Hakim
Guest Writer
Dandelion Salad
http://ourjourneytosmile.com
June 15, 2011
Dear friends,
Peace from Afghanistan, specially to those with the Caravan of Solace far-away in Mexico, who strengthen us with their poetic struggle.
From Afghanistan, we need you to know: Walking together is not a weakness. It is our everything.
***
ourjourneytosmile on Jun 14, 2011
From Afghanistan, we need you to know
***
We thank you for walking differently.
Julian LeBaron, a Caravan of Solace leader whose brother was kidnapped, tortured and killed last year, reminded the crowd that fear isn’t the only thing keeping people home — it’s apathy: ‘There should be 100 million people here, holding hands to mourn the death of 40,000 of us.”
If you have a few minutes this Sunday 19th of June, let’s connect on the Global Days of Listening ( email to the cc-ed address globaldaysoflistening@gmail.com )
Love,
Hakim and the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers
http://globaldaysoflistening.org/
***
From Afghanistan, we need you to know
Javier Sicilia, Julian Lebaron and all with the Caravan of Solace, like you and the families of 40,000 Mexican victims, we need you to know that we’ve also been crying.
There are no expectations in our crying.
There’s only grief, and ignored anger, the ignored anger of the mundane masses.
To all fellow humans alive today, we need you to know that many people are hurting badly because we will not do more than what is normally required to preserve our conventional ways of life.
We need you to know that the many who are hurting are real people.
Sadly, every day that we defend our lives as usual, we demean other lives as usual, and therefore we all become less dignified, less human.
We in Afghanistan have been learning that being alive is not just about busily earning our keep, or more ridiculous, about getting good grades in ‘empty’ schools.
We have also been learning what it means to be alive.
Here, the other Friday, we felt alive when we walked together to the river, listening to everything.
We felt alive caring for one another despite our utter despair.
Unfortunately.
Our systems have been structured to rule us out, to corner our humanity. Our systems despise our hope.
The doorways of our governments are tunnels for theft.
To conform with Power, we’re ‘told’ that we must remain helpless, friendless.
Our poverty is ‘graced’ by bullets, bombs and blood.
Our struggle is ‘condemned’ by religious and political dogma.
We detest these from way deep down. We detest these so much. Every soul does.
But today, self-protection at the expense of the distant ‘other’ justifies a strategy of ‘Man killing Man for Greed’s sake.’
How can that be?
How can it be that ‘the common good’ is no longer ‘good’, that it has become an impractical ideal divorced from human society?
How can it be that asking for economic fairness is considered being anti-government, that speaking against corruption gets us into trouble?
How can it be that when we tell our leaders to stop killing, we are the ones deemed naïve and dangerous?
We detest this violent antagonism infecting the world.
We detest the decay of our values.
We’re creating so few lifetime opportunities for genuine education, decent livelihoods, and grief.
Not enough space, except by the rivers.
We need to talk differently, walk differently, serve ( lead ) differently and relate differently, and if we so earnestly and painstakingly act in love, ‘Y’ not?
Who has dictated to the ‘Y’ generation that,’ You can never change this unequal, unkind global system of governance.’?
‘Y’ not , when the majority of humanity and the majority of 30 million Afghan citizens manage to get along without killing one another?
‘Y’ not step towards the rivers where human solidarity runs?
How can we live without crying? How can we suggest what could be done when we ourselves are hardly coping?
We need you to know that your journey is our journey too, and that yes, ‘No estas solo’.
We need you to know that crying is our friend, and not a weakness.
We need you to know that walking together is not a weakness. It is our everything.
***
Caravan of Solace
Javier Sicilia after his 24 year-old son’s death,
“The world is no longer dignified enough for words.
This is my last poem, I cannot write more poetry.
Poetry no longer exists inside me.”
‘Violence begins with shouted insults? Is that what you want? We are trying to change the hearts of the political class and you are feeding off hatred! That is not how we walk.’ Javier Sicilia
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2063696,00.html#ixzz1P8O1TcZ3
“The United States Imposed This War on Us, It Should Change the Strategy” Javier Sicilia
US Congressional Report says that ‘US guns fuel Mexico violence’
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-13758499
From the archives:
Hakim Discusses Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers, Interviewed by David Swanson
Afghan Police Protecting Protesters! + Former Afghan spy chief forms grassroots movement
Dandelion Salad 
Pingback: In Mexico, a Universal Struggle Against Power and Forgetting by John Pilger « Dandelion Salad
Pingback: Noam Chomsky: Drug Cartels and the Growing Border War interviewed by Luis Fernando Cárdenas « Dandelion Salad
Pingback: From Afghans to Gazans: Why can’t we touch your face? « Dandelion Salad
Pingback: Jimmy Cliff: We Don’t Want Another Vietnam in Afghanistan « Dandelion Salad
Pingback: Paul Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Gould expose the official 1980s narrative on the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan as propaganda « Dandelion Salad
Pingback: Obama Leaves Door Open to Long-Term U.S. Afghan Combat by Gareth Porter « Dandelion Salad
Pingback: Obama’s Afghanistan Speech by Ed Ciaccio « Dandelion Salad
Pingback: Barack Obama: The Way Forward in Afghanistan (video + transcript) « Dandelion Salad
Pingback: Rick Rozoff: Afghan war still expanding amid American election ploys « Dandelion Salad