US silent on Guantanamo abuse claim : Aren’t we all opaquely silent about the lack of transparency in global affairs??
April 16, 2009 by
Filed under Journey Updates
Aren’t we all hurting, prisoner or free?
Don’t we all distrust anything anyone says in public, especially our elected politicians?
Aren’t we all blinded already by global violence, hate and revenge?
Aren’t we all opaquely silent?
“We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. “
Martin Luther King Jr
US silent on Guantanamo abuse claim
Al Jazeera 16/4/2009
The US state department has refused to comment on a claim that guards at Guantanamo Bay prison camp abused a Chadian prisoner held there.
Al Jazeera reported on Tuesday that Mohammad al-Qurani had been beaten and tear-gassed by guards after Barack Obama, the US president, pledged to end abuse at the camp in January.
Cory Crider, a member of al-Qurani’s legal team, told Al Jazeera on Wednesday it was hard to ascertain how al-Qurani had been treated in recent months as the situation varied from camp to camp within the facility and also there had been “ramping up” of secrecy in the new administration.
On his second day in office, Obama ordered the closure of the prison, which has been heavily criticised by rights groups over reports of ill-treatment of detainees.
He also ordered that prisoners held there be treated in line with the Geneva Conventions, which prohibit the abuse of detainees.
Ramzi Kassem, a lawyer for some detainees at Guantanamo Bay, said his clients had been subjected to similar abuses at Guantanamo Bay over the past two years and that the situation had remained the same despite the Obama administration coming to power.
“However, he ( Obama ) tasked the department of defence with conducting that review, so the same people… who had been running the operation for years were charged with being critical of their own operation. So, when the report came out, it said that everything was all right. It really wasn’t critical and independent in the ways we would have wanted.”
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Kite Runner Author Khaled Hosseini responds to OJTS Youth Letter to UN Hague Conference
April 16, 2009 by
Filed under Journey Updates
Kite Runner is a bestseller book and film written by Khaled Hosseini. It tells a poignant story of the friendship between Amir, a Pushtoon boy, and Hassan, a Hazara boy through the tumultuous periods of the Soviet occupation and the Taliban in Afghanistan.
http://www.khaledhosseini.com/
http://www.kiterunnermovie.com/
Dear Our Journey to Smile:
Thank you for sharing your Letter of Humanity’s Love from Afghan youth to the UN Hague Conference. It was very moving and I am grateful you have included me in your distribution of it. I wish your organization the best of luck with its goals.
Best,
Khaled Hosseini
Dear Khaled,
Thanks to you too!
Thanks so much for your personal reply; it encouraged us deeply, particularly Abdulai and Raziq who have watched The Kite Runner 5 times!
Do stay in touch and join us on the 21st of September 2009 at the Bamiyan Buddhas if your schedule allows you.
Every human heart wonders about the 1000-times-over sort of friendship. Thanks for increasing our hope and our imagination!
( Be at peace! )
Our Journey to Smile
Will Humanity Forget, Constantly, constantly?
April 12, 2009 by
Filed under Journey Updates
Laith filmed this family attempting to flee Fallujah - ten minutes later they were dead
Will we forget, constantly, constantly?
Or will we forever brush the discomfort aside because that corpse was not our mother’s or our child’s?
Or will we join Laith Mushtaq in saying, “Fallujah ( in-humane, senseless death ) never leaves my mind.”
Don’t we realize what ANY ‘army does on the ground’ and if we do, what do we choose to do or say about such a realization?
Dear Laith,
Thanks for your work and your article, because media, like everything else, should help us understand ourselves.
We, Afghan youth, understand those images that never leave your mind. We have to learn to cope somehow and we need to be strong.
And to hope that human civilization can change. If it doesn’t ?? ?????” What can we do? “
Sincerely,
Our Journey to Smile
Al Jazeera ‘Fallujah never leaves my mind’
By Laith Mushtaq, cameraman
http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2009/04/200948132212418175.html
Laith Mushtaq was one of only two non-embedded cameramen working throughout the April 2004 ‘battle for Fallujah’ in which 600 civilians died.
When I think of Fallujah, I think of the smell. The smell was driving me crazy. In a dead body, there is a kind of liquid. Yellow liquid. The smell is disgusting, really. It sticks in your nose. You cannot eat anymore.
And you can’t get the pictures off your mind, because every day you see the same: Explosion, death, explosion, death, death.
After work, you sit down and notice there are pieces of flesh on your shoes and blood on your trousers. But you don’t have time to ask why.
I had to show the truth to people outside of Iraq.
I still remember the nurses couldn’t carry the woman because she was in too many pieces, people were jumping back when they saw it. Then, one nurse shouted: “Hey, she looks like your mother.”
In the Iraqi language that means: “She could be your mother, so treat her like you’d treat your mom.”
At some point, I couldn’t move anymore. I sat down on the street and kept smoking. I couldn’t move. I see what’s happening around me, but I can’t move. Khallas [enough]. I didn’t have any energy left.
The Americans said our pictures stirred up hatred against them. But what I did was only showing what their army did on the ground.
I don’t hate them, I don’t want vengeance, I just wish they had understood what they were doing.
US military admits killing mother, children
Afghan News Network 9/4/09
The US military in Afghanistan admitted Thursday that four people its troops killed in a raid were not “combatants”, after Afghans said they included a mother and her children, with a baby dying afterwards.
Afghanistan War? Never!. Afghans Never Want War Again
April 9, 2009 by
Filed under Journey Updates
Need Afghan children respond to Obama’s New Afghan Policy at all?
April 4, 2009 by
Filed under Journey Updates
Need Afghan children respond to Obama’s new Afghan policy at all??
Will Obama listen as he says he would, to ordinary Afghans…… ordinary Afghan children?
Do ordinary Afghans have any Voice at all over what Obama, NATO and the world decide FOR them?
This is the Voice of ordinary Afghan children, through Abdulai and Raziq. It has NO political or religious intent.
This is Our Journey to Smile.
Afghan Focus for Key NATO summit
BBC 04/04/09
US President Barack Obama wants European nations to commit more troops and funds, but so far new pledges have been limited.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has offered a temporary increase in troops ahead of Afghanistan’s presidential elections in August.
But despite European expressions of support for the new American strategy, it was not clear whether the long-term pledges sought by the US would be forthcoming.
Afghans Smile for Love Forgiveness Peace Humanity
March 26, 2009 by
Filed under Journey Updates
Can we smile?
Despite the war, the suffering, the inhumanity?
Why did they kill my father?
They didn’t even know him.
Why do they make guns instead of bread?
Why? why? Why?
We wish for peace.
We wish for humanity.
We will all die one day.
What can we do now?
love, forgiveness, peace, humanity
Can we?
Can we all?
We long for peace, for humane relations, for a decent life.
We want to smile.
Where is the Afghan Human Person in a meeting on Afghanistan??
March 7, 2009 by
Filed under Journey Updates
Clinton Pushes for Afghan Meeting
BBC 06/03/2009
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has called for a high-level conference on Afghanistan at the end of March.
Solutions to the situation in Afghanistan can only be found if the countries involved, including Iran, meet, she said.
Volunteer
February 12, 2009 by
Filed under Our Journey to Afghanistan 25/9/09, Volunteer
We are looking for volunteers, one from every nation of the world.
- To go to the World Heritage Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan on International Peace Day, 21st of September 2009, in support of Afghan college students in Our Journey to Smile.
Volunteers will also need to attend a Humane Relations conference before the 21st of September 2009 (date and place of conference to be decided). This is necessary to build Our Journey to Smile and to understand and nurture each other’s lives.
- Be committed to encouraging Humane Relations: Our Journey to Smile in their respective countries, through various long-term, voluntary activities.
Criteria for volunteers :
- Our Journey to Smile involves no monetary benefit / profit / salary.
- Volunteers are fully responsible for their own safety.
- Individual expenses will be borne by the volunteers themselves. They may raise funds for themselves, but not receive funds from political or religious groups.
- Our Journey to Smile has no political or religious agenda, therefore NO politicians or affiliates of political groups and religious professionals will be considered.
- Volunteers should not insist that their way of thinking, doing and living is THE best or the only or right way.
- Volunteers must be prepared to live with ANY nationality.
B. Support Volunteers
Support volunteers can
1. Help spread the message of Our Journey to Smile
This will be through the volunteers’ own network of friends. The wider the spread, the wider the scale of Smiles and Humane Relations we will encourage.
2. Stay in contact with us
Our on-line volunteers will look into establishing a system of updating support volunteers.
Until such a system of a regular email alerts or updates is set up, we request support volunteers to visit the site regularly for updates.
3. Encourage with letters to Afghans
Write or leave comments to encourage Afghans
4. Share experiences on-line
This would add to the Journey through real stories on humane actions and peace building from various countries eg on inter-racial harmony
Those interested to be either Bamiyan Journey Volunteers or Support Volunteers should email us at
volunteer@ourjourneytosmile.com
Those interested to be Bamiyan Journey Volunteers should additionally fill up and attach the Bamiyan Journey Volunteer Application Form in their email to us.
http://www.ourjourneytosmile.com/Volunteer/VolunteerApplicationForm.doc
(if clicking on the link above does not work, please try this:
copy the link, and paste it in your internet browser.
Download or open the document.
After you’ve filled up, please save the form with a different name, and send it back to volunteer@ourjourneytosmile.com.
Thank you very much.)
Those interested to be volunteers should contact us.
