The 92210 pieces of Abdulai’s heart
Dear friend ( including those who would remotely consider me an ‘enemy’ ),
The 92, 210 Wikileak Afghan War Logs were recorded between my 9th and 14th year of life among fellow Afghans.
I have disappointed myself and have been disappointed by Mankind more intensely than numbers can define. But I’m trying not to lose hold of the unseen virtues that can give some remnant meaning to my existence.
We have a global family that is disconnected, unequal and disappearing and even though we recognize that bullets and bombs cannot heal our souls, we are still cheering our own suicides. Even after being presented with 92,210 instances of a failed solution, we would still un-scientifically and un-sustainably support it,
Look how militant we have all become, how angry and how dis-empowered!
In Afghanistan, we spend more money and energies with the intention of killing people than helping them.
Globally, we never listen to others, not even to our friends. We submit only to elitist noise.
We hardly really know anyone else or their needs. We revolve only around ourselves and our needs. We hover emptily around praise, wealth and power.
I know this sounds cynical for a 15-year-old boy, but we are all continuing our fantasy of the ‘good’ war in Afghanistan. The elite will ‘demonize’ Assange and the likes of ordinary Man and fuel an in-humane fear with the ‘magic mask’ of ‘national security’ while endangering our world with fancy weapons.
Nothing worthwhile is working in Afghanistan.
To me, we have been losing our hope ever since forever, and that’s hell.
You want to know who killed my father and the ‘sorry’ state of my grieving mother, so I would hate his killer and you could feel justified about the daily Afghan fight against ‘insurgents’. But I will not perpetuate Man’s vengeful history even if the President orders me to.
More than losing our war on life, we are losing humanity. Brothers are hurting brothers, Man is killing Man, and we are not doing enough to stop this blood spill.
I humbly say to all the leaders of the 43 plus-country coalition, the leaders of our neighbouring countries, and the leaders of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, that your systems and strategies are fatally flawed. We all wish, like human beings ‘religiously’ do, that there was some salvation in our present predicament, but there is no comfort to be found in our present violent approach.
Like sensible people, we, the ordinary people of the world, should all sit down to listen to one another and endeavour to be friends and if ‘ridiculously’ necessary, to let the children of the world bring us together. That’s how desperately engaging we should be about building tangible peaceful relations.
To our factional, god-pretending leaders: start serving like real Men and Women, by envisioning a kinder, non-violent, demilitarized world.
To every soldier ; this carnage under orders is not making you a gentler person nor bringing your families a safer life, so leave this cold system today before it consumes you tomorrow.
To every concerned citizen of the world, request to have your war tax money back, because even though that wouldn’t bring back the murdered international soldier or Afghan back to life, you would be demanding the return of your conscience.
What is breaking my Afghan heart is our pride, our greed and our selfishness. We are deceiving ourselves to our own lonely destruction.
The media and self-aggrandizing adults ask silly questions like ‘What do these leaked Afghan War Logs show?’. I almost want to boycott ALL media.
We’re drowning in the shallow shadow cast by an opaque corruption, which renders us incapable of insight, but worse, which robs us of love and makes war our star.
You may unwittingly forget that Afghans like myself wish to love and be loved. You may believe the normalized propaganda which imply that Afghans are ‘savages’ and the coalition elite ‘saints’. You may sincerely think that Afghans had asked for and are taking delight in this war.
If this is how you think, I wish to lay claim to our common, more creative selves by countering with a plea ‘Why not love?’. That’s what we should counter, not ‘insurgencies’ that rightly seek freedom, but powers which erroneously seek more power.
I would persist in asking ‘Why not love?’ even if there was nothing my oppressed silence could say nor anything the 92,210 pieces of humanity’s hurting heart could shatter to persuade you that war stinks of death.
We need to deliberately change.
And love is how.
Your small friends,
Hakim
Though the vision of Abdulai ( and the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers )
Grade 7 Student, farmer, shop-keeper
Bamiyan, Afghanistan
http://ourjourneytosmile.com/blog
http://www.thepeoplesjourney.org/
Details of ‘Why not love?’ Vigil from 31st of July 2010 to 5th of August 2010
This is our response to the ‘live’ tragedy in our country Afghanistan, partly revealed by the 92210 Wilileaks Afghan War Logs.
On the 27th of May this year, we had placed a dove at bamiyan Peace Park and below it, we wrote the words ‘Why not love? Why not bring peace?’. Vandals destroyed these writings about a week later.
We are re-writing these words for this vigil and will keep asking ‘Why not love?’ till others hear us.
Re-writing Afghanistan’s narrative with ‘Why not love?’
We’ll call for the urgent establishment of an international, non-political body of peacemaker representatives to establish wide scale human relations and end wars, running up to International Peace Day on the 21st of September.
Our ‘Why not love Vigil’ at the Bamiyan Peace Park will be held from the 31st of July 2010 to the 5th of August 2010. We will gather there from 8 am to 5pm Afghanistan time on the first day of the vigil ( Saturday the 31st of July ), and for the subsequent 5 days, hold an hourly vigil from 7am to 8am every morning ( the Afghan youth have much farm and other work in their fields! )
The Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers ask that you would join them for a daily one-hour vigil over 6-days ( from Saturday the 31st of July 2010 to Thursday the 5th of August 2010 ), to ask the leaders of the world, “Why not love?”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPkzRgT05P8
The state of Afghanistan is fatally un-sustainable.
Morality, intellectualism and capitalistic democracy are dying in Afghanistan. Humanity is dying.
Everything needs to change but since we can only change ourselves, doing small things like keeping this vigil is what we the ‘nobodies’ of the world must do.
15 year old Abdulai says, “We usually feel alone. I think that my country is on fire and that we are all withering on the inside. We wish for your friendship in this vigil to put out the fire, for only a resolute love can give us some hope. I pray you would believe that we need that hope right now.”
Please join us. You may call us at +93799371354 / +93785949274 when we are at our vigil if you wish to.
Love,
Abdulai and the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers
Hakim,
I am a friend of Taher Deghayes, who I respect greatly.
Taher, through another friend, Adele, sent me your piece about the war in Afghanistan.
I found it very moving, and I reduced your words to poetry, taking some poetic license, but staying true to your message and meaning, I hope. Obviously, there are a few lines of invented text, but actually very few. I consider this piece more a poetic translation of your feelings than a “created” poem.
Adele and Taher gave me permission to send it to you. I hope you like it. David
I am David Cohen, a lawyer in NY and a spiritual brother of Taher Deghayes
Hakim’s Plaintive Plea
I am a very old young boy
A teenager, a student, a farmer
A shopkeeper, the man in my household
In Bamiyan, Afghanistan, 2010
My father was killed
By who, we do not know.
My mother still grieves
His loss too great for her
To understand, comprehend
War here has been perpetual
Before my 9th year to now, my 15th
Afghanis killing Afghanis
And those other ones, the coalition aliens
With the fast trucks and the sunglasses.
I am disappointed; how can this be
I am disappointed by all mankind
More intensely than numbers can define
But I am trying, not to lose hold
Not to forget the unspoken virtues
Of the simple, decent lives we once shared
We once were able to be magnificently
The shining remnants of an ancient existence.
We are a global family which has lost its way
It is disconnected, unequal, disappearing
Bullets and bombs cannot heal our souls
Restore the harmony of music to our being
Some cheer even suicides and homicides
Failed solutions are re-postulated
Regenerated, and tried all over again.
We are a global family which has lost its way
Look at how militant and angry we’ve become
Poverty predominates, money and energy wasted
Rugged mountains and impassable valleys
Not referencing merely the topography
Where once there were crops and dates
We have no more friends, only allies
Allies and enemies interchangeably.
Globally, we never seem to listen
In any event, we cannot hear
Drones drone out nature’s noise
I yearn to hear a chirping bird
Instead, cynicism prevails
The Taliban justify; the elites demonize
Peace, it is declared, requires killing
Killing demands vengance in return.
There is no end to this
Nothing worthwhile is happening
Nothing good is growing in Afghanistan
We have been losing hope since forever
This place, at this time, in these circumstances
This place is hell; you want to know
Who killed my father, we all did
Man’s inhumanity to man is guilty.
Hate does not go away; it prospers in the desert
It’s elevated, put on a pedestal of national security
National security is a magic mask
If you put it on, you can avoid seeing
That weaponry endangers our being
What we used to have and have is not enough
We need more, larger fancier weaponry
To kill more competently, with louder noises.
More than losing the war to preserve
A way of life; we are losing humanity
Brothers hurting brothers
Humans destroying humans
Blood spilling ceaselessly
Into the rivers of Afghanistan
Flowing downwind into every cave
Clogging up the arteries of life.
We’re drowning in the shallow shadow
Cast by an opaque corruption, and
Media propaganda which paints
The innocents as savages, and
The savages as unredeemable
The coalition troops saintly
You may sincerely think Afghanis asked for
And, want you to win this war.
No, we do not care, we’re not opposed
We simply do not care, can no longer
Distinguish by your uniforms who’s on our side
Willing to die for Afghanistan is not the test
Willing to live for Afghanistan is it
We seek love, and joy, and family
Days without intensive coverage
Nights without dangerous flights.
Why not love?
Why not end the common deception
That carnage under careful orders
Is not the same as carnage for carnage’s sake
Stop spending your wealth and treasured youth
To violently repair the irreparable
The Afghani bridge is broken permanently
Without fighting all violence first.
I lost my father
I may never know a wife
I say humbly to the leaders of the west
Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, as well
You are all fools
Your systems and your strategies
They are fatally flawed
There is no comfort in mutual destruction.
We, the ordinary people, the victims
Of all these war games
We seek a different solution
Salvation
Building tangible peaceful relations
A dawn which is a dawn, a new beginning
Envisioning a kinder, non-violent
Demilitarized Afghanistan..
DDC 8/2/2010
