American Thanksgiving and our Afghan winter ; Afghan vigilers’ telephone conversation with Amy Goodman
November 26, 2009 by
Filed under Journey Updates
To our American friends, have a meaningful and warm Thanksgiving!
We especially thank Douglas Mackey and Dennis Mills for the tele-conversation we had with students of Olympia High School and Evergreen State College, as well as Amy Goodman for speaking to us in our Afghan silence.
Please hear the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers’ 2 a.m. conversation with Amy Goodman, & watch them speak of the Afghan winter life
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uXtO0e0_KE
In this season of decisions over Afghanistan, the cold has set in.
“I was sick last week. I had fever & was shivering. I kept warm while I slept at home. Now I’m well & warm at heart. I think that friendship is warmth. Home is warmth!
But war is cold & war freezes friendship. “ Abdul Raziq
Video excerpt of Amy Goodman’s 2.30 a.m. conversation with the vigilers on 25/11/2009
Hello! Salam to you Amy!
I want to ask you why you’re doing what you’re doing?
We want to raise the voice of peace in Afg & the world. We’re hoping for Obama’s answer to our peace message
Blood cannot wash away blood ( an Afghan Proverb ).
Hate cannot wash away hate.
War cannot wash away war.
God protect you, Amy!
Winter & the cold have arrived in Afghanistan.
In some places, the water at the spring freezes & the roads get cut off.
We have to collect precious fuel to keep warm.
We can bear these physical challenges better than lies, war, violence & pride which make our souls shake with their cold indifference, their isolation & their separation.
We sometimes wonder what we should expect from life, from history & from humanity. Perhaps we shouldn’t expect much because unrealistic expectations may silence our hopes.
We comfort one another in saying, “It doesn’t matter. God is kind.” You may think that we should be able to do better than to just have comforting words
Even if we don’t live through this winter, love would endure, love would last.
Is war the sole answer to the problems of Afghanistan?
Can’t life offer us more creative & noble alternatives?
Yes, love would survive another winter.
Yes, love is how we’ll ask for peace!
“The way of peace is the way of love. Love is the greatest power on earth. It conquers all things.” Peace Pilgrim
Peace stands together in love, giving thanks for warmth in the cold Afghan winter
Excerpt of Obama’s Thanksgiving speech 26/11/2009
But this Thanksgiving also takes place at a time of great trial for our people.
Across the country, there were empty seats at the table, as brave Americans continue to serve in harm’s way from the mountains of Afghanistan to the deserts of Iraq. We honor and give thanks for their sacrifice, and stand by the families who endure their absence with such dignity and resolve.
I have seen this strength firsthand over many months…. in young Americans enlisting in a time of war..
It is a testament to our national character… that we want that American Dream not just for ourselves, but for each other.
Afghan lady & girl’s loving greetings of peace to U.S. Ambassador Eikenberry; a heart storm is slowly seeding
November 24, 2009 by
Filed under Journey Updates
Please watch an Afghan lady & girl stand with peace youth volunteers in greetings to the U.S. Ambassador Eikenberry, who urged for no troop surge.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGRp995K2Xg
Nazuko
Zekerullah, “Eikenberry Sir & your wife, do you have time to be with us at the Bamiyan Peace Park?”
Nazuko : “We wish for peace. Love is how we’ll ask for peace.”
This seems a time when we keep asking each other what is enough, what numbers, what measures…
Against the grain, even the decay within ourselves, we stand with friends in the quiet resolution that love is enough, yes, love is enough.
Others may take everything away from us, but they cannot take away love.
Love is how we’ll ask for peace
2nd Cup of Tea Peace Vigil, our second mile of love
Come stand with us for love!
Parwin
The heart-storm of love is slowly seeding. We thank the individuals from the groups below who inspire us to plod on in Afghanistan!
- Olympia Washington Vigil
Dennis Mills with friends
Other photos :
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tricyrtis_hirta/sets/72157622733609809/
- Evergreen State College Vigil, Olympia Washington
Vigil group at Evergreen
Other photos :
http://s896.photobucket.com/albums/ac161/jjacobro/2ND%20CUP%20OF%20TEA/?start=0
- Mideast Solidarity Project, Evergreen State College, Olympia Washington
Mideast Solidarity Project
- Sheridan Peacemakers, Wyoming USA
Joan Borst with Sheridan Peacemakers
- Stand Up for Peace, Laramie USA
Lesley Wischmann and Stand Up for Peace
- Contagious Love Experiment
Josh Steiber and friends
- Corvallis Alternatives Against the War
Carol and Jane Alexander
Read this article on the faithful 9 year peace vigil of this group
http://www.chicagotribune.com/topic/sns-ap-us-ripples-of-war,0,3127649,full.story
We also thank Douglas Mackey, Dennis Mills and staff of Olympia High School for making possible a long-distance tele-conference with the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers on the 24th of November 2009.
The love in Abdulai’s journey to peace
November 13, 2009 by
Filed under Journey Updates
Abdulai, who is leading the Afghan peace vigilers, speaks of human dignity in this video
The love in Abdulai’s journey to peace
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sttdyu38CWw
Abdulai in his small shop
I’ve discovered the quiet dignity of young Afghan children working to help make ends meet.
Whereas abusive child labor should be addressed, I’ve not personally found specific instances of such abuse here.
Rather, in Abdulai’s and the Afghan person’s common poverty, I’ve witnessed their patience with the ‘fairness’ of un-chosen fates while reflecting on the privilege of ‘first world’ comforts that sometimes spoil ‘first world’ children.
Yes, daily life and work for kids in Afghanistan is generally tough but we know that dignity isn’t just economic. The rich child becomes ‘ugly’ when he is violent in his anger. The poor child carries dignity when he stays meek even when angry.
I can see that quality in Abdulai and therefore am privileged to walk with him in the love with which he asks for peace.
Abdulai with his load of winter fuel
Text of video
13 year old Abdulai in his small shop,
a student, farmer & shopkeeper whose
father & grandfather were killed in war
The love in his journey to peace…
Need we suggest at all, that instead of spending millions on war, you can build factories to give us work & a future?
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.?
Elisa, Abdulai’s pen pal : I am 14 years old from the United States & on our news channels they never show any of Afghanistan’s children speaking.
This is the first time I’ve heard voices of Afghan people & seen the beauty of Afghanistan.
Please keep smiling & never give up your hope, because all youth are the future of the world Elisa
Have you been encouraged as a pen pal of Elisa? Yes!
Why? I’ve found a friend.
Now that you’re a friend of Elisa & international peace volunteers, would you hurt them? No.
If unfortunately, war begins &? you meet these friends in war, would you incidentally……kill them?
No. We should surely understand human dignity.
What’s that in your hand?
This is Obama with his family.
What do you wish from President Barack Obama, the Nobel Peace Laureate?
My friends & I are waiting for his answer to our peace message.
Abdulai carrying his load of collected wood home for winter fuel, in his journey to dignity & peace
Abdulai among the trees
The Love in humanity’s journey to peace ; our shared gratitude
November 12, 2009 by
Filed under Journey Updates
Please watch Western Washington Fellowship of Reconciliation’s Love in saying thanks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lg7TBpPUoFA
Text of video
Salam! ( Peace! )
Tashakur! ( Thank you! )
These friends from Western Washington Fellowship of Reconciliation have encouraged us
with their love is saying ‘thank you’, in the Dari language of Afghan hearts.
We thank all our friends who have registered their support with a Yes! to us.
We thank them with a gratitude that is adding meaning to our ordinary lives.
1. We thank the following who have written to us at youthpeacevolunteers@gmail.com with their Yes!
Priscilla Singapore
June USA
Kyle Kristensen USA
Susan Asheville NC, USA
Lynette Shek Singapore
Carol and Jane Alexander Oregon USA ( see Corvallis Alternatives to War’s 8 year vigil below ! )
Randel Mowen USA
We also thank the Fans who have indicated their support through the Youth Peace Volunteers Facebook at
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Youth-Peace-Volunteers/206186386153?v=wall
2. We have these 45 fans below as of 12/11/2009 2.15 pm Afghanistan Time. Thanks to each and every one of you!
Catherine Dawdy
Donna Schumann
Bernard Bernie Meyer
Linda Mackaman Young
Susan Bruce
Bert Jones
Jennifer Newell
Nayantra Nanda Kumar
Lisa Aceste DiMartino
Karen Griswold
Keith David Halloran
Raamesh Gowri Raghavan
Mridula Koshy
Michael Creighton
Peggy Love
John VanDyke Wilmerdong Jr.
Leanne Whittle
Chris Collier
Janice Matthews
Somer Loen
Ray A.Estrada Jr.
Sueli F. Lima
Anita Stewart
Dan Ryan
Lynette Shek
Dennis DeAsis
Asher Platts
Vin Gopal
Maya Kocian
Kayla Matthies Saville
Susan Marie Oehler
Jody Tiller Mackey
Kyle Kristensen
Cheryl Anne Crist
Larry Kerschner
Dennis W. Mills
Lo Daniels
Douglas Mackey
ForPeace With Love
3. We also thank others who have contacted us personally.
Willie Wee and wife Singapore
Corvallis Alternatives to War’s 8 year vigil ( Carol and Jane Alexander are from this group)
Carol Alexander wrote to us saying :
Dear friends in peace,
We have forwarded on your moving message to many others. We are with you in spirit and in peace. Please see the Al Jazeera story about our daily vigil: http://english.aljazeera.net:80/news/americas/2009/11/20091110191657129146.html ( below )
Peace and love to you.
Carol Alexander, Corvallis, Oregon, USA
Al Jazeera Article
The future of American troops in Afghanistan is again in the headlines in the US amid reports that Barack Obama, the president, has made up his mind about future troop levels there.
Despite speculation in US media, the White House is strongly denying that Obama has decided to send as many as 40,000 more troops to Afghanistan.
As Washington considers its next move in Afghanistan, protesters in a small US town are continuing an anti-war vigil they began eight years ago.
Sebastian Walker reports on the demonstration against the war in Afghanistan from the western US state of Oregon.
Watch the Corvallis Alternatives to War’s 8 year vigil
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48xOVPa2RME
Love is how we’ll ask for peace ; seeding a global heart-storm for peace
November 8, 2009 by
Filed under Journey Updates
Our immediate goal
With love, we request the 2009 Nobel Peace Laureate, President Obama, to answer the Afghan youth peace message ‘Reconciliation of Civil Hearts’, as part of his wider message of peace to the peaceful future of our shared world, on or about the 10th of December, the day he will receive the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway.
Please watch our Afghan peace youth vigilers appeal to the world in the video above or at :
Love is how we’ll ask for peace
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLKR6iEdZGs
Our larger goal is to encourage Afghanistan and the world towards concrete love and peace, through wide scale reconciliatory and humane relations.
How we’ll work towards our immediate goal in the next one month ,
before the 10th of December 2009
The road had opened before us when the U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry, kindly visited our Afghan peace vigil group at the Bamiyan Peace Park in Afghanistan on the 28th of October 2009. During the visit, he promised the Afghan peace youth vigilers that he would get a response from President Obama, to their message of peace “Reconciliation of Civil Hearts”
Internationally, in the next one month before President Obama receives his Nobel Peace Prize in Norway, we will garner the heart-to-heart support of Afghan and international youth peace volunteer supporters by collecting the signatures of supporters with pictures of their individual smiling faces.
We will put them all into growing landscape-style pictures / motages. To rally a heart-storm of love in this effort, we’ll encourage all supporters to blog at the blog-site http://youthpeacevolunteers.blogspot.com/, entitled “Afghan & international youth peace volunteers say together, ‘Love is How We’ll Ask for Peace.’
In Afghanistan, we hope to hold a Afghan national youth peace convention in Bamiyan in the month of November.
All updates can also be found at http://ourjourneytosmile.com/blog
Our current partners
Our Journey to Smile ( the 10 Afghan peace vigil youth are part of this peace-building group in Afghanistan, with international volunteers from Singapore )
http://ourjourneytosmile.com/blog
Contact person : Hakim at journeytosmile@gmail.com
ContagiousLoveExperiment (2 Iraq veterans’ Josh Steiber and Conor Curran who are actively promoting peace)
http://contagiousloveexperiment.wordpress.com/
Contact person : Josh at desertcamel87@yahoo.com
Olympia WA Fellowship of Reconciliation USA and Iraq Memorial to Life ( who had up to 100 persons who kept the vigil with the Afghan youth peace volunteers concurrently in Olympia, USA )
http://www.iraqmemorialtolife.org
Contact person : Douglas Mackey at douglas.mackey@youthpeacevolunteers.org
Sheridan Peacemakers in Wyoming, USA
Contact person : Joan Borst at xenadean2000@yahoo.com
Dandelion Salad ( progressive web-site)
http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com
Contact person : Lorri
This is the group we have now and with this small number of supporters we ask for your support – because it will take more of us to deliver the message to enough people so that it makes a difference.
We know our support will grow as we reach our list of individual personal contacts with international peacemakers and peace groups.
How to support each other immediately
1. Sign in as a Fan of Youth Peace Volunteers on Facebook ( click below )
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Youth-Peace-Volunteers/206186386153?v=wall
By becoming a Fan, you are indicating your support for the Afghan youth peace volunteers’ appeal to President Obama
2. Send a quick email to youthpeacevolunteers@gmail.com
Simply indicate: Yes to Youth Peace Volunteers!
Provide your name and nationality and if you are willing to have your smiling face put together in a collage picture, send us your picture too!
3. You can also blog with us about peace, at http://youthpeacevolunteers.blogspot.com/
4. Spread the word through email etc, to friends and like minded peace groups
5. Post supportive comments on Youth Peace Volunteers Facebook and blog
6. Give us ideas and suggestions, that is, heart-storm with us
Given the global picture of war and peace today, we believe that this is a unique, historical chance for all of us to raise the possibility of love in Afghanistan and beyond.
How to support each other on a wider scale and for the long run
Tell others about our shared effort of love and encouragement towards true peace and reconciliation, that is, let’s seed a heart-storm! We live, love and perish in the same world!
Our Afghan youth peace volunteers at their recent peace vigil
Two framed copies of this photograph was given to the U.S. Ambassador,
one for the Ambassador and the other for President Obama
The Afghan youth peace volunteer vigilers with the U.S. Ambassador, his wife
and the Governor of Bamiyan Province, Dr Sarobi
13 year old Abdulai gives the framed photos to U.S. Ambassador Karl Eikenberry
Our call to stand and act together in
‘Love is how we’ll ask for peace’
Most of us in our disparate world today would hardly believe or be affected by our ordinary, almost mundane burden.
But we’ve always imagined that when people come together to stand for love, life changes.
Most often, changes happen in only a tiny part of the world, a little community, a small fraternity; and though all of which will, like human civilizations do, eventually pass away, the changes are worthwhile for holistic, consistent growth.
In standing for love, there’ll be the un-welcome laughter of cynical disbelief and hopelessness which we’ve seen much of but will not cower to.
We’ll be hurt by self-righteous censure that has forgotten human empathy but we’re ready for that too.
The cold ‘alone-ness’ of such difficulties is common to humankind, but because love is also common to all people, these challenges cannot touch those restful places of love within humanity. We believe it is love that will triumph.
It is this love that would keep us journeying in the snow and the rain, even if we fall.
It is this love that lends meaning to any family or friendship.
It is this love we’re counting on not to fail.
This love is how we’ll ask for peace.
I remember a 12 year old girl dying from leukemia. In her final hours, she urgently asked the nurses to phone her estranged and separated parents to come to her hospital bedside. They did come and she did die but before she passed on, she asked that they would lay aside their conflicting differences and to reconcile, not just for her sake as she was soon leaving them, but primarily for their own sake. That was not an urgency of desperation. It was the clear, sincere urgency of a love that would not let go. There was nothing for her young heart to lose. I’d like to believe that she recognized what many of us may spend all our proud lives denying, that when bodies and tongues cease, love remains.
It is with this urgency of love that we ask fellow human beings all over the world to restore wide-scale humane relations everywhere through love and reconciliation and thus build a kinder future.
We believe that the world is historically waiting (see “Is this our Afghan moment of peace?”), especially those of us waiting meekly in the shadows for light and warmth to arrive.
Yes, we’re asking the Nobel Peace Laureate President Obama to respond to our ordinary message of peace from Afghanistan, the place of wars.
Yes, we’re asking for true peace and reconciliation.
But above all, we’re asking un-ashamedly to raise the possibility of love, with hope that we may smile at one another in affirmative, dignified greetings once again.
China
2
Egypt
1
India
1
Italy
1
Malaysia
1
Nepal
1
Philippines
1
USA
1
Singapore
2