“Are you crazy?”, “Are you out of your mind?” I admit that my friends’ concerns were foremost in my mind as I boarded Turkish Air Flight 706 bound for Kabul, Afghanistan. It was only a few days earlier that I had learned that US Embassy personnel do not drive the streets of Kabul; they travel back and forth from the airport to the embassy by helicopter. As recently as October 3, 2015 the US military had “accidentally” bombed a Doctors without Borders Hospital in the provincial capital Kunduz north of Kabul, incinerating many patients as they lay in their beds. And after fourteen (14) years of US military assaults on the country the US Department of State warned citizens in November 2015 against travel to Afghanistan; “the security situation in Afghanistan is extremely unstable and the threat to all US Citizens in Afghanistan remains critical. Kabul remains at high risk for militant attacks, including vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices (VBIED), direct and indirect fire and suicide bombings.”
Although anxious and apprehensive, I was honored to be invited to join a small delegation arranged by Voices for Creative Nonviolence for a ten-day person to person visit with the Afghan Peace Volunteers (APV). I was greeted at the airport by two members of the APV and as we taxied into the city their warmth and accepting smiles eased my anxiety. Upon arrival at the APV center I was welcomed with open arms and open hearts; by nightfall I felt right at home. During my short stay the APV enthusiastically shared their personal stories and I witnessed and participated in the various ways these brave souls seek to bridge tribal and ethnic barriers in pursuit of peace and social justice.
Among their many achievements the APV has established a School for Street Kids. The street kids are not able to attend government schools because their families depend on them to work the streets shining shoes, selling bolonis (home-made pancakes), washing cars, etc. So the APV started a school for these kids. Since many of the kids are illiterate they begin with reading and writing. The kids’ joy to be learning is palpable. Recently they started literacy classes for illiterate adult women as well. The school budget is $50,000/year, the cost of one Hellfire missile, (92% of this school budget is spent on providing the street kids and their families with a needed monthly gift of a sack of rice and a bottle of oil).
They have also created a Winter Duvet Project, which consists of a cooperative of seamstresses who work for a decent wage producing duvets, thick blankets stuffed with synthetic wool. The APV painstakingly survey the neighborhoods to insure that the duvets are given away to those in need to survive the bitter winters. Sixty (60) seamstresses are selected each year; twenty each from the three main populations, Pashtun, Tajik and Hazara. The project is currently in its third year and three thousand (3,000) duvets are distributed each year.
Although they readily acknowledge the uncertainties they face, especially given the continual war waged on their country, the APV remain committed to building a nonviolent, sharing economy where the basic needs of all are met (especially the most vulnerable). This inspirational commitment is not based on utopian or academic notions; it arises from their life experiences. They have lived their entire lives within the turmoil and convulsions of war. They have experienced first-hand war’s social and moral devastation and degradation.
When I explained that the war is often justified in the U.S. as necessary to protect Afghan women from the deprivations threatened by the resurgent Taliban, one volunteer, Zarghuna, a third year college student studying journalism, whose father was killed by the Taliban when she was seven years old, seemed perplexed by the justification. She stated firmly that the fourteen years of US Military operations had not improved the lives of Afghan women and children. To the contrary, women and children constantly face the lack of food, employment, good education and healthcare. Zarghuna declared that, “we do not need soldiers” and asked the people of the United States to recognize that we are “human beings with human feelings” and that we “need food and education not war”.
When asked what message he would like me to take back to the American people, Hoor, an 18-year-old junior in high school, first referenced the warning of two of the world’s greatest champions of peace, Bertrand Russell, the famed mathematician and philosopher, and Albert Einstein, the world’s best-known scientist, who at the height of the Cold War declared: "Shall we put an end to the human race; or shall mankind renounce war?" Hoor questioned why the American people could not see that “even if all the Taliban were killed, their sons and daughter would pick up the guns and seek revenge”, and that “the millions spent on weapons, drones and bombs had only increased the terrorism” in his country. He asked that we all take the time to analyze and understand the origins of groups like the Taliban and offered me a copy of “No Good Men Among the Living, by Anand Gopal as a primer in this regard, which I highly recommend.
I benefited immensely from my brief stay with the APV. Their active pursuit of peace and social justice in extraordinarily difficult circumstances was inspiring. Continuing to delude ourselves that military superiority or a “military solution” will provide security and stability, well that would truly be crazy and mindless.
This article was written by VFP member, Ron VanNorstrand, U.S.A.F. - 3/65-10/68