On Sunday October 9, the first-ever Afghanistan Peace Day drew a large and very spirited crowd to meet up in Fremont, CA (the heart of the Afghan community), organized by Afghans for Peace and the Muslim Peace Coalition.
About 60 students, elders, and families with kids joined Muslim clerics, activists, business owners, and about 40 non-Afghan supporters for a long Walk for Peace. Along all the busy streets, a whole lot of glad honking greetd our chants and banners in Pashto, Dari, and English (including a tri-lingual World Can’t Wait banner “Stop US Criminal War on Afghanistan NOW”).
The march went to a community center for a "Gathering for Peace" to hear speeches by prominent community, religious, and cultural leaders and activists. A lot more people, mainly Afghan community, were there waiting for the march, and now the gathering doubled in size. There were paintings on display, and we had spoken word in English, and beautiful Farsi poetry as well. In a moving finale to the Day, we had a live phone call with friends in Afghanistan. The whole roomful of us heard from and many were able to also spoke personally with them about the war and what it’s doing to the lives of the people, and expressing our determination here to end this nightmare.