Opinion Ban on chess in Afghanistan: Only the brave may play

Courage, one might imagine, is for an actual combat zone. Not for a game that is, ultimately, only a small-scale simulacrum of a battlefield, with all its strategies and sacrifices. Not so in Afghanistan, it seems, where, following a “temporary suspension” ordered by the Taliban authorities, chess is a game that only the bravest might play.

Afghanistan’s chess-playing community has been here before. The game had been banned under the previous Taliban regime that seized power in 1996. Now, as then, the Taliban sees chess as a means of gambling. For Afghanistan’s 500-plus community of chess players, however, it was a hard-won link to the wider world, a pathway to prestige and a better life that has now been severed. It was also a reminder of a time, a few decades ago, when the sight of two people absorbed in a game of chess was a common one across Afghanistan. From the sunlit streetside cafes of Kabul to house parties, a chequered board with the accompanying 32 pieces could be relied on for a diversion, even as a community of serious players, supported by the state, competed in tournaments at home and abroad. Following the ouster of the first Taliban government after the US invasion in 2001, chess made a return, with at least four FIDE-rated events in the country taking place in the last two years.

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The use of the word “temporary” has fooled no one, especially as no timeline for lifting the ban has been announced, with many professional players leaving the country even before the latest edict. Since the Taliban came back to power in 2021, Afghanistan has been forced to take many steps back, particularly when it comes to the rights of girls and women. The ban on chess is a further regression, with yet another simple freedom taken away from those who have already lost so many of their basic rights and liberties.