Retrospective 2009 - Leymah Gbowee - Round Table Conversation with Experts
of Research on Peace Building
"Women fight for peace and against sexual violence
in Africa - and the international media purposefully look away ..."
Transcription
(word)
Round table conversation with Leymah Gbowee and experts of research on
and education in peace building on Monday, November 23rd 2009 after
the screening of Gini Reticker’s „Pray the Devil Back to
Hell“ at Arsenal theater.
Journalist and expert on development policies Sabine Freudenberg moderated the discussion. She asked Leymah about the strategies that empower women to successfully endure such an apparently unwinnable fight to end civil war in Liberia
Leymah explained that first, these women's lives were marked by undescribable
violence and they had nothing to lose. And yet, they wanted to build
a future free of violence for their children.
She then went on to eloquently describe how she managed to eliminate
the reciprocal clichees of Christian and Muslim women in joint workshops
and how to build a platform for their common work that would be utterly
difficult. She also explained that it was necessary to collaborate with
the religious elites in order to win their support for this struggle.
Both researchers of the Institute of Political Sciences of the University
of Tuebingen and the Institute of Peace Education, Sophia Benz and Nadine
Heptner, were impressed by this practical and creative example of peace-building
and connected it to their own work: Regardless of religion, there are
many positive examples of religious protagonists that have a peaceful
impact on conflicts. However, also in every religion, there are numerous
examples of religious protagonists that fuel conflicts, act negatively
and escalate conflicts and violence. That’s the reason why the
Institute of Political Sciences is interested in exploring the circumstances
of religions being instrumentalized for political reasons and also in
situations where religions could induce peace. That Leymah’s example
is a successful example of how to consciously initiate and solve conflicts
through encounters like those between the Christian and Muslim women.
And that’s exactly the aim of education in peace: To consciously
initiate encounters that could lead to the solution of conflicts.
Hereupon Leymah pointed out that theory is rather built upon the everyday
practice of the real-life protagonists and not the other way around:
that protagonists first read scientific work on peacebuilding and then
try to implement it in practice. That unfortunately, institutions like
the UN in most cases do not recognize and use this kind of practical
knowledge, and that’s the reason why most of their peace missions
are prone to fail.
The deeply moved spectators had many questions: on the integration of ex-child-soldiers back into society, the work of the female president of Liberia, and the challenges of Leymah’s Panafrican Women’s Peace Network WIPSEN, among others.
Briefly but thoroughly, Leymah was able to address all these questions: She is very happy with the work of the female president, since Mrs. Sirleaf has started to implement and use the practical knowledge of the women from the peace movement and to respect them. Former child soldiers still struggle in post-war Liberia. Leymah has worked together with a small percentage of these ex-combatants and some of them are now engaged in peace work and have been able to reorder their life.
And the biggest challenges for WIPSEN: „Apparently there is a backlash against the empowerment of women, i.e. every time they successfully appear in the political-public discourse, they are brutally attacked. This was the case in Guinea-Conakry, where women were shot at and publicly raped after the demonstrations. In Simbabwe WIPSEN was asked to bring in its experience and this will hopefully happen by next year."
Fotos: Monika Michell