Cover Saleh Sepas (Photo: Daniel Adams)
Saleh Sepas (Photo: Daniel Adams)
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Tatler's Asia's Most Influential 2022 honouree and founder of Parastoo Theatre is empowering refugees through the performing arts
It was 2002 when Saleh Sepas joined the faculty of fine arts in Kabul University. According to the Afghan playwright and director, despite the country having a population of over 35 million, he was one of only 30 students who enrolled for the major.
In the 1990s, Kabul University was one of the major battlegrounds of the Afghan Civil War; the department of fine arts in particular was bombed. The damage done to the faculty’s interior was extensive—while reconstruction was underway when the university reopened its doors a year later, the soot and debris left by artillery shells were a stark reminder of the war, which continues till today.
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Under Taliban rule, the arts sector was heavily restricted. The production of books, music, and art were affected. Instruments were destroyed. Historically significant statues and paintings were removed. Any form of entertainment was prohibited, including television, radio, and dance. The artists' creative process was greatly hampered.
The effect of this continued even after the Taliban left in the early 2000s: The Afghan society, war-scarred, turned away from the arts to focus on science, business, law, and education.
But that didn't stop Sepas from pursuing theatre. If anything, it just made the aspiring playwright work harder to prove to society that the arts were just as important to society as other fields. After a stint as a playwright and director for several local theatre projects, he worked with BBC Radio for eight years. His focus then was on women's rights issues and the push for gender equality.
In 2016, however, Sepas and his family were forced to leave their home when the situation in Afghanistan became too volatile.
In this exclusive, Tatler's Asia's Most Influential 2022 honouree Sepas shares his story, from picking himself up at his lowest point to taking a leap of faith, this is how one man and a community of refugees have built an internationally renowned platform.
Above Saleh Sepas (Photo: Courtesy of Parastoo Theatre)
Saleh Sepas (Photo: Courtesy of Parastoo Theatre)
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Why did you choose theatre as your major when it wasn't a popular choice in Afghanistan?
I wanted to do something different. I believe that art can affect change—look at the marvels that were created during the Renaissance period. Art plays a huge role in the history of humankind, and can be meaningful because you don't just create for yourself but for the community as well. Afghan society has always regarded the arts with negative connotations but I wanted to reignite their belief in the arts.
What do you miss most about home?
The people, of course. And the fruits! I used to go to the open market in Kabul—they had apples, melons... somehow, they taste different from the ones in Malaysia. They were sweeter.
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Above The young performers at Parastoo Theatre (Photo: Courtesy of Parastoo Theatre)
Above Sepas' daughter Shamim is also a performer at Parastoo Theatre (Photo: Courtesy of Parastoo Theatre)
The young performers at Parastoo Theatre (Photo: Courtesy of Parastoo Theatre)
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Why did you establish Parastoo Theatre in 2017?
It was when I saw the look in my wife’s eyes—she wasn’t the same after what we went through. It frightened me. So I asked myself then, "What can I do to turn my life around for my family? What role can I play to support my community?"
Then, I thought about my strengths, and the things I learned as a professional in Afghanistan. This was how the idea for Parastoo Theatre came about.
Above Masooma Sepas (right) works as a teacher for a refugee school and is one of Parastoo Theatre's performers (Photo: Courtesy of Parastoo Theatre)
Masooma Sepas (right) works as a teacher for a refugee school and is one of Parastoo Theatre's performers (Photo: Courtesy of Parastoo Theatre)
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What challenges did you face in the beginning?
The main issue was getting funded. No one, not even the refugee community, believed that Parastoo Theatre would go anywhere. Because the refugees already had so much on their plate, whether it's the lack of a stable income or the emotional instabilities they face at home, it was understandable that they thought having a community centre for the arts would be a waste of time.
I didn’t have money for transport at the time, not even for buses, so I would walk for 40 minutes from where I was staying to Ampang Point. While I didn’t have a laptop, I had my phone, which I used to write my scripts and organised everything. When my children were still very young, my wife and I would carry them as we walked to Parastoo Theatre.
This is why, after three months of reaching out to the refugee community, only six people joined. Getting the refugees to focus and participate was also a challenge because of how stressful their daily lives were. Society forgets that refugees are also people with dreams, that they were once doctors, educators, IT professionals and engineers.
When your life becomes one of survival, there's this immense pressure. So much so that a lot of them end up having issues with their mental and physical health.
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Being a refugee, we have no real way of planning a future. We can’t enrol our children in international schools, nor can we get any stable jobs to provide for our families. And even though we aren’t imprisoned, the label of being a refugee itself can feel like it because you’re forced to stay in one place, waiting for the moment home becomes safe again to back to.
Back at [Afghanistan], I had a great job, I was successful, and I had a happy family. But when we were forced to leave, I was at rock bottom—I was unable to get a job because I was afraid of being jailed, and I couldn't provide for my family. We stayed with other refugees in a very small and dark room when we first arrived to Malaysia. We made pillows from our clothes.
It was a dehumanising experience with how we were alienated and cut off from the world. The refugee community didn't have a lot of human interaction because of what we were.
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Considering the challenges, why did you stick with it?
It gave me something to look forward to. Even if the future was uncertain, why should I let that stop me from taking charge of my own life today? The future will only disappear if we let life pass us by without any plan or anything to do.
I believed that Parastoo Theatre would work as it was a new lease in life for myself and the refugee community. It was something to do, but that 'something' wasn’t for profit. It was to give the people around me an opportunity to share their stories with the world. To be able to facilitate that emotional exchange and see our audience react to it is what drives me to work even harder.
What can we expect from Parastoo Theatre’s works then?
Our stories are from the heart. From issues about human rights, domestic violence and child marriage, all of the details for our performances are collected from the community’s personal experiences, making them more relatable and memorable. Some have told me that they still remembered the show we put on three years ago, and that made me so happy because our stories were able to touch people on a deeper emotional level.
Read more: 3 powerful allies helping refugees thrive in Asia
Above Children playing in Kabul (Photo: Sohaib Ghyasi/Unsplash)
Children playing in Kabul (Photo: Sohaib Ghyasi/Unsplash)
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Were you afraid that it would fail?
I think knowing that I have a responsibility as a fellow human being outweighs my fear. Take away the labels, what am I but human. This is why I continue to do what I do. Every person plays a role, and if I don’t do it, who will? What I am and who I am don't matter in the grand scheme of things, so even when the challenge is so big that it’s terrifying, I have to do something. We all do.
What can we look forward to from Parastoo Theatre?
At the moment, we're doing two projects. The first is Riwayat: Living Archives of Freedom, a three-part programme for refugees that includes a Theatre of the Oppressed workshop (a method pioneered by the late theatre practitioner Augusto Boal that allows its audience to participate in a play’s narrative) to help uplift them, plus creative writing classes and performance arts training.
The second is our biggest performance yet. It’s called The Red Soil of Kabul and focuses on the humanitarian disaster in the wake of Kabul’s recapture by the Taliban in 2021. This will be staged on August 11-13, 2023, at the Damansara Performing Arts Centre.
To know more about 'The Red Soil of Kabul', visit www.patreon.com/posts/red-soil-of-help-76584194, or call +6011 2149 7353.
Usually found at home and one with her couch, Koy Yi would either crack open a good book or game in her spare time to wind down after a long day. She also loves to scour art conventions and book fairs alike when she's able, collecting art books of all regions to gain inspiration for her own illustrations. With a keen interest in people and the stories they tell, she enjoys a good talk and a good laugh (preferably over food). Follow her on her Instagram @peiyi57.
