The Right to Protest | Graphic Images From the NYT’s

As we get ready for the NATO summit next month in Chicago and the conventions this summer these images are reminders of the challenges we face. Click on the image to expand.


Riot Gear’s Evolution | 3 December 2011

"Just as the styles of protest have changed from one generation to the next, so have the styles of protest policing. Technological advances, training innovations and changing attitudes toward the right to assemble have all shaped the way the police handle the challenges of large demonstrations. During the 1960s and ’70s, police officers treated many protests as a threat to the social order and responded with brute force. In the 1980s and ’90s, demonstrations tended to be less confrontational and the police responded with more accommodating tactics."

- Chi Birmingham and Alex S. Vitale

Protecting face-to-face protest | 9 April 2012

"EVERY four years, we witness the spectacle of the presidential nominating conventions. And every four years, host cities, party leaders and police officials devise ever more creative ways of distancing protesters from the politicians, delegates and journalists attending these stage-managed affairs."

- Ronald J. Krotoszynski Jr.

Additional Resource: When Police go military

Art Mob Commemorates War | Indianapolis

Using images from the Windows and Mirrors exhibit, this art mob action commemorated the anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq. Partners: American Friends Service Committee, Veterans for Peace, Central Indiana Jobs with Justice.





We will be at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, the week of September 3, 2012. We are also planning to be at the Republic National Convention in Tampa Bay, Florida from August 27 - 30, 2012.

Tags: Windows and Mirrors

Organizing to Stop the War | Bring WAM to Your Town

The Windows and Mirrors exhibit is a touring mural arts project. The goal is to stimulate dialogue, discussion, and action to end the war.



To compliment the full display, currently in Washington DC, we have created two ‘community’ exhibits that feature stunning vinyl reproductions of the murals and replicas of the Afghan high school student drawings. The article and images above is from one of the community exhibits. It was a front page story in the Burlington County Times yesterday.

If you are interested in bringing this resource to your community send a note to exhibit@afsc.org. It's a great way to reach new audiences.

You will be in good company. Upcoming locations include Indianapolis, Albuquerque, Fort Collins, Charleston, Chicago, Dayton and Coralville. See the full schedule here.

Background: The unique panels created by international artists and US students help us imagine the experience of Afghan civilians - from death and destruction to hopes for peace. Drawings by Afghan students in Kabul – collected in June 2010 – provide an up close look at life in a war zone. At over 900 square feet, this mural is not a single painting, but an oversized statement on the human cost of war. It is not the voice of one person, but that of an engaged artistic community. Their collective voice comes through with power and volume, speaking to us on both intellectual and emotional levels.

In addition to the murals we have a new partnership with Community Supported Films. Together we will make available the powerful documentary shorts The Fruit of Our Labor.

Each short documentary offers a personal and first-hand Afghan point of view rarely seen or heard in the US, even after 10 years of intense media coverage. As a series, these films bring to life Afghans’ daily efforts to address their challenging social and economic conditions – providing an insider perspective beyond the battlefront coverage that dominates western media.

Tags: Windows and Mirrors

Cluster | A Poem by Zein El-Amine

Zein El-Amine and Esther Iverem are two poets who read at the Windows and Mirrors opening last night in DC.



The picture shows Zein and Ann Northrup one of the muralists who shared her thoughts on art as activism and the goals of her work Mountain Kites.

This is one of the poems he read.


Cluster

“What we did was insane and monstrous.”
Head of IDF rocket unit, July 2006


On his last evening
Abu Ali walked home
between the rows of pine
that line his driveway,
settled in the shelter
of his grape arbor, rolled
a cigarette, was served tea
by his wife,
who was preparing
for the expected arrival
of unexpected guests.
He spotted a cluster
above his head
and tugged at it.
The stem snapped,
the concealed cylinder slipped,
its yellow ribbon followed,
fluttered down,
like a ticker tape.
A dull pop was heard.
A flash lit up the arbor –
Abu Ali’s last dispatch
to Marjiyoon’s children.

All throughout that month,
that followed the Summer Rain,
he had gathered
the kids wherever
he found them.
Showed them pictures,
of all the colors
that these things come in –
one next to a cell phone
to give them a sense
of scale. One of a boy,
sitting in a hospital,
seeming to kneel,
seeming to pray.

He held his lectures
under the cover of one tree
or another: under the fig
trees, with their fruit
in red August burst,
or under the sparse shelter
of a fruitless pomegranate.
The people of Marjiyoon
say, that on his last day,
he was seen near the cemetery
sitting in the sprawling shade
of the twisted branches of an olive tree.


by Zein El-Amine
Edited by Melissa Tuckey, July 29, 2011
link

Zein El-Amine, a contributor to Foreign Policy In Focus, has an MFA in poetry from the University of Maryland. His poems have been published by Folio, Beltway Quarterly, DC Poets Against the War Anthology, Penumbra, GYST, and Joybringer. His short stories have appeared in the Uno Mas and in Bound Off. His editorials and articles have appeared in Left Turn, The Afro American, The Washington Spark and The Washington Post. Melissa Tuckey is the poetry editor for FPIF and a board member of Split This Rock.

Congressional Briefing | Afghan Civil Society Perspectives

I am thrilled to be a part of this briefing hosted by Rep. James McGovern and Rep. John Garamendi. It will be Wednesday 29 February at 2 PM. Click on the image above for details.

The screening, presentation and live discussion will be an opportunity to bring Afghan perspectives to the forefront of the conversation about crucial economic and social development issues.

It will also serve as the formal launch of the Windows and Mirrors mural exhibit that will be in Washington for the month of March. A key sponsor of the exhibit will be the Faith Roundtable on Afghanistan.

The briefing will feature a live video conference with Afghan NGO directors and filmmakers, a screening of a selection of the Afghan–made documentary shorts The Fruit of Our Labor, and a roundtable discussion with Community Supported Film, 3P Human Security, and the American Friends Service Committee.

The live video conversation and Q&A with Afghan and US participants will include: Zarah Sadat, filmmaker and Founder and Director of Open Society Organization in Afghanistan; Jamal Aram, filmmaker and Program Coordinator of Community Supported Film, Afghanistan; Michael Sheridan, Director and Founder of Community Supported Film; Peter Lems, AFSC Program Director for Education and Advocacy on Afghanistan and Iraq; Lisa Schirch, Director of 3P Human Security

Take a moment to check out The Fruit of Our Labor on their home page.

The films allow viewers to witness reality through Afghan eyes, offering a deeper understanding of Afghanistan that is crucial for mapping a peaceful and stable path forward as US and NATO troops withdraw.

The films are a collection of documentary shorts made by Afghans in a training provided by Community Supported Film in Kabul.

Windows and Mirrors DC Schedule here.

Windows and Mirrors in Washington DC for March

Click on the postcard for the video page.


Opening Reception

Thursday 1 March | 7 PM
First Congregational United Church of Christ
945 G Street, NW


Display locations:

First Congregational United Church of Christ
945 G Street, NW
Open to the public March 1, 8, 15, 22
(Thursdays) from 5–8 p.m.
and Sunday, March 4 from 3–7 p.m.

Methodist Building
100 Maryland Avenue NE
Open to the public March 1–22
from 9 a.m. – 5 p.m.

For more events in Washington, click here.

Co-sponsors: American Friends Service Committee, Church of the Brethren, Friends Committee on National Legislation, Mennonite Central Committee US Washington Office, National Council of Churches, Pax Christi USA, SOJOURNERS, Split This Rock, United Church of Christ, United Methodist General Board of Church and Society

More on Windows and Mirrors here.

Collateral Damage | WAM Review Bob Sommer

Mural art tends toward bluntness. Its images are large, its imagery thick with meaning. The nature of the medium—walls!—lends itself best to simplicity, directness. The audience for walls is, after all, everyone passing by. Walls with murals ask us to stop and look and think. They tell stories about people we know, about our communities. Mural art is surely the best medium for “Windows and Mirrors: Reflections on the War in Afghanistan,” an exhibit assembled by the American Friends Service Committee and now touring the country. The exhibit brings together more than forty-five mural paintings in what the AFSC catalogue describes as “a traveling memorial to Afghan civilians who have died in the war.”

Mural Image: Eternal Scream
Michael Schwartz, Tucson, AZ.

America’s longest war has also been its most invisible. After visiting the exhibit in Kansas City, my wife and I pondered a hypothetical question: What if the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq had only been covered by the news media with Vietnam-era communications technology? In other words, what if there were no social media now, no internet, no 24/7 cable, no embedded cheerleaders in Kevlar vests and oversized helmets clamoring like underage groupies on a rock tour and posing as journalists; what if we only had the evening news, the local paper, and maybe the New York Times or Wall Street Journal, to cover these wars—what would we know about them?

After Walter Cronkite took his glasses off on camera and gave the lie to the notion that America was “winning” in Vietnam, and after Life Magazine published a large black-and-white photo of a terrified naked child running from the nightmare of napalm, America began to get it. That war was no longer about whose military casualty count was worse, but about the millions of innocent civilians suffering and dying as bombs fell and war crashed into their lives. And it was also about the tragic waste of sending young men to die for reasons that defied any moral explanation, and throwing billions of dollars at the effort.

Yet now, despite all the information we have at our fingertips and even in our pockets, a medium that traces its beginnings to some ancient and remote caves in France may offer the best way for those of us who will never visit Afghanistan to understand these wars and their consequences.

“Windows and Mirrors” is a tour through the civilian cost of the war in Afghanistan. It is a gallery of windows into an Afghanistan we rarely see, a place whose people we don’t tend to think of with empathy. In turn the exhibit becomes a gallery mirrors reflecting who we Americans are in the bitter reality of what we are doing there. An untitled panel by Jessica Munguia illustrates the evolution of ever-changing rationales for waging this war in a collage of texts in military-speak, images of weaponry and flowers, and the faces of a woman and child weeping in despair and grief.

The question of our purpose in Afghanistan pervades the exhibit, as does the issue of complicity. The invisibility of this war is the result of a willingness, even an eagerness, on the part of Americans to choose shopping as the prime strategy for fighting the so-called “war on terror”—the bizarre and weirdly ironic notion (brilliantly marketed by the Bush administration) that pretending there were no wars was how we’d win them: Rationing and Victory Gardens turned inside out. And it worked! Such patriotism was easily sold to a nationalistic public that confused the reality of war with video games like “Call of Duty” and patriotism with shedding tears as “God Bless America” rang out in every sports stadium in the country and bone-rattling flyovers filled us with wonder and awe. Meanwhile, actual war continues even now in places we choose not to see, or are prevented from seeing by a corporate media complex that fills the airwaves with pablum.

Michael Schwartz’s painting, “Eternal Scream,” goes straight to the theme of complicity. It depicts a grief-stricken man crying out as he clutches the body of his dead child. The unusual descriptive text that accompanies the painting takes the form of a letter from the artist to the anonymous taxi driver who inspired the work: “Dear Taxi Driver: Thank you for sharing your story. I asked. Nothing I can say to you will bring back your brother’s children, your cousins’ store, your sister. I can weep with you, get angry, try to organize, but nothing will bring back the people who you loved, killed by bombs, made with dollars that should have gone to teach kids about empathy, compassion, science, history, art, math, and yes, poetry….”

Children are the most vulnerable victims of this war and figure in many of the paintings. “Learning to Walk Again,” by John Pitman Weber, depicts the disturbing image of a child wearing a prosthetic leg and pushing a walker past a rack of prosthetic limbs. “Unknown Loss” by Christine Moss positions a madonna and child against the black-and-white backdrop of a refugee camp. Ann Northrup’s “Mountain Kites” portrays children flying kites in an open field. Her accompanying text describes the painting best: “I wanted to show the beautiful Afghanistan that still survives the violent incursions of war, and show ordinary Americans that here is life and value that must be respected and loved. I wanted an image that people could identify with, a child that they could fall in love with and that they would want to cherish and protect.”

Ashley Scribner’s untitled work points out that three children died every day in Afghanistan in 2009 as a result of war-related incidents. A set of textual panels catalogues the weddings bombed during the course of the war and cites reports from international press coverage of innocents killed: In one incident, five women, three children, and an elderly man were killed in their mud hut when a 2,000 pound bomb was dropped on their village. In another, a man who could neither hear nor speak did not know CIA paramilitaries were shouting at him to stop running, so they shot him. In yet another, a man was shot dead by occupation forces as he drove to the hospital to inquire about his ailing sister.

The texts give substance to the paintings. They remove the temptation to find subjectivity in the stark imagery and unsettling themes that surround viewers. They reinforce the vastness of these tragedies across time—this is our longest war—and place. This exhibit is both visceral and evocative, a submersion in human tragedy and the responsibility Americans share for creating it.

“Windows and Mirrors” closes this week in Kansas City and moves on to Pittsburgh. The full schedule and more information is available here.

This article appeared in the weekend edition of counterpunch.

BOB SOMMER’s novel, Where the Wind Blew, which tells the story how the past eventually caught up with one former member of a 60s radical group, was released in June 2008 by The Wessex Collective. He blogs at Uncommon Hours.

Windows and Mirrors | Next Week | KS and MO

After three action-packed weeks in San Francisco, the traveling murals are now being set up in Kansas and Missouri.

12 November - 30 December
KCMO Central Library, Kansas
Johnson County Library, MO

In San Francisco the murals were divided between the University of San Francisco and the Islamic Cultural Center of Northern California. For the next exhibit, they will again be divided between public libraries.

Check out the exciting events that are planned. They include a forum for youth voices, AFSC staff, Afghan activists, veteran peacemakers and an evening with Kathy Kelly.



Mural Image: What's Left of Kabul

Created by Guilford College Community and Hanna Swenson, Courtney Mandeville and Layth Awartani


If you have any friends or family in the area, please share this link.


KCMO Central Library
(Exhibit Opens November 12)
14 West 10th St.
Kansas City, MO

KCMO Central Library Hours:
Monday-Wednesday: 9am-9pm
Thursday: 9am-6pm
Friday: 9am-5pm
Saturday: 10am-5pm
Sunday: 1pm-5pm


Johnson County Central Resource Library
(Exhibit Opens November 19)
9875 W. 87th St.
Overland Park, KS

Johnson County Central Resource Library Hours:
Monday-Thursday: 9am-9pm
Friday: 9am-6pm
Saturday: 9am-5pm
Sunday: 1pm-5pm

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KCMO Central Library
*******************

Sunday 13 November

Reception | 1 PM
Mike Ferner | 2-3 PM
A Veteran Reflects on the Afghan Windows and Mirrors Exhibit

Sunday 11 December 2 PM:

Kathy Kelly
Courage for Peace: Perspectives from Afghanistan
Kathy is the co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence

*************************************
Johnson County Central Resource Library
************************************

Saturday 19 November

Reception | 1:30 PM
KC Area Youth Reflections on Afghan War | 2:00 PM
Peter Lems | Afghanistan: What's Next?

Sunday 4 December 2 PM

Suraya Sadeed
Director, Help the Afghan Children
Forbidden Lesson in a Kabul Guesthouse (book)


*****************
Speaker Background
*****************


Mike Ferner

Mike served two terms on Toledo City Council, organized for the public employees’ union, AFSCME, and worked as Communications Director for the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC), and for the Program on Corporations, Law & Democracy. He traveled to Iraq twice, with a Voices in the Wilderness delegation just prior to the U.S. invasion in 2003, and in 2004 for two months as a freelance writer. His book about those trips, Inside the Red Zone: A Veteran For Peace Reports from Iraq, (Praeger) was released in September, 2006, days before Mike was released from two months house arrest for painting “Troops Out Now!” on a highway overpass. He has been arrested several times for protesting the war in Iraq, including disrupting a Congressional hearing. He served as a Navy Hospital Corpsman during Vietnam, taking care of hundreds of wounded soldiers, was discharged as a conscientious objector and is on the national board of Veterans For Peace. Mike participated in a December 2010 delegation to Afghanistan.


Suraya Sadeed

Suraya was born and raised in Kabul, Afghanistan and immigrated to the United States after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. In the US she became a successful business woman. During the height of the Afghan Civil War (1993), Suraya returned to Afghanistan and was shocked by the horrific conditions of children and the destruction of her homeland. That same year, she established a non-profit organization; Help the Afghan Children, Inc. Since then, Suraya's courageous efforts in providing humanitarian aid, medical care, education, and hope against seemingly insurmountable odds in some of the most inhospitable conditions imaginable, have directly benefited an estimated 1.7 million Afghan children and their families.

Help the Afghan Children was AFSC’s partner for our first delivery of funds to Afghanistan in 2001 to mitigate the suffering.

Kathleen Kelly

Kathy Kelly co-coordinates Voices for Creative Nonviolence, (www.vcnv.org) a campaign to end U.S. military and economic warfare. During late June and early July of 2011, Kelly, 58, was a passenger on the “Audacity to Hope” as part of the US Boat to Gaza project. She also attempted to reach Gaza by flying from Athens to Tel Aviv, as part of the Welcome to Palestine effort, but the Israeli government deported her back to Greece.

Since May 2010, she has visited Afghanistan four times with small delegations intent on learning more about conditions faced by ordinary people in Afghanistan, a country afflicted by three decades of warfare. Voices for Creative Nonviolence has been working closely with the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers in search of non-military solutions to end the war.

In 2009, she lived in Gaza during the final days of the Operation Cast Lead bombing; later that year, Voices formed another small delegation to visit Pakistan, aiming to learn more about the effects of U.S. drone warfare on the civilian population and to better understand consequences of U.S. foreign policy in Pakistan. From 1996 – 2003, Voices activists formed 70 delegations that openly defied economic sanctions by bringing medicines to children and families in Iraq. Kathy and her companions lived in Baghdad throughout the 2003 “Shock and Awe” bombing.

She was sentenced to one year in federal prison for planting corn on nuclear missile silo sites (1988-89) and spent three months in prison, in 2004, for crossing the line at Fort Benning’s military training school. As a war tax refuser, she has refused payment of all forms of federal income tax since 1980.
She and her companions at the Voices home/office in Chicago believe that non-violence necessarily involves simplicity; service, sharing of resources and non-violent direct action in resistance to war and oppression.

Kathy organized and participated in the Spring 2011 delegation to Afghanistan to join the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers in their campaign Live Without Wars.

Windows and Mirrors | Albany NY Area | October 13 – November 13

One of the two Windows and Mirrors community exhibits will begin a month-long schedule of activities in Albany starting tomorrow.

The Capital District Chapter of Women Against War will co-sponsor the exhibitions.

Skidmore, Union, Russell Sage College, and the College of St. Rose are among the region's colleges and universities that will be involved.

The costs of the Afghanistan war – on a personal and global scale – will be the subject of three upcoming events sponsored by Skidmore's Office of Religious and Spiritual Life.

Skidmore Events

On Thursday, October 13, guest speaker Donna Marsh O'Connor will lead a discussion titled "No End in Sight," about the U.S. being a nation at war. Her talk, free and open to the public, begins at 5 p.m. in Gannett Auditorium, Palamountain Hall.

On Friday, October 14, a new exhibition titled "Windows and Mirrors on Afghanistan" opens at Wilson Chapel. Skidmore is one stop on a national tour of this exhibition, which is sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee.

A reception in conjunction with the exhibition is planned at 5:30 p.m. Monday, Oct. 17, at the chapel. Hours of the exhibit are 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily through Friday, Oct. 21.

On Wednesday, October. 19, Ed Kinane will present "Eyewitness in Kabul: One month on war-torn Afghanistan." His talk begins at 5 p.m. in Davis Auditorium, Palamountain Hall.

Admission to all events is free and open to the public.

Donna Marsh O'Connor is the mother of three children. Her daughter Vanessa was murdered on 9/11. Vanessa worked in the South Tower of the World Trade Center and at the time of her death, was five months pregnant.

Since 9/11, Donna has worked to counter the discourse of hate and fear that has been the primary mechanism of America's violent responses to the tragedy of that day. Donna Marsh O'Connor is an adjunct faculty member in the Writing Program at Syracuse University and has taught writing and rhetoric for over 25 years.

This community exhibit is a selection of 25 installations from the originals. The war in Afghanistan is now the longest in U.S. history, yet for many of us it has been rendered largely invisible. This exhibit is an opening and an invitation to reflect upon the impact of this war on a civilian population caught in the crossfire.

Ed Kinane will talk about the effects on the people of Afghanistan of our 10-year war in their country. He had just returned from a month in Kabul and was in Iraq with "Voices in the Wilderness" for five months when the "Shock and Awe" campaign there began in 2003. He has been a lifelong activist for social causes, having traveled in Africa for three years and joining the anti-apartheid movement there and in the U.S. he has twice been jailed for participating in protests against the School for the Americas.

Mural Art and Activism to End the War

We invited muralists from around the world and school children in Kabul to create art illustrating the human cost of war in Afghanistan.

The video animation - with selections from the Afghan music project - highlight work from the traveling exhibit Windows and Mirrors.

The exhibit and online experience shows the devastating impact of the war. The wage peace campaign works to end it.

The tour is in San Francisco through October.

Letter From Kabul | Witness to a ten-year war

I arrived in Kabul early in the morning on Saturday August 20 for my fourteenth annual visit since 2002. One is immediately struck by the militarization of the entire city, from the man who stamped my passport, to the heavily armed police presence at every street intersection. Check points, huge concrete blast walls, barbed wire on every official and foreign establishment, armed guards, soldiers and police are ever present.

We drove by the British Council, scene of a ten-hour battle between six suicide insurgents and the Afghan police assisted by the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) the day before. The large building was completely flattened, with all the nearby windows shattered and debris all over. The Toyota van the insurgents had used to smash the metal gate by explosion was reduced to mangled pieces of metal and not recognizable as a car. This was one of a series of spectacular attacks and assassinations by the insurgents this year. It seems that they can attack anyone, any time, any place.

Zaher Wahab | 1 September 2011

Mural image from Windows and Mirrors: The Children of Afghanistan, by Camille Perrottet, New York, NY.


*****

Last night he sent me these thoughts on what life is like in Kabul today. It is an unvarnished account of the dangers an Afghan peacemaker sees emerging in the country. In June he sent a dispatch that looked at the rays of hope.


*****


Letter From Kabul | Witness to a ten-year war and occupation

Since early 2002, I have been spending at least a semester annually here in Afghanistan, attempting to (re)build the higher education system in the ravaged country. My adopted country - the US, launched operation Enduring Freedom on October 7/2001 claiming to bring freedom, peace, prosperity, democracy, security, women’s liberation, eradication of drugs, and stability to the war-torn country. There are now some 150/000 troops from 45 countries, that many civilian contractors from around the world, and 340,000 U.S. trained sectarian Afghan security forces all ostensibly fighting “terrorism”.

The US alone spends ten billion dollars per/ month on the war, a total of about half – a- trillion dollars in the last ten years. 1600 Americans (70 of them last August) have been killed and thousands wounded. An estimated 40,000 Afghans have been killed, 971 civilians from June to August this year alone, untold numbers wounded, and half–a-million displaced. According to a recent UN report, 2011 has been the most unstable, deadliest and most violent year for all sides, since the war started in 2001. All of the country’s neighbors also meddle in Afghan affairs and are waging proxy struggles in the Afghan theater.

After ten years of occupation (and “development”), costing the US $500 billion, Afghanistan still ranks at the bottom of the Human Development Index. Half of the population is hungry and/or food insecure. Per capita income is about $350. The average life span is 45 years. 90% of the women and 70% of the men are illiterate. Only half of the school age children attend school. More than half the schools have no building. Only 20% of the teachers are considered qualified. The Afghan government spends just $70 per year per student.

Americans spend one million dollars per year per soldier in Afghanistan. Just 1% of the age group is enrolled in college. UNICEF labeled the country as the worst place for children and women. A woman dies in child birth every hour. Half of the children die before age five. All marriages are arranged, and the majority of the girls are married (sold) off before age 16.

Ninety seven percent of the country’s $15 billion GDP and 97% of the government’s $4 billion budget are based on the presence of foreigners (armies, aid, NGOs, etc). There is little organized licit formal productive economy. Drugs constitute about a third of the economy and there are close to 2 million addicts. Half the people are (un)underemployed. Anyone who can is leavening the country. People have been divided, demoralized, and exhausted.

But since this is mostly a young nation so the prospects for an “Afghan Spring” are a real possibility.

The American installed and protected government has no legitimacy, credibility, authority, ability, will, or efficacy. It is essentially a dysfunctional plutocracy- mafiocracy with various crime syndicates and criminal gangs milking the foreigners and preying on the disempowered, divided and enraged public. The government cannot and will not provide the basic services like education, healthcare, work, security, justice, law and order, water, electricity, sewerage systems, garbage collection, clean air, roads or even traffic lights in the capital Kabul. The old and new criminal, treacherous, treasonous and sectarian warlords are empowered, paid, armed, legitimated, used and protected by the occupation forces at the expense of the wretched population. And the country’s very future is in question. Many express nostalgia about the monarchy, the communists, even the Taliban eras.

There has been no serious attempt either by the occupiers or their self-spring and corrupt client regime to build a functioning government, democracy, institutions, civil society, freedom, justice, national unity, long- term peace, real security, or stability.

The insurgents control about 70% of the country, including the outskirts of Kabul. They can hit anyone, any time, any place as demonstrated by the recent assassinations of A.W. Karzai, Daoud Dauod, Jan Mohammad a close adviser to president Karzai, the Kandahar mayor, the Kundoz governor, former warlord, former president and president of the so- called High Peace Council, B. Rabbani, the CIA employee, etc. The insurgent attacked the Intercontinental Hotel, the British Council, The US Embassy and the ISAF headquarters, and petrified and paralyzed Kabul for days. I have experienced four lockdowns, one lasting three days in the last six weeks. Kabul looks and feels like a garrison city under siege, but with no sense of security, legality, justice or normalcy.

The people despise, distrust and disdain the government, and the government has little to no concern, responsibility or respect for the people. Most Afghans hate, despise, and distrust all the foreigners and blame them for all the calamities visited upon the country. And the non Pashtoons fear and dislike the Taliban insurgents. The country is on the brink of a bloody civil war. But the one percent predatory warlords, criminals, and war profiteers love the foreigners, the war, and the “new freedom”. Anything goes, everything is negotiable, nothing matters, and people are disposable. There are governments within the government, cities within cities, and countries within the country. There is the war related contracting mafia, the land mafia, the timber mafia, the development mafia and the drug mafia, weapons smugglers, and human traffickers.

The occupiers work hand – in- gloves with the older and new known war criminals, human rights abusers, thieves and gangsters. This has widened the distance between the people and the colonial settler power and its local intermediaries. There is no clear boundary between the government the warlords and various crime syndicates, they are closely intertwined. All this explains the success of the insurgency, the moral-political-military disarray of the US/NATO invaders in the country, and the stalemate if not success of the insurgents in the war. In short, life has become much harder for the vast majority of Afghans. Who still lead primitive lives.

Additionally, they endure a brutal occupation with heavy use of storm troops, air power, drones, night raids, and the mercenary Afghan regular and irregular armies. And now there is open talk of resurgent civil war. Mr. Rabbani’s assassination has ruptured the so-called “peace talks.” The US/NATO, while talking about withdrawal is also pressing for a permanent “strategic agreement” with Kabul. There is great confusion, fear, anxiety, and uncertainty in the country. No wonder then, those who can, are leaving, with the rest preparing for the worst.

Only a miracle can save the people and the country.

Zaher Wahab | 2 October 2011

Graffiti Artists of Kabul | Shamsia Hassani

A huge mural showing a group of women wearing blue burkas emerging from water by Shamsia Hassani.

“You can see the water and woman coming from the water,” she says. “Blue is a freedom color is a clean color and I shows that all Afghan women are like water clean and blue.”

Laura Lynch is reporting from Kabul for PRI. She has provided a evocative slideshow of public art seen on the walls of Kabul.

Also see:

The writing on Kabul’s Walls

Windows and Mirrors: Reflections on the War in Afghanistan

Windows and Mirrors | Bay Area | 6 – 30 October

Last week Windows and Mirrors finished an amazing run in Atlanta. Here is a slideshow with highlights.

Next stop will be the Bay area with events and activities taking us through the 10 year milestone of the US invasion of Afghanistan.

In Oakland | Islamic Cultural Center of Northern California (1433 Madison Street) | October 6 - 30

In San Francisco | University of San Francisco (K-Hall) | October 6 - 30

To see the schedule of events. Click here and here

Mural Image: The ‘Peace’ Operations of the US Airstrikes on Weddings
Artists: Art Hazelwood and Juan Fuentes, San Francisco.

Juan Fuentes has been an artist, activist and teacher for over thirty years. His early poster art is part of the history of the Chicano Poster Movement. In 2009 he received the Art is a Hammer award from the Center for the Study of Political Graphics.

Art Hazelwood has long worked with homeless rights groups creating artwork on economic justice. He has organized and curated many exhibitions including retrospectives and touring group shows. His poster calling for the impeachment of George Bush is in the Whitney Museum of American Art.

"This mural is based on a poster created during the Spanish Civil War (1936 – 1939) to protest the aerial bombardment by the Fascists of civilian populations. The original poster showed a dead child and said, “MADRID The ‘Military’ Practice of the Rebels.” The sky in the poster was similarly filled with a web of bombers. In our mural we contrasted the bombers (in this case drones) with a traditional Afghan wedding celebration. The text at the bottom details six documented airstrikes on wedding parties in the course of the war, total civilian deaths are at least 367 at wedding parties alone. It goes without saying that an aerial attack on wedding parties represents only a tiny fraction of all civilian deaths in Afghanistan. Hazelwood and Fuentes collaborated on this mural."

Windows and Mirrors | Atlanta Opening

Check out the amazing events being organized in Atlanta.

American Friends Service Committee
Georgia Peace Center/60 Walton Street, NW
Atlanta, Georgia

August 25-September 21, 2011
Monday – Friday Noon until 5PM

American Friends Service Committee’s Atlanta Windows and Mirrors partners include Alternate ROOTS, American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia, Arab Spring Committee, Atlanta Friends Meeting, Atlanta Grandmothers for Peace, Clarkston Community Center, Emory Muslim Students Association (MSA), Emory University Center for Ethics, Friends School of Atlanta, Georgia Peace and Justice Coalition/Atlanta, Georgia WAND, The King Center, Metro Atlanta Democratic Socialist of America, Performing Artists for Nuclear Disarmament, UUCA Peace Network, WonderRoot, and Women Watch Afrika.

Parts of the exhibit can be viewed at Satellite Sites:

• August 25-September 21: The Friends School of Atlanta
• August 25-September 21: Emory University Center for Ethics @ 1531 Dickey Drive
• September 1-24: WonderRoot @ 982 Memorial Dr.
• September 12-21: The King Center’s Freedom Hall @ 449 Auburn Ave NE •
• September 14: Clarkston Community Center @ 3701 College Ave E

EVENTS:

• Friday 8/26, Noon, 9th Anniversary STAND FOR PEACE at Colony Square on the sidewalk at 14th Street and Peachtree, everyone is welcome! Song, poetry & dance. This event repeats on September 2, 9 and 16.

• Saturday 8/27, 7pm-9pm Opening Reception at AFSC’s Georgia Peace Center

• Saturday 8/27, 9pm until Midnight, Reflections on War and Peace: A Performance Museum. The performance evening will feature artists from multiple disciplines and connects to themes in the Windows and Mirrors exhibit. We challenge artists to consider and construct work around the social and cultural ways we conceive of war and peace. Our nation has so many conflicting sayings and ideas around war and peace, such as “prepare for peace, but arm for war” this is an evening that will unpack these idioms. To be held at AFSC Georgia Peace Center

Featured Performers Include:
Gateway Performance Productions—The MASK Center-- Paula Larke and Kim Nimoy and the Ex-PAND Band -- Artists as Agents for Change --Tom Ferguson w/ drummers -- Phyllis Free Association Choir (Elise Witt, Joyce and Jacque, Phyllis Free) -- Neil Fried, Priscilla Smith and Guest -- Karen Garrabrant -- Theresa Davis --Louis Runyon -- Daryl Funn -- Dancing Flowers for Peace -- Ursula Kendall -- Darnell Fine -- Alice Lovelace

• Thursday 9/1, 7pm, Tapestry of Faith: How Diverse Faith Traditions Inform Nonviolence. An interfaith panel of religious leaders will address the topic of peace and nonviolence from their faith tradition. How does faith inform our perspectives on war and violence? What does faith have to say about peace and peacemakers? Do all faith traditions teach a similar message? What are the differences? How can we be authentically grounded in particular faith identities without turning towards dangerous and exclusive ways of relating? How can faith communities encourage engagements with the world and its institutions in order to achieve a more just, peaceful and sustainable world? To be held at AFSC Georgia Peace Center.

Panelists Include:
o Rev. Timothy McDonald, Senior Pastor of First Iconium Baptist Church
o Rev. Michael Ellison, Abbot of the Atlanta Soto Zen Center
o Rev. Marti Keller, minister, Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta
o Dr. Rashid Naim, of the Islamic Speakers Bureau and professor at Georgia State University
o Moderated by Christina Repoley, Atlanta Friends Meeting

• Thursday 9/1, 7‐10pm, opening reception at WonderRoot featuring a panel discussion of the work with youth artists and social activists.

• Wednesday 9/7, 7-9pm, Islamophobia: Voices from the Front Line moderated by the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia at AFSC Georgia Peace Center

• Sunday 9/11, 6pm-9pm, Screening of the film Concrete, Steel & Paint at Clarkston Community Center. Mural Art as a Catalyst for Social Change Tony Heriza (AFSC director Educational Outreach) will show his documentary Concrete, Steel and Paint, which explores the way that mural painting provided a space for prisoners and victims of violence to come together for healing in a Philadelphia prison. Says a participant in the process, "There's something about creating beauty that reaches people and that in the end gives us hope that things can change..." Winner of the Best Short Documentary award at the Peace on Earth Film Festival. Conversation will focus on “restorative justice vs. retributive justice" and "forgiveness and healing vs. vengeance."

• Monday 9/12, 7pm-9pm, GA Peace and Justice Coalition/Atlanta: The Costs of Wars & Afghanistan Anniversary Action Plan at AFSC’s Georgia Peace Center

• Tuesday 9/13, 6‐8pm, Islamophobia: The Impact on American Life at Emory University Center for Ethics. A Panel of scholars and activists will explore the connections between the political demonization of Islam as a religion and media promoted fear of Arabs Muslims and ways both distort how the United States’ pursues its foreign policy.

• Wednesday 9/14, 5:30 – 8:30, Viewing of Replica Exhibit and Reception at Clarkston Community Center

• Saturday 9/17, 2pm-5pm, Arab Spring from Atlanta to the Middle East. A three hour gathering with an introduction by a moderator then 2 or three experts will share analysis and do a Q&A on the local and global implications of Arab Spring. We will Skype in several folks who have witnessed and participated in non-violent revolutionary actions in the Middle East. We will have a panel of local folks from different Arab American Communities in Atlanta speak. There will delicious food, and more. To be held at AFSC Georgia Peace Center

• Wednesday 9/21, 6pm, Closing Reception at The King Center

• Wednesday 9/21, 7PM, War and the Rise of Violence among Youth. A panel and community discussion meant to emphasize the rise of violence among youth in countries where war is prevalent---those who wage war, and those whose environments suffer from war—and draw attention to global and domestic forms of youth violence (i.e. child soldiers, local gang violence). The moderated panel discuss will be among participating groups and individuals who have witnessed, suffered at the hands of, or are/were affected by violence, especially war. To be held at the King Center.

For more information:
Windows and Mirrors
alovelace@afsc.org or 404.586.0460 ext.17

Windows and Mirrors | Chicago Artists

AFSC interns Sadaf Ferdowski and Aleia Malculum interviewed artists Andrea Gallagher, John Pitman Weber, Granit Amit, Jessica Munguia, and Lillian Moats at the closing event for Windows and Mirrors in Chicago. Editing help from Aidan Tharp.

The exhibit is now on its way to Atlanta.

It opens Thursday 25 August at the AFSC Georgia Peace Center, 60 Walton Street, NW.

A full list of supporting programming can be found on the calendar and includes an opening reception Saturday, August 27 at AFSC followed by Reflections on War and Peace: a performance museum; and a closing reception at The King Center on Wednesday, September 21 followed by War and the Rise in Violence among Youth, a panel discussion lead by youth.

The primary exhibit featuring twenty-five of the mural like panels will run August 25-September 21 at AFSC's GA Peace Center, Monday - Friday from 12Noon until 5PM and weekends/evenings by appointment. In order to provide access to the exhibit for diverse communities in the metropolitan Atlanta area, AFSC's GA Peace Center exhibit will be supported with smaller exhibits at five community locations listed below.

• August 25-September 21, ten panels will be on exhibit at Emory University Center for Ethics.

• August 25 through September 21, the twenty-five piece replica exhibit will show at the Clarkston Community Center.

• August 25-September 21, three panels will be on display at The Friends School of Atlanta in the anteroom to the gym and in the main building.

• September 1-24, the 15 drawings by Afghan youth images about living with war collected from Afghan schoolchildren will show at WonderRoot alongside art works in multiple mediums created by refugee children living in the metropolitan Atlanta area.

• September 12-21, seven of the panels will be on exhibit in the atrium at The King Center in Freedom Hall.

AFSC’s Atlanta partners include Alternate ROOTS, Arab Spring Committee, Atlanta Friends Meeting, Atlanta Grandmothers for Peace, Clarkston Community Center, Emory University Center for Ethics, Friends School of Atlanta, Georgia Peace and Justice Coalition/Atlanta, Georgia WAND, The King Center, Metro Atlanta Democratic Socialist of America, Performing Artists for Nuclear Disarmament, WonderRoot, and Women Watch Afrika.

Windows and Mirrors | Video Animation

Art reveals hidden truths.

We invited muralists from around the world and school children in Kabul to create art illustrating the human cost of war in Afghanistan. This is their work.

Check out our new video animation with images taken from Windows and Mirrors: Reflections on the War in Afghanistan. The art exhibit is a touring show and an online experience that shows the devastating impact of the war in Afghanistan.

To see the new webpage click here.
To post a link to the video on Facebook and Twitter click here.

Windows and Mirrors Profile | NYT

The Windows and Mirrors exhibit opens this evening in Chicago. There are three weeks of activities planned with next stops in Atlanta and San Francisco.

Mural Exhibit Depicts Costs to Civilians in Afghanistan
By Kari Lydersen | New York Times | 1 July 2011

John Pitman Weber remembers the 1960s and ’70s in Chicago, when scores of artists would join mammoth marches protesting the Vietnam War and antiwar murals were a common sight on city streets.

Today, public art is much more “domesticated and institutionalized,” said Mr. Weber, the co-founder of the Chicago Public Art Group and one of the city’s best-known muralists. But Mr. Weber hopes a traveling exhibit of murals about civilian casualties in Afghanistan will evoke a past era when murals made bold political statements and spurred frank discussion about foreign policy.

The exhibit, “Windows and Mirrors,” runs through July 23 at the ARC Gallery, 832 West Superior Street.

Mr. Weber helped the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker peace group, get the project going last summer, signing up noted muralists from around the country, including himself and seven other Chicagoans.

The 32 murals on exhibit here, which are painted on large panels of parachute fabric rather than walls, are graphic and disturbing: images of women wailing in despair; children playing amid explosions; corpses in an abstract, colorful array that Mr. Weber likens to “a cave painting.”

According to the United Nations, May was the deadliest month for Afghan civilians since it began keeping track in 2007, with at least 368 killed. Human rights groups say the true civilian toll may be significantly higher because many people die of disease, cold or hunger after being displaced from their homes by fighting.

The two murals by Lillian Moats, a Chicagoan, explore the impact of unmanned drones on civilians. One shows people fleeing a drone that casts a blood-red shadow. Another features a woman at a window, unaware that she is framed in digital cross hairs on the computer screen of a remote operator.

Mr. Weber’s piece, based on a news photograph, depicts a young boy learning to walk with a prosthetic leg, below a hodgepodge of low-tech artificial arms and legs jumbled on a shelf.

“The tens of thousands who must learn to live with their mutilations seem to me more dramatic than the mourning of the tens of thousands dead,” Mr. Weber said in his artist’s statement.

The prevalence of amputees is also depicted in drawings by Afghan children displayed alongside the murals. Zaher Wahab, an artist who splits his time between the United States and Kabul, Afghanistan, asked the children to draw situations representative of their daily lives. They drew pictures of children with amputations, a bleeding pigeon and a frowning sun.

The exhibit made its debut in Philadelphia in October and is touring cities across the country. At each stop, artists are working with local schools to create pieces. In Chicago, they have been at Josephine Locke Elementary School and Sullivan, Thomas Kelly and Orr Academy high schools.

Mary Zerkel, the American Friends Service Committee’s national coordinator of “Windows and Mirrors” and a Chicagoan, said she hoped the exhibit would remind people to contemplate the effects of a war that seems endless, even as President Obama last week announced a troop withdrawal in coming months.

“It’s been almost 10 years — my daughter’s entire life — this war has been going on,” Ms. Zerkel said. “People talk about ‘Afghanistan fatigue.’ They’re tired of thinking about it. We hope this makes people talk and remember.”

Here is a link to the article.

Organizing 101 | Windows and Mirrors

Next Friday the Windows and Mirrors exhibit will open in Chicago.

This clip is from the March and April venues in Greensboro NC. It is all about organizing and action. I think you will enjoy it.

Here is the schedule for the rest of this year.

Windows and Mirrors | Indy Opening

On June 3rd the Windows and Mirrors exhibit opened with a first Friday event at Earth House in Indianapolis.

Talking to the Taliban | Thomas Ruttig

Always the Unintended Suffer War, Abby Karish, Sarasota, FL.

From the travelling mural exhibit Windows and Mirrors: Reflections on the War in Afghanistan.

Thomas Ruttig looks at Saturday’s speech by Hamid Karzai on talking to the Taliban (T2T).

On Sunday defense secretary Robert Gates for the first time confirmed that the US and other foreign powers were involved with ‘outreach’ talks with the Taliban.

Andrew Lebovich has a summary.

The postscript deals with demands the government of Afghanistan has before they would agree to any Afghan-US agreement for a long-term presence of US troops and bases.

“It is even not clear whether every actor involved in the T2T drama really wants peace: The US military continues to try crushing the Taleban militarily and possibly to avoid substantial talks. The Taleban have started their own kill campaign of key Afghan security forces leaders, particularly of Northern provenience. (Not much ‘capture‘ here, except for non-famous people, in order to intimidate.) Taking yesterday’s attack in the centre of Kabul into consideration, it also does not speak of any will for peace – or of an inability to control some hawkish ‘faction‘, or of the famous ‘hidden hand’ that doesn’t want to have talks outside its control. In that case, someone should have another word with Islamabad.

And whether the President himself wants to share power and access to the Western resources as long as they are flowing (and some will continue to flow also after 2014) one can only doubt. The business networks around his brothers make profit most when the status quo is kept: a not-too-intensive war without complete state breakdown. Talks (about talks) as delaying tactics? That wouldn’t be new in world history.”

Regarding a long-term US-Afghan Agreement

“… [H]e also spelled out his conditions for signing the Afghan-US strategic agreement. He said he has stopped thanking the foreign troops for what they were doing for his country (and that it was only Spanta who always forced him to do so), that the foreign troops used weapons that threaten Afghans’ health and Afghanistan’s environment, criticised NATO's campaign in Libya, warned that he would boycott the Bonn 2 conference in December if the Taleban were not there and reproved the listening youth against 'Westernisation'. He did not elaborate: Was he against the use of mobile phones, watching Indian ‘un-Islamic’ soap operas or other bad influences of Western democracy? In any case, this part not only caused the ulema sitting in the first row to applaud but also the otherwise indifferently listening young people.”