We Afghans shall live in peace someday ; connecting with Witness against Torture

Please watch how Afghan youth fasted & asked which other human we humans would torture next

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDloKITlBJM

On Martin Luther King’s Day this 18^th of Jan, after fasting for 2 short days, in solidarity with Witness Against Torture’s 12 day fast for the prompt closing of Guantanamo Bay Prison, a few Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers gathered in a mud house on an Afghan winter night, to have a heart-to-heart conversation with members of the Witness Against Torture and later, with friends from Landmark Education Olympia facilitated by Dr Dennis Mills of Capella University.

We asked each other the questions of our times and our hearts.

Friends of Witness Against Torture led by Frida Berrigan and Bob Cooke encouraged the Afghan youth with their kind words, their tears and their singing. The conversation ended with them singing ‘We shall overcome’ and a sense of the ‘change in consciousness’ and the friendships which all human beings long for.

We remembered the words of Martin Luther King, in the everyday Dari of Afghanistan.

Text of Video

A few Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers fasted for 2 days, then gathered in the mountains…

Which human will we humans torture next?

They tele-conversed with Witness Against Torture‎, remembering M. L. King's words

Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?'

A lie cannot live.

At the center of non-violence stands the principle of love.

Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.

Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.

Why do we respond to fear, hate and anger by hurting one another?

Frida Berrigan of Witness Against Torture : They first become wealthy professionals but they don’t want to. They want to lower their income because they don’t want to pay for war

Dr Dennis Mills of Capella University : Dr King talked about 3 major demons, 3 problems.

The 3 ( demons ) are racism, materialism & militarism.

Those are very prophetic words because we who are making this call are still working to change ourselves for generations.

ما اسانها کدام انسان دیگر را خواهد شکنجه کردیم؟

Which human will we humans torture next?

Pause in empathy or perish in estrangement

We shall live in peace some day

We shall overcome some day

Now is the time to pause in empathy or perish in estrangement

Cross posted from http://www.witnesstorture.org/fast-day-8

Compiled by Kate Cowley

January 18, 2010
Dear Friends,

This morning, on Day Eight of our fast, we gathered together for a conference call with the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers, a group of young people working for peace and justice in Afghanistan (http://ourjourneytosmile.com/blog/). They have been fasting for two days in solidarity with all of us.

It is difficult to try to encapsulate the richness of the dialogue we exchanged with this group of young people so dedicated to the struggle for peace and justice, and so entrenched in the sorrow and pain of war. The dialogue and connections across such a distance was very inspiring to all of us.

At one point in the conversation, Jerica mentioned to them that we’ve been singing a lot lately, and asked if they sing songs together. They in turn asked us to sing for them, and so Kathy led us in another round of “Hold on, keep your eyes on the prize.” They returned the favor by singing a song for us in Arabic that translates into English as: “Mountains cannot reach mountains, only men can reach men.”

Carmen brought up that it was Martin Luther King Day and asked if they were aware of the significance of this day in the history of the U.S. They responded to this by reading to us MLK quotes in Arabic that they had learned together. It was quite a fitting close to our conversation and a beautiful homage to Martin Luther King Jr. We will keep these young Afghan Peace Volunteers in our hearts and be with them in their struggle!

At end the day, we joined with survivors of torture from TASSC International at St. Stephen’s. In sharing their stories with us, they expressed the difficulty of starting life over again after being tortured and re-assimilating to life again in a different place. They focused on the importance of prayer for them, and shared their gratitude at learning that there was a group of people praying with and for them. We listened as they spoke about the effects of certain methods of torture, particularly solitary confinement, and the de-humanizing effect it can have. They also discussed the way violence of torture perpetuates itself, how often the tortured can become the torturer.

They told us that one of the most difficult things about being a survivor of torture is the loneliness. We have talked as a group before about this feeling of loneliness, and how it is one thing that all human beings share. Again and again we come back to this idea of community, of being able to reach out to one another, as a way of rebuilding our humanity.

Thank you for all you are doing.

Peace with Justice,

Witness Against Torture
www.witnesstorture.org

Post Traumatic Stress is an ORDER of conscience that can save humanity

Please listen to Faiz’s heart of sorrow and humanity in remembering death and war

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yufP1iRr0z4

I can tell the story of a war in which I lost my brother...

in front of me, before my eyes.. they shot him, with a Kalashnikov.

.. a massacre… a cave on our way, in which we saw 60 corpses with our own eyes

We were very frightened but we did not have any choice.

What could we have done?

I remember how people were unjustly beaten up,

how arms were dismembered,

how eyes were gouged out…

Sometimes, I don’t know how to feel & I wonder who & where I am.

The memories of war affect me very negatively.

What do you request of those who are harsh, the war-mongers, those who have become habitually violent?

I request them not to murder anyone ; come live in a humane society, to stop these cruel and inhumane acts.

Faiz Ahmad, you and I, or any human being who has witnessed these dismembering and eye-gouging horrors of war, cannot be the same again.

As a medical practitioner, I’m certain that we would all qualify as sufferers of post-traumatic stress, according to the DSM Criteria, and experience the painful symptoms not just for the one month period required for diagnosis.

If we didn’t suffer such stresses on our conscience, we would be the disordered ones, unlike the war veterans who respond humanely with a pain they carry for the rest of their lives, some of whom eventually take to suicide in hope of a kinder world beyond.

13^th Jan 2010 The United States Veteran Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki noted that of the more than 30,000 suicides each year in America, about 20 percent are committed by veterans. Why do we know so much about suicides but still know so little about how to prevent them?" Shinseki said. "Simple question, but we continue to be challenged."

Post-traumatic stress should be cared for optimally and with love, because it is an order of our conscience that can save humanity.

                                               

It puts an onus on us to prevent such in-humane experiences by the eradication of war.

Those who have witnessed others killed with the maximal violence humans can muster should not have to suffer alone. They do not deserve the derision of those who erroneously consider them weak and as having a dis-order.

Our cold, clinical medical ‘intelligence’ will never match their saving conscience.

It reminds me that as we cope with the harsh Afghan winter cold in a medieval system of poor heating, it is the difficult elements of nature that point us to the salvation of community warmth.

Post Traumatic Stress is an ORDER of human conscience that can save humanity

Why I, a family physician, consider Post Traumatic Stress from war a natural order of human conscience, and NOT a disorder.

1. It is a natural order that should be managed holistically and with love, because it is an order that arises out of an intact CONSCIENCE.

Our medical diagnostic label has inadvertently mis-represented what is a natural and expected human response to extreme violence as an un-natural disease.

Which of us would NOT be stressed witnessing a brutal killing?

If we believe that it is a courageous man who watches slaughter calmly, we have lost something essential about being human. For that logic to stand scrutiny, we would have to condone holding a ‘bravest man competition’ in which contestants watch as many ‘live’ killings as he can tolerate without feeling sick, or sad.

If we believe that it’s patriotic to kill any suspicious ‘enemy’, grievous would be the day the ‘enemy’ was your own child and unconscionable the act that puts a country above a fellow human being.

2. It is a natural order because it is our passionate response to in-humanity.

Yes, we must help the post-traumatic stress sufferer, BUT, we mustn’t call it a DIS-ORDER.

It’s inaccurate to call it a disorder

It is in essence a natural human ORDER that when we have witnessed horrible violence or personally experienced terrible trauma, we become stressed, often very stressed. It is Man’s inherent way of coping with events which are entirely in-congruous with how a good, peaceful life should be.

We label something as disordered when it mal-functions and behaves abnormally. Feeling scared, sorrowful and repulsed by killings is not a malfunction and is not abnormal. It is how our bodies, together with our hearts, minds and conscience, NORMALLY FUNCTIONS.

It’s a PARADOX to call it a disorder. The person who doesn’t feel remorseful or traumatized, who forces himself into ‘courageously’ accepting that the violent killing was normal or even kind and who convinces himself to perpetuate the violence, is THE disordered one.

So, sufferers should be helped to cope with their stress by acknowledging that their feelings are normal, while we should worry about the truly disordered response of a numbed conscience which allows continued mass killings.

It is not a disease to hate or be angry and sad over the scenes of bodies and blood splattering everywhere or to detest the violent manner in which a loved one or a fellow human died.

3. It is a natural order whose onus on humanity is to work towards the eradication of war.  It can save humanity.

The current crisis of increasing suicides among war veterans points us to an urgent need to prevent this suffering by  abstaining from and preventing acts of war and violence.

It is the onus and responsibility of the medical, civil and military communities to heal and save humanity definitively.

Irish Nobel peace laureate Mairead Maguire

“Killing goes against everything we're taught from childhood about love and compassion.

It goes against every religious doctrine and moral code.

It's small wonder that so many come back from war sick at heart.

We have to start to disarm our own minds and look at the fact that there are always alternatives to violence.

We must create the idea that to even think of war is horrific. “   

Kevin O hill was a 23 year old American soldier killed in Afghanistan

http://thebrooklynink.com/2009/10/kevin-hill/

Kevin seemed “kind of distant” to his friend Darryl.  “Like he had a lot of stuff on his mind, like his mind was racing,” Darryl said.  “He told me he had seen a dead body in front of him.”

Olsen Hill, Kevin’s father, picked it up to hear his wife, Mahalia Hill, screaming on the other end.

“Having to tell her on the phone, and not being able to hold her.  And to hear them scream, without being able to hold them.  That just made it even worse. Nine hours, driving and crying, driving and crying,” he said. “I don’t know whether he suffered or not, and that’s what kills me.  In terms of details, him being shot before or after.  I just try not to think about it because it’s too much, too much,” his father said, his voice breaking. “None of us wanted him to go into the military.  Well not in the Army anyway because I was in the Army in the first Gulf War, and I knew what war was like.  And so I didn’t want my son experiencing combat like I did,” said Olsen Hill.  He told his son about the constant fear, of not knowing where the next bullet, mine, or sniper was hidden.

309.81    DSM-IV Criteria for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

A. The person has been exposed to a traumatic event in which both of the following have been present: 

(1) the person experienced, witnessed, or was confronted with an event or events that involved actual or threatened death or serious injury, or a threat to the physical integrity of self or others (2) the person's response involved intense fear, helplessness, or horror. Note: In children, this may be expressed instead by disorganized or agitated behavior.

B. The traumatic event is persistently reexperienced in one (or more) of the following ways: 

(1) recurrent and intrusive distressing recollections of the event, including images, thoughts, or perceptions. Note: In young children, repetitive play may occur in which themes or aspects of the trauma are expressed.

(2) recurrent distressing dreams of the event. Note: In children, there may be frightening dreams without recognizable content.

(3) acting or feeling as if the traumatic event were recurring (includes a sense of reliving the experience, illusions, hallucinations, and dissociative flashback episodes, including those that occur upon awakening or when intoxicated). Note: In young children, trauma-specific reenactment may occur.

(4) intense psychological distress at exposure to internal or external cues that symbolize or resemble an aspect of the traumatic event.

(5) physiological reactivity on exposure to internal or external cues that symbolize or resemble an aspect of the traumatic event.

C. Persistent avoidance of stimuli associated with the trauma and numbing of general responsiveness (not present before the trauma), as indicated by three (or more) of the following: 

(1) efforts to avoid thoughts, feelings, or conversations associated with the trauma 

(2) efforts to avoid activities, places, or people that arouse recollections of the trauma 

(3) inability to recall an important aspect of the trauma 

(4) markedly diminished interest or participation in significant activities 

(5) feeling of detachment or estrangement from others 

(6) restricted range of affect (e.g., unable to have loving feelings) 

(7) sense of a foreshortened future (e.g., does not expect to have a career, marriage, children, or a normal life span)

D. Persistent symptoms of increased arousal (not present before the trauma), as indicated by two (or more) of the following: 

(1) difficulty falling or staying asleep
(2) irritability or outbursts of anger
(3) difficulty concentrating
(4) hyper-vigilance
(5) exaggerated startle response

E. Duration of the disturbance (symptoms in Criteria B, C, and D) is more than one month.

F. The disturbance causes clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.

Specify if:
Acute: if duration of symptoms is less than 3 months
Chronic: if duration of symptoms is 3 months or more

Specify if:
With Delayed Onset: if onset of symptoms is at least 6 months after the stressor

Afghan Youth believe that war cannot end terrorism

Please watch Afghan youth speak to the world’s ‘intellectuals’ about their misguided conventional strategy against terrorism.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzcNWj9iLsU

How can war end the greed for power, the greed for money, poverty, the lack of work,

the telling of lies, fear, injustice, ignorance, misunderstandings,

self-interest, pride, violence, anger and hate?

The intellectuals of the world have analyzed & justified the war against terrorism.

We, the youth of Afg, are sorry that their analysis is not correct.

In fact, the people of the world know that war cannot end the roots of terrorism.

Abdulai

A root of terrorism is greed for power & war can’t end the greed for power.

Rahman

A root of terrorism is greed for money & war can’t end the greed for money.

Shir Ali

A root of terrorism is poverty & war cannot end poverty.

Raziq

A root of terrorism is lack of work & war cannot end the lack of work.

Najib

A root of terrorism is the telling of lies & war can’t end the telling of lies.

Immaduddin

A root of terrorism is fear & war cannot end fear.

Nasrullah

A root of terrorism is injustice & war cannot end injustice.

Yasir

A root of terrorism is ignorance & war cannot end ignorance.

Samiullah

A root of terrorism is misunderstandings & war can’t end misunderstandings.

Mohd Hussein

A root of terrorism is self-interest & war cannot end self-interest.

Mohd Jan

A root of terrorism is pride & war cannot end pride.

Shir Agha

A root of terrorism is violence & war cannot end violence.

Zekerullah and brothers

A root of terrorism is anger & war cannot end anger.

Aziz

A root of terrorism is hate & war cannot end hate.

The intellectuals of the world have analyzed & justified the war against terrorism.

We, the youth of Afg, are sorry that their analysis is not correct.

In fact, the people of the world know that war cannot end the roots of terrorism.

Gaza Freedom March in Afghanistan : Love is how the kites in Gaza, Afghanistan and the world will fly

Please watch Afghan youth fly kites for Gaza Freedom March and converse about revenge and love

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWRqqoNESCc

Transcript of video

2010 was coming through over the Afghan horizon

The Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers flew kites for the Gaza Freedom March

They had a tele-conference with friends from Palestine, Israel, Iraq & the US

We wish for the youth of Gaza a freedom from the oppression & threat of war & violence

The people of Israel & Palestine should stop war & make peace.

Today, we want to converse with them, to become close to one another.

Abdulai, the Taliban killed your father. Do you want to take revenge?

No, we should make peace & not take revenge. If we take revenge, war will increase.

Faiz, your brother was killed by others. Do you bear a grudge in your heart?

No, we’ve made peace with them.

But, in the world today, everyone who has a family member will usually take revenge.

How do we end the thought of revenge?

We can’t go on killing one other in revenge. If we do, the world will end one day.

Blood cannot wash away blood. We should practice love, so such horrors can be forgotten.

My name is Bassam, Bassam from Palestine.

Douglas : “Bassam, I know I speak for everyone, calling in solidarity…”

I know that the Corries would like to speak to you.

                                            

Cindy Corrie : Hello, Bassam, it’s good to hear your voice. And I hope that we have …good things happen for all of us.

I notice that we also have someone from Israel. Can you go ahead?

Hi everybody, my name is Yaniv. Nice to meet you.

Nice to meet you too!

And then from Washington D.C. Go ahead!

This is Josh Steiber.

We’ll fly kites.

Our hope for freedom!

We have to fly the kites of freedom!

We want freedom from the wounds of our hearts!

We want freedom from hate!

Let the kite fly! Let the string go, let the string go!

Run………!

Love is how the kites will fly in Gaza, Afg & the world!

Run………!

Freedom, freedom……!

The freedom which we youth, the future of the world, urgently desire is a freedom 

from those built-up grievances heaped upon us or within ourselves that separate us constantly,  

a freedom from hate and un-kindness.

Love is how the kites in Gaza, Afg & the world will fly

Love is how we’ll ask for peace!

Befriending a potential Afghan insurgent in Quetta Pakistan ; his name was Najib

Please appreciate the insignificant refugee life of 12 year old Pushtoon orphan Najib in Quetta, Pakistan

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aioZZKxUqsQ

In short, I learnt form Najib that the world needs to build wide-scale humane relationships across all barriers so as to turn the tide on an increasingly proud and violent regression of humanity.

Najib was a 12 year old Pushtoon refugee orphan who collected rubbish for a living in Quetta, Pakistan. I had just entered the law-less border town of Quetta to work among Afghan refugees and had the privilege of meeting Najib in the streets where he was rummaging through trash.

We became friends.

Our means of communication was just a sense of goodwill, as both of us were rudimentary with Urdu. But we clicked like kindred spirits who wondered if any meaning could be found in war, in safety or in friendship.

I was wondering if I could be of help. How proud that thought turned out to be, especially with the forgotten destitute like Najib. He was the soul who helped me understand what humanitarian workers need to live out, that we can only begin to be of some transient help when we understand the practice of love.

Love is freed through friendship that’s oblivious to race, class and religion.

Love is impossible in war because war destroys and kills.

Love sees that we have the same ‘dirt’ in our lives and that we need to somehow recover together from our frailties.

I’ve no idea if Najib is still alive today. Or if he has not become the hunted and ‘demonized’ Afghan insurgent.

Quetta is now touted as the headquarters of the Afghan Taliban under Mullah Omar and there are rumours of plans to bomb it, perhaps with the cold symbol of military pride, the drones.

There were certainly many ‘madrassahs’ ( religious schools ) training young boys in ‘jihad’ while I was there in 2002 through to 2004, probably a peak period of the re-grouping of Afghan fighters following the bombing of Afghanistan post September 11.

I shudder to think how different things may have been for me if I were not a civilian humanitarian worker but a uniformed soldier, however well-intentioned a soldier I may have been. I would never have become Najib’s friend.

We should all shudder to think that the hearts of the world’s religious, intellectual and political elite of today unquestioningly accept militarism as a response to hate, anger and a vacuum of meaningful relationships.

We should shudder at its sheer amoral-ness, emptiness and senseless-ness.

For a few months, Najib visited me frequently, sharing food with me, looking to me for healing when he pricked his finger with a used syringe needle he had collected in his trash sack and enjoying a Coke treat on a warm summer day.

I will never know if he appreciated our interaction, but I can declare that I did.

In season, I invited Najib and his aged grandma ( both his parents had been killed in the war  ) to share some delicious Pakistani mangoes. I was overjoyed to wash Najib’s soiled hands and feet before the ‘meal’. When I asked to take a photo with Najib and his grandma, I asked Najib to smile.

Najib’s grandma chided me in Kandahri Pushto, “Why are you asking Najib to smile? He doesn’t have any reason to smile.”

Then ,on a dreary late afternoon, Najib informed me with teary eyes that he was leaving to cross borders again, this time into Iran, because ‘life in Quetta was difficult.’

How I wish I could meet Najib again.                  

Najib was illiterate. One day, I had taught him to write his name in my journal and had recorded my thoughts in the verses below.

نجیب

On this quiet page

On this quiet page

I taught him to write his name

His life, just like this safha  صفحه

Will turn the corner and move on again

Not seeing how the end will B بor be

Nor how to start with the N  نor end

But scribbling with fortitude and persistence

a wandering spirit and a weary hand

Trying to chance upon some line

That will spell real hope from above

And form a meaning kind and true

And have roots in unfading love

My deep concern for this orphan boy

Whose name and friendship I chanced upon

Who gave me a privileged moment

When on this page his name was formed

The quiet voice and silent name of Najib       نجیب

Video Script

Quetta at the Afghan Pakistan border

The Af-Pak border is now labeled an ‘epicenter of terrorism’

We should remember that refugee settlements house human beings

Afghan wars mean Afghan refugees

In 2002, I met Afghan refugee children collecting trash in the Quetta alleys

12-year-old Pushtoon orphan Najib lost his parents & fled Kandahar

Najib had eyes of life and grief

He collected trash to re-sell for a few rupees

No trash was too ‘lowly’ for him

He’s one among the destitute, unknown masses

                                                  

Unknowingly, Najib turned my life upside down…

…when he offered me his hand of friendship

…and shared his journey with me

We had Coca Cola together

Ate apples together

Yes, even mused over technology together

One day, Najib’s hand was hurt by a syringe needle he had collected

He came running bare-feet, to ‘un-burden’ his pain with me

Another day, I cleaned Najib’s soiled hands for a meal

                                            

His grandma said that Najib had no reason to smile

But you know, Najib had a smile…

He smiled when he was with friends

Like many impoverished Afghans, Najib lived in a silence

Like many impoverished Afghans, he expected little of life

We can make peace with potential insurgents by befriending them

Love is impossible in war as war destroys & kills.

Love is freed thru friendship that’s oblivious to race, class & religion

Love sees that we have the same ‘dirt’ in our lives

that we need to somehow recover together from our frailties.

Love is how we will ask for peace

Afghan youth release ‘doves’ in support of World March for Peace

Please watch Afghan youth release 2 white pigeons ( representing doves ) for World March for Peace

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBE2lf7pSmc

Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers showed their support for The World March for Peace & Non-violence http://www.theworldmarch.org/index.php

They paid a visit to the UN, part of whose charter is ‘to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war’.

As this country is built into a verdant meadow, oh why don’t the intellectuals care about peace?

Peace is priceless.

Without peace, it’s impossible to survive.

Peace is love and friendship.

We the youth of Afghanistan want peace & a culture of non-violence for Afg & the world

We are participating in The World March for Peace and Non-violence

Why have Afghans, like others in the world, chosen the dove as a symbol of peace?

The dove is meek.

It represents peace.

The dove has a special white.

It carries love.

It is a bird of freedom.

The dove is friendship.

The dove is very loving.

محبت آن طریق است که کبوتر پرواز می شود

Love is how the dove will fly!

Peace…peace!

Silent Night by Simon and Garfunkel

Love is how the dove will fly!

                               

Background words from the music of Silent Night by Simon and Garfunkel

“…into anti-Vietnam war protests…demonstrators were forcibly evicted from the areas where they began chanting anti-war slogans.

Former Vice-President Richard Nixon says that unless there is a substantial increase in the present war effort in Vietnam, the US should look forward to 5 more years of war.

In a speech before the Convention of The Veterans of Foreign Wars in New York , Nixon also said that opposition to the war in this country is the greatest single weapon working against the US. That’s the seven o’clock edition of the news. Good night. “

Afghan youth face a Nobel peace of war

Please watch how Afghan youth are facing a Nobel peace of war


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leSBFQ95qio

We ordinary people need to stop this madness

When the world shouts the merits of war, we will respectfully refuse its noise.

Rather than giving peace an uncertain prize, let's give peace a certain chance.

Thank you for hearing our voice of peace, as being heard is a breakthrough for silence!

We thank all our friends for being with us as we kept the 2nd Cup of Tea Vigil at Bamiyan Peace Park ( daily from 12pm to 1pm ) from the 15th of November 2009 to the 10th of December 2009. Together with our friends, we will henceforth continue as a weekly vigil.



We thank the growing number of friends in this heart-storm of love who have touched us in Afghanistan, deeply.



We thank each and every one of our fans at Youth Peace Volunteers Facebook and others who have sent us encouraging emails of support from the USA, Canada, Brazil, Singapore, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, UK, Ireland, Switzerland, Germany, Australia, Egypt and South Africa.



In particular, through the course of our 2nd Cup of Tea Vigil, Douglas Mackey, Jody Tiller, Mark Johnson and their friends in the States ( Matt Grant & students and staff of Olympia High School, Evergreen State College, MidEast Solidarity Project ) had spoken to us on numerous, almost daily occasions through the cell phone long-distance. We also thank Josh Steiber, Tibor Brewer, June Holliday, Dana Lyons, Terry Greene and Andrea LeBlanc of Peaceful Tomorrows, Betsy and her students from Pages for Peace MA, Boston.



It was like hearing Peace and Love being spoken to our hearts from across the oceans.



President Obama may not have heard us yet but our voice of peace in the midst of an escalating war will remain true to our conscience.



The mountains may be un-moved, but the sound of peace from within our hearts will move among the valleys in resounding and resolute waves.





Transcript of video



To friends in the world, be at peace!



Today, our understanding of peace seems to have hit an ice wall



2 Afghan boys had a bumpy truck ride on Afghanistan’s mountain road



The struggle for peace in Afghanistan is not easy



But without peace, it’s impossible for us to live



A young boy had just taken over the wheels to learn how to drive



Drive quickly before it gets dark & the wolves come out to get us…



Are wolves dangerous? Yes.

Do they ‘eat’ humans? Ya…

Don’t they just eat small birds? No 



We should pause and be still in this madness of war



We should pause in recognizing that we have sacred but temporal lives.



We should keep our dignity even in our dying.



We ordinary people need to stop this madness.



Why are we killing one another?



Killing only makes hate correct. It takes away our friends & the good things in life.



When the world shouts the merits of war, we will respectfully refuse its noise.



Rather than giving peace an uncertain prize, let's give peace a certain chance.



Enough of words without actions

True peace is needed

Love is how we’ll ask for peace



The Afghan peace volunteers

‘Their flesh is my flesh, their blood is my blood, their pain is my pain, their SMILE is my SMILE.’ Henri Nouwen



International peace volunteers in Olympia USA & across the globe. ‘Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person.’ Mother Teresa



Abdulai gives the U.S. Ambassador a photo gift.‘Mountains cannot reach mountains,only Man can reach Man.’ Afghan proverb



The Afghan peace vigil group with the U.S. Ambassador and his wife

‘I would teach peace rather than war, love rather than hate.’ Albert Einstein





We have hope that love has a value which overcomes even death.



We know that we’re not alone. We’re waiting historically with the rest of the world.



With love, we ask the Nobel Peace Laureate President Obama for the Reconciliation of Civil Hearts.



Thank you for hearing our voice of peace, as being heard is a breakthrough for silence.