Afghanistan

No Short Cuts. Connect Globally. Relate Revolutionarily!

Buddy — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 21:45:21 -0600

Short Information Teaser

Final Update from the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers in India

Excerpt

Can we create ashram-like, self-reliant communities in Afghanistan?

Ahmedabad is the city where Gandhi began his India independence struggle, establishing 2 ashrams in 1917. It was from Ahmedabad that Gandhi initiated the Salt March in 1930. We spent time with the people of Demar village ( located 40 km from Ahmedabad city ), an agricultural and livestock village growing cotton and rearing cows for milk.

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18th to 22nd Jan : Ahmedabad – The world is not yet connected enough for Mankind to live equally

Almost Blind in Demar village

Ladies Sorting the Cotton

Cotton dreams aren’t white enough because of insufficient irrigation water.

Meeting village elders to understand the dreams and wishes of the people

Together with 15 Oasis program participants ( from India, Bangladesh and Denmark ), as well as 40 high school students from Gandhinagar International School, we tried to understand the wishes of the villagers.

Included in the villagers’ wish list were :

Sufficient water – for drinking and irrigation
Good education, especially addressing youth issues, including drug addiction…
Cleaning up a road - muddied by accumulated soil and drainage water ( which caused the village women to fall frequently when they carried the milk containers on their heads )

On the last day of the program, we worked with the villagers on wish Number 3, and managed to clean up the muddy stretch of road in the village!

Abdulai getting into his hands and feet into the mud

Ali digging a drainage pit

The people and children working hard together

Water is a basic need

Food is a basic need: treated to a Gujerati meal!

Helping others to help themselves

Governments accumulate wealth while the people contend with basic needs.

The human masses everywhere are not yet connected with one another enough to address the inequalities that challenge us all in the face of an increasingly wealthy global elite.

No short cuts. Connect globally. Relate revolutionarily!

After the Oasis program, we spent a day at Gandhi’s Sabarmati Ashram on the banks of the Sabarmati.

Gandhi’s spinning wheel of independence

Can we create ashram-like, self-reliant communities in Afghanistan?

Gandhi’s room of simple living

Gandhian three of ‘no evil’

Signboard at the ashram

It said :

Muslims

Hindus

Buddhists

Sikhs

Parsis

Christians

Jews

Build bridges

Not barriers

Building bridges with an ashram gardener

23rd to 27th Jan : The Crown, and brevity

The Taj Mahal is the ‘Crown of Palaces’, built by Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan for his third wife Mumtaz Mahal, who died during the birth of their 14th child.

Ali asked, “Did he build anything for his first and 2nd wife?” :)

Next to the Taj Mahal

I commented to the immigration official, Mr Kumar, at the Gandhi International airport who ‘processed’ me at departure: “ I came with these 3 Afghan youth and we feel that Afghanistan urgently needs Gandhi today. There’s little time…life is short, isn’t it?”

Mr Kumar replied, “ I watched a video ‘Interview with God’, in which God had made 3 observations :

When Man is young, he wants to grow up quickly. When he’s old, he wants to stay young forever. In youth, Man spends his life to earn money, and when he’s old, he spends his money to earn his life. In youth, we live as if we’ll never die, and then we die as if we’ve never lived.

New friends from India, Bangladesh, Denmark

We’ve made many friends in India.

Life’s brevity. We’re back in snowy Kabul, where the global 1% elite are negotiating our lives away!

No short cuts. Connect globally. Relate revolutionarily!

ourjourneytosmile.com

Update to Atrocities in Afghanistan List

Buddy — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 16:54:08 -0600

Short Information Teaser

5 Civilians Killed by NATO forces in Northeastern Kunar Province

Excerpt

The governor of Kunar province said that during a night raid on January 16, NATO forces killed 5 civilians during a “kill-and-capture” raid as coalition helicopters fired into a compound. Among the 5 were 1 woman and 2 children.

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Date:
January 16, 2012

Place:
Chawkay district, Kunar province

Circumstances:
The governor of Kunar province said that during a night raid on January 16, NATO forces killed 5 civilians during a “kill-and-capture” raid as coalition helicopters fired into a compound. Among the 5 were 1 woman and 2 children.

US/NATO Initial Response/Acknowledgement:
On Wednesday, January 18, NATO issued a statement stating that they were aware of a military operation in the Chawkay district of Kunar province on Monday and were checking into the report.

Associated Press

To learn about more civilian deaths in Afghanistan caused by ISAF/NATO troops click here.

What Would Gandhi Say to Afghan Youth Today?

Buddy — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 10:59:55 -0600

Short Information Teaser

Update from the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers in Bhopal, India

Excerpt

Train buddy Utkarsh

Dearest Abdulai

It was really great meeting you and clicking those pictures.

You have a tough task ahead. Stand brave against the odds and your genuine heart and crystal clear thoughts will take you to your dream.

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10th Jan : Railway train to Bhopal

It was a comfortable 8-hour ride on the train from Delhi to Bhopal.

Fields, fields, fields, litter, litter, litter, cattle, cattle, cattle…

We shared a urgent feeling for human livelihoods to return to the fields.

Jim Loney, a Canadian Christian Peacemaker Team activist shared his experience of being kidnapped for 118 days in Iraq, which he describes in his book ‘Captivity’.

Kidnappers have those who love them and whom they love, too.

The Iraqi kidnappers had told Jim stories of the HURT and ANGER created through US military offensives that killed loved ones.

11th Jan : From Guns to Gandhi

The Times of India

The Youth’s interview got onto the front page of the Bhopal edition of the Times of India! Read the text of the article here.

78 year old Bagvir and his wife had established the Gandhi ashram we stayed in.

Bagvir shared with the youth, “All human beings are one. God is one and religions are different paths to God. Gandhi had said that Truth is God and that God is Truth.”

Paul and Kathrin ( husband-and-wife Canadian volunteers with Ekta Parishad who kindly arranged and co-ordinated our Indian trip ) brought us to old Bhopal Market which had a Hindu temple at one end and a mosque at the other.

Kathrin gave us a treat of banana, papaya & chiku milk shakes, opposite colourful shops of mannequins modeling lingerie :) . Another ‘first’!

12th Jan : India lives in the villages

Namaste!

We visited Bhimkothi, a remote village located in the jungle, off the beaten path. Rakash of Ekta Parishad had been working with the villagers to obtain official documents for land ownership, to establish a school and to dig a village well.

Importantly, Rakash shared that he spends a few nights a month in the village because ‘it is in the night that the stories and lives of the villagers become more transparent.’

Poverty in a land of plenty.

Life transpires in the Indian village nights.

Gardener, over 100 years old: “We all die… we should leave something behind.”

13th Jan : The mosque in the city, the mosque on an island

With Indian Youth at ‘Begum’ Mosque

The mosque we visited in Bhopal City is the 2nd largest mosque in India, built by a Begum from Afghanistan.

To the youth, Bhopal lake was not a lake. It was a sea.

Mosque on Bhopal Lake

14th Jan : Railway train back to Delhi

Train Buddy Utkarsh

Dearest Abdulai,

It was really great meeting you and clicking those pictures.

You have a tough task ahead. Stand brave against the odds and your genuine heart and crystal clear thoughts will take you to your dream.

I wish you all the luck, happiness and success in all your future endeavours.

Looking forward to meet you again and this time at your place.

Keep smiling.

Your train buddy,

Utkrash Pandey

15th Jan : Registering the Afghan

‘States’ presume out of fear that every Afghan is ‘guilty until proved innocent’, though out of the nineteen September 11th hijackers who provided a ‘justification’ for bombing: ‘guilty Afghans’, none were Afghans.

When I went with the youth to the Foreign Registration office ( Afghans and Pakistanis need to register their existence in India within 14 days upon arrival ), I asked an official where I could find a toilet, and he said, “ Inside ( the building )!” I tried at the guarded door which led into the building, but the official told me, ”Outside!”

16th Jan : Frisbee and Astronomy

Making Friends through Frisbeeing

Solar Time and Astronomy

17th Jan : Sleepless on the 20-hour train to Gandhi’s birth city of Ahmedabad

The Good, Slow Train: Train panes

In the sleeper class cabin of the slow train with unpleasant toilets, Gandhi may have said to us,

“Feel as cold as everyone else.”

The Sleeper Cabin: Ali under colorful blankets

Click here to go to the volunteers’ website.

Life Inside the Train

Life Outside at Railway Stations

Thoughts While on the Railway Tracks

Guns to Gandhi: Afghan Boys on a Peace Pilgrimage

Gerald — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 11:05:51 -0600

Short Information Teaser

From the Front Page of Bhopal Edition of the Times of India

Excerpt

Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers Featured in the Times of India

“Have you ever heard of an Afghan promoting peace,” Ali asks casually and everyone in the room falls silent, the only smile was on Mahatma Gandhi, looking down from a framed photograph.

“The world must be tired of the word ‘love’ but it is something we crave for. Our biggest wish in life is to see lasting peace in our country,” he added.

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Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers Featured in the Times of India

From Bamiyan, Where the Taliban Blew Up the Buddhas

Jamal Ayub TNN

Bhopal:
Faiz Mohammed was all of 11 years, when the Taliban decided to blow up the world’s tallest standing Buddhas, carved into a sandstone cliff face in Bamiyan valley, his Afghan home town. The Taliban had first tried to dynamite these 6th century marvels in March 2001, then trained anti-aircraft guns and artillery on them. This failing, they had put anti-tank mines at the statues’ bottom and shelled them, and finally packed explosives into the holes the shelling made, to bring them down.

“We are ashamed of what happened. We did not worship the statues, but it was our heritage,” says Faiz. “Given a chance, we would love to see those statues restored,” he added.

On a month long tour of India, Faiz and his two fellow ‘Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers’, Abdulai (16) and Ali (15) are in Bhopal with three-time Nobel peace prize nominee Kathy Kelly who coordinates ‘Voices for Creative Nonviolence’ (VCNV) and British peace campaigner Maya Evans. The three youngsters are learning to stand up for peace, at the Gandhi Bhawan in the city.

“Have you ever heard of an Afghan promoting peace,” Ali asks casually and everyone in the room falls silent, the only smile was on Mahatma Gandhi, looking down from a framed photograph.

“The world must be tired of the word ‘love’ but it is something we crave for. Our biggest wish in life is to see lasting peace in our country,” he added.

“They see a possible different future. Their message is contrary to war profiteering and war mongering,” said Kelly. “These young kids from Bamiyan can talk intelligently, and people are taking notice,” said Evans.

“We wish to learn how to mobilise people from the villages to protest non-violently,” said Faiz, whose brother was shot dead in front of his eyes. Abdulai’s father too was killed while Ali lost his uncle to violence in the war torn country.

This small group is travelling all over India to learn Gandhian practices. Their stopover in Bhopal was supported by Ekta Parishad, part of a forum - South Asia peace initiative.

On their first foreign trip, the young Afghans were bemused when they saw a puja being performed, for the first time in their lives. “We would definitely go to a theatre,” said Ali, who, like his fellow travellers, has never been to one. Ali was cast in ‘Hazaragi’, a film about a girl’s struggle to study in a school.

It all started in January 2010, over a phone call from Washington, DC to a small tent in Afghanistan, on the birth anniversary of Martin Luther King. US activists wanted to tell these Afghan children about the slain civil rights activist. To their amazement, the kids could recite King’s “I Have a Dream’ speech from memory, the one in which he had called for racial equality and an end to discrimination.

“‘Who are these kids?’ we asked,” recalled Kelly. “As time passed, the more we learned the more we knew. These children were taking great risks and they really mean it when they say they are trying to live a different life,” she added.

The three, incidentally, have so far turned down three major awards. Perhaps Gandhiji would have approved.

Click here to go to the AYPV website.

What Would Gandhi Say to Afghan Youth Today?

Gerald — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 11:13:38 -0600

Short Information Teaser

Follow a Blog from the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers as They Travel through India

Excerpt

January 11, 2012
by the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers
on tour in India

Ali, Faiz and Abdulai at the Gandhi Memorial in New Delhi, India

Indian, Afghan and human poverty Faiz, Abdulai, Ali and I are travelling in India to learn from Gandhian practitioners ( in Ekta Parishad ). We wish to learn how to mobilize people from the villages to protest non-violently.

Immediately, we’re encountering our own poverty.

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January 11, 2012
by the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers
on tour in India

Ali, Faiz and Abdulai at the Gandhi Memorial in New Delhi, India

Indian, Afghan and human poverty

Faiz, Abdulai, Ali and I are travelling in India to learn from Gandhian practitioners ( in Ekta Parishad ). We wish to learn how to mobilize people from the villages to protest non-violently.

Immediately, we’re encountering our own poverty.

Our flexible travel itinerary :

6th Jan to 9th Jan : New Delhi

10th to 15th Jan : Bhopal

15th to 21st Jan : Ahmedabad

23rd to 26th Jan : Aliabad?

27th Jan : Return to Kabul Afghanistan

6th Jan : Firsts for Faiz, Abdulai, Ali

First time on plane

First time above clouds

First time having pineapples

First time on elevator, travelator

First time using standing urinal and automatic sink-tap

First time in a big city that’s green ( Delhi )

First feelings penned at Kabul International Airport :

Faiz – ‘excited’

Ali – ‘very happy’

Abdulai – ‘eager to learn’

Hakim – ‘opportunity’

Kathy Kelly – ‘relieved, open’

Maya Evans ( UK peace activist ) – ‘discovery, adventure’

7th Jan : Other Firsts

First time up close to a Hindu temple

First time seeing so many women with uncovered heads

First time in underground Metro

First time being a foreigner

Homeless in India

8th Jan : More Firsts

First time in multimedia memorial museum ( Gandhi Memorial )

First time seeing a lifelike statue ( of Gandhi and his wife )

First time presenting to an audience abroad ( about 100 students at Jawaharlal Nehru University ) – AYPVs spoke about : ‘Upon awakening, do not live normally.’

9th Jan : Lodhi Garden and Gandhi Peace Foundation

Lodhi was a Pathan [Pashtun]

– the garden had green lawns, old ruins, swans, squirrels, parrots and other birds, smooching lovers

Gandhi Peace Foundation

-meeting held to discuss a high court case of an Indian activist charged with visiting a political prisoner, sedition included as one of the charges

-short messages to Indian human rights activists, AYPVs spoke about : ‘Dissolving the borders of peace’

The youth with peace activists Maya Evans ( UK ), Kathy Kelly ( USA ) , Paul and Kathrin ( Canada ) at the World Peace Gong

10th Jan : Railway train to Bhopal

It was a comfortable 8-hour ride on the train from Delhi to Bhopal.

Fields, fields, fields, litter, litter, litter, cattle, cattle, cattle…

We shared a urgent feeling for human livelihoods to return to the fields.

Click here to link directly to their home page.

Tea for Peace

Gerald — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 12:03:12 -0600

Short Information Teaser

Maya Evans Writing from Afghanistan

Excerpt

Maya Evans
Chelsitun, Wasalabad

We were lucky enough to receive an invitation to visit a self run community on the edge of Kabul, Chelsitun in Wasalabad; it’s a mixed Tajik and Pashtun community split into 8 sections, consisting of 2,000 households each having its own representative which implements Government initiatives and also manages security in the area.

We were told that the community practices religious and ethnic tolerance and has one of the only Mosques which welcomes joint worship by both Sunni’s and Shia’s with the two Muslim groups sharing funerals and ceremonies. When we arrived in Chelsitun the pathway were unusually set with concrete; an independent initiative by the community (paid for by the people within the area) as a move towards installing proper infrastructure.

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Maya Evans
Chelsitun, Wasalabad

Our group was directed into a compound and then into the office of the community elders. It was like stepping back in time into what I imagined pre war Afghanistan to be like; exquisite prayer mats hung on the war, the traditional ornate Afghan rugs; a greenhouse conservatory made of improvised plastic sheeting with the lushest greenery I have seen since leaving the UK.

We were warmly greeted by an assembly of community elders clad in the traditional Afghan turbans, long white beards; many were wrapped in the classic camel coloured Afghan blanket. Once the greetings had been administered the elders took their seats cross legged on the floor. I was amused to see pinned up on the wall a very familiar poster which every co-op in the UK has displayed somewhere- the image of two donkeys tied with a rope heading in different directions trying to reach separate piles of hay, then a picture of the donkeys going towards the same pile of hay and both getting a share. The message: co-operation is better than conflict.

Once we sat down in the nicest of Afghan hospitality the secretary of the group “Tea for Peace” outlined the ethos of their work: “We want to control corruption in the area and the abuse of power especially among the marginalised of the community”. It was interesting to observe that a group of traditional Afghans had taken on ideas and practices you wouldn’t necessarily associate with such a culture, he continued to consult his written notes and explain the group further: “If there is a conflict in the community they bring the two parties together, have tea and aim towards bringing those parties together”.

It quickly struck me that this community was practicing strong elements of Anarchy. The middle aged secretary with round Ghandi style glasses went to explain that their aim is to bring national unity, to get rid of discrimination whether religious of ethnic, that everyone is free and that no one should be discriminated against. He also emphasised that when interacting with one another they make sure there is no discrimination and that democracy and human rights are practiced within the community, they even have a letter of praise from the Human Rights Commission. They are all working in a voluntary way, and they do not take funds from the government.

One of the other elders chipped in to explain some of the result of their community focus: a concrete pathway, schools and piping for the whole area. This was all brought about as people want control of their area and in affect they’re freed from difficulties with the authorities and the massive current corruption problem of land grabbing. The Land Mafia is a massive problem in Afghanistan, land is being snatched away from the people by force, it is very evident that Afghans need a government which is just so they can explain laws and behave in a proper way.

Another elder with a long white beard and intense eyes stated with passion: “The people want peace so much, they take their lessons from the Qu’ran which says that peace comes from a place of well being, they have no problems with any human being- all people deserve respect”. He went on to explain: “Peace can begin to be built in this country if interference in the region stops and also interference by foreign forces- there has been a betrayal by international communities, especially when the killing of Afghans is silent.” He went onto to explain that the people are under so much pressure with 44 NATO countries who are supporting the land Mafia and government , there are no honest people who work for the government, if the people rise they will face guns, the US are behaving like a dictator and that’s not what the people want.

I learnt that for their work within “Tea for Peace” they very much believe in empowering people, they feel it’s important for the people to get together and form a group, to work from the foundations addressing the root problem. To bring reconciliation where there is conflict they also use their faith.

Their words made be remember a teaching in the Quran which AYPV Roz Mohammed had shared with us only the day before, it roughly translates that god made lots of tribes on the earth so people can get to know one other (apparently it is written in the prayer room at Kabul Airport). There was strong consensus in the group of elders that involvement of international forces has been extremely unhelpful and detrimental on various levels ranging from the bombing of civilians on the one hand by international forces against the people- better for both sides to sit down together, no party left out of resolution process. Internationals need to support the people, if they don’t support the people they wont solve the problem

I was interested to hear about how they would deal with the Taliban, especially as international forces use the Taliban as one of the main justifications for being in Afghanistan. The elder with the big white turban addressed the question: “The Taliban themselves have been nurtured by foreign elements, the Mujahudeen had been armed by the US, the people of Afghanistan are trapped in a game which is hard to get out of, if there was no foreign interference then the Taliban could sit down with other Afghans and deal with their own problems, but with foreign interference there is always a condition which they will find impossible to accept. Afghans themselves can sit down together however it is impossible with foreign interference.”

Kathy Kelly asked a question relating to the planned Silk Road Path running through the country which will allow the transportation of raw materials mined within Afghanistan and will also act as a central trading route for the countries surrounding Afghanistan. A cross legged elder immediately jumped in: “It is very clear to Afghans that any minerals taken away from the country will not benefit the people. If in an ideal situation the pipeline and minerals went to helping the people of Afghanistan then that is acceptable, Afghan’s will not accept these initiatives, they can not accept if this mining is being owned by foreigners, foreign businesses must realise that they will not be able to exploit these natural resources unless the conflict is resolved.”

Another elder then chipped in: “The people US/ NATO have placed in power are thieves and murderers, they need to be taken out of power and placed somewhere else. If they could fill the parliament with 100 members of the people then peace would come to the country.”

The meeting ended with the message that unity is the key to uniting the people of Afghanistan, with the elite in power they do not understand how the common people live, foreign money to the government disappears before it gets to them, if we want change then you can’t expect the current people in Parliament to bring it, we need representatives from the people.

It was very exciting for me to hear these viewpoints, I got the impression that their opinions hadn’t been formed by reading political books but from their first hand experience, their wisdom and intelligence.

We were then shown round the lush greenhouse warmed by the traditional Afghan wood stove. I got to duck into the living quarters of an elder (to use the restroom) whereby I was fortunate enough to meet children playing in the yard and some of the women. It was explained to me that an extended family of around 45 people lived in the homes surrounding the yard and there was a communal water well where those in the area without running water come for supplies. I was very impressed by the organization of the community and radical ethos of the “Tea for Peace” group, definitely not what I or most westerners would necessarily accept.

Much to Forgive: The Story of Bibi Sadia

Gerald — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 10:47:50 -0600

Short Information Teaser

by Kathy Kelly and the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers

Excerpt

Kathy Kelly and the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers
January 3, 2012
Kabul, Afghanistan

Bibi and Granddaughter

Bibi Sadia and her husband Baba share a humble home with their son, his wife and their two little children. An Afghan human rights advocate suggested that we listen to Bibi’s stories and learn more about how a Pashto family has tried to survive successive tragedies in Kabul.

Holding her three year old granddaughter in her arms, Bibi adjusted her hijab and launched into a narrative that began during the Soviet occupation. The mujahideen had asked Baba to bring them medicines two or three times a week for those injured in the war. For each batch of medicines that Baba delivered, the mujahideen paid him a small sum of money. When the Russian occupiers discovered what he was doing, they beat him severely. After that, the mujahideen accused him of spying for the Russians and they also beat him badly.

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Kathy Kelly and the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers
January 3, 2012
Kabul, Afghanistan

Bibi and Granddaughter

The vicious beatings gave him perforated ear drums requiring six operations and left him permanently hard of hearing.

They also left him mentally unsound, so that Bibi became the sole breadwinner for the family. “During the time of the Taliban,” Bibi tells us with a soft smile, “I used to make bread, wash clothes and reap other people’s wheat to earn a living,” The mujahideen, having ousted Russia’s favored government and its army, were now in power and frowned on women working. “I used to work by the moonlight, sewing clothes from animal hide”.

Eventually, Bibi found work as a cleaner at the Aliabad Hospital in Kabul, but the Taliban who had gained power frowned on women working. One evening, the Taliban had come to the hospital and insisted on taking a particular male staff member away. Warned by the hospital manager, the man in question had managed to escape, but Bibi was not so lucky. When the Taliban spotted her working, they started slapping her. “I crouched in a corner and didn’t speak. When the hospital manager asked them why they were beating me, they said they had previously warned me against working at the hospital and that I hadn’t heeded their warnings.” This incident was actually Bibi’s first warning, but not her last.

The Taliban came back, and spotted her. When they demanded to know why Bibi was still at the hospital, the manager told them that Bibi was poor, that her husband was too sick to work, and that the Taliban should not beat her but help her as they should help any fellow Afghan. The Taliban accused Bibi of lying and slapped her a few more times before Bibi left the room and started cleaning a corridor. When a Talib spotted Bibi cleaning the corridor, he ordered her to stop work and go with him. The manager, desperate, told the Talib Bibi could not voluntarily leave until her shift ended, and tried to find out where the Talib would take Bibi, but the Talib said it was nobody’s business but theirs. “They argued for a long time,” said Bibi, “but finally the manager had to let the Talib take me. I put on my burqa and the Talib put me in a car.” They were sending Bibi home where they could check her story. “The Talib got into another car, along with 4 other Talibs, and followed the car to my home. I had earlier told Baba that the Taliban who had been threatening me may one day take me away or kill me.”

When they reached her home, she hastily urged her husband not to speak rudely to the Taliban, as they were there to learn about her home situation and might then leave the family unmolested. Following protocols of hospitality, Bibi told her daughters to make and bring tea for the Talibs. The main Talib responded frighteningly, saying he would not drink the tea the girls had made him until he himself had brought ‘expenses’ to them as part of a dowry for marrying one of them.

Meanwhile, another Talib asked Bibi for forgiveness for hitting her - he had inspected the home and told the main Talib that Bibi had told the truth about her family situation. Bibi replied, “I am like your mother, and when you hit me, you had simply hit your own mother.” The main Talib responded by telling Bibi she must give him one of her daughters, any of them aged 1 to 15, in marriage. He declared that from the many resources he had access to, he would of course help support the family so Bibi would not have to work, but that it would have to be a “dowry” in order to prevent Bibi’s neighbors from accusing the Talibs of favoritism.

Baba told the Talib that he had a 12 year old daughter. He said that the Talib should return another day while he consulted other family members about giving that daughter to the Talib.

Baba’s and Bibi’s 12 year old daughter was eventually given in engagement and then marriage to the Talib, who took her to Zadaran, in the province of Paktia. When Bibi had gone to visit her daughter, she had seen that the Talib’s house had many cupboards filled with weapons hidden under sacks of hay. In another corner of the room was a rock on which the bread was made. There was only one bed. Bibi stayed there for several nights but eventually had to leave, and leave her daughter behind.

In the months following, Bibi’s daughter was brought to visit her several times. Each time, she begged not to go back to Paktia. “You could tear me to many pieces,” said the daughter, “and even then, I wouldn’t want to go.” But there was nothing to be done.

Bibi was working at the hospital one day when she received urgent news to go home. When she arrived, she found the corpse of her 12 year old daughter there, wrapped in a funeral cloth.

After eight months of marriage to the Talib, Bibi’s daughter had died.

Eventually, with the help of a medical doctor who loaned Bibi money for a dowry, she was able to arrange for her son to marry. Now, with her salary from working in the laundry at a hospital in Kabul, Bibi has managed to pay the doctor back and, with her son who works at odd jobs, to cover minimal housing and food costs. Bibi thinks the chemicals at the hospital laundry are ruining her health. She suffers from diabetes, gastric ailments and respiratory problems. But at least she is able to buy food. She remembers earlier years when circumstances forced her to line up at 1:00 a.m. to receive bread from an NGO because, with the family dependent on her to earn a living and take care of the small children, that was the only time she could spare.

After hearing Bibi’s story, the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers, several of whom have also lost family members during the decades of war and occupation, asked if Bibi had any advice for them. “May God save you from death, that you may help the poor,” said Bibi. “May God give you good health. May God improve security, that we may not see worse days.”

Raz Mohammed, a Pashto youth volunteer, told her about how his brother-in-law was killed in a drone attack and expressed how much he hoped that peace would come.

“So many of our people, including the able and clever, have been killed by the commandants for their own benefit,” Bibi responded. “May God get rid of war, of suicide bombers and mines.”

“How can we unify the people?” asked Faiz, who, as a child, watched Hazara fighters murder his brother.

“Yes, people are divided,” Bibi told him. “Everyone is worried and perplexed. May God bring security and cause the people to be of ‘one hand’. May the Taliban or bad days not return. It will be difficult,” she added. “But, we are all Muslims and of one family. Everyone has seen bad days, not only me, everyone!”

Mohammed Jan, a volunteer from Dai Kundi province, asked Bibi how Afghan youths could gain the trust of people and work toward unity.

“No one can work alone,” Bibi answered. “One hand cannot clap. We should come together, whether Pushtoon or Uzbek or Tajik. May God bring all of us together and place mercy in our hearts. How could people kill so many others, a few from every household?”

“Many people have been killed,” said Mohammed, “How do we solve this? Through taking revenge or through forgiveness?”

“Revenge!” Bibi exclaimed, laughing in jest.

“But if we take revenge, it will get worse,” said Mohammed.

Bibi quickly agreed. “Yes,” she said, nodding as she rocked her granddaughter in her arms. “If we can be reformed, it’s better to come together and build something together.”

“That is, to forgive?” asked Raz Mohammed.

“Yes,” Bibi replied, “to forgive.”

Assembly Time

Gerald — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 11:29:54 -0600

Short Information Teaser

Kathy Kelly Writing from Kabul

Excerpt

December 27, 2011

Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers and Voices for Creative Nonviolence celebrate Maya Evans’s birthday in Kabul photo credit: AYPV

Kabul—Arab Spring, European Summer, American Autumn, and now the challenge of winter. Here in Kabul, Afghanistan, the travelers of our small Voices for Creative Nonviolence delegation share an apartment with several of the creative and determined “Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers” who’ve risked so much for peace here and befriended us so warmly over the past two years.

Body

December 27, 2011

Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers and Voices for Creative Nonviolence celebrate Maya Evans’s birthday in Kabul photo credit: AYPV

Our apartment doesn’t have indoor heating or hot tap water. We bundle up, overnight, in blankets, quilts and sleeping bags, and the Westerners, unaccustomed to the indoor cold, wear at least five layers of clothing during the daytime. Tap water is contaminated, electricity shortages are frequent, and internet access is spotty, but compared to those who live in Kabul’s refugee camps, we’re ensconced in plenty of creature comforts.

What’s more, we are warmed by a sense of shared purpose, our spirits high, building and exploring relationships which are a model and a hope to us, in these dark warlike times, of peaceful futures. Parts of each day are dedicated to informal language exchanges, studying Pashto, Dari, and English. I know it’s a temporary experience, for me, but I feel intensely grateful for the chance to be part of this all-too unusual community. We make our own hope. It’s a cold world but the work to bring each other through it, itself is warming.

Recently, I read a young U.S. activist’s reflections about whether or not to continue a Washington, D.C. Occupy encampment through the cold winter months. He describes the hardships of winter camping in an urban area. Surviving in the rain and the cold while trying to be inclusive of people who have no place to live was becoming a major focus of the occupiers. The author weighs options for developing a sustainable Occupy movement and suggests that it may be time to call for General Assemblies in workplaces, schools, among faith based groups, and in neighborhoods. Grassroots democracy: so difficult, at times, to organize, but at the same time a no-brainer. It can be very hard work, much harder than we find it here, talking to each other, taking charge of our lives and our responsibilities.

Yesterday, I met with three young people who’ve sustained an inspiring example of community formation. Weeda Ahamd directs the Social Association for Afghan Justice Seekers, with help from Basir and Riha, her co-workers.

They welcomed us to their small, tidy director’s office, another chilly room with two desks, a heater(!), and enough chairs for twelve of us to sit down for a two hour conversation.

During their University years, Weeda and her colleagues had become impassioned on behalf of achieving social justice for those brutalized and bereaved by the violent forces at work within Afghanistan. “We realized that many young people who were thinkers had sacrificed their lives” said Weeda. “They refused to say anything but the truth, and there are so many of them to remember. Whereas the war criminals in power will not remember any of these people, we will hold up the pictures in walks. Some of them are people whom family members have not seen for a long time. These are the heroes whom people of Afghanistan should remember.”

Since 2007, Weeda and her colleagues have worked to gather information about people killed, imprisoned or disappeared by armed forces. They go to villages and talk to families who have lost loved ones to Taliban fighters, US/NATO forces, warlords and druglords. They carefully preserve the data. Once it became public that they intended to issue their report, they received threats from several warlords. The report should appear in the near future.

Not only do Weeda and her co-workers assemble stories, documents and pictures from the families of victims of war, they also help build supportive communities amongst the families whose trust they have gained through their repeated visits. Then they invite the families to form larger networks and come together for public protests and demonstrations, demanding an end to the wars. Grassroots democracy is even harder work at gunpoint.

“It’s always a present reality that we could die tomorrow or be killed,” said Basir, “but we would rather do that than have people remember us in the future as people who didn’t live in a principled way. We hold on to truth and justice principles. We’d rather live this way than live under the control of those who commit the crimes.”

“Crimes are not only crimes of the past,” Weeda explains. “War criminals are continuing to commit the crimes, and the US and NATO give military, political and financial support to the war criminals. Their militaries commit crimes as well.

“If a government were formed by the people of Afghanistan,” says Weeda, “we wouldn’t find Afghans easily accepting permanent military bases. Nor would they accept warlords in positions of power.”

“America is in Afghanistan to gain strategic control against China, Iran and regional countries,” she continues. “On top of power and strategic control, we know that America is here to tap on resources that may be present in Afghanistan, or Afghanistan may be a strategic route for the transport and sale of raw materials.” Estimates say these materials may have a net worth of one trillion per year.

She wishes that activists beyond Afghanistan, whose governments are occupying and fighting in her country, would pressure their own governments to stop interfering in the affairs of other countries.

“Any human with a conscience needs to consider himself or herself as a member of the larger human family,” says her colleague, Basir. “I feel I am a member of every family that has become a victim of war. Hundreds of mothers have buried their children with the beautiful white burial cloth. Hundreds walk the streets without a father.”

Weeda is aware that a solution is not easy. She says it may take a long time and insists it must come from the people themselves. Uprisings in the Middle East have encouraged her. “We need to get out into the streets,” she says, recalling images from Cairo. “There, people filled the streets as far as you could see.” Smiling softly, she mentioned the “Occupy” movement. “Maybe they will highlight the crimes that their governments are committing here,” she said, “and speak out against them — call on them to end complicity with war criminals.”

It’s hard work in the winter, and it seems like winter everywhere, but we create small patches of warmth to get us through the winter. All around us, people are finding hope in new connections and in their own startling example of the determination to create hope for others; fear is being traded in for ardent compassionate service; visions are being exchanged, seeds planted beneath the snow, crossing borders and creating new, unprecedented circumstances.

The warmth we keep alive now, the fires we stoke in a dark season, are small, but they’re everywhere. There is simply no predicting what we may be building with the work we do now to keep ours lit, guarding precious human warmth as we move towards another astonishing Spring.

VCNV Author

Kathy Kelly

America's longest war should come to an end

Mary — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 18:05:11 -0600

Short Information Teaser

Interview with Kathy Kelly about Afghanistan

Excerpt

Kelly urged the audience to get involved to end the war and get the United States to rebuild that nation, which for 30 years has suffered from warfare. “People have the capacity to end wars by raising their voices,” she said.

Body

The Kansas City Star
by Lewis W. Diuguid
December 25, 2011

Before New Year’s Eve, people of conscience and people who refuse to accept war as a solution should go to the Central Library downtown.

Until Dec. 31, they’ll find the “Windows and Mirrors: Reflections on the War in Afghanistan” murals on display. The gigantic art illustrates the bloodshed and costs of America’s longest war and helps inspire creative solutions.

Kathy Kelly, who coordinates Voices for Creative Nonviolence, spoke about the same concerns this month at the library beneath the murals and at Holy Family Catholic Worker House. “If people knew what was happening in direct consequence of our war of choice, if people knew they would say no,” Kelly said. “This is not how we want to be.

”It’s why the war in Afghanistan must end just as this nation was relieved by the war’s conclusion this month in Iraq.

Kelly is no stranger to Kansas City, having been jailed in the 1980s for planting corn on missile silo grounds. She has visited Afghanistan four times with others interested in peace to learn about the effects of the war on everyday Afghans and neighboring Pakistanis. She shared those stories in connection with the American Friends Service Committee library exhibit.

One mural depicts scenes of U.S. drones, silhouetted children scattering, bloodshed and the unmanned planes flying off in a mechanical detachment from the trauma they caused on innocent civilians. Kelly, a three-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee, is a petite, nonthreatening, 58-year-old Chicago native. She carried no weapons in Afghanistan, wore no armor and was not embedded with the U.S. military.

Like Mohandas Gandhi, her presence and voice bring peace to war-torn areas. Kelly pushed peace in Iraq before and during that war. She’s at it again in Afghanistan. She told stories of kids gathering firewood being slaughtered by drones.

In another instance, women going to market in three vehicles were attacked by drones. Two of the vehicles were destroyed.

Information that the vehicles may have contained women and children was overridden in the interest of U.S. troop safety. What’s clear is the information from drones and other technology exceeds military intelligence’s ability to digest it and act accordingly.

“My friends, war is always counterproductive and futile,” Kelly said. “The military is accelerating our decline.

”When it comes to drones, President Barack Obama is worse than President George W. Bush. According to one report, by March 3, 2011, Obama had ordered 180 drone strikes compared with Bush’s 42.

Kelly met several individuals who had no idea what 9-11 was or any knowledge of a terrorist attack in the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001, which provoked the 10-year-old, $2 billion a week war in their country.

Americans must constantly combat what President Dwight Eisenhower correctly called the military industrial complex, which uses U.S. lawmakers and profits from endless wars. People need to see the devastating effect fighting has on innocent civilians.

The downtown library exhibit focuses on that in the traumatized expression of a girl in a scarf in a mural titled “The Children of Afghanistan.”

The horror is in a mural of a woman with a prosthetic leg titled “What’s Lost.”

Kelly said a man who showed her photos of members of his family who had been killed in the war asked, “Do you think that we like to live this way?”

The silence is consent, and no one can afford to sit by and be silent anymore.

To reach Lewis W. Diuguid, call 816-234-4723 or send email to .

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2011/12/25/3335705/americas-longest-war-should-come.html#storylink=cpy

Following Yonder Star

Gerald — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 10:31:20 -0600

Short Information Teaser

Kathy Kelly Writing from Kabul

Excerpt

December 23, 2012

Beneath our flat, here in Kabul, wedding guests crowded into a restaurant and celebrated throughout the night. Guests sounded joyful and the music, mostly disco, thumped loudly. When the regular call to prayer sounded out at 5:20 a.m., the sounds seemed to collide in an odd cacophony, making all music indistinguishable. I smiled, remembering the prayer call’s durable exhortation to live in peace, heard worldwide for centuries, and went back to sleep.

Through most of my life, I’ve found it easy to resonate with the ringing and beautiful Christmas narrative found in the Gospel of Luke, but less so with that jangling discord with which westerners are so familiar—the annual collision between (on the one hand) the orgy of gift-purchasing and gift-consumption surrounding the holiday and the the sweeter, simpler proclamations of peace on earth heralded by the newborn’s arrival. I’ve found myself quite surprisingly happy to spend many Christmases either in U.S. jails or among Muslims living in places like Bosnia, Iraq, Jordan and now Afghanistan. My hosts and friends in these places have been people who are enduring wars or fleeing wars, including, as in the case of U.S. jails, a war against the poor in the United States.

Body

December 23, 2012
Beneath our flat, here in Kabul, wedding guests crowded into a restaurant and celebrated throughout the night. Guests sounded joyful and the music, mostly disco, thumped loudly. When the regular call to prayer sounded out at 5:20 a.m., the sounds seemed to collide in an odd cacophony, making all music indistinguishable. I smiled, remembering the prayer call’s durable exhortation to live in peace, heard worldwide for centuries, and went back to sleep.

Five of the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers are spending winter months in the apartment here which accommodates their group as well as visiting guests such as our small Voices delegation. In recent months, the place has evolved into a resource center for learning languages and exchanging ideas about nonviolent movements for social change. I am filled with fond and deep admiration for these young people as I watch them studying each other’s languages and preparing their own delegation to visit other provinces of this land on the brink of civil war, meeting with other young people wherever they can. I’ve often described Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers as having bridged considerable ethnic gaps in their steadfast aspiration to someday live without wars. It’s quite impressive, during this trip, to learn from them about how close several of them came to becoming armed fighters. One young friend recalls having spent three weeks, at age 12, as part of a Taliban group. He had no choice but to go with the Taliban as a conscript. He was given a rifle, as well as adequate food, and assigned to be a sentry. “I loaded the weapon and I fired warning shots,” said our young friend, who is now 21 years of age, “but I didn’t feel good about it.” A village elder intervened, saying the new recruits were too young, and the Taliban released my friend and the other young teens.

We watched a film together in which another youngster, about seven years previously, had acted the role of the leader of a group of children imitating Talib fighters. Carrying sticks, the young actors had harassed a little girl over her determination that she would learn to read. Now we asked the young man, himself a Hazara, how he felt about playing a Taliban child. He acknowledged having grown up believing that anyone who was part of an ethnic group that had persecuted his people could never be trusted. The father of another youngster had been killed by the Taliban. Still another describes how he watched in horror as Hazara fighters killed his brother.

Last week, the AYPVs welcomed a new friend who lives in a neighboring province and speaks a different language to join them and help them learn his language. Asked about NATO/ISAF night raids and other attacks that have occurred in his area, the new friend said that families who have suffered attacks feel intense anger, but even more so people say they want peace. “However, international forces have made people feel less secure,” he added. “It’s unfortunate that internationals hear stories about Afghans being wild people and think that more civilized outsiders are trying to build the country. People here are suffering because of destruction caused by outsiders.” The air, the ground, the mountainsides, the water, and even the essential bonds of familial living have been ravaged by three decades of warfare here in Afghanistan. People living here have suffered the loss of an estimated two million people killed in the wars. 850 children die every day because of disease and hunger.

Amid excruciating sorrow and pain, it’s good to see people still find ways to gather for celebrations, even when the sounds seem curious and the dances seem, to some, forbiddingly exotic. Differences between insiders and outsiders become less relevant as people meet one another to celebrate. Peace can surprise us when it comes, and that alone is abundantly sufficient cause for celebration in this season, wherever we are. Dr. King wrote that “the arc of history is long but it bends toward justice,” and we should not be surprised as new and growing movements around us reveal an unquenchable and ineradicable longing for simple justice. The killing fields that scar our earth and sear the memories of survivors beckon us to look and listen for new ways of living together. Massacres of innocents call to us to reject the easy and familiar and go home by an other way.

The desires to live more simply, to share resources more radically, and to prefer service to dominance are not unique to any place, season, or religion. Such desires may yet herald unions previously unimagined and a better world for every newborn, each one bringing an astonishing potential - as we do if we strive to fulfill it - for peace.

VCNV Author

Kathy Kelly