Afghan Arnies gripped by bodybuilding craze

KABUL (AFP) ― Beneath a poster in a Kabul gym of muscular U.S. movie star and politician Arnold Schwarzenegger, scores of young Afghan men are pumping iron to Western dance music and dreaming of looking like their idol.

The urban youths, sporting spiky hair and tight T-shirts, have few memories of the oppressive Taliban regime ousted in 2001 by a U.S.-led invasion, and grew up in a city where many people have grown rich on the war economy.

They love Hollywood and Bollywood movies ― Sylvester Stallone and Salman Khan are other popular stars ― and spend hours in Kabul’s roughly 200 gyms honing their biceps to perfection.

“I don’t care what’s happening in the world,” 18-year-old Hamid tells AFP, taking a break from his weights. “I want to look good and party, man. I want to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger ... it’s my dream to look like him.”

It is all a far cry from the days of the hardline Islamist Taliban, who now lead a bloody insurgency against foreign troops and President Hamid Karzai’s government.

While in power, the Taliban banned most sports and all music but allowed bodybuilding on condition that men wore traditional dress while training.

However, there is a dark side to the recent craze for bodybuilding.

As more young Kabulis hit the gyms, the market for steroids in Afghanistan is growing fast.

In a country where the government struggles to exert authority in many areas due to the fierce insurgency, there is no licensing regime for drugs, meaning youngsters can buy steroids with no restrictions.

Hamid, who does not want to give his surname, admits to using performance-enhancing drugs and says many of his friends do too.

Another gym user, Waheedullah, adds that it is easy to get hold of steroids.

“All you have to do is go to a pharmacy and say you need to build your muscles. The pharmacists would happily offer you various types of tablets, powders and vials,” he says, stressing he himself does not use them.

The most popular place to buy the drugs is Kabul’s Bush Bazaar, a huge outdoor market selling everything from pilfered military rations to knives.

The bazaar is named ironically after U.S. former president George W. Bush, who ordered the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.

Here, prices range from around $1 to around $25 for performance-enhancing drugs.

One shop owner in the bazaar, Zalmay, has shelves stacked with different types of bodybuilding supplements and powders in his cramped store, where an international cricket match plays on television in the background.

He denies selling steroids but says that other vendors often do.

“Steroids are not illegal ― I don’t sell them but some vendors here keep the vials and tablets,” he explains.

“However, they only sell them to gym trainers, not to everybody. Then the trainers will give them to some athletes.”

The rising use of steroids causes concern among officials, who say they will take steps soon to address it.

Mujeeb Ul Rahman Rahmani, spokesman for Afghanistan’s National Olympic Committee, the official body responsible for all sports-related issues, said it would launch an educational campaign on steroid abuse “in the near future.”

The older generation of bodybuilders also bemoans the use of drugs.

“It is a matter of serious concern because this trend is rising among our young athletes,” said Bawar Hotak, head of Afghanistan’s bodybuilding federation and a former national bodybuilding champion.

But experts say it is unlikely officials will be able to stop the use of drugs which goes with bodybuilding as young Afghans try to emulate the Western attitudes to which they have increasingly been exposed since 2001.

“This is a generation that wants to catch up with the rest of the world,” says Barayalai Fetrat, a sociology lecturer at Kabul University.

“Bodybuilding is a sport that is allowed in society but it is also something that links them to a world beyond Afghanistan.”