I am an honest person. I am a peaceful person. I am a person who deserves dignity and basic human rights.

I am a 40-year old woman and mother with a particular appreciation for hot tea on cold mornings. I am a young boy who loves to chase a dusty ball in the street without fear of the low rumble of a B1-B Lancer overhead.

I am a man who enjoys little more than a good, hot meal as a family.

I am a woman who works her best to provide for my young children. I am a man who tirelessly labors to help feed my family. I am a young woman who watched my parents slave away to find enough food to eat. I watched them beg friends and neighbors for any bread to spare.

I am a person who held little grudge against the United States. I am a person who held little grudge against Osama bin Laden.

I am a brave firefighter who rushed to the scene of destruction in lower Manhattan. I am a firefighter whose body was pulverized by a cement and steel wave created by evil. Now my daughter stares at the empty chair at the dinner table, hoping to catch a glimpse of what once was.

I am a flight attendant who will never again see the glimmer in the green eyes of my youngest son. I am the mother psychologically torn to shreds because the remains of my son will never be found, and I never had a chance to say good-bye.

I am a man who wept and wailed over the limp, cold and bloody body of my infant son as a Reuters news photographer captured every time I lifted his head in the hopes he would return. I listened as the sickening wail of a cruise missile crashed with murderous accuracy, as the splatter of human blood, flesh and bone went in all directions.

I am that blood, flesh and bone. I am a human, with feelings of joy and sadness, with dreams of being a doctor, with love for the outdoors and the mountains.

I am a peaceful person. I am a person who has been oppressed my entire life. I am person victim to despotism, extremism and fanaticism. I am the majority in my nation.

I come from a place where 12 percent of my people have access to safe water. Only 31 percent of my people are literate. I come from a nation where, on average, I’ll be dead by 46. I come from a place that is misinterpreted and misunderstood.

I live in a place that has been raped, pillaged and plundered by decades of war. I come from a place that has been abused, betrayed and murdered by superpowers in the name of political gains. I am victim to their legacies.

My people are victims of more than 10 million land mines of a country the roughly the size of Texas. My people lose arms, legs and lives to this evil and hidden legacy.

I am person wishing that others took lessons from history.

I am a victim of a government with unjust foreign policy. I am a passenger on an aircraft used to exact a horrific effect. I am hated in part for my government’s policy.

I am a victim of a government and media unwilling to speak the whole truth. I am citizen in a nation that has helped and contributed to humanitarian causes.

I am a member of a people who have succeeded financially.

I live in a place where 97 percent of my people are literate. I am from a nation with an average life expectancy of 77 years. I live in a place that has not seen war on its soil in more than 100 years.

I dream that others feel compassion and try to understand my grievances. I dream that others try to relate, try to build bridges.

I am Pashtun, Irish, Tajik, Pakistani, British, Latina, Hazara, American and Italian. I speak in Dari, English, Pashtu and Spanish.

I am a carpenter, a Wall Street analyst, a sheep raiser, businessman, teacher, waitress, emergency rescue worker, airline pilot. I am black, white, brown and everything in between.

I am Sunni, Catholic, Lutheran, agnostic, Hindu, Methodist, Buddhist, Shiite, Baptist and Jewish. I am an uncle, grandmother, cousin, woman, father, aunt, mother, man, child and nephew.

I am a human being. I am a person who deserves the basic dignities of clean water and safe habitation. I deserve to be able to eat, breathe and sleep in peace. I am a person who deserves to hear the whole truth. I am a person capable of understanding and proclaiming the folly of violence in every form.

I am the consultant sitting at a desk on the 93rd floor of the north tower on September 11. I am the person in the fourth row of a doomed American Airlines flight that same fateful morning.

I am the Afghan who picked up the bloody pulps of 8 family members who were dismembered by a cruise missile on October 28. I am the victim of violence. I am the victim of evil. I am a human being.

But I am thankful that hope exists for the human family. And I am thankful that my sisters and brothers must and will eventually turn from violence to love and compassion to achieve justice.

Omar Tesdell is a sophomore in journalism and mass communication from Slater. He is online editor of the Daily.