teams; others are scored individually with hundreds of horses careening around the field. “It’s very violent,” says Maqsud, who also has seven buzkashi horses. “Animal rights activists wouldn’t like it.”.

If you conclude this sport might not be right for you due to it’s lack of things, like, “rules,” there is a key regulation: when you’re carrying the headless, 100 pound goat carcass down the field toward the circle of chalk, you may whip ONLY the horses. Because it often results in broken bones and trampling, the whipping of other players is strongly discouraged!