During visits to Kabul, Afghanistan, over the past decade, I particularly relished lingering over breakfasts on chilly winter mornings with my young hosts who were on their winter break from school. Seated on the floor, wearing coats and hats and draped with blankets, we’d sip piping hot green tea as we shared fresh, warm wheels of bread purchased from the nearest baker.
Listen to Kathy Kelly discuss the situation in Afghanistan here.
But this winter, for desperate millions of Afghans, the bread isn’t there. The decades-long U.S. assault on Afghanistan’s people has now taken the vengeful form of freezing their shattered, starving country’s assets.
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War and rumours of war are filling the headlines, and lede news broadcasts. Whether stories in the press are about a war recently past and its aftermath, like in Afghanistan, or a feared future war, as featured by sabres-rattling over Ukraine, what seems inescapable is war: War ever-present. This is perfectly illustrated in Afghanistan, where the end of war brings no peace, and in Ukraine where the killing and dying long preceded the rumour of fighting to come. So what’s left to do but work for peace – and keep on working for peace.
Kathy Kelly is a long-time peace and justice activist, essayist, author, and recipient of numerous awards for her peace service; including multiple nominations for the Nobel Peace prize. She’s a founding member of Voices in the Wilderness and Voices for Creative Nonviolence, co-authored the book, ‘Prisoners on Purpose: a Peacemakers Guide to Jails and Prison,’ and wrote, ‘Other Lands Have Dreams: from Baghdad to Pekin Prison.’
Kelly has made numerous trips to Afghanistan as an invited guest of the Afghan Peace Volunteers and has lived alongside ordinary Afghan people in working-class Kabul.
Kathy Kelly in the first half.
And; American and Canadian efforts to bring diplomatic and military pressure to bear on Russia over Ukraine may seem a mystery to those in the West who rarely receive context with their newspapers, or as part of their nightly newscasts. But worse still than the dearth of factual background information on critical issues available to readers and viewers from the media, the analysts and opinion-makers presented here more often than not represent those that profit most from the modern warfare economy. For those persevering though, it is still possible to glean sense from the chaos and even sometimes discern the hand behind the mayhem.
Ivan Katchanovski is a scholar, essayist, and author teaching at the School of Political Studies at the University of Ottawa. He’s the author of ‘Cleft Countries: Regional Political Divisions and Cultures in Post-Soviet Ukraine and Moldova’ and co-authored the books, ‘Historical Dictionary of Ukraine’ (Second Edition) and ‘The Paradox of American Unionism: Why Americans Like Unions More Than Canadians Do, But Join Much Less’. His articles feature at Canadian Dimension.com, where his recent piece, ‘The Hidden Origin of the Escalating Ukraine-Russia Conflict‘ appears.
Ivan Katchanovski and returning to Maidan to unwind the true origin story behind the current Ukraine-Russia conflict.
But first, Kathy Kelly and the war not over in Afghanistan.
Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio and serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.ca/
