What would Gandhi say to Afghan youth today?
January 11, 2012 by
Filed under Journey Updates
Ali, Faiz and Abdulai at the Gandhi Memorial in New Delhi, India
Indian, Afghan and human poverty Faiz, Abdulai, Ali and I are travelling in India to learn from Gandhian practitioners ( in Ekta Parishad ). We wish to learn how to mobilize people from the villages to protest non-violently. Immediately, we’re encountering our own poverty. Our flexible travel itinerary : 6th Jan to 9th Jan : New Delhi 10th to 15th Jan : Bhopal 15th to 21st Jan : Ahmedabad 23rd to 26th Jan : Aliabad? 27th Jan : Return to Kabul Afghanistan 6th Jan : Firsts for Faiz, Abdulai, Ali First time on plane First time above clouds First time having pineapples First time on elevator, travelator First time using standing urinal and automatic sink-tap First time in a big city that’s green ( Delhi ) First feelings penned at Kabul International Airport : Faiz – ‘excited’ Ali – ‘very happy’ Abdulai – ‘eager to learn’ Hakim – ‘opportunity’ Kathy Kelly – ‘relieved, open’ Maya Evans ( UK peace activist ) – ‘discovery, adventure’ 7th Jan : Other Firsts First time up close to a Hindu temple First time seeing so many women with uncovered heads First time in underground Metro First time being a foreigner
homeless in India
8th Jan : More Firsts First time in multimedia memorial museum ( Gandhi Memorial ) First time seeing a lifelike statue ( of Gandhi and his wife ) First time presenting to an audience abroad ( about 100 students at Jawaharlal Nehru University ) – AYPVs spoke about : ‘Upon awakening, do not live normally.’ 9th Jan : Lodhi Garden and Gandhi Peace Foundation Lodhi was a Pathan – the garden had green lawns, old ruins, swans, squirrels, parrots and other birds, smooching lovers Gandhi Peace Foundation -meeting held to discuss a high court case of an Indian activist charged with visiting a political prisoner, sedition included as one of the charges -short messages to Indian human rights activists, AYPVs spoke about : ‘Dissolving the borders of peace’
The youth with peace activists Maya Evans ( UK ),
Kathy Kelly ( USA ) , Paul and Kathrin ( Canada )
at the World Peace Gong in Gandhi Memorial
10th Jan : Railway train to Bhopal It was a comfortable 8-hour ride on the train from Delhi to Bhopal. Fields, fields, fields, litter, litter, litter, cattle, cattle, cattle… We shared a urgent feeling for human livelihoods to return to the fields. Jim Loney, a Canadian Christian Peacemaker Team activist shared his experience of being kidnapped for 118 days in Iraq, which he describes in his book ‘Captivity’. Kidnappers have those who love them and whom they love, too. The Iraqi kidnappers had told Jim stories of the HURT and ANGER created through US military offensives that killed loved ones. 11th Jan : From Guns to Gandhi
Front page of The Times of India
The Youth’s interview got onto the front page of the Bhopal edition of the Times of India! See http://vcnv.org/guns-to-gandhi-afghan-boys-on-a-peace-pilgrimage 78 year old Bagvir and his wife had established the Gandhi ashram we stayed in. Bagvir shared with the youth, “All human beings are one. God is one and religions are different paths to God. Gandhi had said that Truth is God and that God is Truth.” Paul and Kathrin ( husband-and-wife Canadian volunteers with Ekta Parishad who kindly arranged and co-ordinated our Indian trip ) brought us to old Bhopal Market which had a Hindu temple at one end and a mosque at the other. Kathrin gave us a treat of banana, papaya & chiku milk shakes, opposite colourful shops of mannequins modeling lingerie 
. Another ‘first’! 12th Jan : India lives in the villages
namaste !
We visited Bhimkothi, a remote village located in the jungle, off the beaten path. Rakash of Ekta Parishad had been working with the villagers to obtain official documents for land ownership, to establish a school and to dig a village well. Importantly, Rakash shared that he spends a few nights a month in the village because ‘it is in the night that the stories and lives of the villagers become more transparent.’ Poverty in a land of plenty. Life transpires in the Indian village nights.
Gardener, over 100 years old, :
‘ We all die…
we should leave something behind.’
13th Jan : The mosque in the city, the mosque on an island
with Indian youth at ‘Begum’ mosque
The mosque we visited in Bhopal City is the 2nd largest mosque in India, built by a Begum from Afghanistan. To the youth, Bhopal lake was not a lake. It was a sea.
mosque on Bhopal Lake
14th Jan : Railway train back to Delhi
train buddy Utkarsh
Dearest Abdulai It was really great meeting you and clicking those pictures. You have a tough task ahead. Stand brave against the odds and your genuine heart and crystal clear thoughts will take you to your dream. I wish you all the luck, happiness and success in all your future endeavours. Looking forward to meet you again and this time at your place. Keep smiling. Your train buddy Utkrash Pandey 15th Jan : Registering the Afghan ‘States’ presume out of fear that every Afghan is ‘guilty until proved innocent’, though out of the nineteen September 11th hijackers who provided a ‘justification’ for bombing ‘guilty Afghans’, none were Afghans. When I went with the youth to the Foreign Registration office ( Afghans and Pakistanis need to register their existence in India within 14 days upon arrival ), I asked an official where I could find a toilet, and he said, “ Inside ( the building )!” I tried at the guarded door which led into the building, but the official told me,” Outside!” 16th Jan : Frisbee and Astronomy
making friends through frisbeeing
solar time and astronomy
17th Jan : Sleepless on the 20-hour train to Gandhi’s birth city of Ahmedabad
the good, slow train
In the sleeper class cabin of the slow train with unpleasant toilets, Gandhi may have said to us,
“Feel as cold as everyone else.”
the sleeper cabin with Ali under colorful blankets
life inside the train
life outside at railway stations
thoughts while on the rail way tracks
18th to 22nd Jan : Ahmedabad – The world is not yet connected enough for Mankind to live equally Ahmedabad is the city where Gandhi began his India independence struggle, establishing 2 ashrams in 1917. It was from Ahmedabad that Gandhi initiated the Salt March in 1930. We spent time with the people of Demar village ( located 40 km from Ahmedabad city ), an agricultural and livestock village growing cotton and rearing cows for milk.
almost blind in Demar village
ladies sorting the cotton
cotton dreams aren’t white enough because of insufficient irrigation water
meeting village elders to understand the dreams and wishes of the people
Together with 15 Oasis program participants ( from India, Bangladesh and Denmark ), as well as 40 high school students from Gandhinagar International School,we listened to the wishes of the villagers and worked with them through self-help to fulfill one of those wishes.
Included in the villagers’ wish list were :
- Sufficient water – for drinking and irrigation
- Good education, especially addressing youth issues, including drug addiction…
- Cleaning up a road - muddied by accumulated soil and drainage water ( which caused the village women to fall frequently when they carried the milk containers on their heads )
On the last day of the program, we worked with the villagers on wish Number 3, and managed to clean up the muddy stretch of road in the village!
Abdulai getting into his hands and feet into the mud
Ali digging a drainage pit
the people and children working hard together
water is a basic need
food is a basic need – treated to a Gujerati meal!
helping others to help themselves
Governments accumulate wealth while the people contend with basic needs.
The human masses everywhere are not yet connected with one another enough to address the inequalities that challenge us all in the face of an increasingly wealthy global elite.
No short cuts. Connect globally. Relate revolutionarily!
After the Oasis program, we spent a day at Gandhi’s Sabarmati Ashram on the banks of the Sabarmati.
Gandhi’s spinning wheel of independence
can we create ashram-like, self-reliant communities in Afghanistan?
Gandhi’s room of simple living
Gandhian three of ‘no evil’
Signboard at the ashram which said :
Muslims
Hindus
Buddhists
Sikhs
Parsis
Christians
Jews
Build bridges
Not barriers
building bridges with an ashram gardener
23rd to 27th Jan : The Crown, and brevity
The Taj Mahal is the ‘Crown of Palaces’, built by Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan for his third wife Mumtaz Mahal, who died during the birth of their 14th child.
Ali asked, “Did he build anything for his first and 2nd wife?”
next to the Taj Mahal
I commented to the immigration official, Mr Kumar, at the Gandhi International airport who ‘processed’ me at departure ,“ I came with these 3 Afghan youth and we feel that Afghanistan urgently needs Gandhi today. There’s little time…life is short, isn’t it?”
Mr Kumar replied, “ I watched a video ‘Interview with God’, in which God had made 3 observations :
- When Man is young, he wants to grow up quickly. When he’s old, he wants to stay young forever.
- In youth, Man spends his life to earn money, and when he’s old, he spends his money to earn his life.
- In youth, we live as if we’ll never die, and then we die as if we’ve never lived.
new friends from India, Bangladesh, Denmark
We’ve made many friends in India.
Life’s brevity. We’re back in snowy Kabul, where the global 1% elite are negotiating our lives away!
No short cuts. Connect globally. Relate revolutionarily!
Thanks to all who made this trip to India possible!
1. South Asia Peace Alliance http:// http://southasiapeacealliance.weebly.com/
Thanks to Vijay and Rita of South Asia Peace Alliance for inviting, hosting and teaching us!
Vijay ( extreme right ) with us at the Sabarmati Ashram
with Rita
2. Ekta Parishad http://ektaparishad.com/
The team at Bhopal : Aneesh, Lilly, Vinod, Rakash who organized our field visits in Bhopal
Aneesh
Vinod and Lilly
Rakesh
Muntajan in the centre
Paul
Kathrin teaching art to Abdulai
3. Kathy Kelly ( Voices for Creative Non-violence USA http://vcnv.org/ )
and Maya Evans ( Justice not Vengeance UK http://www.j-n-v.org/ )
Maya ( centre ) and Kathy in a boat on Bhopal Lake
4. The Oasis Program facilitators and participants, including teachers and students of Gandhinagar International School
Oasis facilitators and participants
Gandhinagar students
Gandhinagar International School girls
Noam Chomsky: The U.S.-Afghanistan Strategic Partnership Agreement is ‘part of a global program of world militarization’
December 18, 2011 by
Filed under Journey Updates
The Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers
This is a transcript of a conversation between members of the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers and Noam Chomsky, which took place on September 21, 2011. Each question was asked in Dari and translated by Hakim.
Hakim: Thank you, Professor Chomsky, for speaking to us. We are speaking from the highlands of Bamiyan in central Afghanistan, and we wanted to start off by thanking you sincerely for the guidance and wisdom that you have consistently given through your teaching and speeches in many places. We want to start off with a question from Faiz.
Faiz: In an article by Ahmad Rashid in the New York Times recently, he said that “after 10 years, it should be clear that the war in this region cannot be won purely by military force…. Pakistanis desperately need a new narrative… but where is the leadership to tell this story as it should be told? The military gets away with its antiquated thinking because nobody is offering an alternative, and without an alternative, nothing will improve for a long time.” Do you think there is any leadership in the world today that can propose an alternative non-military solution for Afghanistan, and if not, where or from whom would this leadership for an alternative non-military solution come from?
Noam Chomsky: I think it is well understood among the military leadership and also the political leadership in the United States and its allies, that they cannot achieve a military solution of the kind that they want. This is putting aside the question of whether that goal was ever justified; now, put that aside. Just in their terms, they know perfectly well they cannot achieve a military solution.
Is there an alternative political force that could work towards some sort of political settlement? Well, you know, that actually the major force that would be effective in bringing about that aim is popular opinion. The public is already very strongly opposed to the war and has been for a long time, but that has not translated itself into an active, committed, dedicated popular movement that is seeking to change policy. And that’s what has to be done here.
My own feeling is that the most important consequence of the very significant peace efforts that are underway inside Afghanistan might well be to stimulate popular movements in the West through just people to people contact, which would help impose pressures on the United States, and particularly Britain, to end the military phase of this conflict and move towards what ought to be done: peaceful settlement and honest, realistic economic development.
Abdulai: Dr. Ramazon Bashardost told the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers once that the people of Afghanistan have no choice because all available options in Afghanistan are bad. So, Afghans have no choice but to choose the least bad of the bad options. In this situation, some Afghans, and in particular many in Kabul, feel that the least bad option is to have the U.S. coalition forces remain in Afghanistan. Do you think that the continued presence of the U.S. forces in Afghanistan is the least bad option? If not, what are the possible truly good options for ordinary Afghans?
Noam Chomsky: I agree that there don’t appear to be any good options, and that we therefore regrettably have to try to seek the least bad of the bad options. Now, that judgment has to be made by Afghans. You’re on the scene. You’re the people who live with the consequences. You are the people who have the right and responsibility to make these delicate and unfortunate choices. I have my own opinion, but it doesn’t carry any weight. What matters are your opinions.
My opinion is that as long as the military forces are there, now, they will probably increase the tensions and undermine the possibilities for a longer term settlement. I think that’s been the record of the past 10 years largely, and that’s the record in other places as well—in Iraq, for example. So, my feeling is that a phased withdrawal of the kind that’s actually contemplated may well be the least bad of the bad options, but combined with other efforts. It’s not enough to just withdraw troops. There have to be alternatives put in place. One of them, for example, which has repeatedly been recommended, is regional cooperation among the regional powers. That would of course include Pakistan, Iran, India, the countries to the north, all of which, together with Afghan representatives among them, might be able to hammer out a development program that would be meaningful and cooperate in implementing it, shifting the focus of activities from killing to reconstructing and building. But the core of issues are going to have to be settled internal to Afghanistan.
Mohammad Hussein: It has been announced that the foreign forces would leave Afghanistan by 2014, and transfer responsibility for security to Afghans. However, what we have before us appears to be a very deceitful, corrupt situation of the U.S. government signing a Strategic Partnership agreement with the Afghan government to place permanent joint military bases in Afghanistan beyond 2024. It feels as if, to the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers, that the withdrawal by 2014 is therefore inconsequential in light of the larger long term plans to keep forces in Afghanistan. Could you comment on this?
Noam Chomsky: I’m quite sure that those expectations are correct. There is very little doubt that the U.S. government intends to maintain effective military control over Afghanistan by one means or another, either through a client state with military bases, and support for what they’ll call Afghan troops. That’s the pattern elsewhere as well. So, for example, after bombing Serbia in 1999, the United States maintains a huge military base in Kosovo, which was the goal of the bombing. In Iraq, they’re still building military bases even though there is rhetoric about leaving the country. And I presume they will do the same in Afghanistan too, which is regarded by the U.S. as of strategic significance in the long term, within the plans of maintaining control of essentially the energy resources and other resources of the region, including western and Central Asia. So this is a piece of ongoing plans which in fact go back to the Second World War.
Right now, the United States is militarily engaged in one form or another in almost a hundred countries, including bases, special forces operations, support for domestic military and security forces. This is a global program of world militarization, essentially tracing back to headquarters in Washington, and Afghanistan is a part of it. It will be up to Afghans to see if, first of all, if they want this; secondly, if they can act in ways which will exclude it. That’s pretty much what’s happening in Iraq. As late as early 2008, the United States was officially insisting that it maintain military bases and be able to carry out combat operations in Iraq, and that the Iraqi government must privilege U.S. investors for the oil and energy system. Well, Iraqi resistance has compelled the United States to withdraw somewhat from that, substantially, in fact. But the efforts will still continue. These are ongoing conflicts based on long standing principles. Any real success in moving towards demilitarization and reconstruction of relations will have to require primarily the commitment of Afghans, but, as well, the cooperative efforts of popular groups of the Western powers to pressure their own governments.
Faiz: After three decades of war and being at the raw end of regional and global military interference in Afghanistan, the people are feeling lost and without hope. People are even losing hope and not confident that the United Nations, whose charter is to remove the scourge of war from all generations, would be able to offer an alternative solution. We have talked with peace groups about the possibility of a blue ribbon or blue scarf team of individuals, perhaps including Nobel Laureates, who could speak out and make a statement about the dire humanitarian situation in Afghanistan, and perhaps throw open a debate to the world about alternatives for ordinary Afghans who are losing all hope. Do you think that there is any possibility of the United Nations stepping in to offer a different narrative in these dire straits? And is there any possibility of an independent peacemaking blue ribbon team of peace builders who can offer a way out?
Noam Chomsky: One has to bear in mind that the United Nations cannot act independently. It can only act as far as the great powers will permit—that means primarily the United States, also Britain, and France, essentially, the Permanent Members of the Security Council—which limit what the United Nations can do. It can act within the constraints that they impose, and the United States is by far the most influential.
So, just to give one indication of that, take a look at the record of vetoes at the Security Council. In the early days of the United Nations, beginning in the late 1940s, U.S. power was so overwhelming in the world that the United Nations was basically an instrument of the United States. As other industrial powers recovered from the war and decolonization began, the United Nations became somewhat more representative of the people of the world. It became less controlled by the United States and the U.S. began vetoing resolutions. The first U.S. veto was in 1965, and since then, the United States is far in the lead vetoing Security Council resolutions, which blocks action. Now, Britain is second, and no one else is even close. And that continues now. There will probably be another U.S. veto next week. That’s in general the case. If the United States refuses to allow something to happen, the United Nations can’t do anything. Other great powers have also some influence, but less. So, the real question is, will the United States and Britain agree to permit actions of the kind that are outlined in the question. And I think that can come about, but again, we’re back to where we were before.
Abdulai: On behalf of the Afghan youth in Bamiyan, as well as those listening in from Kabul, we thank you for your time with us. We wish you well, and the best of health.
Noam Chomsky: Thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to talk to you briefly. It’s a real privilege, and I greatly admire the wonderful work that you’re doing.
Punishment by killing – a view from Afghanistan
October 30, 2011 by
Filed under Journey Updates
The stoning of Suraya
Are we nearer to freeing ourselves from systemic subjugation to the 1%, and living beyond pleasing others and pursuing THINGS?
Is love revolutionizing?
15 year old Afghan student Abdulai was watching the Iranian movie ‘The Stoning of Suraya’.
When the deceived villagers were praising God’s greatness and demanding Suraya’s death for an adultery she didn’t commit, Abdulai remarked,
‘My heart is tearing apart.
People are like sheep.’
One by one, Suraya’s father, then her husband, then her two sons, then the village mayor and the religious leader, they stoned her.
Suraya had said she was frightened, ‘not of death, but the dying, the stones…’
As her aunt combed Suraya’s funereal hair while singing to her, Suraya cried.
She cried to let go of her children and the belief that justice would always be stronger.
With dignity, she walked to the execution pit. She did not avoid the gaze of the people, especially the haughty shame of the pompous and powerful.
You could hardly tell that she was shaking beneath her suffering shawl, though she wasn’t shaking out of fear or sorrow.
Her bones were shivering out of disappointment.
She spied through her bloodied eyes a dying vision : everyone in the establishment insisted they were right.
And the sheep followed.
The slaughter.
Just as it has been with the deaths of untold individuals.
While 139 countries have already banned capital punishment, in 2010, the countries with the highest public executions rates in the world were China, Iran, North Korea, Yemen and the USA.
Will we finally see war as en-masse capital punishment, mostly of people not directly involved in the dispute?
It is estimated that 2 million Afghans have been killed over the past 40 years, from schemes imposed by locals and foreigners alike.
Not enough?
Killing is effective?
Suraya’s aunt had recounted the madness to a journalist. The story was not meant as news, or a distant distraction, which would change nothing. She said, ‘I want you to take my voice with you.’
What do we do with another voice not our own, especially a dead voice?
I glanced at Abdulai and didn’t know if I could tell him that in terrible incongruence, the world is comfortable with trends, not truths.
The world is comfortable with classifying humans, not understanding them.
We’re comfortable with exterminating those of us deemed ‘incorrigible’, not reforming ourselves.
Though the stoners sensed the hypocrisy, they chose personal safety and social dictates, and blended with the herd use of stones.
That’s why, like Suraya rejecting every throw, Abdulai’s heart was tearing apart.
One killing, or 2 million, robs love of public meaning.
Occupy the Afghan Airwaves!
October 12, 2011 by
Filed under Journey Updates
Occupy the Afghan Airwaves!
On the 21st of October 2011, use your Skype or phone to converse with the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers :
To arrange a date and time, go to http://globaldaysoflistening.org
and write to globaldaysoflistening@gmail.com
We thank Prof Noam Chomsky for speaking to the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers
during last month’s Global Days of Listening on the International day of Peace.
We are the 99%,
and like the Afghan elderly laborer resting by his wheelbarrow with a small loaf of bread,
we are waking up, and taking to the airwaves!
For too long, the Afghan airwaves have been saturated by the money and military intrigues of the 1%.
Yes, with their Wealth and Power, this 1 % has been dominating the narrative,
but they cannot stop YOU from Skype-calling us, from anywhere, for a few minutes.
They cannot stop the 99 % from being friends.
This is our hope of a Human Spring !
Y Not?
Y Not Occupy Everything?
Listening on the Afghan hills
Occupy the Afghan Airwaves!
Every month,
we’ll fill the Afghan Airwaves with our ‘main street’ voices,
so that despite the noise of dollars and guns from the 1%,
we are the 99%,
and we choose to be free!
The Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers, with Douglas, Jody and Larry
Global Days of Listening on 21st October 2011,
21st November 2011, 21st December 2011, 21st January 2012…
…. and the 21st of every month!
To arrange a date and time for a conversation,
go to http://globaldaysoflistening.org
and write to globaldaysoflistening@gmail.com
Afghans for Peace,
on 24th October, Afghanistan Peace Day in Fremont California
Y Not?
The Blue Scarf
under the same Blue Sky
‘Occupy’ and hope for a Human Spring in Afghanistan
http://warisacrime.org/content/%E2%80%98occupy%E2%80%99-and-hope-human-spring-afghanistan
http://vcnv.org/occupy-and-hope-for-a-human-spring-in-afghanistan
The people aren’t free, yet
For a long time, the ordinary people of Afghanistan have felt fatefully robbed by its geography.
We aren’t a free people.
34 year old Afghan human rights activist Rangina Hamidi, who is returning to Virginia USA after 8 years of working in Kandahar, grieves the murder of her father, the late City Mayor of Kandahar, and while recognizing the humanity in President Karzai, blames Karzai and the international community for the Afghan ‘entropy’ swirling in ‘360 degrees of chaos’. “I will only come back when I know that I can help make my people a free people again,” she said. “Right now, I don’t think we’re free.” Rangina leaves having lost all hope.
For a long time, the ordinary people of Mexico have felt fatefully robbed by the ‘war on drugs’.
We aren’t a free people.
The militarized method was declared a failure by the Global Commission on Drug Policy, comprising the former presidents Cardoso of Brazil, Gaviria of Colombia and Zedillo of Mexico, former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and others. The Commission’s first line of recommendation: “Break the taboo. Pursue an open debate…” This recommendation was simple yet apparently un-doable, even after ex-US President Jimmy Carter requested a ‘Call off the Global Drug War’. Meanwhile, the Caravan of Solace led by Javier Sicilia, Julian Lebaron and more than 300,000 Mexicans took to the streets, wearing white and walking in silence, holding up placards that read “Not a single more death,” “Enough already” and “No more bloodshed”.
The Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers were touched by their grieving, by their ‘Nonviolent Occupation of Ciudad Juárez’ and wanted to share the Mexicans’ pain of losing 40,000 loved ones over 5 years. They earnestly connected with Julian Lebaron, saying, “We need you to know that walking together is not a weakness. It is our everything.”
For a long time, the ordinary people of the world have felt fatefully robbed by its elite 1%.
We aren’t a free people.
When the Spanish Indignados began their massive street protests in May this year, part of their manifesto read : “We need an ethical revolution. Instead of placing money above human beings, we shall put it back to our service. We are people, not products.” Sociologist Miguel Martínez, who teaches at Madrid’s Complutense University, said, “If you lose your dignity, then you are simply a wage slave.”
We had also hoped to reach out to the Spanish Indignados, but couldn’t reach them.
‘1%’s wealth and force.’
The reason why the Occupy movement grips our hearts is because the Afghan strategy of the past 40 years, implemented by Afghanistan’s lords and the other lords of the world, has essentially been based on the ‘1%’s wealth and force.’
Hard wealth and force.
First, try to ‘buy’ the people at some kind of a minimum wage level. If that doesn’t work, fight them. Today, this is done as a ‘pacification’ technique, in the sacred names of stability, security and peace.
This international norm of ‘being richer and stronger than the next richest and strongest tribesman’ has not been publicly questioned ; we hope the time has come to break the taboo and pursue an open debate! This international norm is what Rangina Hamidi calls the ‘guns-and-graft ethos’ in Afghanistan, in which the 1% use bombs-and-bribes to compete for Kingship. Globally and historically, this norm is boringly replicated with transient Empires, the Greek, Roman, Ottoman, Byzantine, Austrian-Hungarian, Russian, British, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Mughal and American Empires just to name a few, and the Chinese next?
It is a haughty, authoritarian mindset supported by the political, educational, moral, journalistic and military bodies of the world, and naturally strengthened by Man’s craving for money and power. Former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan had said that another global financial crisis is inevitable because human nature always reverts to “speculative excesses” during a period of sustained prosperity, ‘unless somebody can find a way to change human nature.’ We can’t change human nature, but we can surely find a way.
And that’s what humanity has felt stuck with for so long, a seemingly inherent inability to guide and govern ourselves towards less greed and violence. We have established human systems which have increasingly concentrated wealth and power in the hands of a very few, to the delight of the very few. Human beings do have a deep sense for fairness, and search for justice in various ways including through religion, but incongruently, systems of escalating inequality have been institutionalized across all aspects of life, and quietly accepted.
Prof Noam Chomsky laments Thucydides’ maxim that ‘the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.’ But he also tirelessly challenges ‘power structures’ with his heart and mind, saying to young people : ‘This world is full of suffering, distress, violence and catastrophes. Students must decide: does something concern you or not? I say: look around, analyze the problems, ask yourself what you can do and set out on the work!’
We bear hope that the Arab Spring, the Spanish Indignados, the Mexican Caravan of Solace and Occupy Wall Street are all tides of a global awakening, a healthy non-acceptance of Thucydides’ status quo and a non-violent civil disobeying of the ‘1% wealth and force’. Our Human Spring!
‘1%’s wealth’
About 35 percent of the Afghan population is unemployed. Afghans who are employed with embassies, international NGOs or foreign contractors can earn $US1500 a month while public-sector worker wages remain between $US50 and $US250 a month.
Probably a third of the country’s GDP comes from the opium and hashish trade , and the Afghan government’s budget is unsustainably dependent on foreign aid money.
The 1% Afghan rich are naturally well travelled, have luxury ‘palaces’ in Kabul and enjoy the ‘high life’ in foreign countries like Dubai. The corrupt business conglomerates, including some construction, gas and oil companies, are run by this 1%, often the ex-warlord-current-political elite and their allies.
This foreign-dependent and nepotistic form of capitalism, mixed with the tenacity of corrupt tribalism, marks the logistics and private security firms, the lucrative mines and mineral industry and the banking sector.
Even in aid work, a young, educated Afghan friend had joked with me years ago that ‘Al Qaeda’ in Afghanistan had transformed into ‘Al Faida/ Al Profit’, with hundreds of NGOs seeking profit from the millions of dollars available through aid. Linda Polman, in her book ‘The Crisis Caravan: What’s Wrong with Humanitarian Aid? , devotes a chapter to ‘Afghaniscam’, in which she describes her belief that international aid is ‘only helping gangsters and fighters, while innocent victims suffer on’.
A March 2010 UN Human Rights Report described entrenched corruption worsening Afghan poverty, stating that ‘ despite $35 billion injected into the economy since 2002, one in three Afghans, or 9 million people, live in absolute poverty while another third survive just above the poverty line…. A key driver of poverty in Afghanistan is the abuse of power. Many Afghan power-holders use their influence to drive the public agenda for their own personal or vested interests.’
The stark gulf between the wealthy few and the poor in Kabul have grown so desperate that the number of beggars have increased, including women and child beggars. Begging has become such a ‘problem’ that the Karzai government formed an anti-begging commission and passed a law in November 2008 which made begging a crime, after which hundreds of beggars were arrested.
The very poor get harassed and arrested!
Just last evening, I saw policemen chasing away street vendors in Kabul with their batons, in particular, a young teenage boy who was selling me tomatoes from his wooden cart, reminding me of how Bouazizi sparked the Tunisian Revolution and the Arab Spring when he set himself on fire, unable to tolerate such ironies anymore.
We do not want any more such tragedies to be heaped on the 99% by the 1%, but considering the oppressive local and international quagmire Afghanistan is in, we think that for change to begin in Afghanistan, change needs to happen in Wall Street, Washington D.C., and the global centers of financial power who are calling the fatal Afghan shots from far-away.
Even if such change doesn’t come in our lifetimes, we want it!
‘1%’s force.’
In calling for ‘a farewell to nuclear arms’, Gorbachev correctly named our global problem, stating that ‘our world remains over militarized’. Who remembers his opinions on the Afghan War, here and here, except perhaps the NATO Chief ‘slamming Gorbachev’s negative view’?
Has anyone heard of any other local or international strategy for Afghanistan except the military strategy?
The ex-UN Envoy to Afghanistan, Norwegian Kai Eide, had written that he increasingly disagreed with Washington’s strategy in Afghanistan, saying it put too much emphasis on military operations over civilian reconstruction efforts. “In my opinion it was a strategy being doomed to fail…. But none of us gained support for our views.”
Did anyone notice that the previous Kabul Governor, Dr Zebihullah Mojaddidy, had quit because ‘the government was ignoring his reconstruction programs for the province’? Reconstruction programs are ignored even in the capital! What’s the US 2 billion dollars a week being spent on?
For a long time, Afghans have unwillingly accepted the least bad of bad options for a conflict we are so tired of. The bad options are the Taliban, the Afghan war and druglords of whom many are in government, Pakistani or Iranian interference, and the US/NATO coalition. Because many Afghans are so emotionally traumatized by the Taliban and warlords, the US/NATO coalition may be the least bad of the bad options. We say,” What options do we have?” All are violent, military options, so let’s choose the least bad one.
The US/NATO’s proclaimed aim is to militarily ensure that there are no safe havens for the ‘Taliban/Al Qaeda/insurgents’, as if an ideology of hate could be geographically removed naively by hate which is better-armed. But what can we say to such illogic? “What options do we have?”
Every power-monger, including the ‘Taliban’ or Afghan war and drug-lords and the myriad of business-suited internationals , is buying us, dividing us, demeaning us, insulting us, humoring us, and killing us.
Much as it is difficult to hear this, we are the game, exotic wild animals whose carcasses none wish to count too accurately.
We thought we had seen some light when Wikileaks released 91,731 Afghan War Logs exposing our bloody mayhem, but the world has been made to wonder if Julian Assange is a rapist-terrorist.
In 2009, Radio Free Europe named the Afghan Member of Parliament and ‘Afghan Gandhi’ , Dr Ramazon Bashardost, their Person of the Year, and while Afghans popularly voted him into 3rd place in the Presidential Elections and many appreciate his honest approach, the world has ignored him. Therefore, Afghans sigh that good people don’t get very far, and guess that Dr Bashardost may be ‘mad’. With such excessive violence, his ideas of non-violent solutions for Afghanistan are ‘mad’.
The military way over-rides all, including the United Nations, whose original charter is to ‘remove the scourge of war from future generations’.
When the United Nations recently reported that ‘security incidents’ had increased by 39% in 2011, ISAF retorted that the United Nations was comparing ‘apples and oranges’ and that violence had, in Godly-factual style, decreased by 27 %.
To denigrate the UN further, when the UN reported ‘systematic torture ‘ in detention facilities across Afghanistan, the Afghan Interior Ministry said that the UN’s compelling evidence of torture were ‘false’. Someone is lying, but after 10 years, the international community is too distant to care about who the liar is.
Then, ISAF refuted even a ‘Knock on the Door’ of their kill-capture program by Dari/Pushto speaking journalists who suggested the lack of sufficient information in the public domain to analyze claims like night operations being ‘one of the most effective methods for target key leaders and insurgents ’. Never mind that night operations are universally abhorred by all Afghans.
Our international military strategy is ‘too big to fail’. Their proponents imply, ‘Don’t question us or debate about what we choose to reveal or what we choose to do. Just accept that what goes on behind our doors is always right. All military options are all always right. And for your best interests.’
These civil disagreements over numbers in different war scenarios make a good, small chink in the military armour, but still leave out any debate of whether ‘hard force’ is at all effective in resolving human conflict. Military force in the hands of a few has become the modus-operandi-option to resolving human conflict, and worse, such militarism can now be called ‘humanitarian wars’.
And while the 1% defend the brute method of war, the killers are promoted.
Like how the US Embassy reported in 2006 that Abdul Raziq, now the Acting Police Commander of Kandahar, had been ‘removed from his post for allegedly attacking ( summarily executing ) 16 rivals under the pretext that they were Taliban militants’ and then how, with perfect impunity, the State ( Afghans joke that this country is ‘Amerikistan’ ) crowned him as Brigadier General Abdul Raziq this year.
What human beings are doing to human beings in Afghanistan, and in other unfortunate countries is this ; systematically educating one another that force and money are pragmatic necessities for security, and control is gained when you are better at ‘targeting and killing others before they kill you.’
Any luck from the civilian leadership? We read with disbelief that the US Ambassador Ryan Crocker approved of what amounts to a civilian-supported torture method in saying to the Wall Street Journal, “The Taliban needs to feel more pain before you get to a real readiness to reconcile.”
Afghans know by harsh experience that all foreign countries are in Afghanistan not for the interests of the people but for selfish state-interests, that ‘the cat doesn’t kill mice for the sake of God’, but in the face of militarism from all directions, we diffuse our anger, we get on, and we say, ‘What options do we have?’
‘99%’s strength’
Yes, you may think that Afghans are unreasonably angry because they are uneducated and don’t understand the big picture, and that they are rough, tribal people.
That somehow, the only way to manage Afghans is to allow the ‘good’ 1% to control the ‘bad’ 99% of Afghans with their Wealth and Force.
But come live and laugh with the 99% of ordinary Afghans. We are just like you.
Come watch ‘Shabkhand’ / ‘The Night of Laughter’ with us, a popular Afghan television show featuring a stand-up comedian interviewing well-known personalities. Come enjoy music with us. Come see our thirst for a good education. Come see our need for decent livelihoods. Come see how we silently persevere to retain human dignity.
Please.
Please, can the people of the world put thinking and caring people around a table over cups of tea, to propose a sensible and non-violent way out of this Great Game played by the 1%, or is human civilization now incapable of genuine conversations?
Suddenly.
Suddenly, we began noticing people awakening as if from an enforced sleep, in Tunisia, Egypt, Spain, Greece, Mexico and now Occupy Wall Street, proving that even our enforced sleep cannot cheat reality. Suddenly, we caught a flicker of hope, of human solidarity, of a Human Spring breaking out of the integrated civil-military darkness.
We thank you. We wish to thank every human soul who has walked the main protest streets at any one time, alone or together.
Most people may not yet understand how freeing and humanizing it is to witness that perhaps, love and truth exist, and that there is more than one human option to our problems, and that not all options have to be bad.
We’re sorry that presently, we cannot take to the Afghan streets in such large numbers yet, because neither the Taliban nor the US/Afghan coalition will be very happy, because we are too divided to have a critical mass, because we haven’t been getting ready, and because we aren’t quite brave enough to lose our everything. But, we’ll do what we can.
The freeing sense is that perhaps, we no longer need to be slaves wandering on our own in an unequal wilderness.
We sense that the love of the people which has saved us from hopeless nights can possibly breakthrough into a wider public practice. “Y Not?”
We sense that one day, we will be free, and Rangina can return.
Shaking, we realize that all along, but also suddenly, we ARE the 99%.
Hakim
On behalf of the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers
17/10/2011
Afghanistan
God has failed these 10 Afghan years
October 5, 2011 by
Filed under Journey Updates
Dear friends who sense that the ‘elite’ are too greedy,
God has failed these 10 Afghan years
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csZyoSdhsaE
Written in the voice of a 10 year old Afghan child from Kandahar
My mother tells me I’m God-sent,
cos’ we survived the bombings.
10 years have passed,
Mother still has a creased faith,
though now she says…
‘your birth was perhaps untimely’.
We sometimes cry together,
and sometimes on our own.
Discouraged with world leaders
united in suits of war,
as if
to solve our problems.
They say this land is the worst
for a child,
AND for a mother.
Ignoring our elders,
many foreign soldiers became
the killers among our killers.
Who says this must be so?
Who cares that this is so?
I shudder that the raids and bombs
have made us less than human.
I wish to go to our deserted schools
to understand why we are like this.
I used to dream of spaces,
blue skies and gentler people.
I heard mother through her burqa
pleading please ‘Stop!’
‘Stop the money. Stop the killing.
Stop.’
Another local explosion,
more international lies.
Our global problem is that
guns impose greater force
than common sense
or vision, which tells me
that my mother’s world is crashing.
Harder still for the eager young,
is the human disconnect
amidst the game
of ordered weapons.
Our births are too different,
our lives too separate.
A few lords play
while the people sit hidden
even from ‘salams’.
Such that if I told you
that God / the USA / the UN has failed these 10 years,
you wouldn’t believe me.
You’ve hardly heard any 1 of 30 million voices
Y not listen?
http://globaldaysoflistening.org
Love,
Hakim and the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers
http://globaldaysoflistening.org
The people of Afghanistan, Kandahar, Afghanistan 2003
‘What was 9/11?’
September 9, 2011 by
Filed under Journey Updates
‘What was 9/11?’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9u49n2LMT3w
Paul Arpaia of September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows ( from New York USA ), whose cousin was killed on September 11, and Mohammad Jan of the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers ( from Bamiyan Afghanistan ) met in Kabul Afghanistan recently.
Though their sharing was brief, it was a sharing of grief and strength, evidence that love always overcomes hate.
Transcript of Video
Paul Arpaia of September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows
I think that peace is a state of being,
that we choose to live in peace, and we choose to live in hate
So if you choose to live in peace, it’s contagious
If you choose to live in hate, it’s contagious
So, if you live in hate, other people who are in contact with you will live in hate.
Mohammad Jan of the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers
All of us can feel your pain, because you lost a family member on September 11
All of us can feel your pain because here, it’s like September 11 every day.
Every day, Afghans are losing their family members.
We ( Afghans ) don’t have any problems with you ( the people of America ).
We only have a problem with governments being cruel to the people
We can work side by side to end this war, & work for a non-violent solution in Afghanistan.
The people have always been friends.
The people have always been friends, Paul and Mohammad Jan
‘What was 9/11?’
‘What was 9/11?’ asked 92 percent of southern Afghans.
In Washington D.C.,
Afghans, with their pleading mothers,
became inconsequential under fire,
cast as ‘evil’ objects for retaliation.
Everyone is exacting ‘justice’,
by hitting back at the other,
hoping not to be killed.
No wonder it is tiring,
for every soul.
What do we do with our anger,
and fear?
What are the options?
There appears to be only one, adults say.
“Force.”
Unable to face ourselves
as other people are dying,
floundering in our calculations,
our usual education & lonely disconnect,
we embrace ‘force’.
“Love isn’t pragmatic in negotiations.
With sufficient force, we’ll be stronger strongmen
than those who wish to harm us.”
So we watch mothers cry,
and neither grieve nor cope at all.
Y Not make music?
August 20, 2011 by
Filed under Journey Updates
Y Not make music?
Y Not have a conversation with the ‘demonized’?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwUWKeXTm6o
Below are events coming up for you to make a connection with or find out more about the ‘demonized’ people of Afghanistan and other conflict areas.
Global Days of Listening – 21st of August 2011 Sunday
Location : From your Skype account anywhere or from your cell phone anywhere in the world
Date : 21st of August 2011 Sunday, from 6.30 p.m. Afghanistan time ( please check your local times )
Connection : Go to http://globaldaysoflistening.org and send your Skype address or cell number to globaldaysoflistening@gmail.com
broken mountain
Talk by Dr Hakim on ‘Taliban or us’ – an unequal humanity has come here
Location : Middle East Institute, National University of Singapore, Singapore
Date : 25th of August 2011 Thursday, 3 p.m. to 5 p.m.
Free Admission. To register, please visit http://www.mei.nus.edu.sg/upcoming-events.
broken families
International Day of Peace 21st of September 2011 Global Days of Listening ( 24 hour event )
Location : From your Skype account anywhere or from your cell phone anywhere in the world
Date : International Day of Peace, 21st of September 2011 Wednesday
Connection : Speak with an Afghan/Palestinian/Iraqi/Egyptian and other youth for just one minute by going to http://globaldaysoflistening.org and sending your Skype address or cell number to globaldaysoflistening@gmail.com
broken hope
broken method
broken Kabul palace
broken wall
broken freedom
Y Not make music?
American and Afghan Slavery Will Soon Be Signed
August 10, 2011 by
Filed under Journey Updates
American and Afghan slavery will soon be signed
a statement issued by the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers
August 9, 2011
‘The world doesn’t have to choose between the Taliban and the US government.
All the beauty of the world—literature, music, art—lies between these two fundamentalist poles.’
War Is Peace, by Arundhati Roy, October 18, 2001
We need clarity
The Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers reject the US-Afghanistan Strategic Partnership Declaration.
We reject such declarations made by politicians who do not know us, nor care for us.
We want the freedom to solve our own problems.
In case you haven’t heard of the US-Afghanistan Strategic Partnership Declaration, here is how it is being described in the international press.
We need to listen
“The United States should maintain a long-term military presence in Afghanistan as a ‘tenant’ on bases jointly occupied with Afghan forces, rather than on permanent U.S. bases, after its combat mission ends, according to Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates……the administration is negotiating a strategic partnership agreement with the Kabul government for the longer term.” –U.S. wants ‘joint bases’ in Afghanistan, Gates says, Karen DeYoung, Washington Post, 8th June 2011
‘The Iranian interior minister made a rushed visit to Kabul, followed shortly by the national security advisers of India and Russia. The Russians, though generally supportive of NATO’s role in Afghanistan, were alarmed at the prospect of a long-term Western presence. “The Russian side supports the development of Afghanistan by its own forces in all areas — security, economic, political — only by its own forces, especially after 2014,” said Stepan Anikeev, a political adviser at the Russian Embassy here. “How is transition possible with these bases?”’ Talks on U.S. Presence in Afghanistan after Pullout Unnerve Region, Rod Nordland, New York Times, 18th April 2011.
‘Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani…bluntly told Afghan President Hamid Karzai that the Americans had failed them both…Mr. Karzai should “forget about allowing a long-term U.S. military presence in his country…,” Mr. Gilani said. Pakistan is lobbying Afghanistan’s president against building a long-term strategic partnership with the U.S., urging him instead to look to Pakistan—and its Chinese ally.’ Karzai Told to Dump U.S., Matthew Rosenberg, Wall Street Journal, 27th April 2011.
‘The US has been bankrolling the effort with up to $100bn (£61bn) a year and is negotiating a new strategic partnership with President Hamid Karzai. “December [2014] is not a campaign end date but a waypoint – a point at which the coalition security posture changes from one that is in the lead to one that is mentoring and advising, but is still here.” General James Bucknall, 2nd in command of International Security and Assistance Force (ISAF).’ Nick Hopkins, The Guardian, 10th May 2011.
‘Because of deep concerns over militant groups in the region, (U.S. officials) want some kind of launching area … to go after individuals and training camps. They see few other basing options in the region. So, the U.S. government will push hard for this.’ Caroline Wadhams, a security expert at the Center for American Progress, 3rd June 2011.
‘The Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit ( SCO, a mutual-security organisation which was founded in 2001 in Shanghai by the leaders of China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan ) adopted a statement calling for an “independent, neutral” Afghanistan (read: free of foreign occupation). Nurusultan Nazarbayev, president of Kazakhstan, who hosted Karzai, put it on record, “It is possible that the SCO will assume responsibility for many issues in Afghanistan after the withdrawal of coalition forces in 2014.”’ Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar, a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service, Asia Times Online, 21st June 2011.
‘In a statement, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s Party of Hezb-e-Islami described establishment of permanent US military bases in Afghanistan as an eternal occupation of the country. The statement said establishment of permanent US bases in Afghanistan would mean the war never ends.’ Tolo News Afghanistan, 19th July 2011.
What is described is the framework for Great Game 3.0, demonstrating the world’s militarized inability to resolve distrust and human conflict in a sensible manner, and the ineffectual silence of the international community and the United Nations.
We need to ask questions
Our leaders, the Afghan and American elite, don’t want us to be concerned about the US-Afghanistan Strategic Partnership Declaration. They want us to be appropriately upset by news of suicide bombings and I.E.D.s, and sufficiently curious about the Taliban, the 2014 drawdown, and peace.
What’s more, the ‘debt crisis doom’ will not allow us to look at the big picture, which is the consistent abuse of the people’s interests by global governments determined to maintain the status quo of Power-and-Wealth-dictated inequalities.
Yet, the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers are committed to recovering their values. This is difficult because such values have been de-humanized, as we ourselves have become disconnected from other human beings and distracted by material OBJECTS. This happens to us and it happens more so to ordinary Americans who face even greater distractions and may not want to bother with this ‘agreement.’ After all, Americans have enough troubles of their own.
Or can we expect her citizens to break out of their cold, lonely bubbles?
We need an urgent global debate about this.
The US-Afghanistan Strategic Partnership Declaration will perpetuate ‘terrorism’ and bring it to everyone’s doorsteps.
The ‘partnership’ will allow permanent joint US-Afghanistan military bases to launch and project hard power. The ‘extreme’ Taliban would conveniently ‘use’ these bases as a stand-alone reason for their ‘holy jihad.’ We cannot forget that one of Osama Bin Laden’s reasons for attacking the US on September 11th was the presence of US military bases in Saudi Arabia.
This Strategic Partnership Declaration would kill any chance for our madness to slow down and our violence to calm down.
It will doom ordinary Americans and Afghans to permanent terrorism.
Why can’t we quiet our nerves, look deep inside humanity, and begin healing?
The reality is that Afghans are not only very angry but also tired, while US/NATO citizens are essentially unaware, so are neither concerned, nor angry.
We need options
As Arundhati Roy said, Afghans don’t have to choose between the Taliban and the US-Afghan Government…these two fundamentalist poles.
Just like Americans don’t have to choose between ‘feeding’ the rich or ‘feeding’ the rich.
We can choose normal, decent lives, based on respect for life, on valuing life.
We can connect our aspirations with those of human beings elsewhere:
‘When people decide to live, destiny shall obey, and one day … the slavery chains must be broken.’ Tunisian poet Abu Al-Qasem Al-Shabi (Schebbi)
‘Hurriya! Hurriya! Hurriya! - Freedom! Freedom! Freedom!’ Egyptian Tahrir Square protesters
‘We are not merchandise in the hands of politicians and bankers! We are not slaves!’ Spanish Indignados, Real Democracy Now
‘The world is no longer dignified enough for words… This is my last poem, I cannot write more poetry. Poetry no longer exists inside me. No more blood!’ Mexican poet Javier Sicilia and the Caravan of Solace
‘The people demand social justice. This is Egypt.’ About 300,000 Israelis marching through the streets in central Tel Aviv
‘Tell the world not to send their money,’ says Abdulai, a 15 year old Afghan boy. ‘I don’t need their money. I need to live without wars.’
At a Press Briefing in Kabul on the 5th of June 2011, President Karzai addressed Robert Gates as ‘His Excellency’ and gave him a medal, which Gates self-proclaimed as ‘an award’ presented to him ‘on behalf of the Afghan people.’
If the Afghan public knew that Karzai had given Gates an award on their behalf, they may have fumed. But then, most rural Afghans don’t even know who Gates is.
This proud and exceptional self-praise by the rich and powerful is ugly; the People of the world should expose and disempower this imposition of values.
There ARE other options, especially since there ARE other deeper values.
We need an equal conversation
No Power today represents the people. Today, ordinary Afghans are denied the basic human dignities, living in a country that Save the Children said was the most dangerous place on earth for mothers, and that UNICEF said was the worst place on earth to be born in, and to be a child.
Moreover, the country that is pushing to sign this Strategic Partnership Declaration with Afghanistan, namely the US, has neither ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women nor the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
These indicate the ‘human regress’ which the Afghan government/Taliban/US/NATO have been responsible for.
We mustn’t ‘just watch and do nothing’ about our glaring socio-economic inequalities; 20% of the earth’s population is hoarding more than 70% of the total income.
It is an unsustainable inhumanity.
Why not listen, as human beings are capable of doing?
Why not grieve?
Why not have decent and equal conversations?
Have we all become incapable of perceiving the ‘beauty of the world – literature, music, art…?’
For the sake of Abdulai and billions of ordinary people like him, why not join the rising masses across the Middle East & Africa, Europe, South & Central America and more, under the same blue sky, to end our slavery to the status quo values?
We need to at least have conversations about the US-Afghanistan Strategic Partnership Declaration, before it is signed in betrayal of ordinary Americans, Afghans and global citizens.
Y Not? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPySr8sHA0k
We have little left to lose anyway.
The Powers have been laughing at us, right from the very beginning.
The US coalition was dropping 26,000 bombs on an already destroyed Afghanistan from October 2001 to March 2002, when these words were recorded: ‘By the second day of the air strikes, US pilots were returning to their bases without dropping their assigned payload of bombs. As one pilot put it, Afghanistan is “not a target-rich environment.” At a press briefing at the Pentagon, Donald Rumsfeld, US defense secretary, was asked if America had run out of targets. “First we’re going to re-hit targets,” he said, “and second, we’re not running out of targets, Afghanistan is…” This was greeted with gales of laughter in the Briefing Room.’
Gandhi had said, ‘Our slavery is complete when we begin to hug it.’
When the Strategic Partnership is signed, peace groups will still be working hard to demand complete withdrawal. Unawares, the rest of the world will be repulsed by but still admiring how ‘intelligent’ politicians are ‘Mafia-ing’ the economic crisis. But, there will then be at least 5 permanent US military bases in Afghanistan, and ‘gales of laughter in the Briefing Room.’ Brutality Smeared in Peanut Butter, Arundhati Roy, The Guardian, October 23, 2001
Next the statesman will invent cheap lies, putting the blame on the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception…
Mark Twain.
Y Not?
Updates :
1. More Lost by the Second in Afghanistan by Kathy Kelly
http://truth-out.org/more-lost-second/1313095976
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/08/12
2. The Signing will be soon, before the December 2011 Bonn Conference
Excerpt :
Andrey Avetisyan, Russian ambassador to Kabul, said: “Afghanistan needs many other things apart from the permanent military presence of some countries. It needs economic help and it needs peace. Military bases are not a tool for peace.
“I don’t understand why such bases are needed. If the job is done, if terrorism is defeated and peace and stability is brought back, then why would you need bases?
“If the job is not done, then several thousand troops, even special forces, will not be able to do the job that 150,000 troops couldn’t do. It is not possible.”
3. Common Sense in a Coma by Robert C. Koehler
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/08/25
4. Taliban ridicule Us’s peace talks by Mk Bhadrakumar
http://blogs.rediff.com/mkbhadrakumar/2011/08/23/taliban-ridicule-uss-peace-talks/
Excerpt :
ZM reiterated that Taliban will oppose the US’ so-called ’strategic agreement’ with President Hamid Karzai on permanent American military bases in Afghanistan. Clearly, the US peace track – and Karzai’s peace track – has floundered. Pakistan has driven home the point, namely, that there can be no peace track that is not meeting with its concurrence and not accommodating its leadership. Worse still, the ‘Afghan hands’ in Washington, DC who fancied they knew all the needed to be known about the Pashtuns have been reduced to despair. Put simply, they don’t know anymore who is a Taliban — and who is not. What a predicament!
5. Troops stuck in Afghanistan until 2024 by Tom Engelhardt
http://www.alternet.org/world/152146/the_new_date_for_victory_in_afghanistan:_2024?page
6. War, Too Big to Fail by William Rivers Pit Truth Out
http://www.truth-out.org/war-too-big-fail/1314198655
7. Afghanistan returning to the brink by Khalid Iqbal
Excerpt
The window of opportunity that propped up after the NATO and ISAF started handing over district wise control to the Afghan security forces appears to be shutting off fast by the reports about a dubious Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), which the US is trying to impose on Afghanistan. It is aimed at allowing the US military presence in Afghanistan until 2024. An effort to secure six to eight military bases is also on, but in a hush hush manner. As a result, Afghanistan is back to the brink of disaster.
8. Talks on new US-Afghan pact strains relations by AP
9. From ‘War on Terror’ to ‘New Silk Road’ By Parag Khanna Special to CNN
Our comment : The title should be BOTH ‘War on Terror’ AND ‘New Silk Road’ ( BOTH Power AND Money )
10. Afghan Traditional Council Lays out 76 point resolution for the US By Afghanistan Times
http://www.afghanistantimes.af/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1591&Itemid=54
Our comment : Resolution Article 32 is the only clearly pro-people resolution, and is similar to the condition which Iraqis recently used to deny a ‘full-blown’ permanent American presence in Iraq. All the other resolutions support the Americans or provide sufficient loopholes.
11. Bargaining US Hails Afghan View on Presence By YAROSLAV TROFIMOV of Wall Street Journal
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203710704577050000162177144.html
12. An economic reprieve? By Anne Jolis of Wall Street Journal
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204531404577054213615305178.html
13. Iran demands NATO pull-out from Afghanistan after 2014 By Farsi News
http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=9007276335
14. New Silk Route Euphemism for the New Great Game By Fahad Rehman of Fault Lines
http://www.thefaultlines.com/new-silk-route-euphemism-for-the-new-great-game/
15. Bargaining over US bases : Will they stay or will they go? By Kate Clark of Afghanistan Analyst Network
http://aan-afghanistan.com/index.asp?id=2341
Sometimes, we may hurt like the Afghan dove
July 5, 2011 by
Filed under Journey Updates
Dear friends in an antagonistic world,
In the face of a broken Afghan dove, what can the people ask for?
Sometimes, we may hurt like the Afghan dove http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5y8bRK5-dM0
In the face of possible ‘doom’, what can we ask for?
Y Not listen? Y Not Converse?
Have conversations between the People and world leaders become so impossible in these ‘democratic’ days?
Love,
Hakim and the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers
http://ourjourneytosmile.com/blog
http://globaldaysoflistening.org
PS We are working towards human solidarity especially among the ‘Y generation’ seeking change across the Middle East, Mexico, Spain and others, to request for a global conversation between the People of the world and world leaders, through an upcoming, blue-scarf effort to organize ‘Y Not Converse?’.
Faiz beside our hurt Afghan dove
Sometimes, we may hurt like the Afghan dove
Dear XXX ( current high-ranking staff with the UN in Afghanistan ),
Forgive this email.
We felt we could share with you our burdens without incurring your anger or pity.
Much has happened to the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers since we met with you for a wonderful hour in Kabul.
Like it is with 30 million other Afghans, our mounting challenges are ‘intolerable and untenable’, and in some instances, rather severe on our souls.
It is improbable that we will see any fruit in our lifetimes.
Peace has become a broken ideal. It is a joke derided over tea.
We’re not being negative ; our endeavor to love means that we remain realistically positive, even if love seems to have broken.
But the world is being untrue in ignoring the perpetual breaking of Afghan mothers as peace is torn apart like a goat in the Powers’ ‘buzkashi’ game ; the humanitarian statistics and our visual witness prove that this shattering is borne on the backs of the people.
The chiseled Herati-stone sculptured dove which we enthusiastically raised funds to purchase from an Afghan artist, sits silently at Bamiyan Peace Park, inviting visitors to dignity.
One its wings was recently broken off and taken away, as if to break us.
We are no longer shocked.
The energies of local and international communities have been twisted to destruction in Afghanistan for at least 3 decades.
Why?
Why is the media, and the political climate, so antagonistically and obstinately breaking peace?
How much time do we have left to change ourselves, in hope of changing a global predicament?
XXX, the people know that the strategy in Afghanistan is failing. They are paying for it with their lives.
We wish there would be a study like the Global Commission on Drug Policy, in which ex-Presidents and the ex-UN Secretary General Kofi Annan declared clearly a failed ‘war against drugs’.
Like in Mexico where 40,000 Mexicans have died violently since 2007, Afghans need a Caravan of Solace to grieve together. So, in the past few days, we had telephone conversations with Julian LeBaron and Emilio Alvarez from Javier Sicilia’s people’s movement, to think together about how ‘poems die’, and how beautiful things are ignored, laughed at and then criminalized.
We are sorry that in the Commission’s report, Afghanistan, the top producer of heroin and marijuana, is not mentioned. It is as if in thinking about water, we ignore the oceans. It is as if Afghans do not exist.
But in it lies a practical way to live again. It’s found on Page 10 of the report, as its very first recommendation: “Break the taboo. Pursue an open debate……… Political leaders and public figures should have the courage to articulate publicly what many of them acknowledge privately.”
After Kai Eide had resigned ( and we wish he had declared this BEFORE he left his post as Afghanistan’s UN Envoy ), he declared in a preface of a book he wrote, that he had increasingly disagreed with Washington’s strategy in Afghanistan, saying it put too much emphasis on military operations over civilian reconstruction efforts. ‘In my opinion it was a strategy being doomed to fail.’ He said U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry had also warned against an imbalance between military and civilian efforts. ‘But none of us gained support for our views,’ Eide wrote.
Afghans and internationals like myself have a shared responsibility to stop being subjects and slaves.
So, we will ask for a conversation.
Y Not converse? The Y Generation across the Middle East, Africa and Europe are already rising up in dignity, to listen and to be heard.
More important than it is for leaders to benefit from listening to and conversing with the people, people who are unconscionably dying by the day need to be affirmed as equal human beings. They need to see democracy being practiced.
The youth volunteers have experienced harassment for their peace activism, but we realize we should not be defeated by this culture of impunity where the victims are cast as culprits, by the Afghan system of ‘justice’ funded and trained by a complicit world.
The Afghan authorities are stealing from the people while abusing them.
The US/NATO coalition wants a ‘victory’ that would match their strategic national and client-state interests.
The ‘insurgents’ will naturally resist. For those who live here, it is their land and freedom. Other ‘simple folk’ are ‘ideologically or emotionally attracted to’ the fight like bees to nectar.
ALL these groups feel comfortable and justified in using violent means. Everybody distrusts everybody. A thousand fatal schemes are being hatched and changed daily. Hate reigns.
Unfortunately, the world is either unaware, mis-informed, too busy or just passively spectating.
It needs to stop.
Otherwise, a negotiated political settlement ( which the youngest among us knows is NOT a settlement to benefit the people but to please the Powers ) will be reached, perhaps somewhat like the Treaty of Versailles, setting the stage for future mass conflicts, not inconceivably a regional World War III.
Otherwise, a US/Afghan strategic partnership agreement would be ‘successfully’ signed, nurturing the grounds for continued ‘terrorism’ throughout the average 43-year life span of the Afghan human being.
Faiz said in one of our ‘global days of listening’ telephone conversations that he believed that a ‘peace movement’ has already begun in the heart of every Afghan citizen, because the people are so fatigued by loss, and desire a reasonable life.
I wanted to tell Faiz that I was burdened by the poverty of human empathy, that the peace movement he envisions may be buried before its birth because the world will stare as long as it itself is not acutely hurting, and because it’s hard to find human commitment.
We can’t even find a conversation.
I wanted to tell Faiz that we may have to hurt like the dove.
But I didn’t tell him.
He understands already.
We sincerely hope to visit with you again.
Love,
Hakim and the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers
http://ourjourneytosmile.com/blog
http://globaldaysoflistening.org
Why not converse?
Why not love?
From Afghans to Gazans, ‘Why can’t we touch your face?’
June 26, 2011 by
Filed under Journey Updates
Dear friends,
The approximately 1000 ordinary people sailing with the Gaza Freedom Flotilla II ought to stop us in our ordinary tracks at least for a moment.
Why are ordinary people doing this for others not related to them?
Why are ordinary people supporting these freedom sailors?
Why are a few governments against this non-violent human solidarity?
Why?
If we don’t even ask, we miss out on those things which make us human.
Dedicated to the people of Gaza and those reaching out to them through Freedom Flotilla II :
From Afghans to Gazans, ‘Why can’t we touch your face?’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkiMOPoU1qA
Love,
Hakim and the AYPVs
http://globaldaysoflistening.org
http://friendswithoutborders.org , http://friendswithoutborders.net ( newly launched )
PS In the New Year of 2010, we had also expressed solidarity with Gaza Freedom March, a small clip of which was included in our latest video above
Love is how kites in Gaza, Afghanistan and the world will fly http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWRqqoNESCc
Why can’t we touch your face?
From Afghans to Gazans, ‘Why can’t we touch your face?’
‘We have slogan here. ‘From river to the sea, everyone should be free.’’
Nabeel Raee, teacher of Jenin Freedom Theatre
traveling on the West Bank hills
We in Afghanistan sense your loneliness.
It is hard to be born human, and not be regarded as one.
It is hard to be a mother who can’t cook enough for meals and laugh enough with her children.
It is hard to be a youth, and not feel young at all.
It’s hard to lose the human capacity for happiness.
We share your anger too.
But let’s not be angry for too long. Hasn’t war taught us that love is needed to guide anger, the same way we’ve seen mothers shaking with grief but standing with grace?
Don’t be angry with your family and loved ones because they had snapped at you after the usual hard day. We should forgive, and try to stay as human as life allows.
Please stay together, and not submit to human laws which pull humans apart.
We can’t expect people in the rest of the world to worry about us in Gaza or Afghanistan. It hurts more than we’re willing to utter, but we’ll find sufficient strength to accept that people are normally too busy to wonder if we’re really such ‘terrible’ human beings.
It’s irritating that politicians are universally well-dressed while making our world so socially distant and emotionally intolerable. We know that peace, equality and freedom will come when the politicians step aside and let the people converse. But they aren’t going to step aside unless we persuade them with our dignity, like many people across the world are doing now.
In adversity, we share with you the occasional burden of being ‘no-bodies’, But surely, we must cling on to some meaning, cling on to the hope that God doesn’t intend for us to be discarded ( like trash ), that there are such qualities as compassion, that human company exists.
To the people of Gaza and Israel, we are reaching out to you, as President Obama and world leaders keep extending their violence on their own people, and on us whom they don’t see.
They believe in force. ‘What we can do, and will do, is build a partnership with the Afghan people that endures – one that ensures that we will be able to continue targeting terrorists….( ‘permanent base ‘)…..When threatened, we must respond with force.’ Obama in his Afghanistan ‘withdrawal war speech’.
We the people believe in love.
We send you our love through our friends on the US Boat to Gaza sailing with the Freedom Flotilla 2.
A fortnight ago, there appeared a remote possibility that two of us would be considered for travel on the Mavi Marmara. It gripped us that we may have been able to share each other’s pain at a closer distance, for a little while.
The people of Mavi Marmara and the other flotilla boats have opened up the seas of our hearts.
Afghanistan needs a flotilla too, but you would know that Afghanistan has no sea.
We imagine the blue seas.
Imagination helps friends not to worry about whether they’re available for each other ALL the time, or whether they will ever see each other face-to-face.
20-year-old Skye Miller was our friend for a brief moment, introduced to us by Kathy Kelly, one of our dear activist friends on the US Boat to Gaza. Skye was dying from cancer in a hospice and Kathy had passed her a blue scarf from our silent, peace walk in Kabul this spring.
We sent a message to Skye, ‘Mohammad Jan, Abdulai and I are typing this email feeling a sadness, and feeling that life must be more than just what we see. It is meaningful for us to give you our small ‘salams’ through Kathy and through the visions of peace colored in blue. Thank you Skye! ’
She passed away with her family by her side, a few days after her reply, ‘Dearest Kathy, I cannot tell you the happiness that I felt after receiving the e-mail from Mohammad Jan, Abdulai and Hakim and to know that I am in their thoughts. I am enjoying the weather and hope that you are too. Enjoy your weekend. Be well, Skye.’
Here, sometimes, the sky is so peacefully and enjoyably blue we can almost touch it.
What antagonism has poisoned Man, and who on earth and in heaven has determined, that we can’t touch your face?
Love is how the kites will fly in Gaza, Afghanistan and the world