Posted on 10/10/2005 12:59:07 PM PDT by lainie
It looks like a spaceship that has landed on the wrong planet. It is Afghanistan's very first shopping mall, gleaming with shops while on the dusty road outside people pump water and grim soldiers drive by in armoured vehicles.
The mall, which opened here this month, offers a lesson in contrast. It also boasts another first for Afghanistan, an escalator, which customers can use to reach upper floors - if they dare.
"People are afraid of the escalator. They are amazed to see something moving by itself," says Anwar Hussein, manager of the hotel that shares a nine-storey building with the shopping centre.
Mall director and co-owner Habib Safi is confident that visitors will not only use the centre to escape the city's harsh climate but will also spend money in its 90 shops.
"You have to take risks," the businessman said.
Shop proprietors who have leased space in the mall also believe in the newly emerging shopping frenzy.
"It is nice to shop here. The markets outside are dusty," said shop owner Abdul Kasim.
[snip]
The mall owners, who are already planning on expanding their retail empire beyond the city, could not agree more with Fatah.
Habib Safi plans to erect two skyscrapers with an incorporated shopping mall in the western Afghan town of Herat. In his office hang blueprints for the structures, which are to be called the Twin Towers.
Christening the Herat towers after their New York counterparts, whose destruction was plotted by Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, is not at all tasteless, argues one of Safi's employees.
"The difference is that our towers won't collapse," he smirks.
(Excerpt) Read more at newkerala.com ...
Hope they have plenty of reliable security.
Eat your heart out, Beverly Hills.
You're welcome you POS.
What a disgusting comment.
...our towers won't collapse...
And the Titanic was unsinkable.
It's very hard to fathom that guy's arrogance and ignorance. We keep being told over and over that (the extremely wealthy) Bin Laden hates us in large part because of our wealth, yet these businessmen bringing the Great Satan into Herat will be immune? Gee, why is that?
I was thinking the same.
21st century meets the middle ages.
For that you would need an aircraft to run into them.
And it would have been right about that time that I slapped him.
I don't blame them for being afraid of the escalator. Catch the hem of one of those burkas in the escalator, and someone will fall flat and get hurt!
Their towers won't collapse yet the locals are afraid of escalators since they have never seen anything move by itself.
In other news, Afghanistan has perfected cold fusion but three citizens died of fright when they saw an office worker attach two papers with a stapler.
Disgusted ping.
might have to page the special ops for that snotty comment.
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