Dr. Hakim
Dr. Hakim, (Dr. Teck Young, Wee) is a medical doctor from Singapore who has done humanitarian and social enterprise work in Afghanistan for the past 9 years, including being a friend and mentor to the Afghan Peace Volunteers, an inter-ethnic group of young Afghans dedicated to building non-violent alternatives to war. He is the 2012 recipient of the International Pfeffer Peace Prize.
Articles by this author
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Views Thursday, October 18, 2018 Nonviolent Afghans Bring a Breath of Fresh Air Grade 12th Afghan student Jamila Omary asked, “Do you have any plans to arm yourselves, because of the threats and dangers you have faced?” Iqbal Khyber answered, “No. Though it is easy to buy weapons today, arming ourselves will worsen the war. Weapons will make us less secure.” What a breath of... Read more |
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Views Monday, August 20, 2018 In Afghanistan, Our Need to Rethink the Institution of War It’s frustrating that whereas all human beings wish to live meaningful lives, we seem helpless in the face of a few individuals waging wars and exploiting our world. But we can each do something about this insensible status quo, as ordinary folk of the People’s Peace Movement ( PPM ) show us by... Read more |
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Views Monday, August 06, 2018 Can Afghans Convince Us That the Method of War Isn’t Effective? Can Afghans convince us that the method of war doesn't work? If we’re still quietly hoping that wars would end and people all over the world would get along peacefully, the dreams and demands of the Helmand Peace Convoy would give us courage and evidence. When Amanullah Khateb joined the Convoy,... Read more |
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Views Tuesday, March 01, 2016 How Many Global Crises Can a Fifteen-Year-Old Afghan Take On? On 31st Jan, I followed Zekerullah, an Afghan Peace Volunteer who coordinates the Borderfree Street Kids School in Kabul, to visit Zuhair and his family in their rented room. Zuhair attends the School on Fridays with 92 other working and street kids, a minuscule number in the context of 6 million... Read more |
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Views Tuesday, December 08, 2015 Kunduz MSF Hospital U.S. Bombing Survivor: "I Want my Story to be Heard." “I feel very angry, but I don’t want anything from the U.S. military,” said Khalid Ahmad, a 20 year old pharmacist who survived the U.S. bombing of the Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) / Doctors Without Borders Hospital in Kunduz on the 3 rd of October, “God will hold them accountable.” The actions... Read more |
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Views Saturday, September 19, 2015 A Question from Afghanistan, "Can We Abolish War?" Hadisa, a bright 18 year old Afghan girl, ranks as the top student in her 12 th grade class. “The question is,” she wondered, “are human beings capable of abolishing war?” Like Hadisa, I had my doubts about whether human nature could have the capacity to abolish war. For years, I had presumed that... Read more |
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Views Tuesday, November 25, 2014 Not Again, Mr. Obama! On ‘A More Expansive Mission’ in Afghanistan! President Obama has authorized ‘a more expansive mission for the military in Afghanistan in 2015 than originally planned’. Imagine that, like the late U.S. war veteran Jacob George, you’re sent on this ‘more expansive mission’. Your military helicopter is landing on farmland amidst mud-house... Read more |
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Views Tuesday, October 21, 2014 My Father Was Killed by a Computer, Says 7-Year-Old Afghan Child Imal, a 7 year old Afghan student in the 2nd grade, came to visit us in Kabul. As Imal grew up, he kept asking his mother where his father was. His mother finally told Imal that his father had been killed by a drone when he was still a baby. If you could see Imal in this video , you would want to... Read more |
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Views Tuesday, August 12, 2014 We’re Human Fodder Caught in the Crossfire of Armed Groups and Armed Governments “Her father was killed in Helmand amidst fighting between the Taliban and the Afghan/U.S.-NATO forces,” said a relative about Gul Jumma, who looked down, shy and full of angst, sensing a future that’s not promising. Gul Jumma, together with the Afghan Peace Volunteers, expressed their opposition to... Read more |
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Views Friday, July 11, 2014 Amerikistan, Not Afghanistan... Warocracy, Not Democracy Afghanistan Analysts Network reported on July 9 that Afghan presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah had told gathered crowd "that he had received phone calls from both US President Barack Obama and State Secretary John Kerry and had been told that Kerry would make a stop-over in Kabul on Friday... Read more |