Party

People have party to celebrate a day, an achievement, an occasion and so on. In a party what is sought is to relieve oneself from the fatigues of routines, from the anxieties of study, from stress of work and so on. People want to release their pain and tension by laughing, singing and dancing together. Besides they want to energize themselves by reviving the feeling of friendship, group solidarity and togetherness. We might not intend all these, but we had a party on Friday night, 8th of July, Instead the party was seeking two other purposes, one honoring our Japanese guests, Mrs. Kowai and Mrs. Yamannoy and second bringing together the people behind peace voice, as many of them as possible.

Living in Kabul is living in dusty, smoky streets surrounded with the violent frown of every thing. You cannot see any thing soothing and relieving and any entertaining scene. What you see is always a depiction of some aspects of human misery and fall. How a human soul can thrive here? People are in a hurry, every body even the beggars and addicts whom you see in every step. Everyone is in a hurry, every one is highly alert and everyone is super vigilant. Worse than this people are careless. They are careless with everything, whether it is public or private, though some try to wash themselves out but throw the dirty water on neighbor’s window.

So, what a party means in such a situation. It means a lot, to be honest, but the there should be some one to do a lot to warm up and organize everything in a well planned way. It takes a long time and some effort to make people forget their yesterday, tomorrow and possibly the quarrel that they just had with the driver on their way to party. You need to skillfully entertain them, and at the same time manage the party in a way not to trigger anything undesirable for the atmosphere of a party. In this country there are a lot of thorns, you need to be very careful, once one steps on a blade of thorn everything changes into chaos in a blink of eyes.

We succeeded to do everything well in our party. 40 people were there of different areas of Kabul, all of them youths, except one or two who were middle aged. They sang, told jokes and laughed a lot. They did not dance; better to say there was no proper area to dance on. We had not met some of them for more than a year, so it was an opportunity to meet and revive memories of working for peace and in the underneath sketch some ideas for future works and cooperation.

Our Japanese guest sang for us Japanese songs. The very funny part was that Mrs. Yamanoy made us laugh for nothing, then laugh on laughing for nothing, one buddy said to her: “you made us laugh, first we thought there was some thing to laugh on, then we realized nothing funny was there then we laughed on ourselves’ laughter”.

This was a happy occasion; every body was happy and energetic at the end, so we were successful. We realized that how much the people in this city needed that kind of parties and gatherings, which bring entertainment and sense of meaningfulness and order together, an atmosphere free of suicide news, political tension and reenactment of conflicts and hidden pains.  

Equality

Friday Meeting

08 – 09 – 11

This Friday 11 people participated, shared their hearts and talked about ‘equality’. This Friday was somehow special, for having guests from Japan, and also these days the exams of schools and universities are approaching, so many people are very busy. After praying, Noor Navayee started elaborating on the topic.

 He said that equality meant having the same rights and privileges amongst the members of human society. Essentially all individuals have been created equal; they have been gifted based on equal criteria, so in worldly systems they cannot be preferred over one another, while they stand on the same and equal footings. Most of the religious scriptures have emphasized this point. However, the reality has been far more different, and people have been discriminated based on different lines and deprived from their very natural rights.

One of the principles of creation is that each individual is unique and differing from others in their appearance, color, way of seeing the world and their beliefs. So, such a reality has led to the formation of different culture, racial groups, communities and nations. Equality means that none of these natural tenets make an individual, group or nation superior to others or better than them.

The lines of differences, in contrary to the original purposes of such differences, unfortunately have brought about an allusion to give a base for unjust discriminations. Difference in sex, difference in color of skin, difference in shapes of skulls and skeleton, differences in languages and cultures have been used to justify the prejudices, unjust treatments of one group by another.

Navayee, then, suggested focusing more on sexual equality. He emphasized that being male or female does not give an especial right to anyone. He asked the participants to talk on this and share their experiences. He quoted two versus of holy Koran, first versus 13 of Hojarat which reads; translation:

‘O mankind! We created you from a single pair of a male and a female and made you into nations and tribes, that you might know each other. Verily the most honored among you in the sight of God is he who is the most righteous.’

The second, 195 of Al –e-Emran; translation:

‘And their Lord answers them, “the labor of any that labors among you, be you male or female – the one of you is as other.”’

The first verse teaches us of the fact that being differentiated in male, female, tribes and nations is a blessing of God, and a concomitant of human earthly knowledge, language, art and communication. At this stage of life these different characteristics make our lives possible and beautiful, at the end of the day we are judged based on our deeds and righteousness. The second verse rules out any discrimination on the basis of these differentiations in eternal judgment.

Javid: “We have been created equal and we have been given talents and potentials on equal basis, but the will for power has made us blind and has led to a culture of discrimination. In respect to women situation in our country, I can say that many reasons and conditions have created discrimination against women. If we go to the Independent Human Rights Commission or some other civil society organizations, you can witness women’s grievances. You see women who suffer from malnutrition, from husband’s violence, from ignorance (being denied from the right to go to school). They are given as BADS (when someone has been murdered, an unmarried female member of the family of murderer is given to the family of victim, so that to make peace), they are deprived of their rights to inheritance. Women cannot go out to work or to get education, and this is sometime justified as that we are respecting women; they are too precious to us that we do not want them to get dirty in the outside world. Look at something valuable such as gold and diamond, people keep them in boxes and in safes, same is the case for women, we do not let them go out because we respect them a lot. Look at this logic, this reasoning forgets that women are human; they need to improve their God given potentials just like men.”

“However, the situation of women has improved a little in our country. Now there are windows of opportunities for them. They can get education, they can work outside, and they can become lawyers and prosecutors and so on. Still we need to work hard and build on these.”

Asif Sultani: “Nowadays, the situation of women is better in cities, but in many villages if you go the situation of women is terrible. People have wrong believes and ideas about women. Some rural areas have changed dramatically, for example central Afghanistan, girls can go to schools and their conditions have improved. Now we have some organizations, at least, which can talk about women’s rights and raise the public awareness in this respect.”

Mrs. Yamanoy: “Men and women are equal, but they have different characters. It means that they seek life through different tactics and have different outlook on life and life affairs. For example most of the women want to talk a lot and be listened too. While man is in search of the points that he needs. Men are intentional and exact, but women are not only intentional but also emotional more. They do not talk only to make a point or seek something; in addition they talk for the sake of talking and feeling. Back in Japan, a friend of mine was telling that once, she had talked for three consecutive days until her husband had collapsed listening to her. I myself, in the beginning of my familial life, I used to talk a lot. My husband, however, was very kind. Once he also collapsed listening to me. Latter on I came to realize the differences, I tried hard to understand him, and through love and sharing we could understand each other more and every thing settled down peacefully.”

Mrs. Kawai: “In Japan people do not know a lot about Afghanistan, and the women in afgahnistan, only those who work here or their organizations work here know in detail about the situation of Afghanistan.”

“Talking about my own experience, I and my husband did receive especial teachings about the goal of life and family life. So, we had vey common base for starting a family. When I joint WFWP my husband supported me a lot. Now when I am too busy, he helps me a lot with routines. He never talks to me in bad way for, say why the food is not tasty. My husband is a doctor and a very knowledgeable person. He is very quite and never talks even to our close relatives. I try to help him in this regard and help in making relations.”

Arif: “Difference and variety is a blessing of Allah. So no one should try to assimilate people. Equality does not mean to get rid of differences. Equality means having equal rights and privileges in a legal, political and economic system.”

Ebrahimi: “Equality does not mean sameness in rights. It means having the rights to what one deserves. For example, in family context husband has to provide alimony and life expanses of his wife, while for this rights the wife herself has certain obligations. So husband and wife’s rights and obligations are not the same but they are equal.”

“In my own experience, as a child, I used to go to school, and my sister went too. When my sister got older, the family did not allow her to go to school, I could do nothing. It was the condition at that time. When the situation changed my sister started going to school again, but now she is a little older than her class.”

Miss Shafayee: “I am coming from a mediocre family in terms of education. My parents are literate but not very educated. My family went to Iran when I was a child. The culture over there was a little different. There the girls were free to go to school. My parents were good before though, the conditions in Iran affected them a lot. We went to school there. When we came back here, we had problems with our relatives. Most of them, especially my elder uncle did not like the girls to go to school. So they were always trying to stop us from going to school. My parents did not accept and encouraged us further to continue our education. I wonder why people in this country have so negative idea about women.”

Miss Moradi: “My father has studied ten grade of school, my mother is illiterate. I am very thankful to them, they encourage us a lot to go to school and get education. They tell us if we want to be someone in the future and be able to positively contribute to our country, we have to learn education.”

Conclusion: Navayee concluded the session with pointing to the fact that our very creation has been based on masculinity and femininity. So, any ideology, way of life and system that do not concede the equality between men and women will lead to an imbalanced family and society. The implication of this for us is that we need to endeavor to overcome the derogatory look and culture towards women in our own personal context, so to keep and develop our psychological integrity and improve the situation for next generations.  

 
   

Basic Peace Seminar



On Thursday, 30^th of June, Peace Volunteers organized a Basic Peace Seminar for 13 youths including boys and girls in Peace Embassy, west Kabul. Except one who came through Peshgaman English Language Course, the rest were coming from Arvin Educational Center. Besides, they were also school and university students, the young spirits who wanted to bring about a change in the monotonous day to day life. They all were invited through friends and connections of some sort. The seminar included theoretical and experiential activities and continued for one and a half days.

Theoretical Activities

Lectures, discussion and sharing experiences were the skeleton of this part of the seminar. All this activities aimed at awakening the deepest and original character shared by each individual human, that is to say, raising the sense of unity and morality based on the values shared by all human civilizations.

Based on the observable change in the participants, the seminar was quite successful. They all expressed their commitments and willingness to participate in next seminars and volunteer activities.

Experiential Activities

Words equal deeds were one of the values that the participants heard and discussed about. To a culture of indifference and vandalism which prevail in our society, it is a big task to bend oneself and take responsibility. A reinforced commitment to service is needed to light the candle of change.

Impressed with the lecture and the environment, the participants welcomed the suggestion of doing some tiny work of service. We did not believe, but even the girls took the gloves and masks to go out and clean the dirty alleys. They cleaned, discussed and had fun for one hour. To all of them it was a new experience and they had never such voluntary service work.

In reflection after the cleaning, they all expressed their ideas sparkled just in their mind as a result of experiencing service, to organize such activities in their communities and educational organization. They promised to become agents of change and expand the culture of peace through service and materializing the ideal of “living for the sake of others”.

Give and Recieve Action

Friday Meeting

01 – 07 – 2011

This Friday 6 people participated in a meeting which was held by Voice of Peace members. A guest from Japan, member of Women Federation for World Peace, also participated in the discussion. The topic which was discussed was “Give and Receive Action”. Noorullah Navayee introduced the topic and the meeting started with a recitation in Holy Koran.

Navayee pointed to the fact that giving and receiving action is a principle through which all development in all over the world takes place. If we examine the natural world it is quite obvious, there is a subject role that starts an action, there is an object role which responds to the action of the subject. There is always a center or purpose preexisting as an underlying intention of the development. This intention will somehow determine the direction towards which the actual development will happen. There is movement and growth each moment. The process of this development is continuing seemingly endlessly if the intention and center of it is conforming to the existing rules governing the universe, and it will continue to the degree to which this rules can house any exceptions and freedom of deviation, in case the purpose of interaction deviates from universal principles.

The implication of this principle for our moral life and culture is that the interaction in this world also has to follow the same rule otherwise human world may face difficulties. If we want the harmony to prevail in our society we should mind the interactions which happen in different aspects of our relationships. We have to make sure that the roles of subject and object is played rightly, furthermore, if we want to expand a culture of peace and love we have to take steps and initiate. That is to say, we have to take the role of a subject and start giving with a higher purpose. We have to give and forget, it is the base of all noble cultures and peaceful collective mindsets. In Holy Koran God says: translation: “by no means you shall get righteousness unless you give freely of that which you love and whatever you give Allah kneweth it well”; Almodather, 6-7. This is very heavy and powerful. Whatever you love you should give. You should give your most precious thing, that is, you should give your love.

This is a little bit hard to understand. This even seems paradoxical, how one can gain by giving. The dominant view in our contemporary world is that you should have more, try to own more and try to win more. You have to gather as much wealth as you can, you have to learn as much as possible and you have to be big as much as possible. You always say mine, for me and to me. It is the dominant view of our cultures. We can reverse it, start giving and giving. More importantly, we have to try how to be a good giver and a better subject, and this way we learn more and gather more not for the purpose learning and gathering per se, but for the sake of giving and becoming a perfect giver.

Ebrahim Shayan: In Shayan’s opinion we can develop our heart by giving. Giving doesn’t mean that we give only money; one can give love, kindness and smile. One can teach. In different spheres of life, we can practice this, in our life, in our family, in our schools and in our communities.

“Once I clearly experienced this with my younger brother. My brother used to come late at home last winter. The usual reaction of me had to be scolding him. But did not go this way, and started to react in brotherly way. I started giving my love and compassion to him, and then I found out the real story of him and understood that he was doing a real job of learning and teaching. The way was so long, and he was too tired. As a result of giving my love and sharing my heart with him, now I am closer to him and happier.”

Ali Fayez: According to Fayez, life is a gift from God. It is the most precious gift that God has given us for free. In this sense, in all our life we have to return this gift. In fact we do not receive if we do not give. In many families, the cause of the problems is that subject and object roles are not respected or the people to the roles are assigned do not play them well. Sons play the role of fathers, daughters play the role of mothers or other ways the harmonious interaction that is expected to happen in family does not take place, and the whole families face difficulties and conflicts.

Fayez used to look at his elder brother as being exploiting him. Fayez was always suspicious of him. He changed his attitude towards his brother and found out that he himself was wrong. The situation has not been that static and too bad either. Fayez changed his behavior and the whole atmosphere in his family changed. He started giving respect to his elder brother, and the brotherly relationship began to develop.

Mustaf Seerat:  “We do not have the culture that we really desire. We can change this. It is possible. We can do it. If you don’t believe in this go to Egypt and see the pyramids. Those big buildings were made by human beings. They made those because they had a vision and strongly wanted to embody what they had in their minds. We can bring change and establish a culture of giving and generosity if we really want to do so.”

Amin Ebrahimi: “Giving should be unconditional. If giving is conditional, it doesn’t have the value that it has to have. Giving broadens our heart, in other word, it makes us big. So, as much as we give more our capacity develops and we can place a bigger portion of the world in ourselves. Giving most of the time doesn’t need especial situations or conditions, we can practice every where, at home in our classes and so on.  My experience, what I can remember now, is one thing that I really started in my class. We clean our class by ourselves. In the morning small children are in our classroom, so every day the room becomes full of garbage. I started cleaning and giving my care to this. My purpose was not to gain something material out of this, but just wanted to clean out of my generosity and for the sake of my whole classmates and teachers who enter that class. The outcome, however, is bigger than I expected. Now we almost have a group of people- my classmates- careful and responsible. All of them are sensitive about this issue, and I am sure that they are not only sensitive about their own class but about the environment everywhere.”

Mrs. Cowai: “Things that you discuss are very precious points. When I encountered these things in my life for the first time, they seemed too strange. I could not understand the importance of giving and loving unconditionally. I only understood it when I became a mother. Now it has become a normal truth in my life and I really believe in the value of giving. You may saw the repercussions of tsunami in Japan. You know, Japan helped many poor countries around the world. Many Japanese were asking about the rationality of these helps, they might were expecting some returns for Japan’s financial and other kinds of assistance to the people and governments of many countries. Some others had their justifications that because Japan was a wealthy nation so they had to help poor nations and care for the common cause of humanity. After the tsunami, many countries, even the poorest ones sent their assistance to Japan. It was amazing; we understood how different countries looked at Japan and how they were really sympathetic with Japanese people. That was definitely due to the behavior and generosity of the people of Japan. What I would like to say is that when we give unconditionally, we gain more, besides, we play a role in decreasing the tension and conflict of human societies.”

Shayan: “When we give we receive, that is true. When you gently shake the cradle of a small baby even that baby smiles at you, and wants to reward you for you act towards it. The baby is in a pure natural status and purely reacts to your love.”

Conclusion: Giving any thing in any place is like dropping a small stone in a big pool. The waves and tidal are created in every corner of the pool and every molecule of the water shakes. If an action of unconditional giving is taking place centered on higher purposes, the whole universe shakes to respond. If you have an specific expectation out of you giving your expectation may be fulfilled, but you have limited the return. In human society you can start something good in a point; it multiplies like the different loops of a chain. This process can be called love creation, compassion creation, peace creation and so on, something like money creation in banking operations. You give love and it multiplies, you give kindness and it multi plies and so on. This way we can foster the culture of peace in a society.