Afghan youth ask for love in the 30-shot anger of the Gaza flotilla ; humanity is breaking down
June 6, 2010 by
Filed under Journey Updates
‘Even a little of our love is stronger than the wars of the world.’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7OWATVkYO4
What is humanity’s ‘coalition’ about? What is Mankind about?
Giving some or grabbing all?
Kindness or killing?
Dignity or deceit?
In this unsustainable madness, we ask for love.
A love that’s quiet, sensible and strong.
When the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers, who are privileged to have the friendship of Rachel Corrie’s parents Cindy and Craig Corrie, decided to fly kites for Gaza Freedom March on the eve of 2010, we were doing so with a living understanding of death.
We know that the self-destructive, violent ways of our world today do not offer hope of healing from the ‘30-shots-flying-into-9 peace activists’ sort of anger and fear, nor from any ‘collateral damage’.
Britain’s Guardian newspaper quoted Yalcin Buyuk, the vice-chairman of the Turkish council of forensic medicine, as saying that the 9 men were shot a total of 30 times.
So, we offer our grief and call for LOVE.
Few belief in such LOVE,whether foreigners or fellow Afghans.
An international in Afghanistan had told us that “Afghans do not use the word love nor understand it.”
So, we recently painted our words of love at the Bamiyan Peace Park in Afghanistan ( in the video above ) and found out a week later that vandals had sprayed red paint over our struggle.
Trying to snuff out love.
But we can’t stop.
Because even a little of such love, however meager, is stronger than the wars of the world.
Even a little of our love is stronger than the wars of the world
Text of video
These Afghan youth painted Love at Bamiyan Peace Park
We are deeply saddened that people were killed on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla
We share all of humanity’s pain
We mustn’t wage war in response. We wish for a global response that’s full with love because as these words say ‘Even a little of our love is stronger than the wars of the world.’
The world should sit down to converse & through love, to bring reconciliation
Even a little of our love is stronger than the wars of the world. These words at Bamiyan Peace Park have just been erased by vandals
….but with Abdulai, we will inscribe our love again!
we will inscribe our words of love again…
No space on earth for peace and conscience? Hearing the music in our Afghan thunder
May 2, 2010 by
Filed under Journey Updates
No space on earth for peace and conscience?
Hearing the music in our Afghan thunder
No space on earth !?
Since The US government has not allowed Abdulai to meet his friends in the States,
is there any one country on our earth in the year 2010 A.D.
that would host Abdulai and the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers
together with Palestinian, Israeli Jew, Iraqi, American and international peacemakers?
Abdulai had recently applied for a US visa upon being invited by Fellowship of Reconciliation USA for a State-side peace tour this summer. He was hoping to meet his new friends face-to-face, as human beings do.
Sadly, the most ‘powerful’ nation on earth rejected him for fear that he might not return to his widowed Afghan mother and to the only home he’s known in a mountain village in Bamiyan, Afghanistan.
“The world may have made you think that my mother, my brothers and I are bad people but, like yourself, we are tired of violence, corruption & selfish governments.”
Abdulai wants to talk about all these things but he has not been given the space.
Hear Abdulai at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLOH3LWAB5g
Abdulai hugging a stone-carving of a dove in Afghanistan
If you could help in any way to make such a journey possible for the ordinary people of the world, please contact us at journeytosmile@gmail.com or mjohnson@forusa.org or make a request to your peace-seeking governments to host Abdulai and his international friends, so we can have those warm conversations that give life meaning and love.
Or if time doesn’t allow you closer involvement, please just lend us your word of support by sending Yes! to youthpeacevolunteers@gmail.com. You would be saying Yes to indicate your support for our effort to find just ONE country in the world who would host our peacemaking team.
any space on earth for the thunder of peace and conscience?
Timeline
October 2009 Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers hold a peace vigil for President Obama to hear their peace message “Reconciliation of Civil Hearts”. The vigil ended with a visit by the US Ambassador to Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry, who promised to deliver their message to President Obama.
Oct 2009 to March 2010 Tele-conversations and friendships grow between the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers and American, Israeli Jew, Palestinian, Iraqi and other peacemakers.
March 2010 Fellowship of Reconciliation USA invites Abdulai, Faiz Ahmad and Hakim for a peace exchange trip in the States in the summer of 2010. An Iraqi, an Israeli Jew, a few Palestinian and American peacemakers join the People’s Journey to a Peace Beyond Dismissal.
March 2010 Abdulai, Faiz Ahmad and Hakim apply for US visas at the US Embassy in Kabul Afghanistan and their visa applications are rejected.
May 2010 Question : Is there any space or place on earth who can host these ordinary, international peacemakers?
In the non-violent spirit of the Gandhi Salt March, we ordinary people from Afghanistan, Israel / Palestine, Iraq and America will tour in person to :
1. Raise the People’s Voice of Peace beyond dismissal
The everyday concerns of the people have been silenced.
We the people have borne enough, so we will unequivocally raise our Voice of Peace, knowing that this Voice is the thunder of conscience that everyone yearns to hear.
We cry : Listen to the People Again!
2. Educate to lift up the People’s Voice for Peace
We seek to make common the widespread human stories of war and make known the possibility of reconciliation.
We will strengthen our belief in the worth and dignity of each human being by talking with one another. Through our creative inquiry we can experience the breadth of human empathy.
We cry : Think about the People Again!
3. Reconcile through the People’s Voice to a lasting Peace
Create an independent, international body of appointed peace representatives dedicated to bringing an end to wars, through a 2010 People’s Resolution of Peace that cannot be dismissed.
Peacemakers build wide-scale conciliatory relations for an inter-dependant global community, and work towards ending wars and occupations.
All over the world people will stand together in our streets and valleys on International Day of Peace, the 21st of September 2010, to express the love and joy of the global community.
We cry : Love the People Again!
You may join in the journey with us…
The People’s Journey to a Peace Beyond Dismissal
http://www.thepeoplesjourney.org/
http://ourjourneytosmile.com/blog
http://contagiousloveexperiment.wordpress.com
http: other sites are planning to have connections as well
In just a year, their journey has widened to become The People’s Journey to a Peace Beyond Dismissal.
It grew out of their heart-felt connection to all Afghan people, especially the youth of Afghanistan. And now, through their conversations with youth in America, Palestine, Israel and Iraq it continues to grow; the People’s Journey includes them all. They have said if we can’t begin the tour - you start and we will be with you in spirit and we will lend our voices whenever we can.
Abdulai, Faiz and Hakim are still working to receive visas so they can visit the United States, or some other country, and speak person-to-person with youths about peace making through constructive non-violent dialogue. The Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers (AYPVs) have created about 100 short videos, all available on the internet, sharing their Gandhian messages about creating peace through reconciliation.
In a recent teleconference with about 100 people in over six locations in America :
Hakim shared this message:
Peace doesn’t just come from heaven. Peace doesn’t just come from what individuals say.
Peace comes when we ordinary people work hard to make the human-to-human connections;
to become friends - so that love may become possible.
That is what we have been trying to do in connecting with youth in Kabul, and as we’ve been doing iBamiyan going from village to village, as well in other provinces … And we hope that you will journey with us in making contact everywhere in the world.
Mohammed Jan talked about:
… the youth wish not just for peace in Bamiyan, but peace in other provinces in Afghanistan and in theworld, in America.
Nasrullah asked for forgiveness:
If the media, the mainstream media of the world, has given the you the impression that we ordinary Afghansare violent and rough people. You may not be believe this - but we are not violent people, and we arecertainly not suicide bombers…. We hope by making these connections, like we are now, that we will get toknow one another.
The Afghan Youth Peace Volunteer’s strength of character and their committment to peace-making has inspired and energized young and old alike all across America, in Palestine, and in Iraq. And this is why The People’s Journeymust go on - with, or with out, the Afghan youth - in person. It will begin June 1, 2010 in San Francisco, CA.
Gaza Youth Tour walking together with us!
Pam Bailey with a group of Palestinian peacemaking youth are hoping to do their Gaza Youth Tour in the States and as we in Afghanistan work together with them in this ordinary dream for peace, we ask that you’ll follow our journey.
http://gazafreedommarch.org/cms/en/Appeals/gaza-youth-tour.aspx
As you know, the Gaza Freedom March has worked hard to get peace activists from around the world into Gaza. However, it is equally important that we get Palestinians out of Gaza to speak to Americans and others in their own voices. To that end, we are cooperating with the Fellowship of Reconciliation to try to bring five young Gazan youth to the United States for a speaking tour. Our own Pam Bailey (Rasmussen), who got into Gaza after a month of persistence after the Freedom March, has identified the youth and will accompany them here.
They would always say we Afghans are the ones who are mean
April 25, 2010 by
Filed under Journey Updates
Please watch how young Afghans struggle with the world labeling them as mean people
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KkwvnV_qDY
Text of video
What is your name?
My name is Asif
And you?
Mohammad Basir
The world hammers & beats us & also kills us
And yet they say, we are mean
Even if the world loses, they would also say that we are mean
Whether the world wins or loses, they would say that we are the ones who are mean
So, whatever happens in this war, the world would say that we Afghans are the ones who are mean
An Afghan message of peace to Obama the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, about our savage ‘Afghan’ instincts; and timeless advice from the wall behind him
October 7, 2009 by
Filed under Journey Updates
Please watch a young, Afghan friend talk about our savage ‘Afghan’ instincts
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XI9pGYP1Eiw
“They are like ‘animals’ because they are unethical & get furious.”
From my peaceful mud-house in the Afghan Hindu Kush hills, I imagine a White House morning when Malia and Shasha are sincerely worried and fearful about some dangerous rumours, that inhuman extremists in Hamburg, Yemen, Somalia, Afg/Pak and closer to home, in New York, may be plotting to hurt them and their friends.
I can’t imagine their kind, loving father Obama storming into their room and shouting, “Don’t worry, I will send 40,000 more troops to every one of those places, I’ll escalate the number of Nevada-based computer-drone pilots who would remotely extinguish your distant fears, and if you have any strong suspicions about any fishy characters near you, I will activate our modified renditions, trace down and destroy all their safe havens or simply, I’ll kill them all.”
I can’t imagine it because behind Obama’s desk in his Senate office, there are 2 iconic pictures on the wall, of heroes close to Obama’s heart : Ghandi and Martin Luther King. They would speak to Obama in their deaths if they could. What they would have said today they had said years ago; and I’ve reproduced their clear strategy below for Obama’s convenience.
I can’t imagine this of a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate. We congratulate him for being conferred this title.
If hate is the root of the ‘terror’ around and within us, we clearly need a civil response of courageous love.
We need to bravely re-define what is of ‘necessity’; our conscience and even our fears recognize that what is of ‘necessity’ now is not war.
We cannot make ourselves more secure with more violence. We cannot gain trust with more mutual killing. We never win by imposing death on others or on our own soldiers.
Even if we, somehow, ‘win’, we ourselves, eventually, die. We all do, not just Afghans.
President Obama, ordinary Afghans and international soldiers who are dying in what is now your Afghan war, ask that you do not inadvertently re-define peace as war, for in so doing, you would have taken away all of our hope.
Though I can’t think this mad-ness of America’s First Family, the world is staring at the angry, arrogant illogic of our 21st century’s insecure, First World elite policy makers.
With them, there are no longer any creative, non-violent, civilian alternatives. Very few thinkers think. Hardly any empathize and philosophy is derisively dead.
So, when Gore Vidal said that there’ll be a ‘dictatorship’ in the US soon, or when Jimmy Carter suggested a deep racist undercurrent to health care reform or when the Pope had called the kettle black in blaming greed for the financial crisis, they are partly referring to the complete dominance of the haughty, savage instinct of SELF-preservation over all else. And this isn’t a uniquely savage ‘Afghan’ instinct. It’s in all of us.
No questions.
No alternatives.
Questions and alternatives are deemed treason.
The only ‘winnable’ military strategy becomes sacred and ‘holier-than-thou’, because we believe that we must have ‘victory’ at all cost. We fear ‘losing’, even if we lose everything ‘essential about ourselves’.
Afghans know this strategy very well. They have been dying from the dictatorship of their ancient, violent greed for power and money. Now, we are sealing their greed and our deaths with Man’s hollow appearances and foggy wars. We are declaring:
Fraud is free.
Lies are truths.
Military might is right.
And money is everything.
Afghanistan’s tribal warlordism used to be confined to villages and valleys but now, with international assistance, it has been sanctioned and propagated country-wide. So, Afghans who have lived all their lives surviving and mastering this primitive warlordism are waiting, hungrily waiting.
“Train us! Send us those dollars! We’ll help you through our endlessly vengeful, constantly traitorous shifting allegiances. Don’t worry about us; on the average, we live for only 43 years anyway,” the Afghan elite shout.
Living here in a tribal village in Afghanistan, I’ve come to understand our common human condition. I’m not talking about the breakout of the ‘Lord of the Flies’ style savagery on William Golding’s island or at Kabul’s US fortress or in the desperate, fraudulent Afghan elections.
I’m talking about something much, much cruder.
This madness needs to stop. We need to find love and truth again.
Afghans have not seen compassion or justice in the inhumanity of constant war. They need hope that the abusive money and power of the corporate 1% do not always triumph. Every human needs such hope.
Maybe, they and the world can discover these human values if Obama remains engaged in Afghanistan, but through a 90% civilian effort. We can all be more imaginative in our commitment.
Those who reason that the military strategy must precede the civilian surge should consider the view of Amrullah Saleh, the head of the Afghan intelligence agency, when he said that the Pakistani intelligence service, the ISI, could play a vital role in ending the Afghan war. “To arrest the Taliban leadership in Quetta, you don’t need a military operation … just soft-knock their house and arrest them,” Saleh told Al Jazeera. Or I ask myself how some international humanitarian civilians and I could live in Quetta post-September 11, without hired security.
We wish for a 90% civilian approach because we envision that robust international relations are fostered through sincere diplomacy, not armed threats and we expect that Obama’s government is ultimately a civilian government, not a military one.
The authority of the Commander-in-Chief was not intended to approve militarism as a way of good governance but as a check, lest we forget that we are firstly humans, and that our naked humanity needs to be our primary resort, way before partisan politics and uniformed plans.
And since weighing the financial cost-benefit of waging war would remorselessly favor fighting for an illusory national security and recycling the tangible military-industrial profit, we’re unlikely to find sanity that way. It’s time, instead, to humanely deliberate over the priceless human cost behind every soldier, veteran and civilian dying, for what?
Obama is heading towards real Change in re-considering the Afghan strategy anew, for the sake of ourselves and our fellow human beings, because re-considering is a key to humanity’s innovation, if not a way to recover our kindness. We are trusting in the kindred spirit overcoming man-made institutions and temporal decorum when we keep hope that the debate would truly be diverse and not merely cosmetic.
No human likes abandonment, as is natural in normal friendships, so while some rightly fear that creating all the civilian options we can muster to assist Afghanistan may be misconstrued as leaving Afghanistan, those fears are unfounded and unfriendly.
Einstein’s pacifist intellect is sorely needed but his common sense intellect is sufficiently important at this moment: “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them. We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive.”
Obama’s penchant for history knows that war certainly isn’t new. War is the same old, tragic story. It will never be the ‘substantially new manner of thinking’ required for our survival, for our freedom from fear and our search for meaning.
President Obama, please reason with the civil hearts among the masses, whose majority want peace, through a referendum if necessary. You will then witness the very virtue you want your iconic heroes to remind you of, that ‘real results will not just come from Washington, they will come from the people’, that a truer ‘governance of the people by the people’ built upon the moral compass of ordinary people is possible in the States, and with great patience, in Afghanistan too. After all, whether we live life with a conferred title, rank or uniform, or as name-less souls, we all perish as ordinary people.
And please heed the civil voices, even if they come from the dead, silent wall behind you.
For then, the escalating anger and madness, our shared savage instincts, would begin to abate. And our world would find genuine safety in decency and in the conciliatory civilizations of this age, the momentous change we’ve all been longing for.
the bright, civil Afghan
Ghandi and Martin Luther King to Obama today
Below are the 2 icons speaking to Obama. I have not bothered to change the names of the countries mentioned because the love and truth spoken in their views don’t change, not for the well-known Presidents that pass through the White House, or for the unknown Afghans that live in the hills.
And enough similarities have been drawn about the Afghan and Vietnam war scenarios, though such analyses can never bring back those who have been killed in the past, nor clarify the doubts of those who choose to kill today, nor alleviate the terror of those who may be killed.
Ghandi to Obama today
Ghandi
I may not carry my argument any further. Language at best is but a poor vehicle for expressing one’s thoughts in full. For me nonviolence is not a mere philosophical principle. It is the rule and the breath of my life. I know I fail often, sometimes consciously, more often unconsciously. It is a matter not of the intellect but of the heart. True guidance comes by constant waiting upon God, by utmost humility, Self-abnegation, by being ever ready to sacrifice one’s self. Its practice requires fearlessness and courage of the highest order. I am painfully aware of my failings.
But the Light within me is steady and clear. There is no escape for any of us save through truth and non-violence. I know that war is wrong, is an unmitigated evil. I know too that it has got to go. I firmly believe that freedom won through bloodshed or fraud is no freedom.
The end and aim of the movement for British withdrawal is to prepare India, by making her free for resisting all militarist and imperialist ambition, whether it is called British Imperialism, German Nazism, or your pattern. If we do not, we shall have been ignoble spectators of the militarization of the world in spite of our belief that in non-violence we have the only solvent of the militarist spirit and ambition. Personally I fear that without declaring the Independence of India the Allied powers would still not be able to beat the Axis combination which has raised violence to the dignity of a religion. The allies cannot beat you and your partners unless they beat you in your ruthless and skilled warfare. If they copy it, their declaration that they will save the world for democracy and individual freedom must come to naught. I feel that they can only gain strength to avoid copying your ruthlessness by declaring and recognizing now the freedom of India, and turning sullen India’s forced co-operation into freed India’s voluntary co-operation.
To Britain and the Allies we have appealed in the name of justice, in proof of their professions, and in their own self-interest. To you I appeal in the name of humanity. It is a marvel to me that you do not see that ruthless warfare is nobody’s monopoly. If not the Allies, some other Power will certainly improve upon your method and beat you with your own weapon. Even if you win you will leave no legacy to your people of which they would feel proud. They cannot take pride in a recital of cruel deeds however skillfully achieved.
Even if you win, it will not prove that you were in the right; it will only prove that your power of destruction was greater. This applies obviously to the Allies too, unless they perform now the just and righteous act of freeing India as an earnest and promise of similarly freeing all other subject peoples in Asia and Africa.
I address this appeal to you in the hope that our movement may even influence you and your partners in the right direction and deflect you and them from the course which is bound to end in your moral ruin and the reduction of human beings to robots.
The hope of your response to my appeal is much fainter than that of response from Britain. I know that the British are not devoid of a sense of justice and they know me. I do not know you enough to be able to judge. All I have read tells me that you listen to no appeal but to the sword. How I wish that you are cruelly misrepresented and that I shall touch the right chord in your heart! Anyway I have an undying faith in the responsiveness of human nature.
Martin Luther King to Obama today
Martin Luther King
Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government’s policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one’s own bosom and in the surrounding world. Moreover, when the issues at hand seem as perplexing as they often do in the case of this dreadful conflict, we are always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty. But we must move on.
Some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak. And we must rejoice as well, for surely this is the first time in our nation’s history that a significant number of its religious leaders have chosen to move beyond the prophesying of smooth patriotism to the high grounds of a firm dissent based upon the mandates of conscience and the reading of history. Perhaps a new spirit is rising among us. If it is, let us trace its movements, and pray that our own inner being may be sensitive to its guidance, for we are deeply in need of a new way beyond the darkness that seems so close around us.
We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for the victims of our nation, for those it calls “enemy,” for no document from human hands can make these humans any less our brothers.
Our government felt then that the Vietnamese people were not ready for independence, and we again fell victim to the deadly Western arrogance that has poisoned the international atmosphere for so long.
We have destroyed their two most cherished institutions: the family and the village. We have destroyed their land and their crops.
Surely we must understand their feelings, even if we do not condone their actions. Surely we must see that the men we supported pressed them to their violence. Surely we must see that our own computerized plans of destruction simply dwarf their greatest acts.
Here is the true meaning and value of compassion and nonviolence, when it helps us to see the enemy’s point of view, to hear his questions, to know his assessment of ourselves. For from his view we may indeed see the basic weaknesses of our own condition, and if we are mature, we may learn and grow and profit from the wisdom of the brothers who are called the opposition.
At this point I should make it clear that while I have tried in these last few minutes to give a voice to the voiceless in Vietnam and to understand the arguments of those who are called “enemy,” I am as deeply concerned about our own troops there as anything else. For it occurs to me that what we are submitting them to in Vietnam is not simply the brutalizing process that goes on in any war where armies face each other and seek to destroy. We are adding cynicism to the process of death, for they must know after a short period there that none of the things we claim to be fighting for are really involved. Before long they must know that their government has sent them into a struggle among Vietnamese, and the more sophisticated surely realize that we are on the side of the wealthy, and the secure, while we create a hell for the poor.
Somehow this madness must cease.
Each day the war goes on the hatred increases in the hearts of the Vietnamese and in the hearts of those of humanitarian instinct. The Americans are forcing even their friends into becoming their enemies. It is curious that the Americans, who calculate so carefully on the possibilities of military victory, do not realize that in the process they are incurring deep psychological and political defeat. The image of America will never again be the image of revolution, freedom, and democracy, but the image of violence and militarism.
If we continue, there will be no doubt in my mind and in the mind of the world that we have no honorable intentions in Vietnam. If we do not stop our war against the people of Vietnam immediately, the world will be left with no other alternative than to see this as some horrible, clumsy, and deadly game we have decided to play. The world now demands a maturity of America that we may not be able to achieve. It demands that we admit that we have been wrong from the beginning of our adventure in Vietnam, that we have been detrimental to the life of the Vietnamese people. The situation is one in which we must be ready to turn sharply from our present ways. In order to atone for our sins and errors in Vietnam, we should take the initiative in bringing a halt to this tragic war.
A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say: “This is not just.” It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of South America and say: “This is not just.” The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.
A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war: “This way of settling differences is not just.” This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation’s homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.
America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing except a tragic death wish to prevent us from reordering our priorities, so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. There is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood.
A genuine revolution of values means in the final analysis that our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies.
This call for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one’s tribe, race, class and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all mankind. This oft misunderstood, this oft misinterpreted concept, so readily dismissed by the Nietzsches of the world as a weak and cowardly force, has now become an absolute necessity for the survival of man. When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. I’m not speaking of that force which is just emotional bosh. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality. This Hindu-Moslem-Christian-Jewish-Buddhist belief about ultimate reality is beautifully summed up in the first epistle of Saint John: “Let us love one another, for love is God. And every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love.” “If we love one another, God dwelleth in us and his love is perfected in us.” Let us hope that this spirit will become the order of the day.
We can no longer afford to worship the god of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate. History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate. As Arnold Toynbee says: “Love is the ultimate force that makes for the saving choice of life and good against the damning choice of death and evil. Therefore the first hope in our inventory must be the hope that love is going to have the last word.”
We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with a lost opportunity. The tide in the affairs of men does not remain at flood. It ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is adamant to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words, “Too late.” There is an invisible book of life that faithfully records our vigilance or our neglect. Omar Khayyam is right: “The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on.”
We still have a choice today: nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation. We must move past indecision to action. We must find new ways to speak for peace in Vietnam and justice throughout the developing world, a world that borders on our doors. If we do not act, we shall surely be dragged down the long, dark, and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight.
Now let us begin. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter, but beautiful, struggle for a new world. This is the calling of the sons of God, and our brothers wait eagerly for our response. Shall we say the odds are too great? Shall we tell them the struggle is too hard? Will our message be that the forces of American life militate against their arrival as full men, and we send our deepest regrets? Or will there be another message of longing, of hope, of solidarity with their yearnings, of commitment to their cause, whatever the cost? The choice is ours, and though we might prefer it otherwise, we must choose in this crucial moment of human history.
Remembering Mark Twain with The War Prayer in Afghanistan
September 17, 2009 by
Filed under Journey Updates
Please watch 2 cherry-picking Afghan boys ‘pray’ for Afghanistan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OzY_80vnrI
“The War Prayer,” a short story or prose poem by Mark Twain, was a scathing indictment of war, and particularly of blind patriotic and religious fervor as motivations for war. It was dictated by Mark [Samuel Clemens] in 1904 in advance of his death in 1910.
Outraged by American military intervention in the Philippines, Mark Twain wrote “The War Prayer”.
Emilio Aguinaldo, a Filipino revolutionary rebel leader, was fighting for the independence of the Philipines from Spain. In 1898, with the outbreak of the Spanish-American War, Aguinaldo unofficially allied with the United States, returned to the Philippines and resumed hostilities against the Spaniards.
By June, the rebels had conquered nearly all Spanish-held ground within the Philippines with the exception of Manila. Aguinaldo thus declared independence from Spain and the First Philippine Republic was established. However, neither Spain nor the United States recognized Philippine independence. Spanish rule in the islands only officially ended with the 1898 Treaty of Paris, wherein Spain ceded the Philippines and other territories to the United States.
United States would extend its sovereignty over the Islands, and thus in place of the old Spanish master a new one would step in.
The United States refused to allow the Filipinos to participate in taking Manila from Spain. The United States Navy waited for American reinforcements and, in August 13, 1898, captured the city in what may have been a staged battle. On 4 February, 1899, an American sentry patrolling near the border between the Filipino and American lines shot a Filipino soldier, after which Filipino forces returned fire, thus igniting a second battle for the city. Aguinaldo sent a ranking member of his staff to Ellwell Otis, the U.S. military commander, with the message that the firing had been against his orders. According to Aguinaldo, Otis replied, “The fighting, having begun, must go on to the grim end.”
The Philippines declared war against the United States on June 2, 1899, with Pedro Paterno, President of Congress, issuing a Proclamation of War. The Philippine–American War ensued between 1899, and 1902. The war officially ended in 1902, with the Philippine leaders accepting, for the most part, that the Americans had won.
‘The War Prayer’ was left unpublished by Mark Twain at his death, largely due to pressure from his family, who feared that the story would be considered sacrilegious.
In a letter to his confidant Joseph Twichell, Mark wrote that he had “suppressed” the story for seven years, even though his conscience told him to publish it, because he was not “equal” to the task.
“I have told the truth in that… and only dead men can tell the truth in this world.” Mark Twain
Today in Afghanistan, every day, the conventional wisdom of militarism in 2009 finds a focus in a global Great Game, in which Truth is a rare find, even through the best strategists and interpreters.
A Global Great Game in which Love has long since died.
“The War Prayer in Afghanistan” is imagined as a ‘prayer’ that any Muslim / Christian / non-religious ‘warrior’ in Afghanistan may pray. It may also be a cry of their loved ones at home, wherever home may be.
This prayer is purely fictional, emulating the same spirit of Mark Twain when he wrote the original War Prayer (printed at the end of this post), one of the many differences being that the voice that prays here isn’t that of a ‘lunatic sent by God’ but of an ordinary, sane 21st century person.
The OR-s highlighted in red reflect minor differences in the terminologies that may be used by the different faiths; it is obvious that the vast majority of the prayer lines are mostly similar between the faiths.
2 cherry-picking Afghan boys ‘pray’ for Afghanistan
The War Prayer in Afghanistan
It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on….
Have mercy on us, oh merciful and compassionate God, we are fearful and terrified!
We have to win!
We have to protect the women, children and civilians of Afghanistan. We have to protect the authority and government which You appoint, however corrupt they may be.
Most necessary of all, we have to destroy every mud corner that is the safe haven of the disguised insurgent ( oh, they all look alike but You are omniscient and can help us to identify the true insurgent ) OR most merit-chalking of all, we have to destroy every armored vehicle that is the safe haven of the foreign trooper.
We have to remove every one of Your enemies.
Thank You, Almighty One, that You are our One and Only God, and that You are on our side. They, the enemies whom we and whom You and the whole world hate, are already defeated.
Yes, we are grateful and encouraged that civilization, guided by our higher moral obligations, has matured enough to view this as a holy war, a just war or at least, a good war.
We cannot thank you enough for the minds and abilities You have endowed us with to annihilate any enemy, that we have weapons that can do so remotely on a mass scale without un-necessarily endangering Your humble servants.
Yes, we exalt You for entrusting us with such wisdom, strategies and technologies in order to defend Your people!
We praise You that You are the real Master and President OR Warlord of our glorious one–and-only-cracy, and for this, we are prepared to sacrifice our lives! We are not afraid because we know that we will triumph, and we will not be moved till we win, so that these tortured people living under oppressive governments would finally be free.
We thank you that we not only have Your support, but also the votes OR allegiance of the enlightened world, fellow believers and countrymen and many other true warriors of our time.
So, we plead forYour kindness in helping us to destroy our enemies. We know that You understand our sincere concerns and their evil secrets. Protect your nation and your people! Ensure our security!
We wish to uphold and defend Your gracious justice, so please help us to bomb these terrible people out of their dirty pants.
We wish to enforce Your upright love, so please help us to bullet these terrible people with ‘one clean kill’.
You are constantly aware of the agony and cries of all our mothers for their beloved sons and daughters, so spare us the permanent pain of death. Let our enemies be the ones who feel this grief for dead sons and daughters; they deserve it!
We are Your people and You have set our family, community and society apart from the heathens OR infidels, so we ask that, through us, You will establish Your Kingdom community OR the brotherhood with great power and force, for the betterment of the whole world.
Wonderful Creator, grant us our human right to life!
We have faith that, though You do not wish for any to perish, it is only the spiritual death of hell You are ultimately concerned about, so You wouldn’t mind if we kept the physical killing to the minimum. After all, Your Name is supreme and to be glorified at great sacrifice and cost. In fact, help us to be willing to protect Your people and kill our enemies, Your enemies, at all cost.
In these times of financial crisis, we believe that You are too big to fail, so supply us, O Lord, with the money and resources to remove or buy our enemies, so we would be secure, safe in Your refuge and sanctuary, to which You’ve given us the keys, from which all blessings and riches flow. In God we trust OR God is great!
These are times of terror and conflict ; thank you for guiding us in the right way of countering terror OR fighting the occupier with Your righteous anger.
We know that though You’ve imbued us with the beautiful and ideal concept of love, in reality no system or institution can control human nature, so you have equipped us with sophisticated military tools that can deliver us from the wiles of human nature and that can truly defend and change communities.
Spare no enemy’s life in Your sacred call for justice and thank You for allowing us the freedom of ‘collateral damage’ OR ‘suicide sacrifices’ as we become Your instruments of peace, a peace that the world cannot understand. However many the casualties and martyrs, the world will know through Your revelation that we are Your ambassadors of reconciliation.
We lift our hearts up to Your Holiness that demands truth even if it compels us to’ coerce’ others beyond our comfort zones. Sanctify our lips as we proclaim suitable justifications for Your vengeance, for it is Your vengeance we carry.
Release these misled souls from their blindness! We know that Your ways are not our ways and You do not make laws as the world makes, so empower us, that we will forever run without growing weary of doing good and walk without fainting upon any measure of blood.
Send more warriors into the field Lord; WE will pray incessantly, as we daily wait upon your wondrous works, that You will raise THEM up and send THEM, and give them the honor and privilege of bravely laying down their lives for us.
Spread Your gentle firmness and Your meek dignity, Lord, in these glorious battles! Shock Your enemies with Your Awesome love! We claim Your victory! Protect us,Your willing slaves by choice!
Forgive us generously as we generously forgive those who trespass against us!
Have mercy on us, oh merciful and compassionate God, we are fearful and terrified!
It was believed afterward that the prayer was uttered by a sage, because there was much sense and morality in what was said.
The War Prayer
by Mark Twain
It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy pistols popping, the bunched firecrackers hissing and spluttering; on every hand and far down the receding and fading spread of roofs and balconies a fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun; daily the young volunteers marched down the wide avenue gay and fine in their new uniforms, the proud fathers and mothers and sisters and sweethearts cheering them with voices choked with happy emotion as they swung by; nightly the packed mass meetings listened, panting, to patriot oratory which stirred the deepest deeps of their hearts, and which they interrupted at briefest intervals with cyclones of applause, the tears running down their cheeks the while; in the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country, and invoked the God of Battles beseeching His aid in our good cause in outpourings of fervid eloquence which moved every listener. It was indeed a glad and gracious time, and the half dozen rash spirits that ventured to disapprove of the war and cast a doubt upon its righteousness straightway got such a stern and angry warning that for their personal safety’s sake they quickly shrank out of sight and offended no more in that way.
Sunday morning came – next day the battalions would leave for the front; the church was filled; the volunteers were there, their young faces alight with martial dreams – visions of the stern advance, the gathering momentum, the rushing charge, the flashing sabers, the flight of the foe, the tumult, the enveloping smoke, the fierce pursuit, the surrender! Then home from the war, bronzed heroes, welcomed, adored, submerged in golden seas of glory! With the volunteers sat their dear ones, proud, happy, and envied by the neighbors and friends who had no sons and brothers to send forth to the field of honor, there to win for the flag, or, failing, die the noblest of noble deaths. The service proceeded; a war chapter from the Old Testament was read; the first prayer was said; it was followed by an organ burst that shook the building, and with one impulse the house rose, with glowing eyes and beating hearts, and poured out that tremendous invocation:
God the all-terrible!
Thou who ordainest!
Thunder thy clarion and lightning thy sword!
Then came the “long” prayer. None could remember the like of it for passionate pleading and moving and beautiful language. The burden of its supplication was, that an ever-merciful and benignant Father of us all would watch over our noble young soldiers, and aid, comfort, and encourage them in their patriotic work; bless them, shield them in the day of battle and the hour of peril, bear them in His mighty hand, make them strong and confident, invincible in the bloody onset; help them to crush the foe, grant to them and to their flag and country imperishable honor and glory…
An aged stranger entered and moved with slow and noiseless step up the main aisle, his eyes fixed upon the minister, his long body clothed in a robe that reached to his feet, his head bare, his white hair descending in a frothy cataract to his shoulders, his seamy face unnaturally pale, pale even to ghastliness. With all eyes following him and wondering, he made his silent way; without pausing, he ascended to the preacher’s side and stood there waiting. With shut lids the preacher, unconscious of his presence, continued with his moving prayer, and at last finished it with the words, uttered in fervent appeal, “Bless our arms, grant us the victory, O Lord our God, Father and Protector of our land and flag!”
The stranger touched his arm, motioned him to step aside – which the startled minister did – and took his place. During some moments he surveyed the spellbound audience with solemn eyes, in which burned an uncanny light; then in a deep voice he said:
“I come from the Throne – bearing a message from Almighty God!” The words smote the house with a shock; if the stranger perceived it he gave no attention. “He has heard the prayer of His servant your shepherd, and will grant it if such shall be your desire after I, His messenger, shall have explained to you its import – that is to say, its full import. For it is like unto many of the prayers of men, in that it asks for more than he who utters it is aware of – except he pause and think.
“God’s servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and taken thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two – one uttered, the other not. Both have reached the ear of Him who heareth all supplications, the spoken and the unspoken. Ponder this – keep it in mind. If you would beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware! lest without intent you invoke a curse upon a neighbor at the same time. If you pray for the blessing of rain upon your crop which needs it, by that act you are possibly praying for a curse upon some neighbor’s crop which may not need rain and can be injured by it.
“You have heard your servant’s prayer – the uttered part of it. I am commissioned of God to put into words the other part of it – that part which the pastor – and also you in your hearts – fervently prayed silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grant that it was so! You heard these words: ‘Grant us the victory, O Lord our God!’ That is sufficient. The whole of the uttered prayer is compact into those pregnant words. Elaborations were not necessary. When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory – must follow it, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen!
“O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle – be Thou near them! With them – in spirit – we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it – for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him who is the Source of Love, and who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.
(After a pause) “Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits!”
It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said.
An eulogy for Afghanistan
August 27, 2009 by
Filed under Journey Updates
My Afghan grandma, who has passed on
Afghanistan and humanity are dying, and of course, I’m not talking about the state and of course, life will go on.
I’m talking about the heart.
I’m a Singaporean medical humanitarian worker who has lived among Afghans for 7 years now and I’m grieving.
I’ve realized that this grief I share with ordinary Afghans doesn’t matter to anyone.
Rory Stewarts’ Irresistible Illusion ( http://www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n13/stew01_.html ) has won, worldwide.
Living here in Afghanistan, I should say that it’s not an illusion; it has become Mankind’s irresistible convention, albeit a sort of desperate hysteria, to win, to be right at all cost.
And nothing can change this ‘wisdom’ for now, certainly not any election. There doesn’t seem to be any room to re-think on a human level, far less to re-empathize.
If anything, the change will be for the worse, because the de-humanizing institutions of global politics, religion and media in the early 21st century are embracing this ‘goodness’ , ‘success’ and ‘necessity’.
Necessary for what?
Gone are trust, creativity, integrity, fairness and the type of love best exemplified in the grieving mother.
Gone.
Afghans are human and are just as vile and virtuous as any human can be, so for their and our humanity, I grieve.
Most people reading this eulogy will think I’m insensible. So be it.
The insensible can grieve too.
Hakim in Afghanistan,
Our Journey to Smile
http://ourjourneytosmile.com/blog
Crying in Afghanistan
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 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
