Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers tell their ‘love story’ to the United Nations
August 31, 2010 by
Filed under Journey Updates
Please read the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers tell their ‘love-story’ amidst a UN article of Japanese cranes, Afghan cycling and the return of Afghan music.
http://www.un.org/en/events/peaceday/2010/asia.shtml
“Fighting cannot bring peace is the message we want to send to our Afghan country men and women, and to the world. As we say in Afghanistan: blood can not wash away blood,” said Mohammad Jan
The Head of United Nations in Hiroshima
On the wings of paper cranes, UN staffers aim to spread message of peace
6 August 2010 – In 1955, 12-year-old Sadako Sasaki began folding a thousand paper cranes to try to heal her leukaemia, in accordance with a Japanese tradition. Despite surviving the bombing of Hiroshima a decade earlier, she had developed the “atom bomb disease.” Over half a century later, United Nations staff members hope to harness that same spirit to remind the world of the horrors wrought by nuclear weapons.
Sadako died on 25 October 1955, having completed 644 origami cranes. Her friends completed the remaining cranes and she was buried with them in Hiroshima, where the Children’s Peace Monument now stands in her honour and children from all over the world send more than 10 million cranes each year.
To commemorate the 65th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, dozens of UN workers at the Organization’s Headquarters in New York and at its offices in Tokyo have worked together to fold a thousand origami cranes. The cranes were then assembled into a garland that Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon presented today to the Mayor of Hiroshima at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Ceremony. This marks the first ever trip by a Secretary-General to the annual ceremony.
“We expect that his presence at the [ceremony] as the first UN Secretary-General… will further develop international momentum to abolish nuclear weapons… and lead to consolidate political will of national governments that have been working for a world without nuclear weapons,” Kazuaki Oku, a Hiroshima municipal official heading atomic bomb commemoration activities, told the UN News Centre.
He commended the Secretary-General for showing “strong will toward the abolition of nuclear weapons by proposing a five-point plan to rid the world of [them].”
The paper cranes presented by the UN are highly significant, Mr. Oku said. “We believe that paper cranes could help forge the momentum for world peace and strengthen public opinion seeking a world without nuclear weapons, through conveying this episode to the world.”
Cranes, which symbolize longevity, are considered mystical creatures in many parts of Asia. In Japan, it is said that folding 1,000 origami cranes grants that person one wish, and people often send these cranes to those who suffer from illness or ill fortune in hope that their lives will improve. Through Sadako’s story, the folding of cranes has also become a symbol of world peace.
The UN cranes project was spearheaded by Kiyo Akasaka, a Japanese national and the Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information. Mr. Akasaka said “this will be a very special commemorative gift for the Secretary-General to present during his visit to Hiroshima, symbolizing the strong wishes of the UN staff for world peace without nuclear weapons.”
UN staff members folded the cranes in their spare time, with two or three made by each person. “The message we’re trying to send to the Japanese people is we want peace. That’s what the UN is about, peace and stability, and we want to prevent things like [the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki] from happening anywhere in the future,” said staff member Natalia Samoilova, who worked on the project in New York.
The cranes also helped to bridge the gap between the UN and Japanese citizens, says Shinichi Kushima, another UN staff member who participated in the project in New York. “For me, as a Japanese, it’s great that the UN cares about us,” he said.
Moreover, the project engendered wide-ranging emotions in the UN staff members who helped fold paper cranes.
In addition to being “honoured to be invited to participate,” Ms. Samoilova said that “it was much fun. I never did origami before. I admire people who are very skilful at origami and at least to [learn] how to fold a crane – especially if it’s going to be part of this big garland – oh, I felt so happy.”
Edita Zulic, another staff member who folded cranes, said that “it was interesting how it made me contemplate what we can do in our daily life to send out these messages of peace, to spread positive energy. This is a really small, small, undertaking, folding one crane. But I think when we all get together you see we make 500 or 1,000 cranes. It symbolises that one person can really make a difference.”
The Peace Sign put up by the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers at the Bamiyan Buddhas
“We want peace,” Afghan students grouped near a white dove sculpture in Bamyan Peace Park in the central province of Afghanistan chanted into a phone linking them with youth groups in other parts of the country.
“Peace is friendship and love and that’s how we are campaigning for peace - by making more friends and more volunteers,” said Zikrullah, a 15-year-old second grader and a member of the Bamyan Peace Volunteers, a group of school students who campaign for peace in Afghanistan.
Zikrullah dropped out of school for economic reasons a few years ago but made a commitment last year to continue his studies. He now goes to school in the mornings and in the afternoons helps his father run a shop in Bamyan city.
In his spare time, he volunteers with the peace group which helped build the park where the group is now gathered.
“We worked for nearly two years to build this recreational area close to our school, now our school friends can come here to study and play,” said Zikrullah, who along with his friends persuaded hundreds of schoolmates to volunteer to build the park to mark International Peace Day.
In addition, the group was involved in a trekking for peace event organized by United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
More recently, the group illuminated the site of the renowned Bamyan Buddhas with the word “Sulh,” which means peace in Dari, to send a message of peace to the world on the occasion of Kabul Conference on 20 July.
“Fighting cannot bring peace is the message we want to send to our Afghan country men and women, and to the world. As we say in Afghanistan: blood can not wash away blood,” said Mohammad Jan, an 11th grade student with the Volunteers.
Zikrullah and his friends have been visiting other youth groups around the province to persuade them to volunteer for change.
“I am happy with the result, we are making many peace friends,” he said.
Building relations with youth groups in other provinces of the country is a priority for them.
They sent handmade mobile phone covers to a youth group in Kandahar province a few months ago as peace souvenirs to build a stronger friendship with youths in difficult parts of the country.
“We regularly contact our friends in Kandahar, Kabul and Dai Kundi provinces to discuss problems and issues, and to plan joint programmes with them,” Jan said.
This year, the group plans to expand its Peace Day activities to its partner volunteer groups in the United States, Iraq, Palestine and Singapore.
The group members believe their work is crucial for their country.
“I work for peace because I know this is the biggest need of our country,” Jan said.
In the distance, the group was closing the telephone meeting by again chanting its slogan: “Why not love? Why not peace?”
By Jaffar Rahim, UNAMA
How do we bring peace to war?
Afghanistan’s world cyclist preparing for next tour
His 13-year-old son, Feroz Khan, will join him and the tour will be filmed by an Afghan film crew. Shah, 43 and a father of seven (three boys and four girls), who hails from Surkhod district in the eastern part of the country near Jalalabad, told UNAMA: “I want to show the world, once again, our wish and desire for peace.”
The dentist-turned-cyclist said he plans to tour about 20 countries this time.
The tour is supported by the Government of Afghanistan and by Abdul Satar Khawasi, Secretary of the Wolesi Jirga (Lower House). The Afghan Film Department of the Ministry of Culture and Information has assigned cameraman Jawanshir Haidari to film the tour.
In 2003, Shah’s tour took him across the Middle East, Europe and the United States over 371 days. President Hamid Karzai asked him to donate his bicycle to the Kabul Museum in December last year where it is on display, highlighting his efforts to promote peace in Afghanistan.
Nadir Shah told UNAMA that he is very worried about the escalating violence. “It’s very painful for me. I want to ask strongly all the countries to bring peace here. First of all, the Afghans themselves should work for peace. Then the international community, especially the United Nations, should help us,” he said.
One thing Nadir Shah liked about his earlier tour is that he noticed that all the countries he crossed in Europe were living like a family even if Europe was at war 60 years ago.
“When I was entering Holland from Germany, I thought I had lost my way and asked the locals which way would lead me to Holland. They said I was already 20 kilometres into Holland. It looked all the same. I want to see my country like this.”
By Tilak Pokharel and Shafiqullah Waak, UNAMA
Afghanistan’s top singer uses voice for national harmony
19 July 2010 - Afghan singer Farhad Darya entertains fans of all ages at a peace concert on the eve of the Kabul Conference. The Kabul-born artist said he wants to remind Afghan leaders and the international community to think of the people of Afghanistan tomorrow when making their decisions.
Darya has said that music is a constant inspiration for Afghans and allows them to communicate through ethnic and tribal boundaries. Darya has written and sung in most of Afghanistan’s many languages, including Farsi-Dari, Pashto, Uzbek, Hazaragi, and Urdu, among others. He is a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Goodwill Ambassador.
‘Why not Love’ Afghan and American Vigil
August 1, 2010 by
Filed under Journey Updates
Please join us in our Afghan and American ‘Why not love?’ Vigil. We may hinder peace but we cannot hinder love.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CeFDev5M-ZQ
We are keeping vigil at Bamiyan Peace Park for this week through to Thursday and this is our 2nd day.
We wish to ask the world, “ Why not love?’
Details of ‘Why not love?’ Vigil from 31st of July 2010 to 5th of August 2010
This is our response to the ‘live’ tragedy in our country Afghanistan, partly revealed by the 92210 Wilileaks Afghan War Logs.
On the 27th of May this year, we had placed a dove at Bamiyan Peace Park and below it, we wrote the words ‘Why not love? Why not bring peace?’. Vandals destroyed these writings about a week later.
We are re-writing these words for this vigil and will keep asking ‘Why not love?’ till others hear us.
We’ll call for the urgent establishment of an international, non-political body of peacemaker representatives to establish wide scale human relations and end wars, running up to International Peace Day on the 21st of September.
Our ‘Why not love Vigil’ at the Bamiyan Peace Park will be held from the 31st of July 2010 to the 5th of August 2010. We will gather there from 8 am to 5pm Afghanistan time on the first day of the vigil ( Saturday the 31st of July ), and for the subsequent 5 days, hold an hourly vigil from 7am to 8am every morning ( the Afghan youth have much farm and other work in their fields! )
The Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers ask that you would join them for a daily one-hour vigil over 6-days ( from Saturday the 31st of July 2010 to Thursday the 5th of August 2010 ), to ask the leaders of the world, “Why not love?”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPkzRgT05P8
The state of Afghanistan is fatally un-sustainable.
Morality, intellectualism and capitalistic democracy are dying in Afghanistan. Humanity is dying.
Everything needs to change but since we can only change ourselves, doing small things like keeping this vigil is what we the ‘nobodies’ of the world must do.
15 year old Abdulai says, “We usually feel alone. I think that my country is on fire and that we are all withering on the inside. We wish for your friendship in this vigil to put out the fire, for only a resolute love can give us some hope. I pray you would believe that we need that hope right now.”
Please join us. You may call us at +93799371354 / +93785949274 when we are at our vigil if you wish to.
Love,
Abdulai and the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers
‘Why Not Love?’ Afghan and American Vigil
Text of video
We were advised : “Afghans don’t use the word love.”
We still wrote “Why not love?” at Bamiyan Peace Park
Later, vandals ‘dripped’ blood-red paint over our work…
We mustn’t be paralyzed by the desperate war narratives…
War begetting war…
Faiz, what is the seed of peace?
The seed of peace is love, is friendship
Blood begetting blood…
We all have eyes, so we know whose hands has blood. We have an Afghan saying, “Blood cannot wash away blood!”
Thanks to those friends who are keeping vigil with us. Though there are only a few of us,
we will work for friendship & love.
We will continue and not give up.
??? ???? ??????
Why not love?
When we fall, we will get up again.
Get up to listen & love again !
Why not love?
Best wishes to you out there. And I’m sorry what our country is doing to you.
Even a little of our love is stronger than the wars of the world!
??? ???? ??????
Why not love?
Bamiyan Buddha Peace Light up amidst 92210 Orwellian Afghan war Wikiblips
July 28, 2010 by
Filed under Journey Updates
We thank our friends from America and Palestine who join us in this Bamiyan Buddha Peace Light-up video, while we live in the midst of the 92000 Afghan war Wikileaks representing just the tip of our inhumane fire-berg.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPkzRgT05P8
The Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers ask that you would join them for a daily one-hour vigil over 6-days ( from Saturday the 31st of July 2010 to Thursday the 5th of August 2010 ), to ask the leaders of the world, “Why not love?”
The state of Afghanistan is fatally un-sustainable.
Morality, intellectualism and capitalistic democracy are dying in Afghanistan. Humanity is dying.
Everything needs to change but since we can only change ourselves, doing small things like keeping this vigil is what we the ‘nobodies’ of the world must do.
15 year old Abdulai says, “We usually feel alone. I think that my country is on fire and that we are all withering on the inside. We wish for your friendship in this vigil to put out the fire, for only a resolute love can give us some hope. I pray you would believe that we need that hope right now.”
Love and peace,
Abdulai, Hakim and the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers
http://ourjourneytosmile.com/blog
http://www.thepeoplesjourney.org/
The Bamiyan Buddhas
Text of video
We thank the international participants at the Kabul Conference for working with the people of Afghanistan.
An advertisement signboard near the Bamiyan Buddhas saying, “ The future is in your hands.”
Moving our ‘Peace / ???’ sign to the small Buddha…
Fixing the lights on the ‘Peace / ???’ sign
A view from the Buddha statues… from history……from ancient & new ways
So we lifted ‘Peace / ???’ up…
…and secured our ‘Peace / ???’ sign.
We the youth of Bamiyan have lit up the small Bamiyan Buddha with ‘Peace / ???’
‘Peace / ???’
We hope that all our work strategies will change, to bring true peace & reconciliation, not rhetoric without action nor action without results
All of us should leave our fearful nights
We should all say together, “Blood cannot wash away blood.”
Love is how we’ll ask for peace!
??? ???? ??????
Why not love?
Why not love?
From our Palestinian friends Salma & Laila
Why not love?
From our American friends
Let’s leave our fearful nights…
??? ???? ??????
Why not love?
For the Kabul Conference, we lit up the Bamiyan Buddhas with peace and asked to leave our fearful nights
July 22, 2010 by
Filed under Journey Updates
Text of message from Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers to the Kabul Conference and the world
We thank the international participants at the Kabul Conference for working with the people of Afghanistan.
Tonight, we have lit up the small Bamiyan Buddha with ‘Peace’.
We hope that all our work strategies will change to bring true peace and reconciliation, and not rhetoric without action nor action without results.
We should all leave our fearful nights and say together, “Blood cannot wash away blood.”
We will be posting our video of this event soon.
Please read the UNAMA press release below.
Bamiyan Buddha Peace Light Up
http://unama.unmissions.org/Default.aspx?tabid=1741&ctl=Details&mid=1882&ItemID=9722
Bamyan Buddhas illuminated with message of peace for Kabul Conference
21 July 2010 – Afghan youth peace volunteer groups illuminated the site of the renowned Bamyan Buddhas with the word “Sulh,” which means peace in Dari, to send a message of peace to the world on the occasion of Kabul Conference.
“We have come together tonight to light up the great Buddhas of Bamyan to welcome participants of the Kabul Conference in Afghanistan and to send our messages for peace to them” said Mohammad Jan, an 11th grade student and a member of the Bamyan Peace Volunteers in Bamyan Province, west of Kabul.
At the Kabul Conference, co-chaired by the United Nations, the Government of Afghanistan asked the international community to realign its pledged aid and programmes behind a set of national priorities which focus on improving daily lives of Afghans.
The national agenda is part of an Afghan-led political framework for reconciliation and peace.
In their own way, the youth volunteers in Bamyan are contributing to the long-term goal of a secure Afghanistan.
“Fighting cannot bring peace is the message we want to send to our Afghan country men and women, and to the world. As we say in Afghanistan: blood can not wash away blood,” added Mohammad.
In the spirit of peace, the youth group recently sent peace souvenirs to the youth groups in Kandahar to establish closer relationships with youth in difficult provinces of Afghanistan, said Mohammad.
Throughout the year, the volunteers campaign for peace with sister groups in other provinces and abroad, with volunteers in United States, Iraq, Palestine and Israel.
“Our message is very simple to understand: Why not love, why not peace,” said Mohammad Jan.
By Jaffar Rahim, UNAMA
A love letter asking for forgiveness from our Afghan friends
June 13, 2010 by
Filed under Journey Updates
Please see the love letter asking for forgiveness from our Afghan friends
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTwH3YfQ9NQ
We cannot manage
A open love letter to ask forgiveness from our Afghan friends
When I see the pain of my Afghan friends, I need to tell someone, anyone, that we are floundering.
Not from want of purpose or meaning.
But because unselfish power may not exist & isn’t yet in the hands of ordinary people
Though many are trying, we’re still shackled by a self-revolving madness
Does it make sense to you that when Abdulai asks ‘why is life like that ?’, I take his hand and keep quiet?
“Please. Stop behaving like you’re gods. Please stop throwing money at Afghans. Please stop killing. Please, stop.”
And then we have to keep back those tears while struggling with them, because nothing of the unsustainable, ‘developed’-world-stuff ever stops.
When everything is taken away from the important values & people of our lives, we run on empty.
Do we get it? We’re running on empty.
People have remained distant from other people, so the powers-that-be will play and laugh haughtily in a vacuum of expert derision.
Abdulai, we love you & the Afghans whom we’ve come to know. But you know that already. I’m sorry that doesn’t help much.
I’m sorry not because you are to be pitied. I’m sorry because life is not giving you an equal space to appreciate love.
I’m sorry our systems mean that your wishes will not matter to Presidents & the wealthy few, so while you wish from the bottom of your heart, please don’t wish with your all, lest you’re completely robbed of that which we want you to keep, hope.
My reasons are bland before you, because people like you, who possess nothing, understand not with your eyes or ears but with your soul.
I remember sighing with you when we talked about how we are losing both ways, when we try our very best and also when we manage very badly.
My mind thinks it may be hard for you to forgive, but that’s when I shake. I shake because my heart knows that you WOULD forgive.
You manage much better than us.
Yes, love is how we’ll ask for peace.
With love from Hakim, Douglas, Josh, Conor
& all your friends from The People’s Journey,
Salam, Pam, Mark, Dennis, Bob, Andrea…….
An ordinary Afghan’s metric of success
April 20, 2010 by
Filed under Journey Updates
Please watch an Afghan youth walk the talk about Afghan metrics of success
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puACoFVg5dA
what is success in Afghanistan?
Text of video
What are the metrics of success in Afghanistan, or in life?
Who do you call a successful person?
A successful person is one…who works hard
How do you go to & from school?
By bicycle.
What’s in your hand?
Pump…a bicycle pump
How does a successful Afghan travel, on foot, by donkey, by car or motorcycle, or by bicycle?
By motorcycle or car.
A successful person doesn’t travel by bicycle? No…..
Peace…peace be with you too….How about this, traveling by donkey?
He’s bringing the wheat to the flour mill.
What clothes does a successful person wear?
He wears nice clothes.
A farmer who wears the perahan-tombon ( local Afghan shirt & pants ) isn’t successful?
He is also successful…it doesn’t depend on the clothes. Some people have dirty clothes but are very successful.
Is a government that is always at war considered successful?
No, that’s not a successful government….in the end, it would suffer losses.
Afghans say that those with connections, money & power will become successful.
They find a living through un-holy means…it’s not good, there’s no benefit
It’s not good, but do you still consider them successful?
No!
International forces say that they will be successful the day they win victory over the Taliban. Are they right?
No…
Why aren’t they right? When the Talibs are gone, war will begin again with yet another government.
Every government who wins wants to dominate even more countries, so they’ll go to war again, won’t they?
A successful person is one…who works hard.
bicycles and donkeys
How we would want Afghan children to play or cry
January 31, 2010 by
Filed under Journey Updates
Please watch how Afghan children ski and play ‘marbles’ with stones
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w97Be_hMzjo
playing ‘marbles’, with stones
Transcript of Video
Modern Warfare 2 is a video war game that raked in US$550 million in the first 5 days of its sales
Call to Duty ; Modern Warfare 2 video game
Afghan children playing ‘marbles’, with stones
Play may involve fears and risks
Afghan children skiing with sneakers, shoes & sticks
We need to ask all those hard questions from the very beginning
What do we want children to grow up playing & learning?
‘Cos when the children fight let them know it ain’t right’
‘When the children pray let them know the way’
What can we say when the children cry in the wars which adults wage?
Afghan ski group
Background Music “When the children cry”
Little child, dry your crying eyes
How can I explain the fear you feel inside
Cos you were born into this evil world, where men has killed young men, and no one knows just why
What have we begun, just look what we have done
All that we destroyed, you must build again
When the children cry, let them know we tried
Cos when the children fight, let them know it ain’t right
When the children pray let them know the way
Cos when the children sing, then the new world begins
Afghanistan, A dying opportunity to free the waterfall
May 26, 2009 by
Filed under Journey Updates
Afghanistan
A dying opportunity to free the waterfall
In this dream of a kinder world, ordinary people from all races and nations take a dying opportunity to gather at the World Heritage Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan on International Peace Day 21st September 2009,
to hope for peace and reject violence.
And against all odds and dams, to free the waterfall.
I myself can no longer trust words, so you need not trust these thoughts. What I can trust, having lived and worked among Afghans as a Singaporean medical doctor, is that I’ve become more human and therefore in the words of my Afghan friends, more Afghan, and perhaps more ‘of any other nationality’.
I and my Afghan friends have a waterfall of humane dreams and wishes in which we are grieving, crying and hurting badly.
If we describe this waterfall to the ‘elected’ leaders of our self-designated ‘civilized’ societies, we’ll be told their version of the ‘truth’.
‘Justice’ when they mean revenge.
‘Help’ when they mean money.
‘Democracy’ when they mean power.
If we describe it to the self-designated ‘best’ religious people, we face a similarly rigid monopoly of ‘truth’.
‘Justice’ when they mean ‘no matter if you die or kill because justice is in the other world’.
‘Help’ when they mean ‘come over to our better side’.
‘Theocracy’ when they mean power.
So, we have had to let our dreams, grief and tears become an invisible, un-felt waterfall. A silence. A dying.
This country and our humanity are in need of a pause in the dying.
The dying of love, truth, hope and dear ones killed in violent war. Love, truth, hope and violence for WHAT?
If we look towards our self-designated ‘learned’ ones for possible solutions, they say ‘dam up the waterfall to give yourselves light’. Light for what, when what we badly need is the waterfall.
In present day Afghanistan, from where I’m writing, there may be a ridiculous and potentially painful opportunity to free this waterfall. At least, humour me as I pacify myself and my Afghan friends by imagining the opportunity presented by:
- The Global Great Game that is being played here ‘live’, a horrid ‘reality show’.
All major world players are involved.
- The contradiction of war and peace watched by the world
The ordinary world community is watching Afghanistan distantly but closely, wondering if war will reign or if ‘peace’ is possible, especially when Afg-Pak has become the military, political and economic focus of superpowers.
Hopefully, we’re not watching primarily for entertainment; I just read that violence is dominating at the Cannes Film Festival 2009.
3. The question of humanity in inhumanity
Does Mankind have enough of a majority populace keen to restore some semblance of humanity in the midst of inhumanity?
“Don’t be silly,” I’ve thought.
We’ll be misunderstood and laughed at as illogical and unrealistic or as anti-this or anti-that.
People will continue to ‘label’ us because the prideful intellectual development of Mankind can only understand human beings in categories so as to dispel fears and channel criticism.
In the current universal climate of distrust and soul-less herd behavior, hardly anyone would hear us.
What can ordinary human beings do anyway, ordinary humans who make up most of the world ( I bet many outside Afghanistan have forgotten that the majority here are also ordinary humans with wishes for a normal life ).
Or like many fellow international aid workers, I may become un-productively frustrated, harbouring the explosive un-resolved anger that’s in the hidden and open protests of conscience globally, even among ‘peace’ building groups.
Or worse, I could succumb to the ancient, distorted hunger for a Name, doing this selfishly merely for myself, defeating any sense of service I can muster.
Not to mention the almost complete self-deception, corruption, greed and the culture of war worldwide, perceived by some as perfected in Afghanistan.
But then one day, as I was riding my Chinese-made Tonda motorbike over the Afghan Hindu Kush mountain dirt pot-holes, I remembered that Man has gone to the moon, tapped atoms and bytes and modified genes and that countries are sending thousands of elaborately armed troops and billions of military dollars to this God-forsaken place for poorly understood personal and national reasons.
So I thought, “What the heck!”
I can try this for love of Khamad, Nasrullah and some others….
I can hope.
I can pursue those virtues every human soul dreams about and even if it fails, I hope that this experiment will not harm anyone.
I can test to see if uncomplicated love and undefended truth can free our ordinary, mundane wishes.
I can accept the ‘shame’ of rejection in asking peacemakers from all over the world to please join us at the Bamiyan Buddhas on 21st Sept 09.
I know. This may mean nothing to you. Or understandably, you do not believe that any sense or goodness can arise from what is condemned to be a very dark place.
But I wish to record this, so that, as my Afghan friends and I perish, first in our hearts, then physically, I can at least say that we voiced the opportunity and the opportunity died too.
And that if, one day, against all odds and dams, the waterfalls are freed, all Afghans and some of humanity may be encouraged to weep for life and death once again.
To record, that even in the ‘darkest and driest of places’, there exists waterfalls.
Hakim/Young
Our Journey to Smile
http://ourjourneytosmile.com/blog
On fighting while on the road in Afghanistan
May 19, 2009 by
Filed under Journey Updates
Please watch this video at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OeA_4_uT7Y
Habib Jan, good morning!
Good morning!
Habib, in your opinion, is fighting good?
Fighting? No ‘wallah’(in God’s name)
We are not happy with fighting anywhere in the world. There shouldn’t be fighting.
EVERY individual, under the effects of war, would react in a way that brings greater misfortune to that society.
What good is fighting. No, peace is good.
You..what do you think about fighting?
What good is fighting.
Fighting is good?
No, it’s bad.. fighting is not good.
Good morning, Jagbar.
Good morning. Jagbar, what do you think…
About fighting? Yes, about fighting.
Fighting is bad. It has no benefit. What’s the benefit in fighting?
Khamad, good morning.
Good morning.
Khamad Jan, what do you think about war? Is it good or not?
No, it’s not good.
Why?
It’s not good, it’s bad.
What happened because of war?
My father ‘left the world’ ( was killed in war )…….
No to fighting.
