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Popular Culture Review
when contacting the ground."^ The new breed of landmines made it possible to
deploy them en mass. Consequently the new landmine technology changed the
nature in which landmines were used. From their initial use as a tactical weapon
on battlefields, landmines were used in diverse terrains to diminish the
movements of opposing forces and for channelling them in adverse a re a s.T h e
new scatterable type of landmines were time efficient and easier to deploy than
manually planted landmines."^ Furthermore, their deployment supplanted the
traditional view of landmines as a defensive weapon to an offensive weapon of
terror.”^ Increasingly, scatterables and hand-deployed mines were used against
civilian populations: to terrorize communities, to displace entire villages, to
render fertile agricultural land unusable, and to destroy national infrastructures
(like roads, bridges, and water sources.)"^
From a Foucaultian perspective, the evolution of landmines traces the
history of twentieth century bio-power and its concern with dominating
subjectivity. Similarly, Horkheimer writes that the tie between technological
progress and new forms of dominance over nature, lead to “the elimination of all
dimensions of “spirit”."^ “Men have to pay for man’s domination of inhuman
nature by denying the nature within them”'^
Disruptured Landscapes: Afghanistan
At this point 1 will introduce George Gittoes’ paintings as a way of
unpacking the tie between body and land and the effect which landmines, as a
form of bio-power, have had on the Afghan people.
The Yellow Room (Afghanistan 1999)
One painting from the ‘Minefields’ series titled The Yellow Room
epitomises the stark reality of landmines in Afghanistan. The painting depicts a
young man called Abdul Qadir lying on a bed. His outstretched body is reduced
to a mere skeleton. Only his large sombre eyes are transfixed towards the
viewer. The image of an emaciated body with abdomen exposed and legs
hanging at the body’s side Juxtaposes Abdul Qadir, reinforcing the pathetic
attitude of the painting. The two converging bodies may be suggested to
symbolise the progressive emasculation of the Afghan people. Gittoes writes
how on June 19, 1999, Abdul Qadir and his older brother were walking with
their wheat-laden donkey, when the animal stepped on a mine. The force of the
blast spilled Abdul Qadir’s intestines to the ground. He sustained permanent
paralysis.
For the Afghan people the landmine has sinister significance. During
the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, landmines were planted
indiscriminately over most of the country. This practice was continued through
years of civil upheaval by Taleban, Northern Alliance, and United States forces,
resulting in the contamination of grazing and irrigation areas. According to the
Human Rights Watch Backgrounder, unexploded landmines, “commonly known
as unexploded ordinance (UXO) contaminate at least 724 million square meters