BAMIYAN, Afghanistan – This city of roughly 60,000, has only one paved street, a wide, two-kilometer road without lanes that is a site of constant activity from 5 a.m. to curfew, at 10 p.m., and is referred to as the “bazaar” because it is lined on both sides with shops.

In our short time here, we’ve been struck by how hard people, both in town and in the outlying villages, have to work to make a meager living. Children clearly work hard, too, seeming to participate fully in the livelihood of the family.

At almost anytime of the day they can be seen at all manner of enterprise – helping set up the family street stall early in the morning, riding a donkey to fetch water in five-gallon plastic jugs, helping harvest potatoes, herding sheep or goats, collecting leaves for fuel, washing clothes in a creek, caring for younger siblings; and of course, they also attend school. Their work is as much a part of the landscape as the cottonwood trees and the red-rock cliffs which stand above the rivers.

Having had a chance to talk with members of the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers (AYPV) and learn something about their significant commitments to home, family and school, it was with delight and astonishment that we visited Bamiyan Peace Park today with nine proud members of the group and learned about their role in its development and use.

The park, inaugurated a year ago as part of International Peace Day activities, was a real test of character for the AYPV. In 2007, the mayor of Bamiyan proposed the construction of a Peace Park at an undeveloped, 1,150 square meter site, strewn with rocks and overgrown by weeds, on the outskirts of the city. For over a year, the proposal to build a Peace Park languished for lack of local initiative and an absence of foreign aid to pay for its construction.

According to our friend Hakim, the Singaporean medical doctor and ex-pat who is a mentor to the AYPV, many young Afghans adopt the same expectation as adults that all civic projects depend on foreign aid. When Hakim proposed that the AYPV spearhead a local effort to construct the park, they were thrown off balance. Where would the money come from, the materials, the labor? Who were they to undertake such an effort? But small successes helped them right themselves. They met with Dr. Habiba Sarobi, governor of Bamiyan Province – the only female governor in Afghanistan – and she agreed to approach the private sector for support.

In September, 2008, they held a ground-breaking ceremony and began to prepare the site. The owner of a local hotel donated soil; two construction companies loaned graders and the AYPV came with shovels to remove rocks and help with leveling. In the spring of 2009, the youth gathered again to prepare the soil for planting. Toiling alongside Bamiyan City workers, they helped till and landscape the site. They interacted with local government ministries in ways they hadn’t ever done before, reminding the Environment Directorate to source for and plant grass seed, and delivering an official request for saplings to the Agricultural Directorate.

“The grass and trees were planted,” Hakim said, “and our courage grew with the greening of the Park.” But a big test lay ahead. The AYPV wanted a sign in the Park with a clear message of nonviolence, but again there was no money for its construction. An international NGO that works with children offered funding that would have covered the cost of the sign as well as construction of toilets. But the NGO had a policy requiring the placement of a signboard in the Park acknowledging their contribution. If the group accepted this money, it might end up looking like a foreign-built Park after all.

In a clear declaration of their self-confidence, the youth voted to forgo the donation and politely withdrew their application. Then they went back to the hard work of outreach and fundraising. Eventually, they had an opportunity to sell a book to raise funds. Its sales paid for the sign, a five foot high, four foot wide, pentagonal brick monument, a marble plaque inset with the words, in Dari script: Bamiyan Peace Park Established 1388 (according to the Muslim lunar calendar in use by local people).

The story of courage and tenacity doesn’t end here. Dari script at the top of the monument reads: Why not love? Why not make peace?

Shortly after the monument was installed in the center of the park, vandals defaced this lettering, intentionally splattering red paint across it to resemble drops of blood. The boys were frightened by this, but they came together, recreated the lettering, and on the reverse side of the monument added the words: Even a little of our love is stronger than a war of the worlds. Brave words. Brave actions.

In the year since the Bamiyan Peace Park was inaugurated, it has served as the venue for a number of important public events. For example, in response to the selection of President Obama as the 2009 Nobel peace laureate, the youngsters organized a cultural event, attended by local youth and by internationals. They read poetry, enacted a short drama, sang, and played the flute. They wrote and read a message of peace addressed to Obama. At the event, 14 year old Abdulai stated, “We’re keeping a peace vigil at this park until the voice of peace is raised in Afghanistan and the world.”

Each of the last two years, the boys have gathered at the park on International Peace Day, after inviting people to call them on Skype with messages of peace and solidarity. This year their invitation read: “We plan to be together the whole day to receive calls, for all of 24 hours. We’d rather stay awake to hear your voices than sleep without those human connections we yearn for.” On September 21, 2010, they received calls from people in 20 different countries and across the U.S. A remarkable thing in a community so isolated both within its own country and from the rest of the world.

A 20 minute walk from Bamiyan City, atop a tall, rocky butte, finds the 800 year old ruins of a royal citadel which mark the site of the Ghorid family’s last stand against Genghis Khan, whose army defeated Bamiyan’s ruler Jalaludin and slaughtered all of the castle’s defenders. As the story is told, the noise of the violence gave the place its modern name: Shahr-e-Gholghola, which means “City of Screams.” Today, the rocky butte is windblown, sterile, and uninhabited. Nearby, the Bamiyan Peace Park is flourishing, and the voices of the Afghan youth who were central to its construction ring out far and wide.

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David Smith-Ferri and fellos co-coordinators of Voices for Creative Nonviolence are currently traveling in Afghanistan.

After all, when you go to the doctor and his diagnosis is a life-threatening one, you need to hear the truth. Right between the eyes. Then you can consider your options. But sugar coating things doesn’t help very much.

People who have lost their jobs and those who may be next aren’t going to find it very easy finding new ones.

Those who have looked down their noses at the “lazy poor people” who should just go out and get a job better hope that the job-cutting axe doesn’t fall on them. But if it does, it will change their perspective on life real quickly.

Yesterday, during News Talk Online on Paltalk.com, I mentioned that some people are supplementing their nutrition with cat food. I was accused of taking that line out of some socialist playbook. But the sad truth is, there are people in the United States, my fellow Americans, who actually are buying pet food for human consumption.

The New York Daily News today reports about a man from New York state who worked in a mine. He was laid off, but was recruited by a Montana mining company to re-locate there for a job. So, not wanting to be one of those “lazy poor people” he packed up and drove 2,000 miles and reported for work.

His first day on the job finished, he returned to his new home, only to get a message on his cellphone. He was being laid off again.

Take Sam Gallup’s experience. Put it in your mind. Now increase it by one million. Or two million. Or three million.

Imagine the drain on our economy if, say, General Motors folds. And one, two or three million people, GM employees, suppliers, the people who transport the vehicles, the folks who work at the car dealerships – you get the idea – find themselves out of work.

Not only will they be out of work, but like Gallup, they will find it difficult to get other jobs.

There is good reason the Dow keeps nose diving on word that Congress is reticent to approve a GM bailout package. It’s ture that unlike the Wall Street bailout there must be actual oversight. A way to ensure that improvements and efficiencies are made to make it more likely that, as with the Chrysler bailout decades ago, there will be a return on the taxpayer’s investment. But letting GM fail is lunacy. It’s the proverbial cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s self.

The CEOs of the Big Three are correct when they say if one falls so may the other two. The auto manufacturers share suppliers. If GM were to close shop, so too will some of their suppliers. Making it impossible for Ford and Chrysler to keep their lines running.

Imagine the ripple effect in the economy. Imagine the increasing numbers of people, whose jobs are not even remotely related to the auto industry, who will be getting pink slips.

Now, imagine looking in the mirror in the morning and seeing Sam Gallup’s face staring back at you. Just imagine.

Spillar

You’re a teenager or young adult who finds herself in the unfortunate position of being pregnant and unwed. You go to a pregnancy counseling center for help. Only to find that you’re in an anti-abortion clinic that encourages you to keep the baby.

Federal dollars fund these centers. But should they? And will funding, under a pro-choice Obama administration, continue?

Joining us on News Talk Online on Tuesday November 18 to discuss this issue will be Katherine Spillar and Nicolette Tomaszewski.

Spillar, executive editor of Ms Magazine has been overseeing coverage of anti-abortion groups that target women’s reproductive health clinics such as Planned Parenthood. She is also executive vice president of the Feminist Majority Foundation where she has coordinated field operations in three statewide campaigns for women’s rights.

Tomaszewski is a woman who was pressured by a a local crisis pregnancy center in Tennessee where she was warned of horrible side effects of abortion by a volunteer who, she says, was not a medical professional. She says she was also told that, if she were to have an abortion, she likely would suffer side effects because the physicians employed in abortion clinics were from the “bottom of the barrel.” She was not actually pregnant when she went in for counseling, but wanted to experience for herself the treatment she would receive after a pregnant friend, looking for an abortion, told her she was discouraged when she went to the clinic.

Spillar says many crisis pregnancy centers, like this one near Tomaszewski’s college campus, masquerade as women’s health clinics often luring young women by offering free pregnancy tests. In reality, an FMF study reported on by Ms concludes that the vast majority of CPCs are not medical facilities.

To talk to Spillar and Tomaszewski on at 5 PM Tuesday November 18 CLICK HERE. There is no charge.

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