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Ghazni, in south-east of country, looks for foreign help in effort to become Islamic capital of culture in 2013 If there was a prize for the world’s most ambitious, and least likely, cultural festival then the one planned for Ghazni in two years would be a serious contender. The scruffy city sits in a sea of insurgency in south-east Afghanistan. What remains of its once magnificent cultural heritage is rapidly disintegrating. The last tourist to visit the place – a mysterious young Canadian – was kidnapped by the Taliban and has only been seen in a video from the hardliners threatening to put him on trial for “spying”. But these are mere “minor problems”, says Musa Khan, the redoubtable governor of Ghazni province. Nothing will dampen his enthusiasm for Ghazni 2013, as the place will be known when it takes on the mantle of “Islamic capital of culture”. The honour is bestowed by the Organisation of the Islamic Conference . In 2006, Ghazni must have seemed a bold, but not bad, choice. Once a great centre of Islamic power and culture, it is home to two giant minarets and ancient palaces built when the city was the capital of the Ghaznavid state, an empire that once encompassed Iran, Afghanistan and much of north India. Since 2006 though, the Taliban insurgency has taken hold in the region, and the city’s chronic state of disrepair will take some fixing. “We will be advising the opposition that the city will be named a city of Islam so if they attack our city they are attacking religion also,” Khan warns. He says the city will have no difficulty attracting a flow of about 600 domestic and international visitors a day for the year-long jamboree. Whether he gets the additional resources he says he needs is another matter. Khan’s 2013 wish list involves 57 miles (92km) of surfaced road within the city, a fully functioning electricity grid, bus stations, a sports stadium, a proper sewage system, hotels, airport, a cold storage facility and public parks running along both sides of the river that will “give a very beautiful scene”. Khan also wants a £19.5m “expo centre” complete with theatre, library and an exhibition hall. It is just one element of a preposterously ambitious scheme that Afghan officials have costed at £122m. In one of the world’s poorest countries that raises barely £730m in tax revenues, there is scant chance of the Afghans paying for it themselves. Khan is hoping that foreigners, perhaps from the United Arab Emirates, might fill the gap. Officials at the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) are clear they are not paying for anything, and they believe many of the “wacky things on the governor’s wish list” will not come to pass. “We are not doing the hotel,” Colonel John McKee, a US official at the Ghazni PRT, said after a frustrating session trying to pin down the programme. At issue was Afghan hopes for a four, or possible five, star hotel on top of the ancient citadel. Nonetheless, they are supporting the governor’s quixotic mission to host a massive cultural jamboree in the name of Islam. “Even if Ghazni is still covered in scaffolding by the time people arrive it is still going to be a win for security,” says McKee. “The Taliban is not going to blow up the shrine of Mas’ud.” Perhaps most in need of protection are the town’s two giant minarets, or “victory towers”, that jut out of a brown wilderness on the edge of the city. Built in the 12th century by Ghaznavid kings, they once stood 44m tall, and were similar to the famous Minaret of Jam in western Afghanistan. Today, they are surrounded by a graveyard of old Soviet military ordnance. Their foundations are in “very, very bad condition” says one western archaeologist, not least as locals steal the bricks for their own homes. Much needs to be done to repair the old city, which contains some abandoned and hauntingly beautiful mosques. The ancient mud walls are in terrible shape, undermined by erosion. Earlier this year, one of the 36 giant towers that braced a section of the walls gave way, sending mud and bricks cascading down onto the makeshift shops below. Whether or not Ghazni 2013 is a success, or even happens, will depend not on infrastructure or conservation, but security. Some Americans in the province scorn the Polish unit that leads the Nato effort here. “Quite simply they do not want to be here,” says one who has observed them close. “And they don’t like going out and getting shot at.” Another jokes that with the establishment of a parallel PRT run by the US, the initials should really stand for “Polish Rescue Team”. Musa Khan will almost certainly have to lower his expectations. “If we get a hundred people down for a day in 2013 we’ll be pleased,” says a US official. “But the US will have to get them in and out and stop them from getting killed.” Afghanistan Islam Religion Jon Boone guardian.co.uk