Soundwaves of Dissent: Resistance Through Persianate Cultural Production in Afghanistan

Abstract

In the decades of the 1960s and 1970s, sound recording technologies—including radio and cassettes—proliferated in Afghanistan and reached transnational lengths. While the state came to dominate these technologies, it could not prevent users from circumventing its censors with alternative perspectives and discourses. This article highlights the examples of Farīda ʿUsmān Anwarī, a noted radio announcer, producer, and journalist, and Aḥmad Ẓāhir, Afghanistan's most popular musical icon to date, to showcase the ways in which the Persianate literary canon served as the medium for sounding dissent amid the changing social and political dynamics of the time. Pushing the boundaries of recorded speech created an alternative space where dissent became possible and the strategic use of mass media paved the way for transnational sonic solidarities among a diverse community of listeners across the Persian-speaking world and beyond.