Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Afghans shall live in peace one day

Which human will we humans torture next?
We Afghans shall live in peace some day
We shall overcome some day
Now is the time to pause in empathy or perish in estrangement

Love and peace,
Hakim in Afg
http://ourjourneytosmile.com/blog



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. 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!

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