Why not Listen?
October 12, 2010 by
Filed under Journey Updates
We invite the world to listen, because the people are perishing. Why not listen?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SboVUfhL4z8
Text of video
We’ve not been allowed to set up a tent for a peace vigil here at Bamiyan Peace Park…
to invite the world,
in the noise of hate,
to listen.
Why not listen?
LISTEN
Why not listen?
Why not Listen?
Why not LISTEN?
our Afghan vigil
…our hope is that this inner yearning & struggle
to listen to one another globally,
is eager to explode.
We vigil to LISTEN,
because people are perishing
Why not LISTEN?
our Afghan vigil
13th October to 17th October 2010
Bamiyan Peace Park???? ( to date, we’ve been disallowed to set up our tent)
( WE’LL EXPLORE POSSIBILITIES AND UPDATE YOU )
Afghanistan
13th Oct Night 1 : Listen, because people are perishing
14th Oct Night 2 : Listen in quiet
15th Oct Night 3 : Listen with a smile
16th Oct Night 4 : Listen to connect
17th Oct Night 5 : Listen to change
We’ll LISTEN to the world,
thus inviting all to LISTEN to one another
and to gamble on this force of LOVE.
Un-naming our system’s goodwill in Afghanistan
October 6, 2010 by
Filed under Journey Updates
Un-naming Goodwill
“Look, the whole world is upside down and considers itself smart & kind,
but look at its wars and wars,
and its inability to build anything.”
15 year old Ali
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRjKpPJQk8I
Afghan grandpa seeking justice in an upside-down world
Un-naming Goodwill
We all sense that something is not quite right about the Afghan conflict, about our foundational responses to ‘terror’, about our global grasp of fear & anger.
But we do not pursue that sense.
Rather, we follow the same routines and the same vision-poor ways of thinking to the end of each dissatisfactory day and comfort ourselves that ‘we’ve probably done ALL that we reasonably can’.
But this stagnant comfort does not endear our souls to the souls of the million others.
As we perfunctorily do things today like we did yesterday, after having proved our general unhappiness throughout the whole of yesterday, we remain unchanged.
We remain sad.
This comfort dis-empowers us with the dogma ( Oh! Who has forced this dogma on our free wills? ) that inequality and violence MUST be the lot of the masses in our system, risking the guess that our systems hold some mysterious and almost divine ‘goodwill’. It is a historical stubborn-ness in the ‘goodwill’ of Power.
Afghans get estranged from goodwill as of day 1, from birth. At conception, they immediately struggle to enter the worst country on earth to be born in, perhaps then immediately losing their beloved mothers to the 2nd highest maternal mortality. When they grow in understanding, they hear the judgment of self-deified religious icons elsewhere stating with professed ‘pity or love’ that ‘‘just too bad, hell immediately awaits your terrorist souls.”
Today, Obama from Bush, Cameron from Gordan, Sarkozy, Rassmusen and his NATO baby, Staffan de Mistura with a UN distracted from their original charter, and Osama with his ideological clones, bask in the complicit media glare as lords of ‘freedom’, while 30 million Afghans ( minus the Afghan elite parroting the coalition ) are pinned upside-down.
Not that these leaders want impoverished Afghans to be strangled or drone-shattered or robbed of everything they should own ‘cos they would never want that for their own families, but that every system’s group-think defends only itself and its ‘collateral’ wealth.
We the people passively cushion them in their seats. Unthinkably, we submit our herd-praise to them for robbing us, thus authorizing them as our ‘smart and kind’ agents.
We’re taught that there is NO alternative realism except the privileged words offered by the ‘chosen’ ; helplessly, we accept this suffocating philosophy. We keep the ‘small people’ out of mind and often, unknowingly, we watch them as they’re ‘extinguished’.
Our emptiness deepens partly because we are not sufficiently involved in those of us who get the worst scraps in the excesses of our systems.
But, it doesn’t have to be this way.
I pray that we would awaken now upon a renewed & rigorous commitment to the concerns of all fellow human beings, and turn this disconnect around. That we would follow our sense that destroying our own human kind is fratricide.
I pray that we would appreciate everything from its origins, and not from the appearances of Names, and then, to pursue the reform of everything.
I pray for courage to un-name our coalition’s apparent goodwill, because we sense that we’re not willing to live incongruent lives after all, that such blind power originates not in cosmetic goodwill but in our deathly self-interest.
I pray that we’ll then be free to listen to pain, to excise greed, to despise hate and to tame our desperate violence.
I pray that we’ll then not merely examine the facts, but recover their kinder meanings, and thus with hope, to finally abandon our Names.
Our manufactured Names of goodwill.
Un-propping the upside down world
Friends can change us, as the Afghan mountains ask us to
September 29, 2010 by
Filed under Journey Updates
Dear friends,
“When I get tired, I come back to the mountains.”
15 year old Abdulai
As we had our Peace Trek in the Afghan Hindu Kush mountains, we believed that
“Friends can change us, as the Afghan mountains ask us to”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxlsIHh7dt0
Also watch Native Americans walking together with Afghans ( created by Raven Redbone in Olympia Washington USA ) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Io7KrjJmaU
‘Mountains cannot reach mountains, only Man can reach Man.’
Afghan proverb
“When I see my friends & my family, anger, hate & fear in my heart changes towards friendship.”
Love and peace,
Hakim and the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers
http://ourjourneytosmile.com/blog
http://www.thepeoplesjourney.org/
http://www.friendswithoutborders.org/
“Mountains cannot reach mountains,
only Man can reach Man.”
Afghan proverb
Text of video
‘Mountains cannot reach mountains, only Man can reach Man.’
Afghan proverb
Our Peace Trek in the Hindu Kush
Zekerullah goes to school
Song ‘Walking together’ by Native American Arli Neskahi
Ali works with his donkey
Mohammad Jan keeps his cow
Faiz tends to his sheep
Khamad runs his chips business
Lala farms his potato fields
Nazuko fetches water
Ghulamai works in a shop
Parwin studies hard
Raziq saws some wood
Aziz helps with calligraphy
Abdulai reaps his wheat
When I get tired, I come back to the mountains
Our Peace Trek in the Hindu Kush mountains
Oh beautiful dove, oh dear dove
We are very tired of war & injustice, very tired of war & injustice
We want peace, we want peace
We want peace!
On each of the pieces of white cloth you see behind us, we wrote the word peace in 44 languages
This sentence reads ‘Why not love?’
The Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers wrote the words ‘Why not love?’ on the Afghan hills
We showed ‘Why not love?’ to the Bamiyan Governor Dr Sarobi & to the UN dignitary Mr Robert
This is in English ‘Peace’. This is in Braille. There’s also Georgian. Where is it? You need to find it.
I must confess the word is correct. How do you read it? shredoma
‘Paz’ in Spanish. Kapayapaan in Tagalog. Hoa Binh in Vietnamese.
Robert, this is in Chinese ? ? ‘He Ping’. Santi in Hindi.
Where’s Arabic? It’s here, ???? ‘salam’. ??? Sulh is also Arabic and Dari
??? ???? ?????? Chera mohabat nakuneem? Why not love?!
Let’s go to the peace dove…
Bamiyan Governor Dr Sarobi and UN dignitary Mr Robert with the Peace Dove
‘Why not love?’ ( yellow highlight ) in the Afghan mountains
I wish that this peace will spread to all of Afghanistan like a wave. This is the wish of all the people of Afghanistan
It ( peace ) doesn’t come on its own. It’s something that we have to struggle for.
Human beings are all part of the same body. The essence of creation ought to be one. When a member of the body is in pain, the whole body shares their agony. If you are not affected by the people’s sorrow, one may not call you a human being.
Friends walking together
The Afghan youth peace volunteers spoke out meekly but resolutely before the elders
…..to resist the ‘mountains of anger, hate and fear’ in our hearts
On International Day of Peace 3 days ago, we the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers, together with our international friends, had asked with one voice, “Why not love?”.
We hope to find friends without borders in the whole world
friends who love one another, friends who are honest & who share each other’s pain
friends who will never take each other’s life
& if we ourselves should die, whose voice of peace would never remain silent.
We wrote ‘Why not love?’ on the Afghan Hindu Kush hills
When I see my friends & my family, anger, hate & fear in my heart changes towards friendship
15 year old Abdulai
Embracing our Peace Dove
Friends can change us, as the Afghan mountains ask us to
Ali and Ghulamai guide the trekkers
2 of our 47 ‘Peace’ Signs used to make the question ‘Why not love?’
These are in Croatian ( left ) and Vietnamese
Dear friends of love,
We wish to thank you for being our friends, in particular, those of you who tried so hard to contact us on International Peace Day 21st of September, strengthening us with tears and songs in our predicament. We were deeply touched by your solidarity from as many as 20 different countries of origin.
Forgive us if you couldn’t connect for our failure to overcome ‘technology’ and know that our longing to connect will not diminish.
We are human beings yearning for love’s concrete practice above a decent piece of bread. And if this love of ours, held up by you, is perceived as ‘weak’ or ‘naive’, so be it. We know this love cannot be dismissed. It is the most resolute resistance we can harness, so please stay with our shared power as we ask together, “Why not love?”
We are working to put together a THANK YOU collection of these conversations, because we yearn for this love to grow so wide, we’ll finally see the natural woods healing the thorns.
Meanwhile, we ordinary Afghans watch with foreboding as the international forces announce their mythical Operation Dragon Strike on Qandahar.
As if killing was pragmatic.
As if dragons were real.
We are not dragons or beasts.
No man shall ram the towers of yesterday and escape the falling stones. No one shall open the floodgates of his ancestors without drowning. Kahlil Gibran
Love and peace,
Hakim and the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers
If you should kill me unawares
September 16, 2010 by
Filed under Journey Updates
Heart to heart!
I want to be your friend.
To set my small heart free.
Zekerullah and Afghan youth ask the world to reach their human hearts*
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I529WInhaW0
*through Skype calls to the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers on the 21st September 2010 International Day of Peace….. If you and your friends would reach out this way, even for a minute, please email dougwmackey@gmail.com and arrange to talk with the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers!
“We will plan to be together the whole day of 21st to receive calls, for all of 24 hours from 8.00 am, … We’d rather take your calls than join the ‘officials’ in paying lip service to peace…and we’d rather stay awake to hear your voices than sleep without those human connections we yearn for.” Hakim and the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers
I refuse the dictation that our pain is passive, or alone.
I refuse to weep this way.
“If you should kill me unawares…
don’t forget I had asked for your friendship & love.”
15-year-old Afghan boy Zekerullah.
Heart to heart, Zekerullah asks for your phone call
It feels like all the anger and doubts of life and death have ‘collected’ within us in Afghanistan.
It isn’t easy.
We tell each other that we’ll cope somehow with the challenges of survival and harsh physical circumstances before us, even to cope unwillingly with death. What we can’t cope with is the global poverty of love and truth.
We see ourselves choosing empty ‘success’ over friendship and thriving on the subjugation of earth and ‘the others’. We can’t seem to appeal more from our leaders than a penchant for ‘greater’ self-interest, money and power.
And oh, such distance between souls.
Hence, we live constantly hoping and constantly despairing.
We constantly hope because love imparts resolve to people of any age.
We constantly despair because hate seems so uncontrollably noisy.
We walk around hoping and despairing.
We dream that intact, independent spirits will understand our pain and do what Man must do to improve on life’s passage, to refuse this sorrow.
We’ve seen the rich plundering those already dying. It fills us with utter disrespect, so why?
We’ve stomached the powerful executing those already voiceless. It destroys our equilibrium of justice, so why?
We’ve heard everyone claiming the winning strategy over those already cornered. It mocks a child’s wisdom, so why?
We’ve pitted God/Love against Satan/Hate in hurting and killing. It drives us to frantic hypocrisy, so why?
We’ve demonized ‘the others’ to deify ourselves. It amputates our shared essentials, so why?
We’ve tried war. It doesn’t work. We know it doesn’t work, so why?
Why?
Why this incongruent life of self-absorption, anger and fear?
When Abdulai visits his father’s grave, when Faiz remembers his brother smothered within bullet-ear-shot and when Parwin asks about the 3000 plus dead of September 11, grief re-catches up with them.
In Afghanistan, grief is like gravity, imperceptibly hurtling us downwards till death makes it un-necessary. It weighs on us like it weighs on Americans or Iraqis or Palestinians or Jews, or you.
It makes us doubt life’s flailing suggestion of goodwill.
For one too many, when we can no longer find relief in any fellow human being, ‘suicide’ relieves us of life.
Then evening came, another day of tough un-affirmed labour, more snipe remarks at his ‘uselessness’, and Zekerullah looks away at the impersonal distance, teary but expecting practically nothing.
Zekerullah takes in the same haughty and violent news on the radio, we extend each other our hands to keep our human affections alive, and he offers me the simplicity that which clarifies my doubting moments, the smile of a child at heart, gently echoing :
I refuse the dictation that our pain is passive, or alone.
I refuse to weep this way.
With this smile transforming us, Zekerullah isn’t shy in crying out to you, you who may hear him as we should hear ourselves, “Why not love?”
For we constantly hope that your love would find some way.
Yes, we keep our hearts hoping that our love would find some way.
Heart to heart!
I want to be your friend.
To set my small heart free.
Text of video
Love is how we’ll ask for peace!
We’ve always had a wish to bring peace through love.
How can Afghanistan become peaceful?
We should act truthfully & not lie. We shouldn’t do wrong…then Afg may become peaceful.
Perhaps the people of the world don’t believe that we ( Afghans ) understand love.
But in our families & among friends, we wish for love & practice it.
If your younger brother was killed by a bomb & you were offered money in compensation, would you accept the money?
No, I won’t accept the money because firstly, why was he killed? Secondly, those responsible should be punished so they won’t infringe on the rights of other people
The monetary compensation shouldn’t be accepted as money doesn’t match up to the value of a person
In this war, if you should kill me unawares, don’t forget I had asked for your friendship & love.
Love is how we’ll ask for peace!
Are your legs strong? My legs….yes, they’re strong. Show me your strong legs…
Zekerullah fulfilled his promise to US Ambassador Eikenberry to go to school
If you should kill me unawares, don’t forget I had asked for your friendship & love.
Come become friends from the bottom of our heart-to-hearts!
Heart to heart!
Please call us on International Day of Peace
21st of September 2010
We’d love to hear your voice!
Sept 11 message from Afghanistan, the quiet alternative to humankind burning herself
September 11, 2010 by
Filed under Journey Updates
From Afghanistan on September 11, love as the quiet flame in place of burning ourselves ;I want to be your friend
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jHaxXlGl4c
I want to be your friend
Love as the quiet flame
in place of burning ourselves
??? ???? ????? ?
Why not love?
Salam ( peace ) to all from Afghanistan!
All of us fellow human beings of the world, at this time, should ask ourselves & one another, “Why not love?”
The Holy Bible & the Holy Quran
??? ???? ????? ?
Why not love?
I want to be your friend
??? ???? ????? ?
Why not love?
Love as the quiet flame
in place of burning ourselves
??? ???? ????? ?
Why not love?
The Holy Bible and The Holy Quran
Our Afghan friendship with Jane Goodall Institute Singapore
September 5, 2010 by
Filed under Journey Updates
“If only we could overcome cruelty with compassion we should make a giant stride toward achieving our ultimate human potential, moving beyond the Age of Reason to the Age of Love.” Jane Goodall
Please watch our tele-connection. The Age of love comes when we extend every hand.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gro7_UpKs9I
Jane Goodall
http://www.janegoodall.org.sg/Jane_Goodall/Welcome.html
Peace Day ( Jane Goodall’s write up on our collaboration )
Why does peace matter to JGIS?
Conflict hurts more life than human life. It hurts animals and the environment too.
Conflict starts with one person. One person has anger and revenge and destruction in their hearts. We can execute conflict on one other person, animal or life, or on many. But whatever the circumstance or victim, it can be distilled to one. So if conflict starts with one, so does peace. When we shout at a friend or hit out at any living creature, that’s conflict. When trees are cut down, that’s conflict.
So what’s peace? Peace is when we respect all life – human, animals and the environment. For life to thrive, we must have respect. If we respect, we can have peace.
The idea of Peace Day was born in July 1989. An independent documentary film maker, Jeremy Gilley, set out to establish a fixed calendar date, to be recognised every year, of cease fire and non violence.
Why? Because there was so much violence, so much struggle, and if we could get countries and people around the world to agree that on one day of the year, there would be peace, then maybe we could stretch it to two days, and three, and a week. If we wanted peace, why not start with one day?
The idea won powerful backing. And on 7th September 2001, the U.N. International Day of Peace became a reality.
Then, disaster. Four days later, 11th September 2001, everything changed.
Peace days came and went, without ceasefire, without recognition.
Determined to succeed, Gilley decided to go further, to prove the day could have a practical effect on peoples’ lives.
Where? Afghanistan, where there hadn’t been peace for 30 years. If it could work there, it could work anywhere. And it has worked. In 2009, the 10th year that Peace Day was officially upheld, over a hundred million people in over a hundred countries, marked Peace Day. Relief, humanitarian and medical aid reaches people in conflict zones on 21st September every year, including Afghanistan.
In Afghanistan, ordinary Afghans are trying to build peace. Abdulai is a grade 7 student, farmer and shop keeper. His father was killed by insurgents and people have told him to take revenge. But he refuses to perpetuate what he calls ‘Man’s vengeful history’. Instead, he’s trying to build peace. He says:
“More than losing our war on life, we are losing humanity [when we fight]. There is no comfort to be found in [a] violent approach. There is a saying in Afghanistan: ‘Blood cannot wash away blood.’ The ordinary people of the world should all sit down to listen to one another and endeavour to be friends. Why not love?”
Abdullai, 15, student, farmer, shop keeper & peace-builder
Last September 21st, Abdulai and his friends, who have called themselves Our Journey to Smile held a Peace Day trek in the Hindu Kush mountains.
Representatives of the embassies of France, Japan, Britain and America trekked with them. This year, Journey to Smile will do the same, carrying a Jane Goodall Institute (Singapore) peace dove with them.
Abdulai and his group are also working hard to establish Friends Without Borders, a non-political, non-religious, voluntary network of person-to-person relationships for peace.
The U.N. International Day of Peace in 2010 is this Tuesday.
What will you do to make peace?
Text of video
My name is Bernice. I’m from the Jane Goodall Institute in S’pore. We’re going to be working with all the other Jane Goodall Institutes around the world & with Jane Goodall herself, in asking for peace within ourselves, towards other humans & towards animals & the environment.
We told people about your Peace Trek last year & that you hope to fly the Peace Dove at your Peace Trek this year.
That’s good!
We wish you’ll be with us always.
We wish for peace to come to all of Afghanistan. We have experienced war for so long…we want peace in Afg & the world
On the 24th of Sept 2010, for the International Day of Peace, we will be trekking to Koa-e-BaBa ( the grandpa of mountains ). And we would ask of the world, “Why not love?”
Thank you so much and good luck to everybody & it’s lovely to meet you.
??? ???? May God protect you! Good bye!
Just as we had asked for The Reconciliation of Civil Hearts at last year’s Peace Trek ….
We are asking for a ‘Reconciliation of Civil Hearts’…We, the peoples of the United Nations, determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war
.. have resolved to combine our efforts to accomplish these aims. Preamble UN Charter
Friends from Roots and Shoots Jane Goodall Institute S’pore
Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers tell their ‘love story’ to the United Nations
August 31, 2010 by
Filed under Journey Updates
Please read the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers tell their ‘love-story’ amidst a UN article of Japanese cranes, Afghan cycling and the return of Afghan music.
http://www.un.org/en/events/peaceday/2010/asia.shtml
“Fighting cannot bring peace is the message we want to send to our Afghan country men and women, and to the world. As we say in Afghanistan: blood can not wash away blood,” said Mohammad Jan
The Head of United Nations in Hiroshima
On the wings of paper cranes, UN staffers aim to spread message of peace
6 August 2010 – In 1955, 12-year-old Sadako Sasaki began folding a thousand paper cranes to try to heal her leukaemia, in accordance with a Japanese tradition. Despite surviving the bombing of Hiroshima a decade earlier, she had developed the “atom bomb disease.” Over half a century later, United Nations staff members hope to harness that same spirit to remind the world of the horrors wrought by nuclear weapons.
Sadako died on 25 October 1955, having completed 644 origami cranes. Her friends completed the remaining cranes and she was buried with them in Hiroshima, where the Children’s Peace Monument now stands in her honour and children from all over the world send more than 10 million cranes each year.
To commemorate the 65th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, dozens of UN workers at the Organization’s Headquarters in New York and at its offices in Tokyo have worked together to fold a thousand origami cranes. The cranes were then assembled into a garland that Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon presented today to the Mayor of Hiroshima at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Ceremony. This marks the first ever trip by a Secretary-General to the annual ceremony.
“We expect that his presence at the [ceremony] as the first UN Secretary-General… will further develop international momentum to abolish nuclear weapons… and lead to consolidate political will of national governments that have been working for a world without nuclear weapons,” Kazuaki Oku, a Hiroshima municipal official heading atomic bomb commemoration activities, told the UN News Centre.
He commended the Secretary-General for showing “strong will toward the abolition of nuclear weapons by proposing a five-point plan to rid the world of [them].”
The paper cranes presented by the UN are highly significant, Mr. Oku said. “We believe that paper cranes could help forge the momentum for world peace and strengthen public opinion seeking a world without nuclear weapons, through conveying this episode to the world.”
Cranes, which symbolize longevity, are considered mystical creatures in many parts of Asia. In Japan, it is said that folding 1,000 origami cranes grants that person one wish, and people often send these cranes to those who suffer from illness or ill fortune in hope that their lives will improve. Through Sadako’s story, the folding of cranes has also become a symbol of world peace.
The UN cranes project was spearheaded by Kiyo Akasaka, a Japanese national and the Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information. Mr. Akasaka said “this will be a very special commemorative gift for the Secretary-General to present during his visit to Hiroshima, symbolizing the strong wishes of the UN staff for world peace without nuclear weapons.”
UN staff members folded the cranes in their spare time, with two or three made by each person. “The message we’re trying to send to the Japanese people is we want peace. That’s what the UN is about, peace and stability, and we want to prevent things like [the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki] from happening anywhere in the future,” said staff member Natalia Samoilova, who worked on the project in New York.
The cranes also helped to bridge the gap between the UN and Japanese citizens, says Shinichi Kushima, another UN staff member who participated in the project in New York. “For me, as a Japanese, it’s great that the UN cares about us,” he said.
Moreover, the project engendered wide-ranging emotions in the UN staff members who helped fold paper cranes.
In addition to being “honoured to be invited to participate,” Ms. Samoilova said that “it was much fun. I never did origami before. I admire people who are very skilful at origami and at least to [learn] how to fold a crane – especially if it’s going to be part of this big garland – oh, I felt so happy.”
Edita Zulic, another staff member who folded cranes, said that “it was interesting how it made me contemplate what we can do in our daily life to send out these messages of peace, to spread positive energy. This is a really small, small, undertaking, folding one crane. But I think when we all get together you see we make 500 or 1,000 cranes. It symbolises that one person can really make a difference.”
The Peace Sign put up by the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers at the Bamiyan Buddhas
“We want peace,” Afghan students grouped near a white dove sculpture in Bamyan Peace Park in the central province of Afghanistan chanted into a phone linking them with youth groups in other parts of the country.
“Peace is friendship and love and that’s how we are campaigning for peace – by making more friends and more volunteers,” said Zikrullah, a 15-year-old second grader and a member of the Bamyan Peace Volunteers, a group of school students who campaign for peace in Afghanistan.
Zikrullah dropped out of school for economic reasons a few years ago but made a commitment last year to continue his studies. He now goes to school in the mornings and in the afternoons helps his father run a shop in Bamyan city.
In his spare time, he volunteers with the peace group which helped build the park where the group is now gathered.
“We worked for nearly two years to build this recreational area close to our school, now our school friends can come here to study and play,” said Zikrullah, who along with his friends persuaded hundreds of schoolmates to volunteer to build the park to mark International Peace Day.
In addition, the group was involved in a trekking for peace event organized by United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
More recently, the group illuminated the site of the renowned Bamyan Buddhas with the word “Sulh,” which means peace in Dari, to send a message of peace to the world on the occasion of Kabul Conference on 20 July.
“Fighting cannot bring peace is the message we want to send to our Afghan country men and women, and to the world. As we say in Afghanistan: blood can not wash away blood,” said Mohammad Jan, an 11th grade student with the Volunteers.
Zikrullah and his friends have been visiting other youth groups around the province to persuade them to volunteer for change.
“I am happy with the result, we are making many peace friends,” he said.
Building relations with youth groups in other provinces of the country is a priority for them.
They sent handmade mobile phone covers to a youth group in Kandahar province a few months ago as peace souvenirs to build a stronger friendship with youths in difficult parts of the country.
“We regularly contact our friends in Kandahar, Kabul and Dai Kundi provinces to discuss problems and issues, and to plan joint programmes with them,” Jan said.
This year, the group plans to expand its Peace Day activities to its partner volunteer groups in the United States, Iraq, Palestine and Singapore.
The group members believe their work is crucial for their country.
“I work for peace because I know this is the biggest need of our country,” Jan said.
In the distance, the group was closing the telephone meeting by again chanting its slogan: “Why not love? Why not peace?”
By Jaffar Rahim, UNAMA
How do we bring peace to war?
Afghanistan’s world cyclist preparing for next tour
His 13-year-old son, Feroz Khan, will join him and the tour will be filmed by an Afghan film crew. Shah, 43 and a father of seven (three boys and four girls), who hails from Surkhod district in the eastern part of the country near Jalalabad, told UNAMA: “I want to show the world, once again, our wish and desire for peace.”
The dentist-turned-cyclist said he plans to tour about 20 countries this time.
The tour is supported by the Government of Afghanistan and by Abdul Satar Khawasi, Secretary of the Wolesi Jirga (Lower House). The Afghan Film Department of the Ministry of Culture and Information has assigned cameraman Jawanshir Haidari to film the tour.
In 2003, Shah’s tour took him across the Middle East, Europe and the United States over 371 days. President Hamid Karzai asked him to donate his bicycle to the Kabul Museum in December last year where it is on display, highlighting his efforts to promote peace in Afghanistan.
Nadir Shah told UNAMA that he is very worried about the escalating violence. “It’s very painful for me. I want to ask strongly all the countries to bring peace here. First of all, the Afghans themselves should work for peace. Then the international community, especially the United Nations, should help us,” he said.
One thing Nadir Shah liked about his earlier tour is that he noticed that all the countries he crossed in Europe were living like a family even if Europe was at war 60 years ago.
“When I was entering Holland from Germany, I thought I had lost my way and asked the locals which way would lead me to Holland. They said I was already 20 kilometres into Holland. It looked all the same. I want to see my country like this.”
By Tilak Pokharel and Shafiqullah Waak, UNAMA
Afghanistan’s top singer uses voice for national harmony
19 July 2010 – Afghan singer Farhad Darya entertains fans of all ages at a peace concert on the eve of the Kabul Conference. The Kabul-born artist said he wants to remind Afghan leaders and the international community to think of the people of Afghanistan tomorrow when making their decisions.
Darya has said that music is a constant inspiration for Afghans and allows them to communicate through ethnic and tribal boundaries. Darya has written and sung in most of Afghanistan’s many languages, including Farsi-Dari, Pashto, Uzbek, Hazaragi, and Urdu, among others. He is a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Goodwill Ambassador.
Afghan youth to the world’s elite, “Please behave like adult human beings!”
August 26, 2010 by
Filed under Journey Updates
Dear friends,
We, the nobodies of Afghanistan, ask this with love.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TB9er3w_oto
This is the love which our mothers have taught us. So please, don’t belittle this love with the haughty confusion of ‘Muslim’ or ‘Christian’ anger and hate.
We plead with trembling because people are dying, dying in ways which rob us of all human meaning and which cause us to cry.
To our own Afghan elite, the American elite and the coalition elite of our failing world :
Please behave like adult human beings!
You are trapped as unfortunate models of an unsustainable, a-rational, a-moral, global militant system that is grossly self-seeking ( forgive us for sounding like we’re about to vomit or throw shoes at your Presidents…J )
Please stop your childish, frantic and violent nonsense in Afghanistan.
You imagine that you must ‘win’ more wars, more power and more wealth to ‘win’ votes and remain as cruel kings, but if and when you’ve proclaimed ‘victory’ over the dead, remember that neither the dead nor the living will honour you.
You no longer represent the wishes of your ordinary citizens.
What you have been representing are the cowardly vices that we detest about ourselves, vices we’re all prone to but which we must shun : utter greed, pride and self-interest.
So please, for now or forever, go as far away from us as your fancy planes will take you.
Start listening to the People, thinking about the People and loving the People. At least, behave like decent adults.
You need to do this, because you know you are not beasts.
To the ordinary People of our disconnected world :
Please behave like adult human beings!
You, like us, have been de-sensitized in allowing the inhumane fantasy that more killing, more money-grabbing, and more blood-resources can justify our leaders and make everyone happier.
You know that’s a lie.
So, please get out onto your streets.
Get out in the critical millions.
Join us on International Day of Peace 21st of September in Bamiyan Afghanistan, to make friends without borders, asking loudly and softly, gently and angrily, joyfully and painfully, any unique way, but only with love, asking
“Why not love?”
“ Chera mohabat na-kuneem?”
“??? ???? ?????? “
“Enough of the war narratives! Here we are, friends who refuse to be ‘enemies’!”
And this time, don’t stop till we get some answers, because People are dying.
We need to do this, because we know we are not beasts.
Wanting love, the way we dream of love to be,
Hakim and the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers
“We thank those who pray that we’ll have peace, But prayers won’t suffice if one by one, war takes us away from life.” 15 year old Ali
“We may not make it, but as Gandhi encouraged, we must be the change we want to see in the world.”
15 year old Abdulai
“Which one of us does not yearn quietly for genuine peace? If that is the critical desire underlying the undeveloped science of human relations, then why the hesitance? Why not relate massively so as to free Mankind from the self-constructed cages of endless experimentation with war, to turn to nurturing the earth, to struggling for overdue equalities and to loving the People? What’ s stopping us? What’s the harm?” Young Hakim
At the State Department, spokesman P.J. Crowley said efforts to explain to Afghanistan and other allies that the U.S. government played no role in leaking the documents seemed to have paid off. “We’re very gratified that the response thus far internationally has been moderate, sober,” Crowley said.
When the Afghan children cry
The work in progress to establish Friends Without Borders
Moderate? Sober? What has happened to humanity that we remain moderate and sober in watching thousands being killed?
Thus, we hope to launch Friends Without Borders, a non-political, non-religious, voluntary, wide-scale network of person-to-person relationships for a peace that the elite cannot dismiss.
Together with Mark Johnson and Douglas Mackey ( Fellowship of Reconciliation and Iraq Memorial to Life ), Josh Stieber ( Contagious Love Experiment and The People’s Journey ), Pam Bailey with Salma and Leila ( Gaza Youth Tour and The People’s Journey ) and Shane Clairborne with his many associates ( The Simple Way ), we have a quickly growing group of volunteers that would work urgently over the next few weeks to put in place the beginnings of the struggle of Friends Without Borders :
To end wars and violence by tapping the tide of world public opinion with…
…a HEART-STORM of GLOBAL FRIENDSHIPS saying,
“Enough of the war narratives! Here we are, friends who refuse to be ‘enemies’!”
We are working towards a Music4Peace concert at the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan on the 21st of September, International Peace Day. Whether or not this concert pulls through, we hope to launch Friends Without Borders that day.
What we request you to do : Arrange to call us that morning, from your various communities, to resound with us our tune, “Chera mohabat na-kuneem? Why not love?”.
Then, if love could change everything, everything could change.
“How blind are the people of the world in allowing their governments to spend so much money on the Afghan war.” 13 year old Ghulamai
“And what’s the result? Many people will be killed… and the security of America, Afg & the world will get worse..” 15 year old Ali
“However without thought & compassion our leaders are, we the youth just want friendship & love! “15 year old Zekerullah
“We should at least ask, Why not love?”15 year old Abdulai
Love and peace,
Hakim and the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers
http://ourjourneytosmile.com/blog
http://www.thepeoplesjourney.org/
Other musings about human behaviour and our current global system
How did we become numb looking at these ‘numbers’, fellow people who have left us forever :
140,000 Hiroshima Little Boy
80.000 Nagasaki Fat Man
3 million Vietnam Agent Orange
? 1 million Iraq White Phosphorus and ?depleted uranium
??? Afghanistan drones, targeted killings, ?depleted uranium, ?cluster mines
The world, all of us, have tried the military system and this is the result. It does not work!
It’s a scary, unsustainable and de-humanizing, a system of addressing ‘terrorism’ that brings out all our tendencies to survive, and only survive ourselves.
This non-living system didn’t create and assemble itself, We humans set it up, so only we humans can dismantle it. We have hope that wide-scale human to human friendships can change us. We’re banking on the hope that love can change everything.
It can’t be a naïve love ( as if such naivety stands a chance in Afghanistan ) and it can’t be apathetic ( coming from the Greek word apatheia meaning ‘a creature’s inability to suffer’).
It is a resolute love acting on all that it believes in, convicted that even a little of such love is stronger than the war of the worlds.
Our Palestinian friends Salma and Leila
Text of video
From the hills I play my flute…
I wish for peace & reconciliation
When will the world ever understand?
We thank those who pray that we’ll have peace
But prayers won’t suffice if one by one, war takes us away from life
From the hills I play my flute…
I wish for peace & reconciliation
When will the world ever understand?
The Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers with friends in Dai Kundi province
We can only raise the voice of peace through love & brotherhood, not only for peace in Afg but also the world
Serving tea & bread to friends from Kabul…
We should make connections with the world thru’ tele-conferencing & websites.
We should work together towards peace in every other country & in the capital & the provinces of Afg,.
Only with love, brotherhood & the law through peace & friendship…, we can improve this 30-year war-ravaged country & make good progress, until the world becomes one…
I believe 100%, as an Afghan living among Afghans & I say it clearly, the people don’t want even one more minute of war.
In this global system of wars…
…many people will be killed
…where Abdulai’s father is buried
…where children live amidst death
And play soccer by the graveyard
…the earth will be destroyed,
floods etc…
…the poor will become poorer
We should at least ask,
Why not love?
We want to establish a group called Friends Without Borders formed by peace volunteers from Afghanistan & the world
How blind are the people of the world in allowing their governments to spend so much money on the Afghan war.
And what’s the result? Many people will be killed… and the security of America, Afg & the world will get worse
However without thought & compassion our leaders are, we the youth just want friendship & love!
Love is how we’ll ask for peace!
Why not love?
Our American friends Josh Stieber and Douglas Mackey
Wikileaks Assange & Manning, stand freely for love & we in Afghanistan will stand with you
August 8, 2010 by
Filed under Journey Updates
If we have to distance ourselves from our country or profession or loved ones to remain faithful to Man, we need to do so with urgency.
Because we can’t purchase the permanence of love with temporariness, the temporariness of manufactured patriotism and moth-prone wealth. Life isn’t sustained by these.
Have you heard the response of ordinary Afghans to the Wikileaks Afghan War Logs, especially since the 92210 leaked documents are about them?
Your answer will most likely be ‘No’ ; that’s how dominantly the elite dictate our world views.
The Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers have already responded twice to date. The first letter is “The 92210 pieces of my broken Afghan heart’. The 2nd was sent to Iraq veteran Josh Stieber with the hope that it would be read somewhere, entitled “Our ordinary hell.”
‘No’ is normal. Nameless people have been killed for the sake of many different Names for centuries, without any mention or notice. What is scary is that in the rare instance when an individual ‘no-body’ is mentioned, it doesn’t move us and it doesn’t change us.
Whatever our politics or religion, we all recognize that killing doesn’t improve our situation. And that mass killing doesn’t make us kinder.
Killing haunts. Better to be hunted for truth than to be haunted for lies.
So, Assange, Manning, stand in the wind.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9E_nXiPj9g
Stand as a free Men.
Stand freely for love because you are obeying the higher order of conscience rather than the dusty order of power.
And we, the nobodies, the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers, will stand with you, believing that truth will protect itself and that the structures of violent power must soon be transformed.
And love is how.
Sincerely,
Hakim and the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers
The dove looks up at Bamiyan Peace Park
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. No, these happened in Afghanistan and ordinary war-tired Afghans know that the expected global response is ‘Who cares?’
After all, the ironic 2009 Nobel Peace Prize Winner alludes to this as the good and just war, and not even the Nobel Peace Prize Committee would speak retrospectively to that. Though we know that American public opinion seems to be swinging, many still hold the phantom Afghan War aims as real, while watching the world grow less safe, as if educated scrutiny has almost completely died not only in the States, but also in the world.
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.
The 92210 entries say it.
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 has 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 war logs will continue into our Afghan horizon, and remain your special interest and our ordinary hell.
Sincerely, salamat bAsheen and KhudA Hafez, be at peace and God protect you!
The Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers
Change in Afghanistan and the world
92210 pieces of my broken Afghan heart
Dear friend ( including those who would remotely consider me an ‘enemy’ ),
The 92,210 Wikileaks 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, sanitizing and numbing our consciences by labeling it as ‘over-hyped’, old ‘news that has already informed public debate’.
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 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/
Update on ‘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 re-wrote these words at this vigil and will keep asking ‘Why not love?’ till we hear ourselves clearly and till others hear us.
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 was held from the 31st of July 2010 to the 5th of August 2010. We gathered there from 7 am to 8 am daily for 6 days
Please watch a video of our ‘Why not love?” vigil.
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.”
Love,
Abdulai and the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers
Text of “Wikileaks Assange, stand freely for love and we in Afg will stand with you” video
We shouldn’t continue this manner of life. This life is hard & difficult.
We should have a good & better life through peace & reconciliation.
A resolute love can change every human being & every violent person.
Dear friends in Afghanistan & the world, we may not make it…
But as Ghandi encouraged, ‘ Be the change you want to see in the world.’
More troops & more war make life tough for us.
But we will still move towards love & truth.
Let we ourselves, the youth, bring change. Yes..yes..yes!
Love is how we’ll ask for peace! Let’s move…let’s go!
When disappointment closes in like another moon-less night
We pause in our madness as mere dying Men
For our ‘Why Not Love’ Vigil, we rewrote the vandalised words at Bamiyan Peace Park
Aziz, what are you writing?
We are writing, “Why not love?”
Why are you writing this?
Because we want to bring peace, peace to Afghanistan!
War, so much war…After 35 years of war, what benefits have we seen?
In sunshine…
…or in rain, we will take the necessary roads.
So Assange, stand freely for love and we’ll stand with you!
The situation in Afghanistan is bad. The effects of war on our elders is clearly seen. Our work is hard.
??? ???? ??????
Why not love?
We want to establish a group called Friends Without Borders formed by peace volunteers in Afghanistan & the world
We must not let go of our hope.
??? ???? ??????
Why not love?
Nancy vigiled with us in Oregon USA
??? ???? ??????
Why not love?
Douglas, Dennis and friends vigiled with us in Olympia USA
??? ???? ??????
Why not love?
All of us should leave our fearful nights
‘Peace / ???’ lit up at the Bamiyan Buddhas
Even a little of our love is stronger than the war of the worlds!
“Blood cannot wash away blood.”
Love is how we’ll ask for peace!
??? ???? ??????
Why not love?
Change.
??? ???? ??????
Why not love?
Building peace in Afghanistana and the world
‘Why not Love’ Afghan and American Vigil
August 1, 2010 by
Filed under Journey Updates
Please join us in our Afghan and American ‘Why not love?’ Vigil. We may hinder peace but we cannot hinder love.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CeFDev5M-ZQ
We are keeping vigil at Bamiyan Peace Park for this week through to Thursday and this is our 2nd day.
We wish to ask the world, “ Why not love?’
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.
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
‘Why Not Love?’ Afghan and American Vigil
Text of video
We were advised : “Afghans don’t use the word love.”
We still wrote “Why not love?” at Bamiyan Peace Park
Later, vandals ‘dripped’ blood-red paint over our work…
We mustn’t be paralyzed by the desperate war narratives…
War begetting war…
Faiz, what is the seed of peace?
The seed of peace is love, is friendship
Blood begetting blood…
We all have eyes, so we know whose hands has blood. We have an Afghan saying, “Blood cannot wash away blood!”
Thanks to those friends who are keeping vigil with us. Though there are only a few of us,
we will work for friendship & love.
We will continue and not give up.
??? ???? ??????
Why not love?
When we fall, we will get up again.
Get up to listen & love again !
Why not love?
Best wishes to you out there. And I’m sorry what our country is doing to you.
Even a little of our love is stronger than the wars of the world!
??? ???? ??????
Why not love?