The Finest Hotel in Kabul Analysis – A Monument to Afghan Fortitude

So catastrophic has the last half century of Afghan history been that it is simple to overlook how rich the country’s culture once was. Mughal rulers always viewed it as a much more refined place than India and turned to it as the origin of the area's finest artists and poets, calligraphers and miniaturists, architects and tile makers. As recently as the early 1970s, at the height of the hippy trail, as Afghanistan was crowded with travellers "intoxicated by cannabis and low on cash", Kabul was still known as the Eastern Paris. Memoirs of the time depict a realm of miniskirts, jazz clubs, bowling lanes and ice-cream parlours. This society was linked to a impoverished but exceptionally scenic countryside where existence centered on the grape picking and the yearly coming of nomadic groups from the Wakhan region.

A Peek into Afghanistan's Past

A quick flick through guidebooks of the time reveals an Afghanistan vastly distinct from today: of royal levees and fashion shows and post-ski dining spots. Facing a photo of a gargantuan mound of melons – "tasty Afghan produce are a treat for travellers" – you’d see a picture of "a visitor and his hunting group in the Pamir mountains with a Marco Polo argali". Most poignant of all are images of the priceless treasures of the National Museum of Afghanistan, nearly all which are now lost or ruined, after plundering during the mujahideen takeover of Kabul in the 1990s and the destruction of what was left by the Taliban in 2001.

The InterContinental: The Top Hotel

In such guidebooks, there was just one spot to stay: the Intercon. This is "the best accommodation in Kabul" of foreign correspondent the author's charming and often surprising memoir. "The InterContinental", as it was known, was a symbol of elegance where Paris couturiers opened fashionable boutiques and Italian hairstylists competed with their rival salons. Renowned Afghan singing stars such as the "Elvis of Afghanistan" lounged near the pool while his Afghan Vogue-model girlfriend shimmied past in her bikini. In the night, guests could decide whether to drink Afghan cognac in the Nuristan cocktail lounge, dine on escargots in the Pamir restaurant or attend the yearly Miss Afghanistan pageant contest in the grand hall, followed by moving to Gloria Gaynor in the basement discotheque.

Doucet acknowledges that the Intercon Kabul, "a pale structure of concrete and metal", was always, from its inauguration in 1969, "an iridescent bubble floating above the city’s cares". She even hints that the kind of libertine Western progress that the hotel represented, and the graft that funded it in what was still among the most impoverished nations in the world, was partly responsible for fueling grievances that ultimately resulted in catastrophic and brutal responses – first communist, then Islamist. However, the author manages in making the hotel an unexpectedly effective framework for a comprehensive social history of Afghanistan over the past five decades and a moving symbol of its extraordinary capacity to endure whatever horrors fate has cast upon it.

A Tale of Endurance

The book opens shortly after the U.S. leader has pulled the plug on US military assistance, with a description of the tragic disintegration of a 2021 nuptial celebration in the hotel. The report comes that the Afghan president has escaped the country and the Taliban are at the city’s gates. Attendees disperse as a Taliban pickup is seen trundling up the slope to the building; the bride starts crying and Naeem, tells the groom: "Console your wife! If you fail to be brave today you will continually let down her."

Doucet then doubles back to the 1969 inauguration during the glory days of the royal reign, as Kabul pullulated with clubs and the InterContinental welcomed black-tie dinners in the only cold war city where Western and Soviet officials routinely invited each other to their gatherings. We trace the venue through two consecutive overthrows, the assassinations of three presidents in two years, the Soviet invasion, the successful mujahideen resistance and the rise of the extremists. Miraculously, during all this, the establishment manages to remain open.

What sustains the book is the author's emphasis on the ordinary Afghans who keep the place going despite the bombardment, missiles, suicide bombs and periodic killings of both employees and visitors. These are terrible affairs: during the era between the two Taliban regimes, three successive suicide squads broke through rings of hotel security to maraud along the visitor levels, firing at patrons, throwing grenades down staircases after fleeing staff, shooting cupboards full of hiding waiters with machine gun fire.

Now, regardless of all, the building remains a testament to Afghan resilience and to the bravery and determination of its team. In the author, and her witty, observant and sometimes heartbreaking book, they have found a fitting historian.