http://www.usatoday.com/news/offbeat/2009-11-18-afghan-goat_N.htm
Afghan players on horseback fight for control of a carcass during a
game on November 6 in Kabul, Afghanistan.
By Majid Saeedi, Getty Images
In Afghanistan, galloping to get one's goat
By Jim Michaels, USA TODAY
KABUL - 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.
Buzkashi is undergoing a renaissance in Afghanistan since the Taliban
regime was ousted from power by U.S. forces in 2001. There are more games,
players and spectators than ever before. Rashid says he has already contacted
some Olympic officials.
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."
A spokesman for the International Olympic Committee, Mark Adams, said he
was not aware of any overtures from buzkashi officials. He said there might be
concerns that the sport is not widely known and has no governing body that
regulates it.
"I'm not sure it's a universal sport," Adams said.
Some players eliminated - permanently
Afghans love the game. On a recent Friday on the outskirts of Kabul,
spectators begin arriving midmorning to watch a practice match. An old man
sells peanuts from a wheelbarrow. A policeman sits on the hood of his car, his
AK-47 across his knees.
The object of the game is to carry the carcass, which can weigh as much
as 100 pounds, toward the other end of the field and around a flag before
heading back to drop it in a circle marked with chalk. Players occasionally end
up with broken bones or even trampled to death.
It looks like chaos and pretty much is.
Unlike polo, which has elaborate rules to protect horses and riders,
buzkashi has few regulations. One rule: Whips are to be used only on horses.
"You cannot hit the other chapandaz," says Haji Ameen, 29, a rider who also
sponsors a team in Kabul.
The carcass originally was a goat but calves are more common now because
they are sturdier and more readily available.
The game may seem simple, but to ride at top speed while hanging on to a
heavy carcass by its hind leg and maneuvering away from other riders takes
strength, courage and riding skill.
A single referee runs around the field with a megaphone to announce when
a rider scores - and tries to avoid getting trampled. Color commentary is
provided by another man on horseback who rides up to the reviewing stand.
At the Kabul match, 73-year-old Habibullah, who like many Afghans goes by
only one name, praises the chapandaz after a score, as well as the owner of the
horse, often in flowery prose.
After scoring, riders are handed a cash prize, which they tuck into their
tunics before riding back onto the field. On this day, the prize is the
equivalent of about $80, but awards can be more than $1,000 for prominent
matches.
The money is supplied by sponsors, usually politicians or businessmen,
who are dutifully praised by Habibullah.
Taliban tried to tame national pastime
Buzkashi's history parallels the nation's. It was popular in the 1960s,
under King Zahir Shah, when it was played under government sponsorship.
The Taliban, which banned nearly every other form of amusement in
Afghanistan, was unable to abolish the game entirely. It managed to thrive in
the mountainous north, under the control of powerful anti-Taliban commanders.
Elsewhere in Afghanistan, the Taliban imposed a rule that prevented the
use of a carcass, allowing only the skins of calves or goats stuffed with
straw. The Taliban considered it sinful to kill an animal without using its
meat. Buzkashi enthusiasts, such as Rashid, still speak bitterly of that era.
The stuffed skins easily tore apart.
More recently, buzkashi played a role in the Afghan election. One of the
game's largest patrons in Kabul is Mohammad Qasim Fahim, a vice president and a
controversial figure because of his background as a notorious warlord. He
sponsors many matches, which isn't lost on the audiences.
"That's why he got so many votes for (President Hamid) Karzai," Rashid
says.
The game's recent boom in popularity gives Rashid hope that buzkashi can
attract a world audience. He imagines exhibition games in Europe and big
corporate sponsors. Rashid says players would even be willing to play with an
artificial leather carcass if an international audience objects to a dead calf
or goat.
And to those who complain about the game's violence, Rashid has a ready
response: "What about professional wrestling? Why is that acceptable
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