The meaning of Peace in the 21st century, by Shirin Ebadi

Peacework: lessons we have failed to learn, by Isabel Hilton

Nothing is impossible, the difficult takes longer, by Nadwa Sarandah

A Nothern Ireland lesson, by Anne Carr

You can now read the transcripts of the poDcast here in .pdf format:poDcast transcripts 1, 2 and 3.

We would like to thank each and every one of you for taking the time to come to Galway to participate in our first international conference. We have come together here out of our shared concern for the state of the world today – the spiralling violence, terrorism and anti-terrorism begetting more violence, always and increasingly borne by women and children.

We have been here together to share our experiences and the lessons learned in our various responses to violence against women. We know that our ability to confront this violence depends upon our ability to understand the causes and linkages as well as learn from the hope, the positive responses of resilience and non violent creativity of women in the Middle East and beyond.

We have talked about the continuum of violence – at the local, regional, national and international levels – and that we respond to that continuum of violence on local, regional, national and international levels as well. We know that all of our work is linked, whether we acknowledge the linkages or not, and that all of our work is contributing to building cultures of peace.

Listening to you all, sharing together, we have heard many not liking to word “peace”. We have discussed how “peace” has been high jacked as a meaningful word and has become synonymous with “weak”. We know that working for peace is anything but “weak” – it is hard work every single day.

We have heard women from throughout the Middle East that conflict will not end without dialogue – dialogue built on inclusions, human rights, justice and inequality – and we heard of the dialogue that you are engaged in daily, proving that it is not only possible but necessary. Indeed it is impossible for countries under occupation – Palestine, Iraq – to meaningfully participate in that kind of dialogue. As one participant said, “In order to co-exist, we must first exist”.

We have heard you ask the people of the United States to work on real democracy at home. Even when the people of that country vote the party of invasion out of the control of Congress, the Democratic Party has stepped back from legislation to bring an end to the occupation of Iraq.

We would also like to thank all of the women here for sharing with us your ideas as to how the Nobel Women’s Initiative can use our combined visibility and access to power to advance the issues addressed here. We will take these suggestions with us, so that the NWI can asses how we can respond to the broad array of action we might take.

We would also like to ask all of you who have shared this experience together to think, perhaps, about “peace” in terms of human security. Human security is a world where people recognize that sustainable peace, human rights, and sustainable development are indivisible parts of global security – security based on the needs of the peoples of the world and meeting their needs with justice and equality.

More weapons will only make us less secure, meeting the needs of the peoples inhabiting this tiny planet is what will make us more secure. Human security not National security.

We also ask that when we talk about violence we recognise that violence is not “just part of human nature”. Violence is a choice. Whether it is the violent choice of a man to beat a woman he supposedly loves, or the violent choice of a community to ghettoize people who are “different” racially or ethnically, or the violent choice of illegal invasion, or the violent choice of occupation. Building a culture of peace is learning and teaching that there are different choices. We as individuals do not have to choose violence. We as societies do not have to either support violent choices or participate in making them.

We as women can and must redefine peace – in the Middle East and beyond.

How can peace be built? openDemocracy.net was at the conference trying to find clues from the Nobel Laureates and the NWI participants. We now present three poDcasts from the Nobel Women’s Initiative in Galway. Listen now.

I came to the conference as a trustee of Green Belt Movement International whose founding director received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 – Wangari Maathai. Having been the Executive Director of WOMANKIND Worldwide, a UK international women’s rights and development agency, and now working on stopping the trafficking of women into the UK, developing a women’s resource and fund in the UK and supporting a small agency called Women for refugee women, the opportunity of attending the conference was an opportunity to listen and reflect. To listen to women who were tackling the complexities of peace building both as academics and practitioners, to test my knowledge and assumptions on women’s rights around the world, and begin to see where and how my experience could be used in the future.

I was particularly interested in hearing how outside agencies, whether individuals or organisations, could assist in other people’s crises. After all I had spent nearly 20 years working for funding organisations. What was appropriate? What was legitimate? What was asked for?

It would also throw light on how the women Nobel Laureates could collectively bring their influence to bear in changing things on the ground for communities suffering as a result of conflict. Conflicts which were often not of their making and deeply rooted in a number of conflicting arenas: global power-mongering; corporate supremacy; the market economy; international and national government policies – and the victims of most conflicts being women and children.

Day 1 –

The day was one of setting the scene with insights of the role the USA played on the world stage both politically and economically and how their instability and fear had set the world on a possible path to a third world war. By the end of the day my head was spinning from the many concepts that had been thrown out and chewed over: fundamentalism; identity politics; power mapping; the ‘weaponisation of women’s bodies’, capitalism and market economy and many more.

But what of the role of outsiders to the situations? It was mentioned that we need to think of what kind of interventions were appropriate for donor agencies, governments, civil society activists acknowledging that support and resources are needed – but support needs to be sure that it is not doing more damage or harm than the help it brings.

The messages: be careful who you partner with, there may be conflicting agendas; through these partners continue to make the connections and linkages and a collective movement and strength can be achieved; always use the media with individual powerful stories – each story should add strength to the other.

But beware! International not for profits are feeding on women in areas of conflict – they take a third of the budget back to their own countries, they don’t listen to local voices who know what needs doing, they are arrogant thinking they know better. This message came across loud and clear on the second day…

Day 2 -

The power of the Northern Ireland experience was profound and made more so when hearing the traumatic stories of women who had lost their immediate families in Israel and Palestine. The positive energy Ann & Bronagh brought to the conference was palpable and their messages clear: ‘violence does not work’, ‘there could never be a winner’, ‘dialogue is crucial’, ‘keep hope alive’, ‘it is all about inclusion, human rights and equality’, ‘peace building is hard hard work’. Hopefully their experience will have an impact on the Middle East – it would seem they are about ten years behind Northern Ireland in the negotiations. Their experience can and should help all conflicts around the world and resources must be made available for this to happen.

So here is something outsiders can bring – resources to make sure experience is shared. However frustration with external intervention was expressed in an outburst of ‘Get out of the way, stop gate keeping, listen more productively’. So having felt momentarily that there was a positive contribution an outsider could bring I was back in my box! Also we had heard quite rightly that outsiders should be encouraged to ‘study the culture of the countries before intervening, use national expertise at all times – they know the issues and the solutions’. However it was stated that nationals working for international agencies are always treated as a ‘lower’ person and never with the same degree of knowledge and respect as those who think they know better based outside the country. I wish international agencies would hear this.

Day 3-

It wasn’t until I reached the airport at 8.30 p.m. thinking of my three day old friends settling in to celebrate the conference, sadly missing Wangari’s promised Irish jigs, that the full impact of the three days hit me. The face of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi came to mind. I read the pamphlet entitled ‘Still licensed to rape’ highlighting the systematic rape of women -the youngest being only 8 years old- by the military as a strategy to subjugate the peoples of Shan State in Burma. The same stories, slightly different, had come from Northern Uganda, from Darfur, from Kosova, Iraq, Palestine and Afghanistan. Stories of rape used as a weapon of war, so called ‘honour killings’ to save the reputations of families, the denial of access to information and justice – the many forms of violence against women flooded back. Violence against women does not only occur within conflict situations, it’s all pervasive trafficking of women into the sex industry, female genital mutilation, early and forced marriage, domestic violence – the list seems endless.

So sitting waiting to be called at Shannon Airport to leave for London Heathrow, I resolved to continue the struggle to get resources to women and women’s organisations so strategies and experiences can be shared – tomorrow I chair a meeting to push forward a women’s resource agency and fund in the UK to support women there and around the world. Do I have a choice? In the words of Ghandhi one has to ‘be the change you want to be’.

Thank you Nobel Women’s Initiative for the time in Galway; it was inspirational.

I have had a chance to watch a movie with Shirin Ebadi, have dinner at the same table with Miread Corrigan, sing the “peel banana” song with Betty Williams, envy Wangari Masthai’s outfit, plan for an NPR interview with Jody Williams and sing, dance and learn from women many of which deserve to be laureates. Do you think I will ever wish to meet a president or celebrity in my life?

At 9.30 this morning we were again reminded of the humanity and inner resilience of Dau Aung San Suu Kyi and her continued struggle against an illegal military dictatorship as her presence overflowed from the giant screen. Her unjust absence from the conference is a cruel reminder of her long persecution by the dictatorship of Burma. How is it that the fourth largest army in South East Asia, a dictatorship that spends at least 40% of its budget on militarization and a mere 1% on health and education, can fear one woman who preaches non violence? Suu Kyi’s message to the international community is loud and clear. She urges us not to feed the dictatorship of Burma. Calling us to cut off all economic ties with Burma. End tourism and all other forms of engagement with Burma, which feed and nurture the dictatorship. As we note her forthcoming 62nd birthday: 19 June, and rush to scribble her address to send greeting cards, we were all conscious that this was our last and final day as a group.

The main question that stood before us like a majestic elephant, was how do we continue to most effectively voice our struggle and our resistance to the continual denial of our basic human rights? Our final moments were about magnifying the courage, the strength and the rights and needs of all the women in the room, and all those that they represented in each and every corner across the world. Ideas initially discussed on the first day were again given weight and focus: A mainstream media for women, by women was a vital and essential tool. It would make the invisible visible. Connections between advocacy and activism conducted at the local, regional, national and international level must be reinforced and developed. Women must be represented at every political level of society for real change to be negotiated and implemented.

Many hands were going up for comments and questions; a sense of urgency had taken over- that what had been so vibrantly and passionately discussed did not remain merely in the room, but effectively infiltrated through every level of society. Each statement was again re-enhanced by a woman’s human story of suffering. That at the core of all our discussions, our work was an over whelming unity of pain and resistance which was endured every minute of every hour of every day by women worldwide. The Laureates listened and took notes. They made a commitment that they would support the expertise that was being conducted on the ground. We were reminded again by Mairead Corrigan Maguire that we must all ‘live in the minute. That we must continue to celebrate life.’

As I walk away from the hotel, from the laughter and the electric vibrancy of 80 beautiful, strong women dancing and celebrating the essence and joy of life. I feel like a child that has just returned from a magical fun fair. I carry a huge bouquet of balloons in my hand, each one representing all the emotions I felt over the last three days, from anger to horror to joy and pain. I have been privileged to hear so much, see so much and be touched by so much. And I know within me that a window has opened in my heart, and I will never be the same. I know that I have a voice. That my voice with the voice of so many other men, women and children around the world will continue to fight for real change. I am reminded of what Suu Kyi said. That ‘freedom is giving joy to others. Freedom is understanding what is right within you, and exposing it without endangering yourself and others.’

The Laureates, having sat amongst us all day, each day and listened to the stories being told and the arguments that came and went, have proposed four areas in which they might move forward. More media strategies. Linkages between disarmament and violence against women. A women’s peace statue. An annual women’s human rights report.

But it’s Shirin Ebadi’s idea of the women’s peace statue that has captured everyone’s minds – who should the statue be for? What should it say? What should it symbolise? What should it look like? It was discussed at length and the suggestions flowed:

Each country should design its own statue.

It should be not to the unknown victim but to the unknown survivor.

It should be of a woman on her own, without a child.

It should reinforce the Women in Black model.

It should be an antiwar symbol as well as a focus on women.

It should be to the unknown heroine.

It should be of two women, not one.

It should be a symbol – something that will change minds and therefore change culture.

Shirin Ebadi listened to the long list of suggestions and explained that her goal in suggesting it was to respect people who survive wars – the injured and the women and children. The sculpture by an Iranian artist who had voluntarily taken up the idea was one possible response. Shirin Ebadi feels that using the word ‘victim’ states that the memorial is for all the suffering that comes from war, but that this idea is something we can go on discussing. I think it’s likely to happen, so if you are interested, keep an eye on the Nobel Women’s Initiative website. It’s an idea that is here to stay…

I’ve heard how in coalition-building and inclusivity, the principles and not the ideology are the key. That dialogue works, but only when there is equality in the dialogue. That in order to transform victimisation the term itself must be used as a tool – a political tool for consciousness raising – and not abused. That we must humanise not demonise each other in order to transform the culture of violence. That peacebuilding is long hard painful work, that women can and do make a difference. Northern Ireland is the proof. The Irish Laureates gave the Iranian women here at the conference their word that if America attacks Iran, Shannon airport will not be used by the American military to refuel and carry out extraordinary renditions, as it is now.

The women Nobel Laureates created a space this week for women from around the world to gather: women who have lived and continue to live through wars at the same time as continuing to demand peace; women who experience violence on all levels and in all places day after day, year after year; women who try to raise their children and build a better life for them; women who simply will not give up, who survive, who not only carry on but search for other women and men with whom to share their peacebuilding knowledge.

The Laureates came not only to listen to them, but to pledge their support for the hard painful work of peacebuilding by women – for the sake of us all.

So, how did this conference end? It ended with women from around the world who will not give in to the violence, singing, drinking and dancing long into the night – Iranian music, Spanish music, Irish music, the Beatles – we sang, danced, clapped and laughed – with Mairead Corrigan Maguire and Shirin Ebadi there all the way.

It will be difficult to convey in words the depth and breadth of what has happened over the past three days here in Galway. Each day we have been witness to countless women activists’ stories of repression, despair, resistance, hope, forgiveness, and compassion. These accounts have been shared with extreme tenacity of spirit and tremendous wit. Furthermore, they were consistently presented within a framework of practical commitment to transforming ideas for change and reform into living realities.

There are two aspects of the conference that stand out in my mind at this point. One is the incredible Iranian delegation led by Shirin Ebadi. These women – journalists, lawyers, activists – demonstrate such assertiveness, dynamism, intelligence and good humour so as to categorically negate stereotypes that may exist around them, particularly in popular Western press. The Iranian women came to the conference from a country in which serious political and social repression defines their everyday realities, and yet not only did they consistently participate, but rather led the way in many of the discussions of equality, human rights, justice, and peace. I would implore anyone reading this blog to look at the Iranian women’s movement’s website on their latest campaign for equality, ‘One Million Signatures Demanding Changes to Discriminatory Laws.’

The second aspect of the conference I would highlight is the democratic nature of the entire event. This conference was a micro-model of the democratic process in its highest form. Rarely did an event take place, or particular topic be broached, without the consent of all participants at the conference. And rarely was a voice not heard – even if this meant that we had to go over time or shorten the time we had for recess. The debates and discussions that ensued as a result were rich, lively, balanced, and never left without a logical conclusion. For me, this simply reinforced the fact that women must be further integrated into local, national, regional, and international decision-making structures and levels of governance. I do not approach my work from a feminist framework per se, but rather from a human rights and social justice basis. Having said this, I feel that there is no way the conference would have been as qualitatively good had it not been facilitated and moderated by women only.

The Nobel Women’s Initiative is not yet one year old, and yet it has already begun to provide a strong revenue for change and resistance to the dominant, patriarchal structures in which every one of us lives. I look forward to keeping in touch with the conference participants, and in continuing our commitment to advancing women’s human rights together.

After the immense dialogue that took place today, I feel a bit foolish. Usually, I take solace and recognize my own self-efficacy that has come as consequence of my dedication to the non-profit world. As a well educated, 21 year old woman growing up just outside of Washington DC my everyday life is not perfect, it is not pristine, but I am grateful to admit that I do enjoy myself and my time. More than ever before, today I realized that I am beyond fortunate. I have an obligation to listen. There is so much to hear, and while it is difficult, I am glad to hear it.

At home, I bask in my family and my friends who are all healthy, vibrant human beings. I spend much of my time listenning to music, dancing, or in the glorious world of philanthropy and social change fundraising. I enjoy food, wine, and fashion. I long for the sunshine, fresh flowers, the ocean, Maryland crabs, and good films. I usually enjoy those without rationing, without much restraint, and usually with an angelic conscience.

I took a great deal of time today thinking of these things that make me happy in a world of such despair. I listened and compared my happiness to what my young women counterparts living in Burma, Palestine, or Iraq can only dream of experiencing. I felt rather foolish.

I learned from women who are the leaders of organizations and movements, women who have decades of life experience revolving around erasing violence around the world. For so many women around the globe – old and young – happiness is marginal. Instead, their lives are about survival. If my life is not about survival, it must be about contribution.

I added very little to the discussion today, as I felt it was better to instead utilize my very best civil listening skills. I heard something quite profound: humanity is trivialized by violence. It is not the economics, or the politics, or the power that will motivate change. It is our own humanity. By ignoring such, by failing to listen, a person always trivializes himself or herself, lives illegitimately, and fails. I believe very strongly that people cannot live their lives in the shadow of someone else’s strife, but I also believe that empathy for the suffering that people – real people all over the world – battle every single day is central to success.

Remember this humanity, listen to the people, to the women, to the cause and the effects that the work being done all over the world has. There are so many epic voices in the world, professing horrific problems and incredible solutions. Right now, what is need is ears. Listen. You will find that the recognition that we are all human, that we are all capable of the same strife and the same joy, that we are all responsible for recognizing our own impact on others, is the best call to action. That is what makes listening so profound.

Once we have broken down the stereotypes, the judgments, and the socially constructed barriers that exist, once we begin to look at the world as a network of people then, really, will there be no hesitation to act. Those who stand quiet, or who make general assumptions of situations, who make superficial investments that fail to consider the local culture and the international context of change are those who have not yet been able to understand that we are people.

By sharing the experiences of women and of organizations we see the people who are involved with social change work, we see the pain, but we also feel hope. And so today every woman in the room has been once again given the drive to act. Tomorrow we will define, organize, collaborate, and expand our actions so that people will listen. Testimonies today prove that it is women and girls who need your ears the most. Listen.