Afghan peace needs a human face VII : Shir an Afghan Lion speaks of a great Afghan need and An Afghan lion will be killed in the dark
July 21, 2009 by
Filed under Journey Updates
Shir an Afghan Lion speaks of a great Afghan need
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h40G2MGw7Ow
Salam, Shir Agha (Lion)!
Salam (peace) to you!
Shir Agha, is Afghanistan peaceful now or not?
It’s peaceful in Bamiyan but not in other places.
Why? Because of war, the killing of one another & money.
How important is money to you?
Not very important. I just need enough for food & clothes
What is important in life?
Love & friendship are important
Are the people of Afg in need of love & friendship?
Yes, we are in great need
Thank you. You’re welcome.
Be at peace!
Afghans are in great need of love & friendship
You can write to Shir Agha at journeytosmile@gmail.com
An Afghan lion will be killed in the dark
Marjan the one-eyed, lame, lone Kabul Lion
Like everyday thirst, Shir Agha wonders, “Is there anyone who loves?”
It’s not a question limited to fellow Afghans. It unashamedly asks, “Is there any one person who truly cares at all?”
Shir, which in Dari means lion, is saddened because at 19 years of age, he has concluded that, out of the 6.722 (July 2009 estimate) billion people on earth, he won’t be able to find a sincere friend.
‘A naïve, illogical conclusion. An impractical sorrow.’ is what conventional, mainstream non-Afghan ‘superpower experts ’on Afghanistan would say.
But Shir already knows that. He knows that power doesn’t lie with his human wish.
By design, power lies unrepresentatively with those we entitle ‘super’. Those with a successful outward appearance. Those beautiful, wealthy people wielding the latest IT gadgets and hogging the headlines.
In fact, the combined ‘armistice and wisdom’ of our modern world in 2009, lead by the coalition forces, would mock Shir by not even hearing him.
With the help of the ‘correct’ mass media, they would reassure the general public, including the invisible Shir, that ‘we are your friends’ and that ‘the best thing we can do for you now is to send our million-dollar weapons and armies to hunt down Osama and his unknown cronies, even though Osama hasn’t been seen in Afghanistan for years now. And we will always regret if we so happen to kill any of your innocent friends or countrymen.”
It’s un-defeat able mockery.
The majority of humanity, whose immediate instinct is to identify with Shir’s cry, would also fall silent or be silenced against this impregnable vengeful ‘logic’ of the 21st century, an ‘infallibility’ that insists on victory through endless tit for tats.
After all, Mankind has been through WWI, WWII and Hiroshima and has determined the ‘acceptable conventions and exemptions’ by which Man may kill Man.
But silence, being also subject to the herd rule, while having unquestioning space among the masses, does not in individual souls.
So, Shir need not submit to silence.
Because he knows that, killing, even prior to the ‘tablets’ of Moses, has always caused discomfort in the human heart.
And while most Afghans were relieved by the ‘chance but responsible’ bombardment ending of the Taliban horror mistakenly kick-started by the US, Shir knows that neither Osama nor his deputy are Afghan. He has also heard enough about September 11 to know that NONE of the ‘suicide plane hijackers’ were Afghans. He knows that being Afghan isn’t the point.
So do many Americans and others. But ironically, no Man can publicly beat this machinery which Man himself has set up.
Certainly not Shir.
Shir will just have to listen to and watch the ‘higher intellectual solutions’ which ‘the more civilized of Mankind’ has to offer.
War.
Shir understands this much, having lived with violence, political play, corruption, self absorption, oppression, deception, lies and drugs for much of his young life. It’s all about another kind of love, the love of money and power.
You’re thinking that Shir is exaggerating about the extreme human behaviour and condition in Afghanistan.
Please, come live here.
“But Shir, you just have to go on. Trust us. We know what’s right and we know what’s terrible. We always do.”
There are now so many showbiz posters of presidential and provincial council election candidates on poorly built, cracked mud walls, none of whom Shir trusts and some of whom are familiar connivers, betrayers and warlords. He’s seen or not seen their actions and inactions.
Win the hearts and minds of Shir and his country folk? Gain their trust through more foreign words and deeds of Hollywood violence?
You’re thinking democracy? Free and fair elections?
Please, come live here.
And whatever politics or religion you may have, in this hellish corruption being tribally perfected with the capitalistic greed of maximum self benefit, you’ll accept that the poor like Shir will probably remain oppressively poor.
Karzai must be lauded for consoling himself and perhaps his nation by unexpectedly saying in the White House corridors of supremacy that, “This war against terrorism will succeed only if we fight it from a higher platform of morality. Money can’t buy you love, as you say it in America, no matter how much it is.”
You’re thinking development? Capacity building?
Please, come live here.
By this juncture in your reading, you’ve probably decided that Shir is un-lettered and must be anti-something or other, or the unknowing mouthpiece of shallow persuasions. We’ve become incapable of believing that Afghans could have a borderless, impartial wish for love and truth. Why?
Truth nowadays sounds silly, for example, the truth that every person, whether a ‘commoner’ or a ‘ruler’, of whatever race or nation, starts off as a baby who thrives on his mother’s love.
Because Shir understands this truth with an uncomplicated spirit, he is NOT wondering if people, ‘commoners’ or ‘rulers’, ‘terrorized’ or ‘terrorizing’, are desiring of or capable of love.
The Lion is just asking, “Where on earth is this love?”
The same way Marjan, the one-eyed lone lion who had lent dignity to Kabul Zoo, after surviving years of war and neglect, could have asked if only he could have, “You humans talk about love and freedom, but where on earth are these?”
Shir is hoping against hope that fellow humans wish for the same good things so badly that they’d want to be friends.
The disappointment is that the ‘conventional and normalized’ methodologies to achieve those same good things seem to be solitary fortresses carved out by the few babies who grew up to be rich and dominant, often at all costs.
And they take on all kinds of labels, political left to right labels, religious eastern, middle eastern to western labels and then unwittingly, they become each others’ ‘enemies’! All quite far from the child-like instincts they once had. And very far from Shir’s remnant longing.
This clinical enmity is now mechanized by human-less drones. Drones don’t have to relate; in fact, they conveniently cannot.
Relations and friendships between ‘enemies’ don’t exist for the most part; in that vacuum is hate and anger. And ?? ????? , an Afghan insult pronounced ‘bay-ujdaan’ and meaning ‘without conscience’.
This is the frightening in-humanity Shir lives in, in which life contradicts conscience.
Wherever he looks and whatever he hears persuades him that only God, whom he cannot see or hear or touch, is merciful. How pray tell is that helpful or encouraging, especially in a destitute tribal community where tangible relationships are all that a person has?
Life becomes tasteless, harsh and lonely.
So, Shir goes to school while he still has a chance. He tries to find some fun in using a cell phone, but there’s no one to call to and no one to call him.
It’s meaningless. To have nothing and no one to live for.
“Why does the international community hate our meaningless lives so much? What have we done? Most of us can’t even afford to travel to another Afghan province, so how have we angered those in other countries, across those oceans we’ve never seen from our land-locked birthplace?”
How can people understand Afghans without knowing them? Is understanding gained by killing Afghans way before greetings of ‘salam’ ( peace ) ?
Shir cries sometimes.
He cries because despite these normal challenges, he really needs to find some common sense and humanity in order to survive.
But any ‘commoner’ or ‘ruler’ who enters the global fortresses of established deceptions soon becomes their defendant.
This ‘commoner’ or ‘ruler’ disappears into it. And though, at the end of each day, he yearns for the same sort of true friendship as Shir does, the power and opulence of the fortress confuses him.
So, he puts on his politician’s shoes or his soldier’s helmet, heads off to defend ‘the just world’ he longs for and dreams about.
And as he patrols the deserted, God and Man-forsaken dirt hills of Afghanistan, his fear of losing all whom he loves brings such a natural burden of help-lessness into his young heart that when he sees an equally panicky Shir scuttling away from talking to his Taliban-look alike- friend, he fires with all the ‘superior, correct, right, spot-on accuracy’ that the advanced, free world has trained him to unleash.
He will kill the Afghan lion and the world will remain in the dark.
Afghan peace needs a human face VI : Zahra an Afghan girl speaks, rather nervously
July 16, 2009 by
Filed under Journey Updates
Do you commonly hear and see a young Afghan girl speaking?
We have been trying to give voice to the ordinary Afghan girl. We are grateful to Zahra for her humble and dignified words.
Zahra an Afghan girl speaks, rather nervously
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89TW-MM2qzU
In the Name of God the Forgiver
Peace to all friends in all corners of the world
Peace. Without peace, there won’t be any kind of happiness on earth.
Peace is a desired condition that makes possible an inner life of rest.
In your opinion, is peace possible in Afghanistan?
Yes!
Who can bring peace to Afghanistan?
The youth and people of Afghanistan.
What message of peace do you have for youth in other parts of the world?
My message is: everyone in the world should be peace-loving & be committed to work for peace and a world that’s peaceful.
Zahra the Afghan girl speaks for peace!
You can write to Zahra at journeytosmile@gmail.com
Note : Afghanistan has the second highest rate of maternal mortality in the world, after Niger. 1,600 out of every 100,000 pregnant women die in Afghanistan each year because of poor health facilities.
Afghan peace needs a human face I toV : Thanks from Afghan faces of peace Abdulai, Raziq, Aziz and Shir Ali
July 12, 2009 by
Filed under Journey Updates
On behalf of our Afghan friends, thank you so much for encouraging them with your emails.
Please watch them say their heartfelt thanks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyZHhZoWYpU
Abdulai : Thank you for sending the letters
Raziq : Thank you for your emails.
Aziz : Thanks for the emails you sent.
Shir Ali : Thank you for sending me letters. Made me happy.Thanks!
What you’ve done for them is invaluable.
Because though these ‘forgotten’ friends don’t expect anyone to think about them, they yearn to be remembered.
Because though peace is ‘an elusive exasperation’ when war is all around, Afghans long for those quiet and warm connections that make us human.
I’ve posted some of these wonderful ‘connections’ below.
We ask for your understanding as we always need time to get replies from our Afghan friends; they do not have internet access or computers and no easy access to electricity.
Abdulai growing some seedlings in used tyres
Dear Abdulai,
I really enjoyed your video and all the videos from Our Journey To Smile. I am 14 years old from the United States and on our news channels they never show any of Afghanistan’s children speaking. This is the first time I have heard voices of the Afghan people and seen the beauty of Afghanistan. Someday, I wish I can travel to Bamiyan to see the beautiful place in these videos. Please keep smiling and never give up your hope, because all youth are the future of the world.
Peace be with you.
Elisa
Dear Elisa,
I was very happy to receive your letter.
Thank you for enjoying the video.
I am about 13 years old. Afghan children, like myself, don’t know their dates of birth.
I hope that you will come to visit me in Bamiyan. I will serve you some black tea. 
Take care and God bless you.
Abdulai
Raziq with his brother and beloved flowers
Dear Raziq,
Oh that everyone in the world were friends. War is bad and we hate to hear of people in Afghanistan suffering because of war. Flowers make me happy. When I look at a flower I thank God for the beauty of creation. I love growing flowers and vegetables.
Your friend,
John Broadbent
Dear John,
Thank you for your email.
Where are you from? I am very happy to have a new friend!
I planted cauliflowers, onions, turnips, radish, cabbages and flowers this year.
God bless and take care.
Hope to see you someday.
Raziq
Aziz through the trees
Afghans are undefeatable because they are very special
Rashida B Syed
Hello Rashida,
Thank you very much.
Peace!
Aziz in Afghanistan
Shir Ali in the cold
I find responses like these from everyday Afghani’s to inspirational and uplifint :] It feels my soul with happiness and hope.
Tali Sakamoto
Dear Tali Sakamoto,
Thank you. I am happy that you saw my video. I wish you peace.
Shir Ali in Afghanistan
You can write to Abdulai, Raziq, Aziz or Shir Ali at journeytosmile@gmail.com
Afghan peace needs a human face V: Shir Ali the Afghan human person speaks
July 4, 2009 by
Filed under Journey Updates
Please watch Shir Ali the Afghan human person speak
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgPCMb9SBbU
Shir Ali, in your opinion, is peace possible in Afghanistan?
In my personal opinion, perhaps.
Perhaps?What percentage chance? 80% chance of peace
But you are 20% doubtful?
Yes, I’m 20% doubtful.
Why? I’m 20% doubtful about peace cos foreign countries transgress our country.
If they don’t transgress, if they truly serve with compassion, there’d be another 20% chance of peace
But they transgress & won’t allow another 20% chance for peace in Afghanistan
What does life mean to you?
Life is love.
So, love is important to you?
Yes, love is very important.
Why is love important?
We can, with peace, be friends of all, regardless with whom
80% chance of peace in a life that finds meaning in love
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You can write to Shir Ali at journeytosmile@gmail.com
Afghan peace needs a human face IV : Afghan war veteran Rick Reyes’s testimony before US Congress
July 2, 2009 by
Filed under Journey Updates
Please watch Rick Reyes’s full testimony before Congress
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypwrq4mbiQw
A PDF transcript of Rick Reyes’s testimony can be found at :
http://foreign.senate.gov/testimony/2009/ReyesTestimony090423a.pdf
It seldom harms to re-think problems, especially if it involves the lives and deaths of many.
It certainly doesn’t harm to re-empathize.
Excerpt of interview on Uprising Radio
Sonali: And, how common is your sentiment, your questioning of the Afghanistan War among veterans and also troops currently serving in Afghanistan, you think?
Rick: It’s funny because when I delivered my statement in front of the Foreign Relations Committee, after all was said and done, one of the other panelists came – I’m not going to say which one – came to me to thank me for delivering my statement and admitted that they all feel the same way but for some reason no one wants to say anything about it. I’ve been able to talk to some of the guys I’ve served with and, at first, they were, they just didn’t agree with my outlook but after they gave it some thought and started to realize what was happening, now I have their full support. So, amongst veterans, I think the sentiment is very common but most aren’t coming out and saying anything.
Afghan peace needs a human face III : Aziz the Afghan human person speaks
June 30, 2009 by
Filed under Journey Updates
Aziz the Afghan human person speaks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEzk4knM_WY
Salam ( peace ), Hakim.
Aziz, where do you live?
In Bamiyan, Blacksmith Village.
What’s the river behind you?
It’s the Blacksmith River.
Do you fish here?
Yes.
Do most people in Afghanistan like war?
No, all are keen to have peace.
In my opinion, we want peace. We do not want war.
Why? Because war brings misfortune to people and society.
When asked what his wish in life was,
Aziz had said “ I wish to love people.”
Abdulai the mountain boy
Raziq works
Aziz loves people and sheep
Do Abdulai, Raziq, Aziz and other humans matter at all in war?
The purchasing power of peace BBC News 4/6/09
Defence companies, whose main task is to aid governments’ efforts to defend or acquire territory, routinely highlight their capacity to contribute to economic growth and to provide employment.
Defence spending 2008
US $374bn
Asia $173bn
European Nato members $144bn
Source : International Institute for Strategic Studies
António Guterres, a former Portuguese prime minister, has been UN High Commissioner for Refugees since 2005. Al Jazeera News 20/6/09
The number of people forcibly uprooted by conflict and persecution worldwide stands at more than 42 million.
Major countries of origin for refugees included Afghanistan (2.8 million) and Iraq (1.9 million), which together account for 45 per cent of all UNHCR refugees.
Just as the international community felt an obligation to spend hundreds of billions rescuing the international financial system, it should feel the same urgency to rescue some of the most vulnerable people on earth – refugees and the internally displaced.
And the amount needed is only a fraction of that spent on financial bailouts.
US admits Afghan airstrike orders BBC News 20/6/09
Failure by US forces to follow their own rules was the “likely” cause of civilian deaths in Afghan airstrikes last month, a US military report says.
Ex-detainees allege Bagram abuse BBC News 24/6/09
Allegations of abuse and neglect at a US detention facility in Afghanistan have been uncovered by the BBC.
Former detainees have alleged they were beaten, deprived of sleep and threatened with dogs at the Bagram military base.
Interview with Marjorie Cohn, National Lawyers Guild president and Thomas Jefferson School of Law professor Marjorie Cohn, Truth Out 22/6/09
I have testified as an expert witness in military hearings on the illegality of today’s wars.
There is a duty to obey a lawful order, but also a duty to disobey an unlawful order.
An order to deploy to an illegal war is an unlawful order, so it is lawful to resist the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
You can write to Abdulai, Raziq or Aziz at journeytosmile@gmail.com
Afghan peace needs a human face II : Raziq the Afghan human person speaks
June 27, 2009 by
Filed under Journey Updates
Watch Raziq the Afghan human person speak
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRSXhHMOKYA
Raziq the Afghan human person speaks
Come…eh nah (okay)…like this?
Good morning!
Good morning!
Raziq, where did you flee to during the war?
Punjab(another district).
What did you learn from the war?
Nothing….war is bad.
What makes you happy in life?
Flowers and friendship…
Like this flower.
What message of friendship do you have for youth in other parts of the world?
Everyone in the world should become friends.
Everyone in the world should become friends.
The Afghan human face of Raziq speaks.
You can write to Raziq at journeytosmile@gmail.com
Afghan peace needs a Human Face: Abdulai the Afghan human person speaks
June 23, 2009 by
Filed under Journey Updates
Abdulai the Afghan human person speaks
Afghan peace needs a human face
Watch Abdulai the Afghan human person speak
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_IVOgXAGL0
Good morning, Abdulai. Good morning.
Abdulai, do you know your date of birth?
No, I don’t know.
Where do you live?
In Afghanistan, Bamiyan
What do you do?
I’m a student, a farmer and a shopkeeper.
What do you wish for in your life?
I wish for…truth and love.
Do you think you can find love and truth in your life?
I don’t know.
The Afghan human face of Abdulai speaks.
Afghan boy Abdulai and dignity
An Afghan human face that grows.
An Afghan human face that grieves.
An Afghan human face that forgives.
An Afghan human face that is kind.
An Afghan human face that struggles.
Do we think of the ordinary Afghan person as peace-loving?
We probably don’t. Why would we?
We don’t know any Afghan citizen living in his/her own home in Afghanistan and we cannot even remotely relate to a genuine Afghan public face of peace.
Mainstream media isn’t interested in the concerns and wishes of the Afghan majority because the majority is ‘ordinarily boring’ and ‘ordinary people’ don’t sell.
So, if 13 year old Abdulai wishes for ordinary love, joy or peace, or if he grieves over ordinary life and death, he might as well be a fictional character. After all, the only Afghan characters we hear of nowadays are ‘terrorists’.
But Abdulai is all flesh-and-blood next to me. Even then, if his wishes or his life gets snuffed out in this ‘dismantle-the-safe-havens-of-Afghanistan war’, it needn’t affect us. Because WE are ‘safe’.
It certainly didn’t affect the 91 US Senate members who voted ‘yes’ ( against 5 ‘no-s’ ) to a US$106 billion emergency spending bill to expand the war in Afghanistan and to continue the war in Iraq.
This unwilling de-humanization of others and the willful de-personalization of individuals finds ‘democratic sanction’ whenever fellow humans vote for war. The vote to kill.
How can Abdulai understand why people would vote to get rid of another human person? And oh, so much money.
Wage war with Afghans, Palestinians etc……destroy them, kill them in the unbelievable name of ‘democracy, religion or private security’.
In this way, the world’s public spaces have been filled with a grievous culture of hate and disappointment, leaving the ordinary and majority voices of peace in a vacuum. Unheard and un-regarded. Dead sound waves.
We choose to forget that even the most difficult persons, including the supposedly ‘difficult’, ‘wrong’, and ‘evil’ millions in Afghanistan, are born in places and circumstances not by their own conscientious vote. Abdulai certainly didn’t vote to send those planes into the New York Twin Towers.
So, I start today to bring you individual Afghan human faces of peace.
And I pray, not to God but to you, that the private space within your heart and the human soul embracing your mind, would give ordinary Afghans the Public Space and the Human Face which they and our world so desperately needs.
Or we could remain in the vacuum. And keep voting for ourselves.
I’ll begin with Abdulai.
You can write to Abdulai at journeytosmile@gmail.com
