Afghan War Memorial 11th Anniversary - art, poetry, spoken word... Tonight
Ira Harritt
Dear Peacemakers,
I invite you to join us tonight on the eve of the 11th Anniversary of the Afghan war, at the Unfinished Portrait Afghan War Eleventh Anniversary Memorial.
The event includes the display of an art installation, Unfinished Portrait, and reading, poetry and spoken word performances by veterans, Afghanis, writers and spoken word artists. It will take place as planned, outdoors today, October 6 from 6:00pm to midnight in Mill Creek Park (at approximately 4500 J.C. Nichols Parkway, KCMO).
The Unfinished Portrait art installation is an Iraq and Afghan war memorial by Priti Gulati Cox, a Salina, KS artist and is composed of thousands of small portraits of U.S. troops killed in the Afghan and Iraq wars. The installation will be displayed outdoors from approximately an hour before sunset (6pm) to midnight. In the artist’s view as the time passes the portraits become more and more obscured by the darkness much as the war has become invisible to the American public. At the same time the blackness rising in the eastern sky - starry or starless - will represent the uncounted civilian casualties of the wars.
In addition to the Unfinished Portrait art installation, the event will feature veterans, poets, spoken word artists and Afghanis providing reflections on war, peace and hope for the future. The performance / reading schedule is as follows:
· Reflections by Veterans: 6:30pm
· Reflections by Afghanis: 7:30pm
· Reflections by Writers and Poets: 8:30pm
· Reflections by spoken word performers 9:30pm
· Performance of Iraq and Afghan war 10:30 to 11:30pm
The 8:30pm readings has been organized by The Writers Place and will include a reading by Missouri Poet Laureate, William Trowbridge.
The event is organized by the American Friends Service Committee and cosponsored by Veterans for Peace-KC Chapter, Iraq Veterans Against the War-KC, The Recipe Poetry Guild, The Writers Place and PeaceWorks. For information go to http://www.afsc.org/event/unfinished-portraits-afghan-war-memorial-event or contact us at 816.931-5256 or afs...@afsc.org
At last week’s Occupy KC anniversary gathering I shared a poem, Daughter Of War by a young Afghan woman, Zahra A. In it she describes the devastation of her country, “The streets… covered By dead human bodies; The blood .. like a river.” But even with these horrific experiences she writes:
I will try.
I will stand for my right.
I will break the silence.
I will show my power.
And I will bring peace
In my country once again.
I promised.
There will be no more war;
I will make my dreams come true.
Once again,
My homeland will be like heaven
And my people will be happy.
This affirms in my mind that if a woman like Zahira can maintain her struggle in the face of war then we can continue our struggle against the abuses of the 1% and take control of our government and our nations policies-- not only for our own self-interest but for Zahira and millions of people around the world like her.
For more go to https://afsc.org/event/unfinished-portraits-afghan-war-memorial-event
Hope you can join us yourself, bring friends and tell others!
Ira Harritt
Kansas City Program Coordinator
American Friends Service Committee
