Food for Thought

This picture was taken in the cafeteria of Kabul Education University. A colleague passed it on with a note that said, “Food for Thought.”

It brings me back to a conversation I had with my guard and driver yesterday about demonstrations that have taken place at KEU over the past couple of days. From the reports I have heard, the demonstrations are in protest of a supposedly poor translation of the Koran into Dari.

In a place like Afghanistan human rights are about as guaranteed as anything else in life.

For all the faults of the United States, we do enjoy a great deal of civil liberties (though it feels like less and less under the current administration.)

I remember a cold winter day in 1999 when I protested the sanctions placed against the people of Iraq. We were bullied by police on horses and looking back I wouldn’t have missed that opportunity for anything. Now we all say what we will about the war in Iraq but most of us don’t really do much about it, myself included.

The closest I came to a protest this time around was in Chicago on the two-year anniversary of our invasion of Iraq. There on the million-dollar mile were at least a few thousand police, not a protester to be found, and families going about their business shopping on a lovely spring afternoon.

How can we be expected to fight for the freedoms we take for granted?

Food for thought,

Miel

*If you can’t read what it says, the title of the article says International Human Rights.

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