RASC News Agency: The Taliban-controlled municipality in Mazar-i-Sharif, the capital of Balkh province, has demolished a public square named after Khalilullah Khalili, one of Afghanistan’s most distinguished Persian-language poets. According to local sources, the demolition took place on Saturday morning, with no official statement on the fate of the site. This action aligns with the Taliban’s broader strategy of erasing historical, cultural, and political symbols linked to Afghanistan’s past figures. Khalilullah Khalili, a literary icon of modern Persian poetry, was a poet, writer, and philosopher whose works encapsulated themes of patriotism, love, and social justice.
Renowned across the Persian-speaking world, his poetry continues to resonate with audiences in Afghanistan and beyond. Born in 1907 in Kabul, he witnessed the turbulent history of his homeland before passing away in Islamabad in 1987. Over the past two and a half years, the Taliban’s aggressive linguistic and cultural policies have targeted Persian-language heritage, systematically dismantling monuments, renaming streets, and erasing landmarks associated with Persian-speaking communities, particularly those of Tajik descent.
The demolition of Khalili Square in Balkh exemplifies a broader pattern: while the Taliban actively erase the legacies of Persian-speaking intellectuals, they have conspicuously preserved, and even glorified, figures with histories of tyranny, foreign allegiance, or notoriety. This selective historical revisionism underscores a calculated effort to marginalize Persian linguistic and cultural identity in Afghanistan, while simultaneously reinforcing ideological narratives aligned with the Taliban’s ethno-political agenda.
