War and Peace: Finding the Greatest Vision of Who You Become

Over 10 years ago my former partner and I put on an exhibition. He is a surrealist painter who paints the most amazing images that have images within images. He is also a deep and wonderful poet. He comes from Afghanistan where there is a tradition of poetry, music and culture. Many of his paintings were about women and their freedoms taken, he saw the impact on his sisters and mother. He is a deeply kind man who was always available to help people. He was softly spoken, very gentle and open minded. He showed me what true community was as I watched him interact with his many friends locally and across the world. They had deep bonds of love. In his country men hold hands and are not considered gay, they know their neighbours as close friends and if you are hungry you just knock on a door and you will not be refused. I found his people incredibly kind, humble and compassionate.

Many people who become refugees often feel guilt when they live in safety, abundance and have money. They send their money home, but they feel they should suffer as their people are. He saw his country totally ransacked.

In his country he saw the helicopter gunships, the multinational air lifters bringing arms to his country. He saw the various tribal groups changing sides and seeking to benefit and enrich themselves, totally ruthless. He expressed to me his people were very kind and they were simple and innocent. They had no idea of the realities of the rest of the world.

He said they had a simple life when he was a child. They were extremely poor yet they were happy. All his family – Uncles, Aunties, cousins were all living together as a big family. There was no stress, just enormous love for each other. They had a strong sense of community and he himself was very secure. He remembers kicking a broken ball around with other children happily. Kites were very popular in Afghanistan and he loved kites as a child.

He recalls the first Russian gunships and his innocent world change when he was 10 years old. He remembers being curled up in his bed under the pillow, terrified of the sound. He painted an amazing painting of a canon, in the image no matter where you stand it appears the cannon is pointed at you, he said you never feel safe in Afghanistan, not for one moment. He had also been shot and showed me the hole. He said people would be taken off the street suddenly by the government and sent to the front, their families wouldn’t even know. No conscription there. Then they may find out their son has come back in a body bag or never see them again. The mothers lived in terror every time their children left the house. His father was killed and he remembers crying for 40 days as a child. He said his mother used to carry a gun to protect the family, as Kabul was shelled regularly by either the War Lords, the Russians or in later years the US and its allies, of which Australia was one. Kabir’s mum eventually got cancer from the stress and died a few years ago. She was deeply bitter about her country and the politics.

He told me of times when the country was socialist as the Russians had influenced the political climate. He remembers universities had both men and women studying not the rigid regime of the Taliban where fundamentalism restricted all freedom, particularly for women. It sounded a lot like Lebanon before the wars they had. For a joke he and his friend would jump on buses and check security cards. He wore a beard at the time, which was considered non conformist. He remembers putting up political signs at night caricatures of Lenin. He did get caught and was sent to jail for this and experienced torture but he said his brother got him out. He saw his country change from a peaceful society to the endless pain and cruelty of war. The beauty of poetry turned into a dark nightmare, he said it had been bombed back to the dark ages. He had an ulcer from the stress of it all and used to stop breathing during the night, he internalized his pain. Yet he had a peacefulness which accepted everything, as he was not in control. I never heard him complain, he tried to communicate reason and wisdom to others. He didn’t hate the Russians, he actually saw the people as very kind, like his own.

He said he went up into the mountains with the mujahadeen as a soldier, but he refused to shoot anyone. He saw the other as ‘his brother’, as he is a kind gentle man, the group allowed him to be passive and nonviolent. He went into the mountains to experience it. He wasn’t necessarily taking sides, he was curious.

The issue (in my view) is really the use of violence to control and serve vested interests. The violence was so destructive and just destroyed the lives of so many. There was a gas oil pipeline that was to run up to Turkmenistan to supply China and Japan. The company responsible was Unocal. The Bush connection to Energy e.g. Harken and (former) Vice President Dick Cheney as (former) CEO of Halliburton and the fact that Bin Laden was a CIA asset fighting the Russians, this nexus is talked in numerous discourses about the foundation to the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Helen Caldicott asked me if I knew anything about Halliburton or the Carlyle Group, I had no knowledge of them. That is how she knew I was ignorant. Yet anyone who wants to Google search can investigate further. I do think the public would be wise to become informed as it affects all our lives and I feel it is time to decide the world we want to create in the future. I often see Al Gore in my mind in the Inconvenient Truth where he holds up the earth and the gold bar and basically says we have to make a choice. I feel one way or another our true nature will force us. Self interest or national interest, doesn’t work in a globalised world where we are all affected. I saw the pain in Kabir’s mum’s face, she was an innocent woman, very kind. Why did she have to have her world destroyed? of course no-one deserves it. Yet the issue of oil which feeds our lifestyle and the profits is the incentive to ignore the destruction of lives, easier to see them as an enemy and not take responsibility for our demand. Truth can be hard to face.

Kabir doesn’t subscribe to any religion and like myself he was universal in his outlook. I saw his work as far better than Salvador Dali. Over the years more people have seen his work as you can’t ignore the talent and depth and indeed truth from such a humble person. He challenged patriarchy and he challenged fundamentalism. He wasn’t ambitious to be famous or to be rich, he often said ‘I don’t care’. If he got his degree in Graphic Design or not he said ‘I don’t care’. I remember once he built up a huge library book fine, he didn’t have money and people would say you won’t get your degree, he would say ‘I don’t care’. He said he loved silence and not thinking. I wondered at this attitude but I saw how it released him, no attachment to outcomes. He had been through so much in Afghanistan. I saw him as spiritually advanced however his pain over Afghanistan did bring sorrow to him. He found the painting therapeutic as he was able to bring out his own truth and he painted hope into his paintings, always depicted by a blue sky or ocean.

I put on an exhibition at a popular show biz Cafe in Queanbeyan, just outside of Canberra. I produced the exhibition and called it Sur-Real Paintings in Motion. We had Afghan food prepared. Session 1 was called ‘Suppression An Illusion’, Session 2 was called ‘Expressions of Love’ and Session 3 was called ‘Resurrection of Self’. I wrote the poetry for his paintings. I changed into different outfits each session to change the mood. What is great about his work as he is able to take you deeper through surrealism into the theme of his work, truly beautiful gift he has. At the end a person came up to me with tears in her eyes and told me ‘you mustn’t stop you must keep going with this’. In my heart I knew I couldn’t be the mover for this, he had to choose that he wanted to exhibit his work and to take leadership, I didn’t see myself as his manager and my reason for being with him was not about his talent, I truly loved this gentle, humble person. So I stepped back from promoting it and he just allowed life to take him wherever. His work has been seen in Canberra and I am sure it will be seen around the world as it is very inspiring work. He is a true artist and universalist.

It is the kind artists that will lead this world away from the mistaken belief that violence and power bring security and freedom. They create the opposite and you end up with endless war where Conflict Resolution is not a word uttered. All violence becomes justified or captioned with clever titles to convince the public that some good is being served as ‘a just war theory’, yet ultimately – hurting another human being simply hurts yourself. We are indeed one.

I did receive a visit from the FBI to my website some years back when Kabir’s paintings were on my site. I think it initially happened as I made inspired contact with Helen Caldicott about my International Peace Award, was seeking her input. I don’t know her well, but I figure she is interested in peace. Helen is an Australian anti-nuclear activist and when I thought about it, I am sure they would be watching her. She travels between the US and Australia and she is political and high profiled. She started Physicians for Social Responsibility years ago and has deep concerns about nuclear weapons and the ability of them to end all life on earth. I believe they became interested in some of Kabir’s paintings and the fact he was Afghan. This was at a time of the war on terror. I also thought they may be interested in my nonviolence pages thinking I was an activist which talked about how to engage in nonviolent techniques. I can see the logic of this as they see peace activists as anti-government and they would be right, some are. But there are some, like myself, who are really interested in the true essence of peace. A new concept I expect that mindsets that believe in defence against attack or attack against defence, would not resonate with nor understand. My reason for putting up the material was just purely innocent and educational. I studied Peace Studies and I believe in non-violence, the Gandhian approach. I don’t feel violence solves anything, just escalates problems and attracts what is feared. I might add the Law of Attraction here. If you keep sending messages of fear of something ‘out there’ you actually attract it. We saw the rise in fundamentalism as a result of the War in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many analysts predicted, including Andrew Wilkie here (former intelligence officer, Office of National Assessment) that they were escalating the problem or some would say creating it. So if conflict resolution becomes the focus, you actually attract solutions and resolution, to see parties as responsible for solving the problem, rather than suppressing, making wrong or destroying. You cannot destroy opposition, if you try, you actually make it stronger. If you are not able to really hear their concerns then uninformed perceptions demonise the other. Stories are created. Scott Ritter spoke of the demonising of Saddam Hussein, who was not hard to demonise, but once he was turned into a Hitler like character, as he put it, then there was no negotiation he had to go, they aimed to get rid of him. Another was anti-communism ‘reds under the beds’ scare tactics, it makes people paranoid and they look for enemies rather than solutions. Easy to wip up fear and garner support for violence. In my view it does not create peace or understanding in the world.

Going back to my visitors. How did I know for sure it was the FBI? when I looked up my statistics on the website I actually saw the IP address with FBI anti-terror in it. I was really amazed, they visited around 80 times. I decided to write to them as it is a bit like Chinese Whispers people draw conclusions but don’t actually ask you directly. So I wrote to the Head of Counter Terrorism in Washington. I simply told him the truth of who I am so if they are going to look at least get my side. Kabir’s work was mostly about feminism and it was actually anti-extremism. My own work was about true peace and educating for values and anti-bullying. I did remove his paintings and the nonviolence material not out of fear, but more it was not a statement of who I am and where my work is going. Peace Education and love is the direction and I didn’t want to be misinterpreted nor did I want to be ‘anti’ anyone, as I don’t believe in it. I wondered about intelligence agencies and how easy they can get it wrong. No-one knows what I think but me, you can ask my friends, but they would have no idea. My intention was always to promote the real peace. It is to see no enemy, no other, but to speak to them with respect and visibility. Now if they don’t choose to be visible, it is a choice. I told them to ring me if they had any issues, I would have been totally honest, I teach values. Funnily enough an American voice did ring me about my workshops, I was sure it was them as I never get foreign enquiries. She asked questions about whether I worked 9 to 5 and if I worked on weekends, nothing about the content of the workshops, that is how I knew it was them. I sat back reflecting on it – the concept of secrecy and the feeling of advantage through information rather than seeking to find harmony and resolve conflict. We are dealing with different mindsets indeed power over rather than power within. I remember Scott Ritter walking with me and looking around, I naively was thinking he is being a tourist, only later it dawned on me that he was in surveillance mode for those veiled or termed ‘spooks’. Such a world I have no idea about, it is a hidden world, a parallel world that most people have no idea of. It was completely foreign to my world of total visibility. I think Wikileaks really rattled them as it was about visibility and exposure, that is equally foreign to them, they would feel vulnerable. Whereas I feel empowered when I reveal my truth.

So my experience I regarded as a positive one, in my way I sent love to them and a poem about true beauty. I don’t expect people to understand the truth in love and the importance of it now at this critical time, but I am certain it will change the world. I do believe we all want the peace and true happiness. Yet really it begins when we look into our own minds and ask…

if everyone did this what would happen. That is how you know it serves best interest. If it serves self interest and harms another, then we all lose. I feel that is a universal law.

My decision to be visible is because I don’t believe silence solves anything. I believe democracy is visible. Kabir through his paintings revealed truth and he did have a fatwa put on him. He said he didn’t care, he saw so much death, he didn’t care if he didn’t live. Those intolerant to freedom of speech view anything counter to their world view as wrong and they simply hate the other or seek to destroy what they imagine is against their tradition (or interests), I doubt they would sit and examine their own thoughts for the truth. This creates the yin and yang (opposites). There are those who are open and may themselves decide to embrace their freedom and reveal their face and embrace their truth. That is a world where we can really solve problems and create a future that is win win for all.

The modus operandi of the past will no longer serve the present time, we have to deal with the reality around environmental questions, lifestyle and a system set up on profit maximization. It is not delivering the happiness we believed it would. We need to focus on the future, how it will look and how we create something new that serves all, for the highest good. This will be greatest version of the grandest vision you ever held about who you are.