Peace needs to come to earth, before shooting for the Moon

Dr. Hakim’s Statement on behalf of the Proposed Delegation of Afghanistan Youth from Our Journey to Smile reads like a poem.

We’ve just heard the ”˜unearthly’ NASA dreams to go beyond the Moon, to land on Mars or an asteroid.

Before more Afghans, Palestinians, Iraqis and international soldiers are killed, we, the ordinary people of the world, need to show them that we’ve tried as hard as NASA, that their everyday efforts to love and be loved carry as much worth and dignity.

But the un-sustainable, unequal realities of our world today dictate that the global self-aggrandizing War message is clearly glorified while the global life-affirming Peace message is systematically suppressed.

Humanity is overwhelmed by elite militarism, materialism and racism. These elite systems have a real physical and propagandist power, a power that is not imaginary, but which oppresses. And kills.

Why hasn’t the ”˜atomic’ power of humanity’s compassion been harnessed sufficiently to take root on earth, far less take off to the Moons?

Why haven’t our hearts grown enough to reason with the elite individuals we have either elected into power or allowed to take power?

Love’s natural and inherent moral power is stronger than the elite’s artificial and accorded political power, so why does love seem to lose to pride and money every time?

I’d like to sincerely thank everyone I’ve tried to include in this appeal, for your tire-less effort of love in working towards definite non-violent change in Afghanistan and the world.

I boldly thank you on behalf of all Afghans, even those Afghans who have been killed, those who have been forced to face death, before we face ours.

I know that this hope, that Love will triumph someday, keeps us all going but we need to acknowledge that, few and divided, none of us have the ”˜political’ or ”˜media’ resources to address the violent giants.

When 3 of us from Our Journey to Smile in Afghanistan recently applied for US visas to tour the States on invitation by Fellowship of Reconciliation USA, our applications were rejected by the US Embassy in Kabul, within a militant silence that has de-humanized us for too long.

When I told the Embassy functionary who interviewed us that ”˜peace in Afghanistan is tough’, he replied saying,” You mean you’re going all the way to the States just to say that?” I told him that it was the truth and yes, we were going to say that.

Such is the task of promoting peace on earth. We may ironically ask, “Why does NASA want to go all the way beyond the moon, to Mars and the asteroids, to do what?” But we would not ask that because we believe that the Space endeavor is humanly at least as valuable and uplifting as bringing peace to the people.

Both Space and People exist, but for now, it is the people who are dying.

The US Embassy functionary, just like Obama, needs help to be brought back down to earth, to grasp love’s narrative.

This is “The People’s Journey to a Peace Beyond Dismissal” ( brief attached ) in which we hope to unequivocally demonstrate that ”˜Love is how we’ll ask for peace!’

This love that we seek to practice wishes kindness even to those who perpetrate violence, including the cold ”˜super-powers’.

It is not a fairy-tale love belonging only to the gods as suggested by Obama in his Nobel Peace Prize speech, nor a love that shivers naively before those with the weapons to destroy and kill.

It is the resolute love based on a clear conscience that would request Obama, Gordon Brown, Netanyahu, Ahmadinejad and Osama Bin Laden to stop fighting, because they no longer represent the peaceful wishes of the ordinary masses of the world.

Faiz Ahmad ( Afghan ), Abdul Ali ( Afghan ), Basaam ( Palestinian ), Yaniv ( Israeli Jew ), Salam Hassan ( Iraqi ), Josh Stieber, Conor & Doug Mackey ( Americans) and myself ( S’porean ) wish to stand together to propose and demonstrate the non-violent ways the world longs for.

And to prevent others from bearing any false excuse to quench our voices, we state forthrightly that we have no political or religious agendas.

The global ”˜war against terrorism’ is failing and we firmly believe that love is the alternative needed to bring people together so we can finally recognize one another, and to bring true safety and human warmth.

So, we boldly ask you and all peacemakers to get us somewhere, anywhere, perhaps to a neutral country, to human places far closer to our souls than the moons, where we would have some space to provoke the world to listen to the people, to think about the people and to love the people again!

We appeal to you because your creative and committed hands are especially needed by the teeming masses of people whose presence, voices and deaths are obscured and whose daily destitution gets them nowhere save the wish to find a reasonable home to labor for yet another day.

Meekly,

Dr Hakim in Afghanistan

On behalf of The People’s Journey to a Peace Beyond Dismissal

Our Journey to Smile

http://ourjourneytosmile.com/blog

Please act now to help Abdulai from Our Journey to Smile receive a visa to travel to the United States. Click here to learn more and to contact the U.S. State Department in support of his application: http://forpeace.mayfirst.org/content/action-alert-afghan-youth-denied-u.s.-visa