Afghanistan – The People’s December Review
December 27, 2010 by
Filed under Journey Updates
Afghanistan – The People’s December Review
December 25, 2010
Abdulai
Afghanistan – The People’s December Review
December 25, 2010
In the first person voice of Abdulai, a fifteen year old Afghan boy whose father was killed by the Taliban:
“The place where I live is the worst place on earth in which to be born[1]. Good thing my mother survived her pregnancies[2]. But my father — he didn’t survive the war. Isn’t it strange that there is a graveyard marked out especially for children in my small remote mountain village? A quarter of all children do not live beyond five years of age[3] and they are buried there; we already have to find new space because the graveyard is filled. As 42 percent of Afghans live in poverty[4], my family could not afford a proper grave for my father for five years. My father would have understood our predicament: in a land with the worst food risk in the world[5], we make do with whatever food and clean water[6] we can get. Since we don’t have electricity[7], we are grateful for diesel lamps. And most importantly, my father would have understood that we still struggle to stay away from the killings.
Since War World II, wars have killed mainly civilians[8] and this war in Afghanistan is no exception. In fact, we now have nowhere to turn[9] and nowhere to hide[10]. We face night raids[11], computerized aerial bombings[12] and the armed players who neither recognize our language nor our faces.
Many of our families and friends have sought refuge in far-away places[13]. What can our people do? Wait to die of sickness or violence? Be pawns in the warlords’ games? I made hand-sewn leather cell-phone peace pouches for our ‘brothers’ and ‘sisters’ in Kandahar and I know that before the NATO commander had launched the current offensive there, 94% of Kandaharis said they wanted peace talks[14], not war. But the US led coalition went ahead and launched its deadly military operation. They proved their utterly un-democratic, unimaginative addiction to an unchanging military solution.
Karzai said that more than 42 percent of children in Afghanistan still have no access to schooling[15]: at least, that’s not as fatal as the three children killed daily in the conflict last year[16]. If you don’t grasp how the Afghan state is the third most corrupt in the world[17], come take our school exams to experience the rampant bribery and cheating this war encourages. Like other war-torn countries, the influx of weapons and un-accounted monetary aid fosters corruption, fuelling deceit at all levels of our society.
Drugs made from poppies grown in our country are everywhere, with more than a million drug addicts in country[18]. Perhaps, being doped is better than putting up with our sheer lack of work and recourse to government services or justice. Last year, estimates are that we Afghans had to pay $2.49 billion dollars in bribes to our own government officials[19], which is equivalent to 23% of our country’s GDP.
But heck it….we don’t even want your money! Two billion of which you spend on the military weekly[20] and the remaining dirty trickle cannot even be accounted for by your Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR)[21].
My mother and sister say to you that you can forget about promoting ‘women’s rights’ with your uniformed pride. Last year, there were 2300 suicides related to depression among women and girls[22]. And don’t ever claim that a military strategy can stop them from taking their lives. Neither the US-NATO coalition nor our warlords can, with their violence, stop the desperation of our people. In fact, like the people caught in the Helmand operation that was declared a success, the women of Afghanistan want you, with full responsibility, to transition out as soon as possible[23].
President Obama, please completely rethink the ‘progress’ you declared in the December review[24]. To Ms. Hillary Clinton and Mr Robert Gates, we’re sorry for your dismissal of world public opinion[25]. Now, get ready for its flood![26]
[1] In 2010, Afghanistan had the 3rd highest infant mortality in the world . In 2009, UNICEF declared Afghanistan the worst place on earth to be born in.
[2] In 2010, Afghanistan had the 2nd highest maternal mortality in the world.
[3] In 2010, Afghanistan’s under-five mortality was 275 per 1,000 live births
[5] Afghanistan tops the list of 163 countries which face the risk of food shortages in the “food security risk index” compiled by global analysts Maplecroft.
[9] Call by 29 NGOs to end night raids and the stop the Afghan Local Police program in “Nowhere to Turn”.
[10] The new XM25 weapon that’s touted as leaving ‘enemies’ with nowhere to turn and nowhere to hide
[11] Gen. David Petraeus released totals for the alleged results of nearly 3,000 “night raids” by Special Operations Forces (SOF) units over the 90 days from May through July
[12] Up till December, coalition aircraft have used 4,615 bombs and Hellfire missiles in 2010. Every Hellfire missile fired in Afghanistan costs USD58,000.
[13] See UNHCR figures on Afghan refugees
[17] Transparency International, a Berlin-based corruption watchdog, ranks Afghanistan the third most corrupt state in the world in 2010.
[18] United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) report found that around one million people in the country aged 15 to 64 had drug addictions
[19] A UN report said that in 2009, Afghan citizens had to pay approximately $2.49 billion in bribes,
[20] The annual cost of the war is $113 billion
[21] Special Inspector for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) Arnold Fields had to say:”It is outrageous that the US government can’t even determine the amount we pay to support Afghan government employees or how many people are paid
[22] The advisor of the president of Afghanistan in health matters estimates that each year 2300 Afghan women and girls commit suicide
[23] See Afghan Women Speak by David Cortright of Kroc Institute
[26] See “Dear Afghanistan” Campaign for a 2011 New Year’s Day call to Peace
The People raise their Voices
This People’s December Review sought to speak from the ‘hearts and minds’ of ordinary Afghan people, commoners who share the same pain experienced by the impoverished and unheard masses everywhere.
It is a reflection of life as it really is for the people of Afghanistan.
The world should listen.
The people of the world should be listening to one another, because governments are not.
President Obama declared in his administration’s December Review that there was ‘significant progress’ for America’s goals in Afghanistan.
He claimed to be ‘on track.’
But, Abdulai’s People’s December Review shows how far off-track Obama is from the people’s concerns and how U.S. foreign policy gives no alternative options for any citizen.
There ARE alternative options and views, a small number of which we’ve listed below, starting off with Prof. Noam Chomsky’s views expressed in the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers’ recent conversation with him.
In the bigger scheme of history, for too long now, the strategies for resolving global conflicts have been built predominantly around military force.
Soul-force must be given a chance.
What do the people want?
A Sample of Alternative December Reviews
Excerpts of interview with Prof Noam Chomsky
In a conversation with the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers on the 17th of December 2010 for The People’s December Review.
On Obama’s claims of ‘significant progress’
…it’s worth noting that a few days ago the International Commission of the Red Cross released a report which is extremely unusual for them, -they rarely do it,- in which they said that the situation on the ground has deteriorated radically. They gave particulars and said it’s now far worse than it’s been in the past. They’re actually working there and have experience. Plainly that’s not consistent with the picture of progress.
On self-determination by the people
I know for me at least and the people I work with in the antiwar movement the goal for Afghanistan would be for Afghans themselves to take over the planning, the determination of what will happen ,so that there won’t be a review conference in Washington where they have their own goals, –the welfare of the people of Afghanistan is not high among them,– but rather the decisions will be made by people like you and others in Afghanistan who have the fate of your country and your lives at heart and people of the US here should support your efforts in whatever way we can.
….But there is extensive study that demonstrates that there is a very wide gap between the decisions of the government and the will of the population. That’s true on domestic issues. It’s true on international issues, and it reflects the fact that though the U.S. is an unusually free country by comparative standards, it’s only in a very limited way a functioning democracy.
Power does not lie in the hands of the population except in a very limited way and popular opinion does not determine policy. And that’s in fact one of the reasons why there’s such hysteria over the leaks of government documents. Anyone who has studied secret documents for many years, as I have, knows one of their main purposes is to protect the government from the population, not security, but just keeping the public controlled and obedient. That’s a battle that has to be constantly fought in the more free societies as well to try to overcome this dysfunctional element of formal democracy which keeps it from functioning properly. Popular movements have in the past and should in this case too integrate themselves with those of other countries and form a common force, often against their own governments.
On reparations
Afghanistan has a very dramatic, important history of independence, but for the last thirty years it has simply been a plaything of the great powers which have virtually destroyed it. All of them. All of the ones who were involved owe Afghanistan not aid but reparations. Apology and reparations. That includes Russia, of course, and certainly the United States and it also includes Pakistan. Aid sounds like something we give out of our good nature or good will. Reparation means what we are responsible for providing because of the extreme damage we have caused. And yes, that‘s a very important demand. It should be made here and should be made in Afghanistan.
On the question of U.S. intentions in Afghanistan: eventual withdrawal or permanent presence?
At this point, I think it’s not unlikely that even just for domestic, political reasons, the U.S. will try to find a way to withdraw most of its forces and try to portray it as some kind a victory. That’s for domestic reasons.
But, I don’t think that’s what should concern us. We’re not concerned with making officials in Washington look good to their associates.
We should be concerned with what matters for the people of Afghanistan. And that’s of course for you and others like you to decide. Success, I would understand as meaning success in achieving your aims, not Washington’s aims.
On what Afghan and international peace activists should focus on
What Afghans should focus on is finding ways to join together to formulate their own ideas and plans as to the course of policy, internal to Afghanistan, and their demands on other countries that are engaged in Afghanistan. That means primarily the US but also others that are involved.
Afghans should formulate those goals and policies jointly with people in the rest of the world, in particular in the United States that work to support those plans, so the activists in the United States should be and to an extent are waiting to hear from people of Afghanistan. What do you want us to do?
The People look for alternative solutions
to their ‘floods’
A Sample of Alternative December Reviews
“So what’s my option?” the president asked his war cabinet, seeking alternatives…
You have essentially given me one option. …It’s unacceptable.”
Obama’s Wars, Bob Woodward
“Why not talks?”
“Why not reconciliation?”
“Why not non-violence?”
1. World Public Opinion Polls
International public opinion is largely opposed to the war in Afghanistan
The latest ABC polls show that 60 % of Americans think that the war in Afghanistan is not worth fighting.
An earlier ABC/Washington Post Poll showed that Afghans have turned more negative in their assessment of the presence and performance of U.S. and NATO forces
Hillary Clinton and Robert Gates tried to belittle this significant public opinion. Read how they dismissed public opinion and democracy.
2. Letter from Afghan Experts to Barack Obama
Read how these Afghan Experts call Obama’s strategy unsustainable
3. National Intelligence Estimates NIE
Read how 2 new NIE reports cast doubts on the Afghan war progress
4. Other Studies/Reports
A New Way Forward: Rethinking US Strategy in Afghanistan published by Washington-based Afghan Study Group
“Strategic Survey 2010″ released by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies
Both studies above conclude that “a Taliban takeover is unlikely even if Washington reduces its military commitment” in Afghanistan, in good measure because the conditions that allowed the first Taliban takeover in the 1990s no longer exist and can’t easily be repeated. As important, “there [are] no significant Al Qaeda presence in Afghanistan today, and the risk of a new ‘safe haven’ there under more ‘friendly’ Taliban rule is overstated.”
Afghan Women Speak by David Cortright of Kroc Institute which expresses Afghan women’s recommendations to the US and NATO governments for a responsible withdrawal.
“Dear Afghanistan” : a New Year’s Call for Peace
December 25, 2010 by
Filed under Journey Updates
In Kabul, Afghanistan, Abdulai got on a horse for fun…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEmYMqADskA
Call us on New Year’s Day 2011
We’ll stand with you to resist the war!
“Dear Afghanistan” : A New Year’s Call for Peace
While the US may be the world’s single super power in military terms, it faces another super power: the voices of war-weary millions who detest violence and killing. In Afghanistan, in the United States, and among the populations of countries whose governments have joined the NATO coalition, millions of people are calling for an end to war in Afghanistan.
On New Year’s Day, 01/01/11, people around the world are invited to raise their voices, through Facebook, Twitter, Free Conference calls, Skype, and blogs at several websites in a massive refusal to accept this war any longer. Let your New Year’s resolution be to stand for the people and end wars by sending a digital or spoken peacemaking message to people in Afghanistan. By amassing millions of messages calling for peace, we can create yet another indication that ordinary people within and beyond Afghanistan have had enough of war.
Afghanistan’s people need food not bombs, health care not warfare and courage for peace, not war. In the words of Abdulai, an Afghan teenager whose father was killed by the Taliban, the “Dear Afghanistan” campaign offers an alternative to the Obama administration’s most recent review of the war. Abdulai’s experiences of impoverishment, bereavement, and discrimination highlight realities that Afghans face every day. The U.S. government’s December review paid no attention to these conditions.
You can let Afghan people know that their lives matter as much as yours. Assure them that the U.S. government’s war is unacceptable to you and that you are working to end it.
We can catch courage from one another, sparking a New Year’s momentum to put an end to war.
Follow the steps below to communicate the simple yet crucial demand: Stop the Killing in Afghanistan.
On New Year’s Day 2011, from 7.05 pm Eastern Standard Time on the 31st of December 2010 to 7.05 pm Eastern Standard Time on the 1st of January 2011, from wherever in the world, you can:
· Call from your Mobile or Home phone by dialing (661) 673-8600 & access code: 295191#. Please arrange to talk by sending an email to CallAfghanistan@gmail.com
· SKYPE: Please arrange to call Afghanistan by sending your Skype ID in an email to CallAfghanistan@gmail.com
· Send an email message to DearAfghanistan@gmail.com
· Text or sms by mobile at +93 7791 84146 or +1 727-248-0308 (001-727-248-0308 if text messaging from outside U.S.)
· Facebook: Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers
· @DearAfghanistan on Twitter
For more information: Visit Dear Afghanistan
A note on timings for the NEW YEAR CALL :
Place Time Date
London 12.05 am to 12.05 am 1st Jan to 2nd Jan
EST 7.05 pm to 7.05 pm 31st Dec to 1st Jan
Pacific Std 4.05 pm to 4.05 pm 31st Dec to 1st Jan
Jordan 2.05 am to 2.05 am 1st Jan to 2nd Jan
Afghanistan 4.35am to 4.35 am 1st Jan to 2nd Jan
Abdulai wishes everyone a Happy New Year ahead!
Text of video
In Kabul, Afghanistan, Abdulai got on a horse for fun…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEmYMqADskA
Mohammad Jan was equally thrilled to join Abdulai…
Salam! Happy New Year! Please call us!
Making friends through phone calls….
Friends say hellos and friends say goodbyes too…
????? ?????!
Be at peace!
Happy New Year! Please call us!
The people must RESIST all militarized governments!
Call us for ‘Dear Afghanistan’ on New Year’s Day 2011
We’ll stand with you to resist the war!
Our Afghan thanks to You for Listening Globally
December 25, 2010 by
Filed under Journey Updates
Our Afghan thanks to You for Listening Globally
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEihTYBBGjI
Please read “Afghan Youth Supply Their Answer to US’s December Review” by Alissa Bohling in Truth Out
http://www.truth-out.org/afghan-youth-supply-their-answer-uss-december-review66196 ( reproduced below )
The Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers
Speaking with the world via Skype on the
Global Day of Listening to Afghans
WE WANT YOU OUT
Small
Powerless
Poor
And Ordinary
But respectful
Resolute
Poor
And ordinary
We want peace
But You
Militarism
Violence
Hate
Pride
Greed
We want you out
Love is how we’ll ask for peace
Afghan Youth Supply Their Answer to US’s December Review
Thursday 23 December 2010
by: Alissa Bohling, t r u t h o u t | Report
Two days after the Obama administration released its December review of the war in Afghanistan to a public made increasingly skeptical by the war’s rising human and economic costs, a coalition of young Afghan peace activists issued their own review.
The Global Day of Listening to Afghans brought together listeners from around the world, who joined sessions of a day-long conference call that offered a grassroots alternative to the official report, which has been criticized for its lack of hard facts or specifics on withdrawal.
Afghans must “demand the space to negotiate among ourselves and regional countries,” said Hakim, a doctor who works with the Bamiyan-based Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers (AYPV) and acted as the group’s translator for the event. The six young men participating from AYPV ranged in school level from fifth to twelfth grade. While some of their sisters are also members of the group, Afghanistan’s conservative culture makes it difficult for them to gather with their brothers, said Hakim, who asked that participants’ last names be withheld.
Abdulai, a young man whose father and grandfather were killed by the Taliban, said through Hakim, “My family is constantly affected by the killing. We will never get over this grief. But I want to have the opportunity to reconcile with these people, because further fighting will not help the situation. If I kill in revenge, there is no guarantee that they won’t return and kill my other family members too.”
After years of war, “the people of Afghanistan are starting to believe that the world doesn’t see them as a sovereign nation,” said Ramin, a university student from Mazar-e-Sharif and a member of Afghans for Peace (AFP), a solidarity group that is calling for withdrawal of all foreign military forces and for inclusion of the country’s many ethnic and religious groups – AFP lists Pashtuns, Tajiks, Hazaras, Shias, Uzbeks, Turkmen, Baluchis, Nuristanis, Pashai, Pamiris, Kurds, Aimaks, Gujjar, Tatars, Kyrgyz, Siekhs, Hindus, and Brahui, among others – in the peace process. Any attempt to change the course of the war must “make the new strategy relevant to the culture and relevant to the current situation in Afghanistan,” said Ramin.
Like AFP, the AYPV is also demanding the withdrawal of US and NATO forces. Hakim acknowledged that Afghans’ “experience for the last thirty years, and the on-the-ground realities, seem to indicate that civil war would break out, including warlords from many different places, including Afghan militias and local police that are armed by US forces now, and many other players that we are not aware of from regional countries,” but “we want to say that despite the legitimate concerns of the Afghan people, Afghans have not heard enough of nonviolent solutions.”
“Hunger is not solved by armies,” said Hakim. “Unemployment is not solved by armies. Corruption is not solved by armies.”
Much of the discussion reinforced perspectives that are increasingly visible in Western media. According to Ramin, “A very dangerous distance has been created between the Afghan government and the Afghan people.”
“The Taliban are proceeding very intelligently both on the battlefield as well as political activities,” said Ramin, attracting, for example, people disillusioned with government when their attempts to resolve legal disputes through official channels are met with demands for bribes.
“The people are so hopeless,” said Ramin. “This sense of hopelessness also makes people more vulnerable toward activities you would consider terrorism.”
Hakim emphasized the potential of nonviolence to disrupt the ensuing cycle that traps Afghans between violent entities. For those who have lost family and friends to the Taliban, he said “the natural response is to want a stronger military force – but when will there be a stronger military force that will not kill?”
As night wore on for listeners in the West and the day unfolded in Afghanistan, participants painted a picture of Afghan life in which civilians are not only caught in the middle of the conflict’s violence, but must also navigate its ripple effects throughout their society. “The average Afghan is exploited by foreigners; they’re exploited by foreign Afghans; they’re exploited by local Afghans,” said Spogmai, an AFP member and PhD candidate based in Ontario who has made multiple trips to Afghanistan to research and visit family.
“With the little development that you see here and there, people are interpreting this as a sign of progress,” but “it’s a very corrupt type of development,” said Spogmai. On a recent visit to Kabul, Spogmai said, she observed a number of reconstruction projects that had been abandoned halfway through.
Ramin questioned the viability of schools that have ostensibly been built to aid development. “Constructing schools and constructing universities are not the solution,” he said. “If people in a far village are hungry, [a father] will ask for his son to go and cultivate the fields; he will not ask for his son to go to school.”
“If you go to the schools, you do not see any students. Why? Because many who were supposed to go to the schools are busy trying to survive.”
While their stories of the realities on the ground spoke for themselves, AYPV’s members did not display any of the cynicism or despair that has crept into some of the US’s antiwar public. In honor of a listener’s request for a song, they sang “We Shall Overcome” in Dari and recited lines from a poem: “We are like people who are sitting next to a river of peace, and the waves of peace are hitting the riverbanks and reaching us.”
In response to a US listener who asked how to improve the relationship between Americans and Afghans, one of the young men replied, “When the situation in Afghanistan permits, we would love to have you come visit us and have tea with us.”
Meanwhile, the daily reality of living in a war zone continues. When a student listening from the US asked AYPV how they viewed American soldiers, Ghulamai, the group’s youngest member, spoke at length before Hakim began to translate and explain.
“When he sees a soldier, it makes him feel very small and not like a human being. One of the unfortunate things that happens with international soldiers is that they tend to move in convoys, and the convoys tend to speed through areas. It creates, on these unpaved roads, a lot of dirt as a trail behind the convoy. So Ghulamai gets lost in that cloud of dirt and smoke.”
Ghulamai
Text of video
Waking up for the Global Day of Listening to Afghans…
Our need to break the Afghan silence has been so great we were willing to stay up late J
So, we listened to others as others listened to us
Douglas, John, Amy and Fatima Jan, and all those who contacted us during the
Global Day of Listening to Afghans
Thank you for your hard work day & night, especially for your hard work on the Global Day of Listening to Afghans.
One of our callers, Laurie Childers,
Sang her peace to Afghans.
Our pain was greatly eased.
We love you very much!
We Want You Out
December 16, 2010 by
Filed under Journey Updates
We Want You Out
Love is how we now firmly take our stand
Here’s our video ‘We Want You Out’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQO-LT1W0aQ
Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers
http://ourjourneytosmile.com/blog
& Afghans for Peace
WE WANT YOU OUT
Time to listen to the people of Afghanistan!
Arrange a call for the Global Day of Listening to Afghans, December 19
email: youthpeacevolunteers@gmail.com
And sign to support this petition
We want you out
To all the leaders of our world, the leaders of the US-led coalition, the Afghan government, the ‘Taliban/Al-Qaeda’ and regional countries,
We are intolerably angry.
All our senses are hurting.
Our women, our men and yes shame on you, our children are grieving.
Your Afghan civilian-military strategy is a murderous stench we smell, see, hear and breathe.
President Obama, and all the elite players and people of the world, why?
America’s 250-million-dollar annual communications budget just to scream propaganda on this war of perceptions, with its nauseating rhetoric mimicked by Osama and other warlords, is powerless before the silent wailing of every anaemic mother.
We will no longer be passive prey to your disrespectful systems of oligarchic, plutocratic war against the people.
Your systems feed the rich and powerful. They are glaringly un-equal, they do not listen, do not think and worst, they do not care.
We choose not to gluttonize with you. We choose not to be trained by you. We choose not to be pawned by you.
We henceforth refuse every weapon you kill us with, every dollar you bait us with and every lie you manipulate us with.
We are not beasts.
We are Afghans, Americans, Europeans, Asians and global citizens.
Yes, you have the false, self-appointed power to arrest us over expressing the public opinion of ordinary folk, students, farmers, shepherds, labourers, teachers, doctors….., people who now have nowhere to turn and nowhere to hide. ( Open Letter to our World Leaders http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/12/02-10 )
This world public opinion against the Afghan war has been clearly expressed and is larger than any number of Wikileaks you seek to suppress. So, come arrest us all as we civilly disobey you. Come arrest us all. ( See excerpt below from Wikipedia’s ‘International public opinion on the war in Afghanistan’ )
Yes, you have the army, police and apparatchik to smother us and to bribe those who are Pavlov-reflexed to money, but you cannot stop us from restoring our voice.
We refuse to prostitute our hearts and minds.
We refuse you.
Not you the human person, but you the greedy system of self-interested power.
Again and again here in Afghanistan, we have seen a hope for non-violence light up; every day we see a yearning for humane relationships, and because of this, love is how we now firmly take our stand.
We will listen to the People on December 19th, on the Global Day of Listening to Afghans and we invite every one of you to pick up your phone to call us, to share one another’s pain, and to call our world to urgent reconciliation. We invite the world public opinion to overwhelm us! ( email youthpeacevolunteers@gmail.com to arrange a call).
We wish to invite all the people of the world because when the powers are not listening to the people, listening becomes an act of love, it becomes a solidarity of non-violent resistance.
How can we do any less?
14-year-old Abdulai’s father was killed by the ‘Taliban’ and so, like every other human being, he copes with sorrow, hate, fear and anger.
But, he wakes up to the chronic war days in his land sensing that ‘something is very wrong with the world I’m caught up in’, ‘these elders of the world are not getting it…..’.
How does trillion-deficit killing, followed by the strategy of escalated killing and yet another review for more killing, work?
How does it make anyone safer?
How does it solve the incorruptible corruption, unequalled inequality and inviolate violence we face daily?
Your policies, skewed-ly ‘diagnosed’ and ‘reviewed’ in a cold clinical manner divorced from reality, have been deaf to the concerns and needs of the people, thus we endeavour to have a People’s Afghanistan December Review, because that’s what ordinary people can do.
We would try not to ‘throw’ our shoes at you. We would try to recognize the better side of all human beings and thus continue to serve our commoner’s tea and bread to one and all. But we do ask, plead and demand that you stop your unsustainable, superpower militarism.
We want peace.
We want you out.
With singular sincerity,
Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers http://ourjourneytosmile.com/blog
Afghans for Peace http://afghansforpeace.org/
Notes :
“My people, the suppressed millions, are my heroes. They are the real source of any positive change in Afghanistan and their power is stronger than anything else. And anti-war protesters around the world, those who are standing against the destructive policies of world powers. There is a superpower in the world besides the US government — world public opinion.” Malalai Joya
Excerpts from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_public_opinion_on_the_war_in_Afghanistan
International public opinion is largely opposed to the war in Afghanistan.
The 25-nation Pew Global Attitudes survey in June 2009 reported that majorities or pluralities in 18 out of 25 countries want U.S. and NATO to remove their military troops from Afghanistan as soon as possible.
Despite American calls for NATO allies to send more troops to Afghanistan, there was majority or plurality opposition to such action in every one of the NATO countries surveyed: Germany (63% opposition), France (62%), Poland (57%), Canada (55%), Britain (51%), Spain (50%), and Turkey (49%).
In Europe, poll after poll in France, Germany and even Britain show that the European public want their troops to be pulled out and less money spent on the war in Afghanistan
ABC News/BBC/ARD/Washington Post poll of 1,691 Afghan adults from Oct. 29-Nov. 13, 2010
Afghans indicated they were more pessimistic about the direction of their country, less confident about U.S.-led coalition troops providing security and more willing to negotiate with the Taliban than a year ago.
More than half of Afghans interviewed said U.S. and NATO forces should begin withdrawing from the country in mid-2011 or sooner.
“There are the occupation forces from the sky, dropping cluster bombs and depleted uranium, and on the ground there are the fundamentalist warlords and the Taliban, with their own guns.
If I should die, and you should choose to carry on my work, you are welcome to visit my grave. Pour some water on it and shout three times. I want to hear your voice.” Malalai Joya
Open letter from Afghan Youth to our World Leaders : Global Day of Listening to Afghans
December 2, 2010 by
Filed under Journey Updates
Open letter from Afghan Youth to our World Leaders
Dear Mr Obama, Mrs Clinton, Mr Petraeus, Mr Rasmussen, and all our world leaders,
We are Afghans and we ask the world to listen.
Like yourselves, we couldn’t live without the love of our family and friends.
We were hurt by your criticism of Mr Karzai for voicing the people’s anguished pleas, “Stop your night raids.”
Please, stop your night raids.
If you could listen, you would have heard 29 NGOs in Afghanistan describe how we now have “Nowhere to Turn”.
http://www.oxfam.org.uk/resources/policy/conflict_disasters/nowhere-to-turn-afghanistan.html
If you could listen, you would also have heard Mr Karzai and the 29 NGOs express concern over your Afghan Local Police plan; the world will henceforth watch our militia killing the people, your people and our people, with your weapons and your money.
If you could listen, you would have heard the sound of your drones crystallizing the nights of hatred among the Afghan, Pakistani and global masses.
Instead, we hear your determination to ‘awe, shock and firepower’ us with Abrams tanks. We hear distant excitement over your new smart XM25 toy, a weapon you proudly proclaim will leave us with ‘nowhere to hide’.
Nowhere to turn and nowhere to hide.
Your actions have unfortunately dimmed our hopes that we the people could turn to you. Along with our Afghan war-makers, you are making the people cry.
Yet, we understand. You are in the same trap we’re in, in a corrupt, militarized mania.
Love is how we’re asking for peace, a love that listens, and reconciles.
And so, we invite you to listen to the people of Afghanistan and to world public opinion on the Global Day of Listening to Afghans, to be internet-broadcast from Kabul this December.
It is time to listen broadly and deeply to both local and overseas Afghan civil groups and the numerous alternative solutions they have proposed for building a better socio-political, economic and religious/ideological future for Afghanistan.
We have shared the pain of our American friends who lost loved ones on September 11, by speaking with and listening to them.
Though, if the world could listen like these American friends did, the world would know that few Afghans have even heard about September 11 and that no Afghans were among the 19 hijackers. The world would have heard our yearnings as we were punished over the past 9 years.
If the world could listen, they would know how much we detest the violence of the Taliban, our warlords, any warlord, or any bullet-digging finger-trophy troops.
And now, for at least another four more years, we will grieve over souls who you are unwilling to ‘count’ and we are unwilling to lose.
It is extra painful to us and to your troops because clearly, there are non-violent and just alternatives.
We understand the pain of financial hardships but try telling an Afghan mother about to lose her child or a soldier about to take his life that the only way their illiterate and angry voices can ruffle the posh feathers of our world leaders is when it disturbs not their human or truth deficit, but their trillion dollar economic deficits. How do we explain that without denuding ourselves of human love and dignity?
What more can we say?
How else can we and our loved ones survive?
How can we survive with hearts panicking in disappointment while perpetually fleeing and facing a ’total’ global war, a war that wouldn’t be questioned even in the crude face of a thousand leaks?
We would survive in poverty, we may survive in hunger, but how can we survive without the hope that Man is capable of something better?
We sincerely wish you the best in your lives.
We are Afghans and we ask the world to listen.
Salamat bAsheen!
Be at peace!
Meekly with respect,
The Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers
Global Day of Listening to Afghans
19th December 2010
Why not listen?
Why not love?
To share the pain of Afghans and people in conflict all over the world,
please join us in Afghanistan
by taking a few minutes on the 18th & 19th of December 2010
to Skype call us or call us directly, from wherever you are
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVMVRNrepZY
Email youthpeacevolunteers@gmail.com
1. To arrange a call on the 18th & 19th of December 2010
OR
2. To support our Open letter from Afghan Youth to our World Leaders,
by emailing “YES, Why not listen?”
Please call us…tell us when your heart has pain.
Text of video
The pain of the people lies here, in the heart
Why not listen to the people’s pain?
We are neither happy with the Taliban nor with the American forces
Whoever…there must not be war…
We cannot survive without the love of family & friends.
We are tired of all forms of war
Whether it’s the Taliban war or the war of the foreign forces
We ask that you stop the war.
Who would think deeply & compassionately for the people?
Who would listen to the pain of mothers & the pain the people?
Who would love the people once again?
We Skype-called ‘Faris’ in Gaza Palestine
Ali : your days are on us too,
tell us when your heart has pain…
we’ll endure & these days will pass
Ghulamai : We share your pain…don’t worry…
Abdulai 
on’t be discouraged.
Zekerullah : Always be in touch with us…& protect yourself from the bombs
Global Day of Listening to Afghans
December 18th & 19th 2010
Please call us…tell us when your heart has pain.
Why not listen to peace?
November 1, 2010 by
Filed under Journey Updates
Please listen to ‘Why not listen to peace?’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1o3fqkAgdnk
And read http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/10/31-4
‘Without Peace, Life is Impossible’: What an Afghan Boy Knows that US Forces Don’t
Text of video
We invite the world,
in the noise of hate,
to listen.
Why not listen?
LISTEN
Why not listen?
Peace!
Why not listen to peace?
Why not listen to overcome our global, Afghan aloneness?
October 26, 2010 by
Filed under Journey Updates
Please watch two minutes of our friends helping us to overcome aloneness- thank you Kathy, David Jerica & Douglas!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bTopDz1glE
And read “You are not alone”
by Kathy Kelly
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/10/24-9
If we listen, peace is never alone
Text of video
Overcoming sound
Overcoming tongues
Overcoming hesitance
Overcoming taste
Who’s the cook?
Faiz Jan…I’m not a cook.
Ali’s stirring so eggs won’t get burnt.
Overcoming nights
Overcoming time
Why not listen to overcome our loneliness?
Ali to ‘Faris’ in Gaza : your days are on us too, tell us when your heart has pain & we’ll endure..
Ghulamai : We share your pain…don’t worry…
Zekerullah : Always be in touch with us…& protect yourself from the bombs
Abdulai on’t be discouraged.We are always with you.
This is Kathy, I’m very moved…
Jerica: We’re in solidarity in you in small ways…
Why not listen to overcome our aloneness?
Other articles of our growing love below :
Afghan Peace Activist Youth Bridge Ethnic Divide
Bamiyan Diaries – Day One
by David Smith-Ferri
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/10/20-0
http://www.truth-out.org/afghan-peace-activist-youth-bridge-ethnic-divide64409
“War Does This to Your Mind”
by Kathy Kelly
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/10/21-10
http://www.truth-out.org/war-does-this-your-mind64452
Afghan Youth: Creating a New Courage
by Jerica Arents
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/10/23-0
In War-Torn Afghanistan, a Park Dedicated to Peace
by: David Smith-Ferri, t r u t h o u t | News Analysis
http://www.truth-out.org/in-war-torn-afghanistan-a-park-dedicated-peace64435
Bamiyan Diaries, Day Four: “Tell Them to Come to Afghanistan and Make Friends”
by David Smith-Ferri
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/10/25-4
Wikileaks speaks of Our Ordinary Hell in Iraq and Afg, Josh Stieber
October 23, 2010 by
Filed under Journey Updates
Please watch Josh Stieber read ‘Our Ordinary Hell’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmmQ-THGGaY
And read his open letter regarding the Iraq Wikileaks
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/10/22-7
Our ordinary hell
Dear America and the world,
If these 92210 war records had occurred in the States and even just one American civilian killed, there would have been ample, loud threats for justice and retaliation. But no, these happened in Afghanistan and ordinary war-tired Afghans know that the expected global response is ‘Who cares?’
Most people on the ground in Afghanistan would recognize how unsustainable, factional, corrupt and violent this Great Game has become.
But none would say it.
Not the President of USA. Not the President of Afghanistan. Not the leaders of the 43 plus coalition countries. Not the UN Special Envoy to Afghanistan. And not the Taliban.
But the 92210 entries say it all.
And they can no longer be refuted by history or the future. Any record of actual events can only benefit those struggling for truth.
Admiral Mullen and Mr Robert Gates went on to suggest that Assange may have blood on his hands. Afghans are not fooled. We have eyes and we have seen much blood. Whoever’s hands have blood, we have an Afghan saying that ‘Blood cannot wash away blood.’
We ask fellow human beings to stop this childish blood-throwing and inhumane blood-shedding, whoever they may be. To shock your cynical ears, we, the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers, would like to suggest that love is how the world should ask for peace.
We plead with the leaders of our broken world to sit down like real visionary men and women, to reconcile deeply, to listen deeply, to think deeply and to build deep relations of peace.
We urge our world to return to this love, for at worst, that can only bring everyone some dignity and meaning.
Otherwise, these long wars will continue into our Afghan horizon, and remain your special interest and our ordinary hell.
Sincerely, be at peace and God protect you!
The Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers
Page 15 of Human Smoke by Nicholson Baker
Reverend Harry Fosdick gave a sermon in Geneva, at the Cathedral of Saint Pierre. It was September 13, 1925, the opening of the League of Nations Assembly. Reverend Fosdick had renounced his previous fervent militarism; he was an antiwar preacher now.
Fosdick had seen men freshly gassed from the trenches, he said. He had heard the cries of those who wanted to die and could not.
“I hate war,” he said,” for what it forces us to do to our enemies, rejoicing over our coffee cups at the breakfast table about every damnable and devilish evil we have been able to inflict upon them. I hate war for its results, the lies it lives on and propagates, the undying hatred it rouses, the dictatorships that it puts in the place of democracy, and the starvation that stalks after it.” Fosdick’s speech was quoted in newspapers. Twenty-five thousand copies of it were printed and distributed. Most people agreed with it. Most of the world was pacifist.
The Royal Air Force dropped more than 150 tons of bombs on India. It was 1925.
Recovering from the shadows of the Afghan wars
October 23, 2010 by
Filed under Journey Updates
Please watch Khamad recovering from the shadows of the Afghan wars
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbayAkxVeQs
And read Kathy Kelly’s record of Khamad’s long pauses as he describes how ‘war does this to your mind’
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/10/21-10
War does this to your mind
Text of video
I am a boy seeking love,
but alas I live on the empty hills,
on the only land I’ve known
It hurts to tell you that they killed my father.
I miss him
and wish he were here.
My grandma tells me that loss brings strength;
I am not too sure
Have you ever woken up
to fields of God’s golden wheat
and wondered why
people are so full of themselves?
Do you ever feel sad,
a very deep sad?
I deal with it in silence,
so people call me a ‘worrier’
I have a friend
and I’ve told him things
which I’ve never mentioned to anyone
but now he has left
He tells me that
God will never abandon me
but as in the case with my father,
that doesn’t help
He then said that he loved me;
I’ve never heard that…
I’ve never heard that on these hills,
I cried till my heart was empty
I am a boy seeking love,
sounding the shepherd’s flute
in the only land I’ve known
“War does this to the mind.”
Is life like that?
Life is like that.
A life like ants….
Go on…go on…
Poem ( below ) written and read by David Smith Ferri
about a young Iraqi man Mustafa who,
like Khamad,
is recovering from the shadows of war
Like children crowding together at the edge of a bluff
the sea swirling below
we gather at the top of the stairwell
while first Yasir, and then Noah, climb down
and wade into Amman’s fading twilight
Returning, they half-push half-carry Mustafa in his wheelchair
up from those depths
across the threshold and into the apartment
A foaming salt water joy washes over us
He articulates how long the road to adulthood is
and how far he has come in teaching his body to stand, to balance
how close he is at 29 years
to learning to walk
Why not listen to the Bamiyan Diaries?
October 21, 2010 by
Filed under Journey Updates
“The first time we meet we’re friends, the second time, brothers & sisters.”
Why not listen to the Bamiyan Diaries?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSigIDZyp2k
Please read http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/10/20-0
Bamiyan Diaries – Day One
Text of video
The Afghan Youth Peace mountain boys welcome our peacemaking friends
“The first time we meet we’re friends, the second time, brothers & sisters.”
Hello, my name is Abdul Ali.
We have been looking forward to coming & we’re so glad to be here!
Welcome ( to Bamiyan )!
Looks like we have a soccer team here…
Abdul Ali, what are you doing?
I’m sweeping the house ( peace vigil tent )
Why not listen to one another?
David and the world’s need to change all perceptions…
…to listen to and to walk with one another
Why not listen to the Bamiyan Diaries?
