Author:
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: December 6, 2011
As the Afghan government's Western backers
pour in cash, and tens of thousands of foreign soldiers patrol the country,
a French (not Indian, not Asian) human rights activist is trying a new way
to break the cycle of violence in Afghanistan: yoga and meditation.
In thirty years of war, we've tried everything
and nothing has worked, said Amandine Roche, who believes it is better to
try to rid the mind of vengeful thoughts than to disarm a fighter at gunpoint.
Her organisation, the Amanuddin Foundation,
aims to promote nonviolence by teaching techniques of calm.
Volunteering since February as she searches
for funds, she has given classes at which she demonstrates yoga and meditation
to men, women, children, police officers, soldiers and former Taliban insurgents.
It's a new solution to an old problem. War
starts in the minds of men, so peace starts in the minds of men. You cannot
bring peace with the means of war, it's as simple of that.
The most recent conflict, which started with
the U.S.-led overthrow of the Taliban government in 2001, has killed thousands
of soldiers and civilians, and cost tens of billions of dollars. According
to United Nations figures, 2011 is the most violent year since the war began:
all signs, Roche argues, that the Western military and diplomatic effort isn't
working.
My project might look crazy, but what is more
crazy?
Key to her work is the idea that peace cannot
be imposed from outside, but must come from within an individual, she said.
I've become firmly convinced that nonviolence
is not the best way for Afghanistan, it's the only way.
The young Afghans who have tried yoga and
meditation have been receptive.
When I do yoga exercise I forget all of my
pains and I feel comfortable, said Masoda, a 12 year old schoolgirl at one
of Roche's classes for children in the capital Kabul.
"My vision is to teach meditation to
all the insurgents, to organise vocational training for them to become mediation
teachers, so ... they can go back to society," she says.
