March 20, 2011
It’s springtime in Natchez, Mississippi and Kabul, Afghanistan. As I watched the moon crawl out of bed last night, preparations were made for the questions I’d be asking the youth of Afghanistan at 1:00 am.
Yesterday, the
Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers along with
Afghans For Peace and Iraqi & American Reconciliation Project hosted a
global conference call to facilitate dialogue between Afghan youth and the rest of the world. A friend of mine let me know they're seeking U.S. Afghan war vets for the call and said to contact them if interested, so I did.
The coordinator set up a time slot for sharing information about
A Ride Till The End (ARTTE) and to ask questions about peace work on the ground in Afghanistan.
Due to the call time, I stepped out on the front porch to keep from disturbing our host. It was a beautiful night, fit for this conversation.
A few minutes into the call it became obvious I was going to be the one answering questions and it was my honor and pleasure to do so. They kept me talkin about ARTTE and my personal observations and opinions on U.S. war culture, which are questions I’ve grown accustomed to answering.
The call had a very talented translator named Hakim; I’m still in awe at how much he remembered and spoke back in a different language. The conversation started with questions about the ride and after we worked through the usual, it got a little hard.
I’m used to giving Americans the blunt truth about the general ignorance we share as a nation, but there was something deeply troubling and painful about telling a group of peace-seeking Afghan youth the average American knows very little about the war - a war destroying everything they know. Although it pained me to say it, no one deserves the truth more than them, especially from an Afghan vet.
After I shared with them the average U.S. citizen simple doesn't understand the war, they quickly responded with, “Are you finding much support for the bike ride and ending the war?” This turned out to be equally hard to answer. How do I tell’em almost every U.S. citizen we interact with doesn't support the war? How do I tell’em the U.S. government is waging a war against the will of its own people? There is no southernly hospitable way to say such a thing, so I just said it.
Then came the clincher. As I was gazing into the darkness across the street, stunned from the reality of what I just spoke, words poured into my ear that immediately sharpened my focus on the images in the darkness. “What can we do to help?”, rang in my head as I stared at a couple, drunk and stumbling around four columns supporting the front of a plantation style multimillion dollar home.
Shouldn't I be asking them that question, I thought to myself. My mind was blank, as I sat face to face with the privilege induced ambivalence that caused the war. I eventually shared with them that what they're doing is helping and we need to continue listening to each other and building relationships, it’s our creative capacity that holds the answers.
The call ended shortly after that and they gifted me a unified, “Thank you, Jacob!”. It was a touching exchange I’ll remember for the rest of my life. It was also a haunting reminder of the truth we face in this country.
Even a homeless veteran such as myself enjoys a life of privilege worthy of shame in a world where our government creates hell for the youth of Afghanistan. Our privilege has blinded us from good sense. The obvious has been hidden across the street, under flappin American flags in the Mississippi moonlight. If the rich wanted freedom for the poor, than the rich would be fighting the wars.
