The Peace Poets Write from Kabul, Part 2

Mousab’s Exhibition 

Late at night, I sit alone in the office of The Afghan Peace Volunteer’s house in Kabul. The mountain cold wrapped itself around me. I finally got the Internet to work and found a message from Rashad, a good friend of mine in Sudan. I feel all the muscles in my chest tighten. Rashad wrote that in the protests in the streets of Khartoum our dear friend Mousaab had been shot and murdered by the police. I froze. Below his words is a picture of Mousaab bathed in his own blood in the back of a pickup truck. I stared at the picture and heard Mousab’s voice. I closed my eyes but the tears kept flowing down my cheeks as I saw the image of Mousab sitting next to Eddy in the Circle of Peace we built together in Khartoum. My memories transported me back to the some of the most truly human sessions, unforgettable moments with Unity House, our poetry family. I see Mousab showing me what he was drawing while everyone else was writing poems. His smile. The picture of him shot through the back bleeding uncontrollably. I was sobbing. I can’t remember crying like that for years. The tears just kept coming.

They seemed to pour out in protest of this injustice, out of love for this young brave artist brother, the tears poured out in rage against the Sudanese dictatorship and the authorities willing to murder their neighbors. I could barely breathe but felt I didn’t have a choice, my mind was rushing and I just let the tears flow out for his fellow painters and beloved friends- for Eddy and Muni’im, for Enas and Amani and everyone in Unity House who I know is hurting so much right now. 

Finally, the tears stop. I sit still alone in another warzone thousands of miles away from my friends in Sudan. I take a deep breadth. I remember ending every session of Unity House by saying together in one loud voice, “One Family” and then “We Are Together”. That one family always extended beyond the limits of our circle and even far beyond the borders of Sudan. Without a doubt it reaches here in Afghanistan where people are murdered everyday by any number of armed groups- the military, the NATO forces, the Taliban, the US forces and more are responsible for the deaths of young men like Mousaab. People who are acting peacefully and simply demanding dignity. As I reflect, I’m surprised by the sound of the door to the office opening because it’s the middle of the night. Abdulhai appears in the doorway and smiles. Even though I try to return the smile, he sees my tear soaked face and his expression turns immediately worried.

What happened? 

 -“My friend was murdered by the police in Sudan,” I told him. He cringed and tears welled up in his eyes. I was surprised he was so emotional. But soon I came to learn that he has lost loved ones in his country’s war. His father had been murdered years before. I’m sorry, he says. He put’s his hand on my shoulder and sits down next to me. Abdulahai stays there keeping me company while I write to my family from Unity House. With tears in our eyes for another fallen brother, our collective chant feels so real: We Are Together. With compassion, with commitment, with longing for justice and peace- we are together. And even though it was hurting me to not be physically present in Sudan with my people at this moment, I knew that they could feel the love I was sending them and that I had all of them right here with me in this cold night in Kabul.

I heard from Rashad again a few days later. Emanating from his words was the certainty that Moesia’s spirit was alive and with us. I could feel it too. Unity House had gathered together and decided that they would organize an exhibition of Mousab’s artwork. It was a dream he had always spoken of that his family was now going to make real. As I wrote these words, tears came again. But that must just be the presence of love, the power of our connection and fearlessness settling into my chest for the long hard struggle to make our dreams of come true- while we are still alive. 

While I do pray that our brother rest in peace, I also have the sense he is already inciting restlessness in me. Thank you Mousaab, I hope I can honor the courage and goodness and love you left within us.

The next morning I don’t say anything to the other community of young people I’m staying and working with here in Kabul. Instead I somehow get into a conversation with one of them, Raz Mohammad. He is telling me the story of his two classmates being murdered by drone attacks. He trembles as he recounts the story. “I just remember the day before walking to school with them. They were such good boys, my friends, so good…”

Talking to Raz I felt the closeness to death that I haven’t had recently. It comes at times when a lot of people you know pass away or you’re in a place like Kabul where everybody has been cut somehow by war’s relentless blades. In many ways, it’s good to dwell close to the funerals. It allows us to sit with our mortality and the reality of war and suffering that so many people in our family are living through. 

Raz then describes his family to me. Heart warming stories of his littlest brother who only wants to play with him when he goes home to visit and then always falls asleep in his arms. And of course, more heartbreaking stories: his older sister who was so full of life and laughter until another drone attack killed her husband. Now she is quiet. When he calls on the phone she cries. His little sister who only dreams of studying but there is no school for her to go to. Raz Mohammad says everything like it’s extremely important. At some point during our conversation I realize- It is.

Hikmatullah’s Hug 

He could stop the war. He’s a big jolly bear of a young man. Picture a dude with his hair always in his eyes a little who swings magically back and forth between serene and ecstatic. He is excitable and affectionate. If music is playing anywhere in the house, it’s only a matter of seconds before he’s on the scene shaking his belly and swirling around his hips, invariably inciting yells of celebration from whoever is present. A smile of pure joy shines forth as he dances. You gotta love him. I can’t see how anyone could resist his warm kindness. That’s why I think he could stop the war.

The Afghan Peace Volunteers and Luke Nephew of The Peace Poets

(Group spoken word piece)

Live from Kabul, October seventh, 2013 

The 12th Anniversary of the United States War in Afghanistan.

Today,

As the war turns 12 

Me and other Youth in Afghanistan worry we will not make it alive to visit our families 

for Eid,

As the war turns 12,

Women in Afghanistan are still sold and traded, beaten and degraded 

We are still demanding our education… but over two thousand and five hundred 

Afghan women have committed suicide so far in 2013

As the war turns 12,

Drone attacks still kill kids like they did my two classmates and my brother in law 

Night raids terrify the people praying

For a chance to sleep through the night in peace 

As the war turns 12, We, the young people are 75 percent of society,

But we struggle for basic education. 

We are searching for a peace and unity we have never seen.

We want to design the future ourselves… because as the war turns 12 

The US military says they should have total impunity for their crimes-

But We ask why! 

Why do they think they should not be held responsible?

As the war turns 12 

We hope it will not be possible for the US to leave 9 permanent bases the way they want

As the war turns 12, American people protest imperial violence 

And demand their government stop this war, respect the human rights of everyone in

Bagram and Guantanamo bay, WE say Salaam Alaykum, peace to all people, As the war 

turns 12:

The people of Afghanistan WANT 

 Enough peace to hear the music of their land,

 The laughter of their children, 

 The sound of a man laying a brick to build a home that he can know is not

 Going to be destroyed 

But war turns people into enemies

 Schools into battlefields 

 Homes into badly built bomb shelters

War turns, us against, each other 

 But we turn, toward each other

 To love all sisters and brothers 

We will turn this war torn nation

 Back into a place where we can dance 

And that is our dream,

 We are hoping 

 This war will never turn thirteen…

Luke Nephew, Co-Founder and Artist Educator of thepeacepoets.com is writing from Kabul where he is a guest of the Afghan Peace Volunteers. (ourjourneytosmile.com) He travelled there on behalf of Voices for Creative Nonviolence.  (vcnv.org)