Twin Cities Daily Planet (https://www.tcdailyplanet.net/author/steve-clemens/page/6/)
I'm a resident of Minneapolis and a peace and social justice activist. I'm a member of the Community of St. Martin and serve on the Boards of Pax Christi Twin Cities Area and the Iraqi/American Reconciliation Project (IARP). I also served as a member of the MN Peace Team during the RNC in 2008. I was part of the Iraq Peace Team in December 2002 and traveled to Afghanistan in March 2011 to plant trees for peace with the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers.
She is an unveiled, defiant young woman. He is a filmmaker still recovering from his kidnapping 6 ½ years ago. She told me this morning, only half in jest, that she plans on becoming the President. He, at only 15, has known the pain of losing his father but is still willing to stand up to the intimidation of much older adults.
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Panjshir is considered to be one of the most beautiful provinces in Afghanistan (although in fairness to the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers from Bamiyan, many Afghans we met say Bamiyan is the most scenic). Continue Reading
Afghan New Year coincides with the first day of Spring and has incorporated the Zoroastrian tradition of the new birth of Spring making the start of a new year as part of it. It seems to make a lot of sense to me instead of doing it in mid-winter. Who really wants to start a new year when you really are waiting for the next 2 ½ months to be behind you?
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We were told to expect the AYPV boys at our office lodgings at 4:30 AM because the Global Day of Listening was scheduled to begin by 5:30. They arrived a little late because they had been on the phone to others around the world since 10 PM last night. The plan for today was to continue the conversations over Skype connections on the internet. Continue Reading
In the morning we walked in groups of five for about 30-45 minutes through our area of Kabul en route to our morning activity. I awoke at 4 AM to use the bathroom and when the call to prayer was broadcast from the nearby mosque about 40 minutes later, I knew it was time to get up because the dogs on the street also joined the chorus. Continue Reading
I couldn’t afford to give in to jet lag after my arrival in Afghanistan this morning after 3 flights and layovers totaling 40 hours before reaching my floor space in a Kabul office of a small nonprofit human rights organization formed by some very dedicated Afghan women eight months ago. Continue Reading
“Praise the Lord and pass the tree-seedlings [or other nonviolent equivalents of ammunition].” Finally, after a nerve-racking 2-week wait, I received my visa (and Passport back) from the Afghan Embassy in Washington, DC. Continue Reading
At the dawn of the Reagan Presidency, just after the death of my father-in-law, I was sentenced to 6 months in Federal Prison because I climbed a fence. Five months earlier 8 peacemakers committed what was to become the first of many “Plowshares” actions, a nonviolent attempt to “beat [nuclear] swords into plowshares”. The where and why of the story explains the consequence.
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My friend Colin really liked an oil painting of Che Guevara that he saw in a little shop in the “Old Havana” part of the city. Che was one of the intellectual and military leaders of the revolution to overthrow the corrupt Batista regime in Cuba in the late 1950s. Continue Reading
Author’s note: From November 27-December 4, 2010 I traveled (legally!) to Cuba as part of a 18-member delegation from St. Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral in Minneapolis. We went to celebrate the installation of Griselda Delgado as the new Episcopalian Bishop of Cuba. Continue Reading