Has it ever known peace, this sad and beautiful land.
Taliban, you say and the world shudders.
Lapis lazuli though, and hand woven rugs. Pomegranates and saffron, the cool beauty of mountains and rocky passes, dun coloured villages and the snow leopard. These too are Afghanistan.
Not all is battle and violence in this ancient land. Leave all that behind. Start again and make your world, ours a better place.
Must we always speak of politics and brutality. Can we not remember this land as a cradle of civilisation, a romantic cross roads between nations, the half way house on the Silk Road.
Think good things then of this nation and its peoples. Is not Afghanistan the birthplace of Rumi. Is there poetry more profound than this Sufi’s search for his god.
“Make peace with the universe. Take joy in it. It will turn to gold. Resurrection will be now. Every moment, a new beauty.”
Arabesque arches and minarets, the geometry of sacred patterns, cool courtyards with a gently trickling fountain. Think this of Islam and its peoples. Not bloodshed and crusade.
What religion has not been corrupted but what sublime peace can be found there even for the infidel, the non believer. Liturgy, music, prayer. Art and sublime architecture. Mysticism so very similar whether expressed by Sufi or Christian, Buddhist or Zoroastrian. A meeting with the infinite, an experience of profound joy and understanding.
A plaything of empire for untold thousands of years, you have cast them off now, Pashtun and Tajik, Sunni and Shia. Show the Mongol horde and the Mauryas, the British and American invaders, the Russians and the Macedonians how well you can live and how you can reflect the glory of your god.
Not with arms and suppression, not with public executions and the extermination of your enemies. Not with a brutal criminal law, outdated and man made.
Grow in wisdom and kindness you men, masters once again of the land of your birth. And in dignity and decency. All men are equal, women too.
Put down your arms and follow in the footsteps of Rumi:
“As you start to walk on the way a way appears”
Walk a new road, make peace with the universe. Every moment a new beauty.
By Afghanistan Matters from Brunssum, Netherlands – ContrastsUploaded by GiW, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=29782737
Weltanschauung 
I was in Afghanistan in 1969 when Mohammed Zahir Shah was still King. He ruled for 39 years in peace before being deposed by the Army in a bloodless coup in 1993.
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I would love to visit that beautiful land. Kite Runner warned me that perhaps now is not the best time to go for an atheist Western European with no beard and a very white face. What a foolish species we are. What damage and misery we cause.
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A secular ruler
a spiritual guide
leans on
the documented writing
worldly power
the laws of the soul
are as old as life itself
on our planet
for the unimaginable
human consciousness
quote them mantras
for their subordinates
they sit down
thereby
on the indivisible human dignity away
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whoops: deposed in 1973.
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I fear that if we do not engage with the media we are not informed, and if we do, we are misinformed. I feel it is a time for encouragement to follow a better path. Pouring scorn for crimes not yet committed comes out of fear. As you know, Anthony, past performance is no guarantee of future performance. Better to encourage them to follow a better path, but it will take time, and they will surely need their nation builders, many of whom might be fleeing the country.
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I feel likewise. In any event, we had no business in that country in the first place. Nor Iraq. How many thousands of lives have been lost through the invasion of empires in these lands. Extraordinary rendition, missile strikes, drones. The invaders have behaved no better than the Taliban they criticize. And let in not be forgotten (let it never be forgotten) that the Western empires encouraged the rise of the Taliban in the first place, in a callous move to defeat the Russian occupation.
We in Britain and America should look to our own actions (crimes even) before berating these people.
Violence is never the answer. Nor is greed and self interest.
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Like that quote from Samuel Clemens. 😉
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My way
between
the evil one
and the good
in two worlds
the reality of the world
and those of the inner world
the gravity of the soul
do not forget my evil deeds
she reminds me of them every day
whether i want it or not
the exercise of violence
is the fear
the human
one’s own demise
overcome with it
the goal from birth
is death to us
mother Earth
is the best place
for all life
for all of us
the terror begins with it
the imperfection
from all of us
not wanting to endure
the gods
of people
that they convey to us
the spiritual
and worldly powerful
the oneself
as divine
their beliefs
as infallible
by force of arms
around the globe
defend
the universe
includes our planet
the soul embraces us
and all life on earth
the resurrection
starts in every germ
in humility on the way
shine a warming light
in every eye
that all things
everything possible
of the good arts exceeds
indivisible human dignity
applies to all of us
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Between the real one
and the subjective inner world
has been since then
the human being
capable of language
through the soul
in a dream
the past
this here and now
the insight
to something new
in every human being
in all of its activities
the insight
worked out to something new
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What a lovely piece, an important reminder that Islam is so much more than current events and a cadre of greedy bullies. I always appreciate new Rumi: “as you start to walk, on the way the way appears.” What a beautifully simple truth.
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My friends in Kabul, Bamyan and Mazir-e-sharif would dispute that we did nothing good there. For 20 years, they had women being educated and putting moderation on a society that exalted male dominance and power. They had relative religious freedom (except for one friend who could not tell his brother he had become a Christ-follower; he would have killed him. They had security in that crime was in decline and this generation grew up expecting to change their world for the better.
Now a friend’s family is trying to “escape to Iran” where they hope to find more safety; Taliban have been going door-to-door taking names and ages of any unmarried females from 6 years old (!!!) and up and to identify Christians.
Peace would be nice, but it will not come under the Taliban.
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Pity then that we armed the Taliban all those years ago and now live to regret it. To arm them and supply them with the wherewithal to fight the Russians was perhaps not the most altruistic of acts. Little wonder that these people rose to power and came to bite the hand which once fed them!
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Hmm, I do not believe the US nor UK supplied the Taliban with arms against the Russians. Some training, but the US was very suspicious of supplying such a rag-tag group with armaments.
https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/who-responsible-taliban
A kind of long read, but puts their history in perspective.
The Taliban is demonic in the truest sense of that word.
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So, I fear, is extraordinary rendition. Demonic that is. So is the loss of innocent lives throughout two gulf wars. So was the bankrolling of Saddam Hussein and countless other crooks and dictators. Wein the West have little to be proud of I fear. I used to believe in the global policeman dogma, but that facadehas worn a little thin I fear. East, West, everywhere, man tortures and kills his kin. It is a sad world and does not lool likely to change!
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How true, and how sad. But I do hope in Jesus that many in the world WILL change before it is too late. Praying for you, my friend, and I hope we get to meet in this life, on either side of “the Pond.“ 🙂
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I’m currently reading a History of the Crusades by a Cambridge scholar. It has given me a deeper appreciation of how Christians and Muslims tolerated each other (when not killing each other).
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sad to see the state in which America chose to leave this beautiful place in.. For 20 years America did what it does best, destroy and train terrorists, trying to claim to the world that they are training the Afghan army.. And now the probable deal they made with the taliban to arm them and hand them this country on a platter for oil will be enjoyed by them..
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Indeed. Just the way I feel about the matter. We British are every bit as bad of course.
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There are, or were anyway, beautiful Buddhist artefacts there also. I remember watching a documentary about Japanese scientists excitedly exploring the Banyan valley i think it’s called? where there is a collection of giant Buddha statues, some now destroyed by Taliban. And another documentary was about the head of Afghanistan’s national museum where he made sure important artefacts were protected from Taliban destruction. I felt for the chap then and feel for him even more now.
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