Mighty Be Our Powers: Building Women, Building Peace

Leymah Gbowee Author

10/03/2019 Added

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2011 Nobel Peace Laureate Leymah Gbowee is a Liberian peace activist, trained social worker and women’s rights advocate. She currently serves as Executive Director of the Women, Peace and Security Program at Columbia University’s Earth Institute, and is the founder and current President of the Gbowee Peace Foundation Africa, the founding head of the Liberia Reconciliation Initiative, and co-founder and former Executive Director of Women Peace and Security Network Africa (WIPSEN-A). She is also a founding member and former Liberian Coordinator of Women in Peacebuilding Network/West Africa Network for Peacebuilding (WIPNET/WANEP).

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[00:00:00.333](upbeat music)
[00:00:07.006]ANNOUNCER: Today you are part of an important
[00:00:08.975]conversation about our shared future.
[00:00:12.112]The E.N. Thompson Forum on World Issues explores a diversity
[00:00:15.415]of viewpoints on international and public policy issues
[00:00:19.052]to promote understanding and encourage debate
[00:00:21.888]across the University and the state of Nebraska.
[00:00:25.325]Since its inception in 1988 hundreds of distinguished
[00:00:29.529]speakers have challenged and inspired us,
[00:00:32.365]making this forum one of the preeminent
[00:00:35.802]speaker series in higher education.
[00:00:39.539]It all started when E.N. Jack Thompson
[00:00:42.976]imagined a forum on global issues
[00:00:45.445]that would increase Nebraskans understanding
[00:00:47.714]of cultures and events from around the world.
[00:00:50.917]Jack's perspective was influenced by his travels,
[00:00:54.354]his role in helping to found the United Nations,
[00:00:57.123]and his work at the Carnegie
[00:00:59.125]Endowment for international Peace.
[00:01:02.195]As President of the Cooper Foundation in Lincoln,
[00:01:05.197]Jack pledged substantial funding to the forum.
[00:01:08.401]And the University of Nebraska and
[00:01:10.103]Lied Center for Performing Arts agreed to co-sponsor.
[00:01:14.707]Later, Jack and his wife Katie created the Thompson
[00:01:18.411]Family Fund to support the forum and other programs.
[00:01:22.682]Today major support is provided by the Cooper Foundation,
[00:01:28.021]Lied Center for Performing Arts,
[00:01:30.089]and University of Nebraska Lincoln.
[00:01:32.959]We hope this talk sparks an exciting conversation among you.
[00:01:39.599]And now on with the show.
[00:01:42.702](calm music)
[00:01:48.975]MIKE ZELENY: Good evening ladies and gentlemen.
[00:01:50.610]I'm Mike Zeleny and I'm delighted to welcome you
[00:01:52.512]to this evening's E.N. Thompson Forum on World Issues.
[00:01:55.548]The forum, as you know, is sponsored by
[00:01:57.317]the Cooper Foundation in partnership with
[00:01:59.285]the University of Nebraska Lincoln
[00:02:00.620]and its Lied Center for Performing Arts,
[00:02:02.489]now celebrating its 30th anniversary year.
[00:02:05.291]Tonight we are honored to present Ms. Leymah Gbowee
[00:02:09.027]who is a Liberian peace activist,
[00:02:10.997]social worker, and women's rights advocate.
[00:02:14.300]Ms. Gbowee received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011 for her
[00:02:17.904]leadership of a women's movement that played a pivotal
[00:02:20.106]role in ending Liberia's 14 year civil war in 2003.
[00:02:24.677]The year before she gathered thousands of Christian
[00:02:27.313]and Muslim women in a movement which later would
[00:02:31.050]become known as women of Liberia, Mass Action for Peace.
[00:02:34.854]For many months the women prayed for peace,
[00:02:37.290]and eventually held daily nonviolent demonstrations
[00:02:40.126]and sit-ins to protest Liberian dictator Charles Taylor.
[00:02:44.731]With more than 2000 women gathered outside his office,
[00:02:48.101]Taylor finally granted them hearing in 2003.
[00:02:51.170]Taylor eventually agreed to attend
[00:02:52.805]regional peace talks in Accra, Ghana.
[00:02:55.174]When the peace talks stalled Ms. Gbowee led a group
[00:02:57.744]of 200 activists to Accra, where they barred
[00:02:59.846]the delegates from leaving without reaching an agreement.
[00:03:02.849]The Accra Comprehensive Peace Agreement
[00:03:04.751]was signed on August 18, 2003 ending the war.
[00:03:09.289]Ms. Gbowee currently serves as Executive Director
[00:03:11.491]of the Women Peace and Security Program
[00:03:13.493]at Columbia University's Earth Institute.
[00:03:15.962]She is also the founder and current President of
[00:03:18.264]the Gbowee Peace Foundation, Africa.
[00:03:20.500]They provide education and leadership opportunities
[00:03:22.769]to girls, women, and youth in Africa.
[00:03:25.338]She also was the founding head of the Liberia
[00:03:28.007]Reconciliation Initiative, and co-founder
[00:03:30.376]and former Executive Director of the
[00:03:32.078]Women Peace and Security Network, Africa.
[00:03:34.714]She also is a founding member and former
[00:03:36.749]Liberian Coordinator of Women in Peace Building Network,
[00:03:39.953]West Africa Network for Peace Building.
[00:03:42.221]Ms. Gbowee serves as a Sustainable Development Goals
[00:03:44.591]Advocate for the United Nations,
[00:03:46.192]and is also a member of the World Refugee Council.
[00:03:48.962]In 2017 she was selected to serve as a member of
[00:03:51.564]the United Nations Secretary General's
[00:03:53.499]High Level Advisory Board on Mediation.
[00:03:56.336]Her work is chronicled in the memoir,
[00:03:58.438]Mighty be Our Powers, how Sisterhood, Prayer,
[00:04:01.874]and Sex Changed a Nation at War, and in the award winning
[00:04:05.044]documentary Pray the Devil Back to Hell.
[00:04:08.881]Tonight's event will include a presentation
[00:04:10.583]by Ms. Gbowee followed by questions from
[00:04:12.885]our audience here in the Lied Center,
[00:04:14.287]and via our Twitter feed at #ENThompsonForum.
[00:04:18.791]After tonight's lecture Ms. Gbowee will also be available
[00:04:21.461]for book signing in the Lied Centers orchestra lobby.
[00:04:23.997]Now please join me in giving a warm
[00:04:25.732]Nebraska welcome to Ms. Leymah Gbowee.
[00:04:29.268](audience applauding)
[00:04:41.881]LEYMAH GBOWEE: Thank you.
[00:04:44.517]Thank you so much.
[00:04:46.452]It's truly an honor to be here tonight to speak
[00:04:49.555]to you all at the E.N. Thompson Forum.
[00:04:55.395]I'd like to say thank you to all of the organizers.
[00:04:58.164]It's been one roller coaster ride getting me here
[00:05:05.538]from Mexico, to Iowa, to Boston,
[00:05:09.976]to Geneva, and Geneva to Nebraska.
[00:05:14.447]That's a lot of flying around just to get right here.
[00:05:18.918]But I'm happy to be here.
[00:05:20.319]I'm happy to share my thoughts on some global issues.
[00:05:23.790]I'm happy for us to engage later
[00:05:26.659]after my talk with questions and answers.
[00:05:30.963]I don't know if I have all of the answers
[00:05:32.999]but I will attempt to give it from my perspective.
[00:05:38.004]So in 2002 a group of us went to a refugee camp,
[00:05:45.645]an internally displaced camp in Liberia.
[00:05:48.915]And the essence of our trip was to
[00:05:52.285]sit and listen to stories of the women.
[00:05:57.523]We had gone to the back of this camp.
[00:06:00.993]There was a hut, a circular hut.
[00:06:04.297]Prior to the war we used to call the Palaba Hut.
[00:06:07.867]That's where people said to talk issues.
[00:06:11.637]But after the war now, people want
[00:06:13.706]to refer to it as the Peace Hut.
[00:06:16.242]Because Palaba led to war,
[00:06:18.444]and we don't want to remember war.
[00:06:20.847]But we went to the Palaba Hut and we all agreed
[00:06:23.516]at that moment that that space was our Sandit.
[00:06:28.755]And the Sandit is the secret society for women.
[00:06:32.191]So we sat in that space and we began
[00:06:36.362]a conversation about all of the issues
[00:06:40.533]that were impacting the lives of women.
[00:06:43.269]One after the other, women from the internally
[00:06:47.974]displaced camp told their stories.
[00:06:50.510]People told stories of how they walked for miles,
[00:06:54.280]how they suffered to get to the camps.
[00:06:57.316]And there was this very beautiful,
[00:07:00.419]beautiful young woman sitting there.
[00:07:03.422]The length of her hair, but she was blind.
[00:07:08.327]And she walked, she had a cane
[00:07:10.763]and had a huge bandage on her leg.
[00:07:14.934]She said there was an attack on our village
[00:07:21.240]and I ran with my three kids and my husband.
[00:07:25.912]We got to a checkpoint and he was shot at point blank range.
[00:07:31.484]We walked, of course she was
[00:07:34.453]sexually assaulted by the soldiers.
[00:07:38.558]The kids were taken by some good Samaritans.
[00:07:43.229]She said we ran, I tried to run away
[00:07:46.766]with some other women who had been taken.
[00:07:50.002]And we passed through some swamp, and I hurt my leg.
[00:07:56.909]And then maybe it was the water that we swim in
[00:08:01.147]or something, but it started bothering my eyes
[00:08:05.585]and I started losing my sight.
[00:08:08.621]But we came to the camps and I had not gotten any ration.
[00:08:15.962]I don't have a tent to live in.
[00:08:19.799]I was eventually reunited with my children.
[00:08:24.303]But the person who is responsible for giving
[00:08:27.874]the tents would only give me tent
[00:08:31.844]and food ration if I had sex with him.
[00:08:38.885]At that moment, everything normal in me turned upside down.
[00:08:45.291]I was boiling with rage.
[00:08:47.793]And one of the things that I have perfected
[00:08:50.930]is my ability to not cry.
[00:08:54.934]During the war I cried a lot.
[00:08:57.370]And by 2002 I told myself I had to be the strong person.
[00:09:03.342]But I broke down in front of all of the women,
[00:09:06.579]and we all just cried.
[00:09:09.548]As we were leaving the camps someone
[00:09:12.551]asked what are you all going to do?
[00:09:14.954]I said well we are going to this particular
[00:09:16.422]humanitarian organizations office,
[00:09:18.824]and we're going to get justice.
[00:09:21.694]So we went, asked to see the boss.
[00:09:26.198]He granted us audience, we explained the story,
[00:09:30.970]called the name of the staff.
[00:09:35.474]Immediately they asked us to go back to the camps
[00:09:39.645]the next day and to document the number
[00:09:42.782]of vulnerable women in the camps
[00:09:46.452]for them to be able to provide them with ration.
[00:09:50.723]This lady got her ration, she got her tent.
[00:09:53.693]But every other thing that was owed her
[00:09:55.761]from the past were given to her.
[00:09:59.832]In many of our societies
[00:10:02.802]community members, leaders and all of
[00:10:05.104]the different group of people really want to talk about
[00:10:08.474]the broken system, the brokenness of our society.
[00:10:13.112]Primarily if the women and girls have been impacted
[00:10:15.948]by decisions that men and leaders make,
[00:10:19.151]not many people want to talk about it.
[00:10:22.555]And this is what I formed as we started
[00:10:25.491]this peace work, this movement.
[00:10:28.160]It's important and it it's necessary
[00:10:31.230]for women to just stay in their space.
[00:10:35.368]We don't need you to come outside to rock the boat.
[00:10:39.572]Everyone knows that things are very bad.
[00:10:43.309]We just don't want it in our faces.
[00:10:46.846]So join me tonight as I try to talk briefly
[00:10:49.915]about building women, building peace,
[00:10:53.686]but also re-imagining all of our humanitarian discourse.
[00:11:00.192]And bringing it back to the center of reality,
[00:11:04.997]which is our common and collective humanity.
[00:11:09.402]So after we did that, we were emboldened.
[00:11:12.905]I like to move around.
[00:11:15.074]Trust me I won't jump down.
[00:11:18.477]We were emboldened by that one action.
[00:11:22.681]And that one action led to a second action.
[00:11:26.719]And the second action led to
[00:11:28.387]a third action, a fourth action.
[00:11:31.290]But one of the things that we realized
[00:11:33.459]as we started this movement is that
[00:11:36.195]we could not give what we didn't have.
[00:11:40.066]And we were fighting to build peace.
[00:11:43.869]But a lot of us didn't have peace, we were broken
[00:11:46.906]from all of our experiences as survivors
[00:11:51.243]or people who were trying to survive a civil conflict.
[00:11:55.714]So we would eventually go into
[00:11:58.984]these spaces where would exhale.
[00:12:00.519]I'll pause for a moment.
[00:12:04.557]Every woman in this room is a sponge.
[00:12:09.462]You say how am I a sponge, I'm a human person.
[00:12:13.399]You are a brand new sponge that soaks
[00:12:17.503]all of the dirt around you, the dirt of hardship.
[00:12:26.278]Don't get me wrong men also soak it in.
[00:12:30.216]But it's easier for them to express to their buddies.
[00:12:33.953]Most of us women, especially from our different cultures
[00:12:36.889]are supposed to be the strong ones.
[00:12:39.625]So we don't express a lot.
[00:12:43.229]You have to take it in for the sake of your children,
[00:12:47.766]for the sake of your community.
[00:12:50.569]So most of us who had gone through the war
[00:12:54.507]were just collecting all of the pains.
[00:12:58.310]And so when we came to that point
[00:12:59.979]where we decided we wanted to build peace,
[00:13:04.049]building peace meant we had to squeeze out
[00:13:07.720]all of the dirt in order to be able to give
[00:13:12.791]what we had now, which was peace.
[00:13:16.362]So the first part of our work was dealing with
[00:13:18.664]the individuals, re-socializing as we went through
[00:13:23.369]the process of trauma healing.
[00:13:26.939]Most of us had been socialized to believe that
[00:13:29.775]we were not supposed be in a public sphere.
[00:13:33.078]Politics and peace was a male domain,
[00:13:37.416]and women were supposed to stay at home.
[00:13:40.486]And this is not just a Liberian phenomena.
[00:13:43.022]it was in Sierra Leone, New Guinea,
[00:13:45.057]Cote d'Ivoire, everywhere you have war.
[00:13:47.927]Because you see our politics and the histories
[00:13:50.930]of our countries is that everything was established
[00:13:54.833]on the basis of discrimination,
[00:13:56.802]patriarchy, and all of those things.
[00:13:59.338]Liberia is a unique case.
[00:14:02.274]In 1821 free slaves left this country
[00:14:06.579]and went back, 19,000 of them.
[00:14:09.949]Everything that was done to them on
[00:14:12.484]the plantation they did to indigenous people.
[00:14:17.122]So as a nation we have a complicated history.
[00:14:22.628]Liberia was established 1827 by free slaves.
[00:14:28.367]But our indigenous people, so when were they established?
[00:14:32.438]So our history within itself is complicated.
[00:14:36.508]Women were not allowed to be involved in many things.
[00:14:40.679]So from 1847 when we gained our independence
[00:14:45.284]with everything American, our flag,
[00:14:47.987]our money, our constitutional structure of government.
[00:14:53.225]Our President gives State of the Nation,
[00:14:55.394]you give State of the Union.
[00:14:58.597]Your elections are November, ours is October.
[00:15:04.336]Second Monday every year, or third Monday
[00:15:08.340]you give you State of the Union.
[00:15:10.276]Ours is second Monday or something.
[00:15:13.646]Women are indigenous property owner,
[00:15:16.382]and the women who were allowed to vote
[00:15:19.952]we're women who were part of the elite class,
[00:15:23.522]did not vote until almost 100 years after independence.
[00:15:29.728]So with this background imagine a group of women
[00:15:34.500]deciding that we're going to get involved
[00:15:37.069]in the politics of our country,
[00:15:39.338]we're going to build peace, we're going
[00:15:42.107]to step out there and do something.
[00:15:43.776]Once we started with that healing process the next thing
[00:15:46.378]we decided to do was to boldly put out their a statement.
[00:15:52.484]At that time Taylor was President,
[00:15:54.586]he was one of the worst dictators in Africa.
[00:15:58.590]But he had given an instruction that anyone who protested,
[00:16:02.961]even if it was his mother should be flogged publicly.
[00:16:07.633]So we decided to do a statement.
[00:16:11.036]When we did that statement someone says
[00:16:13.372]so who do we say wrote this statement.
[00:16:15.741]Another person says say the women of Liberia.
[00:16:18.477]I said that's fraudulent.
[00:16:20.179]How can seven people sit in a room and claim
[00:16:22.581]to be the women of an entire nation?
[00:16:26.652]Let's name ourselves.
[00:16:29.088]As risky as it was, we named ourselves and signed.
[00:16:36.028]Somebody had $10 in their handbag.
[00:16:39.498]And we put our statement out.
[00:16:43.402]Next day every media personnel in Liberia
[00:16:45.904]wanted to know who these seven crazy people were.
[00:16:49.274]Don't you know you are dealing with Charles Taylor?
[00:16:52.077]You put your name on this article?
[00:16:56.515]That's the second lesson we learned.
[00:16:59.351]You can't transform any situation by being a fraud.
[00:17:04.656]You can't fight evil with lies.
[00:17:08.227]Today we have a lot of young people
[00:17:10.295]who are activists on social media,
[00:17:15.567]but they still cannot boldly put their names.
[00:17:17.903]They go with mechanic, funny face, issue in the press.
[00:17:22.107]Just think about whatever name.
[00:17:24.542]But we decided we wanted to name ourselves.
[00:17:28.981]And from that moment onward it was
[00:17:31.717]one action after the other.
[00:17:35.487]But I'll come back to brokenness.
[00:17:38.624]Because what we did when we stepped out
[00:17:41.794]was to put our broken bodies in front of the world
[00:17:45.731]to say to them that when you watch CNN,
[00:17:49.101]BBC, Al Jazeera, and all of the international news
[00:17:53.672]on Liberia all you saw was the boys with guns,
[00:18:00.279]heads on sticks, Charles Taylor speaking,
[00:18:04.616]or some warlord speaking.
[00:18:07.052]There were no coverage of the human persons,
[00:18:11.623]people who were being impacted by the war.
[00:18:15.327]So when we step out publicly,
[00:18:17.996]we step out to shake the status quo.
[00:18:21.300]We were putting our broken bodies out there
[00:18:23.802]for the world to see that there was a second side
[00:18:27.706]to this war that no one was talking about.
[00:18:32.511]And then it became one thing after the other.
[00:18:37.115]Last time few of the women and I who started the protest
[00:18:41.753]were sitting together, and one person said
[00:18:43.355]you know we can write volumes of stories
[00:18:45.757]based on the things that we did.
[00:18:48.494]And we can write volumes.
[00:18:50.562]One of the days the international community
[00:18:52.831]came to have a meeting, no one told us.
[00:18:57.102]One of the African Ambassadors called and say
[00:19:00.506]you need to go to so, so, and so please.
[00:19:03.208]We got there, there were all these US government officials.
[00:19:09.715]And we had this very young, two young women
[00:19:12.551]in the entire movement, very sassy.
[00:19:17.823]We had put plastic on our statements
[00:19:21.326]because it was in the peak of the rainy season.
[00:19:24.596]So we kept the statement in our clothes
[00:19:27.432]so that it didn't get wet.
[00:19:29.801]One person said I'm crossing over
[00:19:32.771]to give the statement to those men.
[00:19:35.674]And you say how do you do that, AK-47 all over the place.
[00:19:40.245]And the other person said we can do it.
[00:19:43.215]And they started crossing the street.
[00:19:46.351]The soldiers turned to them.
[00:19:49.354]I say the Swedes are very nosey.
[00:19:52.658]They wanted to know who those women across the street were.
[00:19:56.261]Who are those girls in the middle of
[00:19:59.064]the street standing in front of the gun?
[00:20:01.466]And the guy came out, and another came out,
[00:20:03.368]and another came out, before you know it
[00:20:06.538]the entire delegation of international
[00:20:08.774]people we're standing in front of us.
[00:20:11.043]And we're giving them statements.
[00:20:13.845]But that protest lasted for as long as the war lasted.
[00:20:19.885]If you see Pray the Devil Back to Hell
[00:20:21.820]you see all of the different things that we did.
[00:20:26.191]Let's bring it home to the global issues that we face today.
[00:20:31.363]If you look around the world that we're faced with,
[00:20:34.566]we have the whole issue of climate change,
[00:20:38.036]weapons proliferation, immigrant issue in this country.
[00:20:45.010]Racism is facing all of us, staring all of us in the face.
[00:20:50.382]Homelessness is a huge issue here.
[00:20:54.219]Internally displacement, refugee wars are still raging
[00:20:57.889]in places like Yemen, Iraq, Syria, you name it.
[00:21:03.562]And you ask yourself how can we transform all of these,
[00:21:08.433]or how can we transform our world
[00:21:10.168]in the face of all of these different things?
[00:21:14.373]Some of the places you go, I go.
[00:21:17.242]And some of the stories I hear leave little
[00:21:20.345]to desire about our collective humanity,
[00:21:22.848]or the fact that we have anything at all left.
[00:21:27.919]In April I found myself in Cameroon
[00:21:31.089]leading a peace exploratory mission.
[00:21:37.529]Those missions that they would name like that.
[00:21:44.536]I decided to do this even though
[00:21:46.171]I knew I would get traumatized.
[00:21:51.343]And I listened to all the war stories from women,
[00:21:54.212]from girls, and people were sending me
[00:21:56.982]hidden videos from hidden locations of individuals,
[00:22:01.219]a group of people being burned,
[00:22:03.088]and beheaded, and hacked, horrible stories.
[00:22:08.493]The one story that broke me down
[00:22:12.164]was sitting with a group of women,
[00:22:15.100]and I asked them is there an increase in prostitution?
[00:22:21.940]This one woman stood up in the room and said to me,
[00:22:27.713]yes she said, look at me, I'm 45, I have three children,
[00:22:35.687]I work with the government, own a car, own a house.
[00:22:39.257]My life was okay until this war started.
[00:22:44.730]We moved because there's no, in that war there is not
[00:22:49.201]an internally displaced camp sanctioned by the government.
[00:22:52.671]So IDPs, internally displaced people,
[00:22:55.140]have to move in with families.
[00:22:57.943]She said we came to my sister,
[00:22:59.511]there were over 28 individuals living in that house.
[00:23:04.015]I saw the toll of finding food for all of us on her,
[00:23:09.721]her finances, and I decided to leave.
[00:23:13.191]She said I left that house and I've become
[00:23:17.562]an airplane without a destination.
[00:23:22.033]Any man who offers me his bed I take and sleep.
[00:23:29.875]So if my life is the increase in prostitution, yes there is.
[00:23:38.150]Why was I broken down?
[00:23:41.219]I was broken down because these are stories
[00:23:43.688]I've heard in many conflict contexts.
[00:23:48.093]In the DR Congo, many years ago I was in a hotel room.
[00:23:53.498]And I heard this young woman screaming
[00:23:56.468]bad man, bad man, bad man.
[00:23:59.037]The activist in me woke up and I ran outside
[00:24:04.042]with a piece of cloth tied up here.
[00:24:07.045]For all the Africans in the room
[00:24:08.647]you know what I'm talking about.
[00:24:11.550]When you come home and you just want to be comfortable,
[00:24:13.885]just at peace with nothing underneath.
[00:24:17.055]But I just heard a woman scream and I had to go.
[00:24:21.293]I got outside and this girl was screaming
[00:24:23.695]that he brought me to his room, he's trying.
[00:24:26.064]And in a moment men with guns entered.
[00:24:30.468]And they started dragging, beating, and kicking.
[00:24:34.005]I jumped in that group, forgetting what I had on
[00:24:38.310]and just screaming let me take her, let me take her,
[00:24:42.948]let me take her, please don't take her away.
[00:24:45.116]They are kicking, stomping her head.
[00:24:47.452]And I'm trying to push every man.
[00:24:50.589]The guy in the hotel was like get away
[00:24:53.325]because as far as he was concerned I was black
[00:24:56.728]and I was probably another prostitute in that hotel.
[00:25:01.933]They took her to an all new location.
[00:25:05.570]And the next morning the delegation
[00:25:08.006]I was a part of, I explained to them.
[00:25:12.210]And I was the only black woman in a white delegation.
[00:25:16.715]And my colleagues got up and walked over to this guy
[00:25:20.585]and said where did you take that girl last night?
[00:25:24.122]And he turned to look at me.
[00:25:26.358]I say yes, I work with this group.
[00:25:30.028]He went on to explain that she's a troublemaker
[00:25:32.964]and that she's going to be okay, no need for us to worry.
[00:25:36.801]But listening to this woman in Cameroon
[00:25:40.238]in 2019, and going back to 2010, and going back to 1990,
[00:25:48.280]and going back to 1996, the question I asked myself
[00:25:54.686]is when are we ever going to stop this?
[00:25:58.790]Meanwhile I sit in rooms with individuals
[00:26:02.460]with the power to say we're ending these wars,
[00:26:06.898]we're ending the issue of climate crisis.
[00:26:10.035]We are ending all of the troubles that we find ourselves in.
[00:26:16.474]And the conversation turns to policy,
[00:26:20.078]politics, and bureaucracy.
[00:26:24.616]This week in Geneva there was a whole
[00:26:27.052]conversation about armed governance.
[00:26:29.554]And people in the room are sitting and rewriting documents
[00:26:32.757]that they've already written 10 years ago
[00:26:36.461]about the proliferation of arm,
[00:26:38.430]and the threat of a nuclear warfare,
[00:26:41.066]and the threats of powerful countries
[00:26:43.535]like the US getting out of arm trade treaty,
[00:26:45.737]nuclear weapons treaty, and all of the different things.
[00:26:50.075]And I was asked to come into that room
[00:26:51.943]to give a civil society perspective.
[00:26:55.580]The one thing that has dawned on me in
[00:26:57.816]all of these global issues that we are fighting
[00:27:01.152]is the absence of the human person
[00:27:03.888]in the middle of the discourse.
[00:27:07.058]Recently everyone is excited about Greta,
[00:27:11.162]Greta the climate change girl.
[00:27:13.798]When you call Greta's name everyone wakes up.
[00:27:18.536]But Greta is able to gain the attention of the world
[00:27:24.109]because she's taken a huge conversation
[00:27:27.512]about climate and made it personal, it isn't rocket science.
[00:27:34.519]So when we're talking about racism,
[00:27:37.522]as long as racism becomes a statistical policy issue,
[00:27:43.361]there would be very little change.
[00:27:46.865]If racism take the shape and form of everyday people's life
[00:27:53.505]then people begin to pay attention.
[00:27:56.007]Why are you paying attention to Greta?
[00:27:58.943]Because she's breaking it down in 20 years,
[00:28:01.613]in 10 years how their lives will be impacted.
[00:28:05.884]So when we're talking gun violence in this country
[00:28:09.421]there is a need for us to take it away from the statistics
[00:28:14.225]of numbers and bring it down to the families.
[00:28:19.397]I was in one of your big cities working with the mayor
[00:28:21.766]on bringing down gun violence.
[00:28:25.770]And in that entire meeting my skin was creeping
[00:28:29.641]because he kept turning to me and say Miss Gbowee
[00:28:31.943]my numbers are dropping, my police officers
[00:28:35.280]are working and my numbers are dropping.
[00:28:39.584]And you know sometimes I use my Africanness
[00:28:43.621]as a means or disrupting a space.
[00:28:45.757]So I would just say something and say sorry
[00:28:48.359]in my culture we don't have a way of processing that.
[00:28:55.867]Numbers, numbers, numbers, I say.
[00:29:01.806]What you mean numbers, Mayor?
[00:29:05.076]Can people here what you're talking about?
[00:29:07.912]Those numbers are you referring to the babies
[00:29:10.448]that are being murdered on a daily basis?
[00:29:14.853]And he looked at me.
[00:29:15.987]And everyone in the room got uncomfortable.
[00:29:19.457]And I could see my assistant biting her nails like
[00:29:22.260]we're about to be kicked out of this room.
[00:29:25.330]I said sir I'm sorry, but as an
[00:29:28.433]African mother I have to put that one in.
[00:29:31.169]as an African mother I cannot sit here
[00:29:35.240]and allow you to keep saying numbers.
[00:29:37.876]Because by saying numbers you have dehumanized
[00:29:41.913]this entire process, so it becomes about the statistics.
[00:29:47.919]You've taken the dead people's children out of
[00:29:50.455]this conversation and it's become a political dialogue.
[00:29:54.225]I did not come here for that.
[00:29:55.660]I don't even have a vote in the US.
[00:30:01.466]He wasn't very happy.
[00:30:05.770]Okay, okay, okay.
[00:30:07.172]Even the picture we took, he wasn't smiling on it.
[00:30:11.776]I don't think I ever collected my copy
[00:30:14.412]because the feeling was mutual.
[00:30:19.851]The point that I'm making is until we bring it home,
[00:30:25.657]until we begin to have conversations that men can understand
[00:30:32.197]about the reproductive systems of women,
[00:30:37.302]we will keep having political discussion
[00:30:40.905]of their reproductive health and rights.
[00:30:44.142]Until people can understand the impact of war, we will
[00:30:50.148]keep having political conversations about different things.
[00:30:55.286]I was fortunate to have gone to this refugee camp in Jordan.
[00:31:01.993]But I looked back to my own life as a refugee.
[00:31:05.897]We were the Buddha Purim refugee camp years ago.
[00:31:09.067]And I used to be one of those refugee girls
[00:31:11.402]who was 10 and see these convoys.
[00:31:13.938]Who's been a refugee here before and in a camp?
[00:31:17.375]You've been in a camp before?
[00:31:20.378]You imagine how when the UN convoy come,
[00:31:22.947]and you're a refugee you are just looking and wishing
[00:31:24.616]that someone would look at you
[00:31:25.783]and take you away from that place.
[00:31:27.852]No one else, only these girls and I've been refugees?
[00:31:30.555]There are no other refugees from camps?
[00:31:33.458]This is a nice place.
[00:31:37.028]So I used to look an say wow.
[00:31:40.098]So this year we get to Jordan and of course
[00:31:45.803]I become one of those people but imagined
[00:31:49.440]my 17 year old self used to say
[00:31:52.377]I wish these people just stop and ask me a question.
[00:31:57.482]So we get there and there's all guards.
[00:32:00.952]This way Ms. Gbowee, that way Ms. Gbowee.
[00:32:05.356]Have you all seen those kinds of delegations?
[00:32:07.458]At least if you haven't been a refugee you know how it is.
[00:32:10.061]Come on this way Ma'am, and let's go this way Ma'am.
[00:32:13.765]And then someone wants to approach you and they said stop.
[00:32:18.303]But that morning when I was going,
[00:32:20.672]even though we're told not to take hand bag,
[00:32:22.206]I'm sure it was the Spirit of God,
[00:32:24.909]told me to take $100 and I put it in my bra.
[00:32:28.746]I was determined to give that money to someone.
[00:32:33.051]So we get to this camp, and go this way, and come this way.
[00:32:36.788]Things they were interested in
[00:32:38.356]was what they wanted to show us.
[00:32:41.392]I broke free from the group.
[00:32:43.828]And there was this woman cleaning the bathroom.
[00:32:46.597]And I went to her, I was drawn to her.
[00:32:50.902]And I put my hands in my brassiere and took out the $100
[00:32:55.640]and gave it to her, she looked and shove it
[00:32:57.575]back in my hand, shove it back, she shoved.
[00:32:59.410]She can't speak English, I can speak Arabic or whatever
[00:33:02.714]she speak, so we're pushing money back and forth.
[00:33:04.782]And we're looking around to see what the hell is going on.
[00:33:10.555]Eventually I put it in her hand squeezed it tightly
[00:33:13.624]and she was like this African woman
[00:33:14.992]is determined to break my hand, and she said.
[00:33:19.197]And I walked away.
[00:33:21.966]After a while she came back.
[00:33:25.436]And Tauako, who is my Nubile sister was standing next to me.
[00:33:30.908]And she speaks Arabic to Tauako.
[00:33:33.711]And Tauako said she say she wants to tell you something.
[00:33:37.448]And I said Tauako you can't tell anyone anything she says.
[00:33:42.086]And she says no no, no no no.
[00:33:44.355]So she asked Tauako to ask me,
[00:33:46.290]how did I know she needed money?
[00:33:50.061]I said I don't know, but you see when we came
[00:33:54.298]to Ghana as refugees it was my mother with 10 children.
[00:34:01.005]And I knew how, I didn't know she had money
[00:34:04.108]but I mean she had money problem but by virtue of the fact
[00:34:07.545]that she was cleaning the bathroom,
[00:34:08.413]obviously she was working to support a family.
[00:34:11.482]And she showed me pictures.
[00:34:13.583]She was alone with five kids, her old mother.
[00:34:17.255]And she wanted to take a picture with me.
[00:34:20.425]Afterwards no one could contain me.
[00:34:22.760]The security people they had with me give up
[00:34:25.663]because everyone was going left, I was going right.
[00:34:29.132]And I was off, the next place they found me
[00:34:31.969]was in the midst of some little girls.
[00:34:34.739]One spoke perfect English.
[00:34:38.141]And she dreams of being a translator at the UN.
[00:34:44.315]The point that I make, distinguished ladies and gentlemen,
[00:34:49.219]global issues, world issues, are world issues.
[00:34:54.158]But until we sit down, and do our personal analysis
[00:35:01.599]of the human impact of those issues,
[00:35:04.936]we will never really understand.
[00:35:08.406]Many days people ask me how is it that
[00:35:13.311]your movement was successful?
[00:35:17.048]One, because we lived the personal experiences
[00:35:22.220]of each and every member of that group.
[00:35:27.024]Two, our conversations about the war
[00:35:31.028]and ending the war were practical.
[00:35:35.333]It wasn't in some textbook or in some UN document.
[00:35:39.737]Three, it was about the future of a nation
[00:35:44.675]and not about few politicians.
[00:35:48.746]Today in every field, professional studies
[00:35:52.984]people are saying let's bring it back to our field.
[00:35:56.487]I understand that in a medical field
[00:35:59.090]there is this thing written by a professor from U Penn
[00:36:02.059]about how medicine should move away from social justice.
[00:36:05.763]A few years ago I was in London at a meeting
[00:36:09.233]where a group of Generals were saying
[00:36:11.235]Generals in the army should not have to deal with civilians.
[00:36:16.240]We're there to fight and to calm wars.
[00:36:20.711]I'll tell you two stories and then I'll shut up.
[00:36:29.921]In medicine everyone is saying
[00:36:33.124]let's move away from social justice issue right.
[00:36:39.530]In 1996 I arrived in Ghana for the second time
[00:36:46.871]as a refugee five months pregnant, and less than 90 pounds.
[00:36:56.547]My blood level was so low that
[00:37:00.885]the doctor said I need a transfusion.
[00:37:05.156]When I sat in a doctor's office I also had pneumonia
[00:37:11.429]so I could barely breathe, and he lashed at me.
[00:37:15.099]How can you a little girl be pregnant with your third child?
[00:37:20.137]You need, you need, and he went on and on and on.
[00:37:24.008]And because I couldn't speak, I put my hands
[00:37:27.211]in my pocket and took out my passport, and handed it to him.
[00:37:33.017]He opened the page and saw I was 24.
[00:37:38.756]He was like no no, no no no, I got to help you.
[00:37:42.860]You're going to die.
[00:37:45.963]He bought my medication and every other week he would
[00:37:51.068]send for me to come, he would give me transportation.
[00:37:56.073]And I'll get to his office, he would buy me food,
[00:37:58.042]and then buy my medication after treating me for free.
[00:38:02.346]The Sunday I went to give birth to this premature baby,
[00:38:06.183]my doctor had lost his mother on Friday.
[00:38:09.620]I delivered, I didn't have a dime.
[00:38:12.490]They put us in the hallway, I put this baby here.
[00:38:17.328]I didn't know that was the life
[00:38:18.529]saving thing I was doing for him.
[00:38:21.332]I slept on the floor in the hallway of a hospital
[00:38:24.135]in Ghana for a week until he came back.
[00:38:28.906]Someone told him your patient's up there.
[00:38:31.776]But some good Samaritan had taken me that morning
[00:38:34.512]off the hallway into her room.
[00:38:37.048]When he came, where is my grand-baby, bubbly happy.
[00:38:43.320]Paid my bills, made sure the baby
[00:38:46.157]was taken care of, and sent us home.
[00:38:51.829]That doctor, even though is a medical doctor,
[00:38:57.535]stepped into a social justice space.
[00:39:01.906]I was a refugee with no status, he helped me.
[00:39:07.178]But not only did he help me, he gave me hope in humanity,
[00:39:13.517]that there were still good people in this world.
[00:39:16.287]Even though I had come back from
[00:39:18.789]one of the bloodiest civil wars.
[00:39:22.526]Second, Festus Okonkwo, a Nigeria General.
[00:39:29.600]We get to this conference in London.
[00:39:31.469]Every other general in the room was saying
[00:39:34.405]we are not supposed to protect civilians in war.
[00:39:37.608]And this is the year when the conversation
[00:39:39.577]about civilians protection was very high.
[00:39:43.147]General Okonkwo gets up to make
[00:39:45.549]his presentation and puts a slide up.
[00:39:52.890]And the slide was a very violent photograph.
[00:39:57.027]There was this woman who was an activist in Liberia.
[00:39:59.764]She was a mere marketer.
[00:40:02.099]And she used to criticize President Taylor every day
[00:40:06.003]and talk about the evils of his government.
[00:40:09.340]She was abducted, raped, and killed.
[00:40:16.247]When they kill her, as if to send a message to any
[00:40:21.786]other woman who might dare to stand up to this President,
[00:40:26.357]they took a tiny tree, inserted it
[00:40:30.060]in her private it came out of her mouth.
[00:40:33.697]It was that picture that General Okonkwo put up.
[00:40:39.003]He turned to the Generals in the room
[00:40:43.040]and said to all of the men in this room
[00:40:46.410]who are saying they spent years at the military academy
[00:40:49.780]not to protect civilians, which of you on your watch
[00:40:56.086]will see this happen and go back home
[00:40:59.557]and look your wife, your daughter, your mother in the eye
[00:41:06.363]and say you've done a great job.
[00:41:10.401]At the end of that meeting those generals
[00:41:15.105]had a turnaround, and today there is a UN Resolution 1820
[00:41:22.346]that recognized sexual violence as a war crime.
[00:41:31.388]Even as we discuss immigration,
[00:41:35.993]even as we discuss homeless issues,
[00:41:41.131]even as we discuss education,
[00:41:45.069]if the conversation is not centered around people
[00:41:49.740]distinguished ladies and gentlemen, we will remain
[00:41:53.844]seeking for answers for the rest of our lives,
[00:41:57.815]and our children will come seeking for answers.
[00:42:04.688]Local issues, regional issues, global issues must have
[00:42:11.562]the human face at the center of all of those issues.
[00:42:18.302]Two things happen, not only do we solve them
[00:42:24.141]but the individuals around that has lost hope
[00:42:28.279]in humanity will gain hope again.
[00:42:32.750]They will be able to say at least there are some
[00:42:37.855]good people in this world, or that the systems
[00:42:41.558]and structures of our world is not useless.
[00:42:47.498]In Liberia we position ourselves
[00:42:51.135]to face everything we're facing.
[00:42:54.104]When I look back from 2003 till today,
[00:42:58.709]I tell myself I'm able to do the work that I do
[00:43:03.113]because of the work we did with those women.
[00:43:07.017]They had so much faith in our ability
[00:43:09.820]to transform our nation, which we did.
[00:43:13.057]And today I can step into spaces and use my voice
[00:43:17.361]to speak against evils because I know that someone has to.
[00:43:27.538]At the end of the Libyan war
[00:43:30.607]no one wanted to talk about rape.
[00:43:33.610]Everyone was afraid to even mention the word rape.
[00:43:38.315]Dr. Abulash and I, and some Italians, went in.
[00:43:42.886]And he was angry everyday, just angry
[00:43:46.790]because NATO had destroyed that country.
[00:43:48.892]And there was no plan for reconstruction till today,
[00:43:52.496]no plan for trauma healing till today,
[00:43:55.466]no plan for taking arms from people till today.
[00:43:59.436]The conversation was about taking out a Dictator.
[00:44:05.776]After he was taken out no one talked about
[00:44:11.348]the people who stayed and suffered under the Dictator,
[00:44:16.053]and who suffered as a result of the bombings.
[00:44:19.990]Today Libya has become a basket case
[00:44:23.827]and no one wants to talk about it,
[00:44:26.397]because politically it's too complicated,
[00:44:29.533]economically it's too complicated,
[00:44:31.969]militarily it's too complicated.
[00:44:35.939]So the people are left hanging in a balance.
[00:44:41.945]I went to that country, stood on a stage
[00:44:45.082]in front of all of their powerful people
[00:44:48.185]and mentioned rape for as many times as I could.
[00:44:53.090]And I think every time mentioned, someone cringed.
[00:44:56.627]But I remember the last thing I said to them
[00:45:00.130]was that if people, if the revolution was to create a change,
[00:45:09.406]then it had to take into consideration
[00:45:11.508]the pains of the Libyan people, or else that new regime
[00:45:17.047]was no different from the Qaddafi's regime.
[00:45:22.719]We have a world that is in need of help
[00:45:31.028]from Mandela, to King, to Gandhi, to Tutu,
[00:45:35.132]to Shirin Ebadi, to Rosa Parks, to Leymah Gbowee,
[00:45:40.270]to Nadia Murad, to Tawakkol Karman.
[00:45:42.673]Those of us who have been fortunate to receive something
[00:45:45.442]called the Nobel Peace Prize, and global recognition.
[00:45:51.582]Our work wasn't abstract, it was encountering people,
[00:45:57.488]engaging people, and finding ways
[00:46:01.024]to transform the pains of people.
[00:46:05.596]Maybe all of us in this room cannot win the prize.
[00:46:10.601]But trust me you can win more prizes
[00:46:13.871]by helping to shape the world that you live in.
[00:46:20.477]Every time you think about climate change,
[00:46:24.148]think about the impact on a human person.
[00:46:27.651]Every time you think about gun violence,
[00:46:31.288]let it not be thoughts and prayers.
[00:46:34.358]Think about those families who
[00:46:36.560]will never see that child again.
[00:46:39.029]Every time you think about homelessness,
[00:46:42.399]think about what conditions are created in our societies
[00:46:47.337]that makes it difficult for people to keep a home.
[00:46:51.241]Every time you're confronted with racism,
[00:46:55.445]ask yourself what is the color of blood
[00:47:00.651]of that brown person, green person,
[00:47:03.120]white person that I intend to harm?
[00:47:07.991]Because it is by bringing our collective humanity
[00:47:12.062]into the center of all of these global issues
[00:47:17.267]that we're able to start from local
[00:47:19.736]transformation and take it up to global.
[00:47:23.774]I thank you.
[00:47:25.108](audience applauding)
[00:47:57.374]Thank you.
[00:47:59.843]It's been a long day.
[00:48:02.379]MIKE ZELENY: Ladies and gentlemen if you would like
[00:48:03.580]to engage Ms. Gbowee with questions,
[00:48:06.183]there are ushers and the aisles to collect them
[00:48:08.218]please and bring them to the stage.
[00:48:09.953]You may also submit questions via twitter
[00:48:12.055]using the hashtag ENThompsonForum.
[00:48:14.825]Mighty be our Powers, Building Women, Building Peace.
[00:48:19.263]Thank you for the powerful message Leymah.
[00:48:21.365]We are all enriched by your presence this evening.
[00:48:25.736]We'll start with a couple of questions
[00:48:27.271]from our Twitter feed this evening.
[00:48:30.107]So many people in this country feel like
[00:48:32.042]change is so difficult to achieve because of corruption,
[00:48:35.445]bureaucracy, and polarizing ideologies.
[00:48:38.482]What can you say to the young people in this room
[00:48:40.484]to encourage them to keep trying?
[00:48:44.121]GBOWEE: Well there's no other way out but to keep trying.
[00:48:48.458]If you look at what where we find ourselves,
[00:48:51.161]it's not the desirable space.
[00:48:54.898]I mean I can go on telling you stories of
[00:49:00.437]some of those issues that were listed.
[00:49:05.542]And let's imagine our world is this stage.
[00:49:11.114]And it's all darkness out here.
[00:49:14.918]If one person stood on this stage with light
[00:49:17.854]they've disrupted that darkness.
[00:49:21.558]And I think this is what young people need to understand.
[00:49:25.495]You may not see that change in your lifetime,
[00:49:29.533]but you may have contributed to that change.
[00:49:34.237]25 years ago when I started working, or over 25 years ago,
[00:49:40.243]no one in my community could talk about
[00:49:42.679]female genital mutilation publicly, no one.
[00:49:48.819]It was not only a threat from the traditional society,
[00:49:55.625]but powerful people in government,
[00:49:57.094]because that's how they got votes from
[00:49:59.363]the traditional people when they kept with
[00:50:02.666]the cutting of women and girls.
[00:50:06.236]Today FGM is on the floor of Parliament.
[00:50:15.212]Are you following?
[00:50:17.280]25 years ago it wasn't even near a public dialogue.
[00:50:23.754]25 years later is on the floor of Parliament.
[00:50:30.127]And it's been banned by traditional leaders for one year.
[00:50:36.099](audience applauding)
[00:50:38.168]So imagine all the problems, young people,
[00:50:42.105]that you are working on as a big ball.
[00:50:43.874]I'm trying to give you a mental picture of change.
[00:50:46.643]So this problem that you want to work on
[00:50:48.612]is a big ball of true problem, think about big cheese ball.
[00:50:55.886]And if you go and chip off a piece, is that ball whole again?
[00:51:02.426]No right, something is taken out.
[00:51:06.196]And if someone chips out a piece, another thing,
[00:51:08.832]and before you know it if we're all chipping
[00:51:11.301]at those things that we're passionate about,
[00:51:13.737]it's not a whole big ball of problem anymore.
[00:51:17.374]It's probably half, or three quarters of a problem.
[00:51:22.813]So you cannot give up on those things
[00:51:25.048]that you're passionate about, you have to keep
[00:51:27.684]breaking at it, you have to keep pushing
[00:51:30.153]at it so that there is a change.
[00:51:32.622]Don't give up because giving up means corruption has won,
[00:51:36.560]racism has won, discrimination has won,
[00:51:39.296]and bureaucracy is going to roll over you
[00:51:42.232]and your children and grand-children.
[00:51:46.670](audience applauding)
[00:51:52.509]ZELENY: Let's turn to politics.
[00:51:53.643]What do you think this world would look like if all
[00:51:56.580]countries adopted gender quotas in their legislative bodies?
[00:52:00.684]GBOWEE: It would be a beautiful world, what are you talking about?
[00:52:06.122]Let me tell you something.
[00:52:08.258]It's not that women are better than men.
[00:52:14.331]It's just that they're more thoughtful.
[00:52:18.869]It's true.
[00:52:21.771](audience applauding)
[00:52:24.241]Men you are allowed to clap.
[00:52:29.379]In most of the negotiating rooms that we sit in
[00:52:34.150]when people are having conversations about peace,
[00:52:38.221]the men are more concerned about the political positions,
[00:52:43.059]and the women are more concerned about
[00:52:45.729]re-establishing a whole society.
[00:52:50.600]If we had more women in Parliament they would transform
[00:52:55.605]the conversation away from the money and the power,
[00:53:00.010]and reposition it back to everything
[00:53:02.879]we talked about tonight, people so there's
[00:53:06.216]confidence in governance again.
[00:53:09.252]It would not just be about women's issue.
[00:53:13.056]And that's where people miss it.
[00:53:14.991]It will be about a global or a national issue,
[00:53:19.596]issues that is impacting everyone's life.
[00:53:23.900]And again Parliament will not be as dull,
[00:53:27.671]with all dark suits, there would be a lot of color in there.
[00:53:30.974](audience applauding)
[00:53:36.246]ZELENY: As an educator what do you think the most important
[00:53:39.316]lesson there is to share with students?
[00:53:42.652]GBOWEE: I think practical lessons.
[00:53:45.088]We focus too much on textbooks.
[00:53:49.059]Some of the Universities that I go to lecture,
[00:53:51.895]or spend time in a classroom of my students,
[00:53:54.698]when they give me one theory of change
[00:53:57.634]I'm like Jesus, where is that going to work?
[00:54:03.306]Somebody telling you the way I'm going to transform
[00:54:04.808]the world is by Skyping into children in Africa.
[00:54:10.614]First things first, where you are Skyping
[00:54:12.682]there is no electricity,
[00:54:16.219]let alone Internet connectivity.
[00:54:18.054]And they are so very very strong on I can make this change.
[00:54:24.461]Come on now, it's not going to work.
[00:54:28.264]So as an educator it's very important for us
[00:54:31.768]to take some of our students heads
[00:54:33.570]out of the clouds and bring it a reality.
[00:54:36.973]It's important for us to tell them that
[00:54:40.910]it's time for us to debunk the myth of
[00:54:44.147]the North going to rescue the Global South.
[00:54:48.685](scattered applauding)
[00:54:50.286]You can clap thank you.
[00:54:52.022](audience applauding)
[00:54:56.660]It's time for us to tell them that when you get
[00:54:58.161]into a community, you are on a journey
[00:55:01.364]to accompany a group of people, not to teach them.
[00:55:06.102]I will give you a quick example.
[00:55:08.872]A group of people went to a village in Liberia
[00:55:11.141]during the war and saw women walking 30 minutes
[00:55:13.610]to get water and coming back 30 minutes.
[00:55:17.080]Without any dialogue they placed
[00:55:19.849]a hand pump in the middle of this village.
[00:55:23.820]Several months later another group went to do
[00:55:26.022]their social research to see the impact
[00:55:29.059]of this hand pump in the middle of the village.
[00:55:32.696]Of course, statistically 100% usage.
[00:55:37.167]But they recognized another problem.
[00:55:40.170]Alcoholism had taken over the women in the community.
[00:55:44.841]Let's ask them.
[00:55:47.077]When they walked 30 minutes to the stream,
[00:55:49.779]that was the therapy
[00:55:52.816]about the abuse and everything they were facing.
[00:55:55.852]Coming back was their healing.
[00:55:59.723]When you take that away from them without creating
[00:56:03.326]a space in the community where they can sit and talk,
[00:56:07.363]the only thing they could turn to was alcohol.
[00:56:12.268]Please young people, don't come with that mentality.
[00:56:17.073]Come with the mentality of I'm here on a journey to learn.
[00:56:21.644]And in learning let's exchange.
[00:56:26.149]ZELENY: Thank you.
[00:56:28.118](audience applauding)
[00:56:32.055]An audience member here at the Lied Center asks
[00:56:33.990]having come this far with advocacy for women,
[00:56:36.426]what's your perspective now on the rights of women?
[00:56:38.762]And do you think much has changed?
[00:56:41.197]GBOWEE: Well I always said knowledge is power.
[00:56:46.369]Knowledge is power.
[00:56:48.071]And people would say oh we hear a lot.
[00:56:51.541]But the question is, is it worse than the past?
[00:56:56.212]Or is it that people are more aware now
[00:56:59.282]so they're putting it out there?
[00:57:02.085]I would think that we've made some strides.
[00:57:05.155]There are nations and people that want to take us back,
[00:57:09.025]and this is where the fight is.
[00:57:11.828]I tell women in the activist community
[00:57:14.097]we toast ourselves for too long.
[00:57:19.102]So you win victories, you celebrate, you move on.
[00:57:22.939]Not to spend too much time celebrating this.
[00:57:25.842]Because one of the things I have come to recognize
[00:57:28.211]is that international bodies, governments, have now
[00:57:31.548]mastered the language they think women want to hear.
[00:57:34.951]Our President calls himself Feminists in Chief.
[00:57:37.253]I don't know what the hell that is.
[00:57:39.756](audience laughing)
[00:57:41.958]With only two cabinet women, cabinet ministers.
[00:57:45.361]And you call yourself Feminist in Chief.
[00:57:49.065]You know, so they've mastered a language that they think
[00:57:52.468]daughters like to hear, the international community.
[00:57:53.970]So if you go to the UN you speak that language.
[00:57:56.105]They will applaud you.
[00:57:58.274]So we need to be stepping into those spaces
[00:58:00.877]and really disrupting some of those languages,
[00:58:03.213]and telling them no this is not what it is.
[00:58:05.448]But we've made some gains.
[00:58:07.884]But we still have a lot more to do.
[00:58:11.087]Resting is not an option, yeah.
[00:58:14.691]ZELENY: Thank you, what role--
[00:58:16.426](audience applauding)
[00:58:20.396]Leymah, what role does journalism play
[00:58:21.965]in the global perspective, even presently?
[00:58:24.567]And how has it either furthered or set back your advocation?
[00:58:27.937]GBOWEE: Well journalism has really, let me take a step back,
[00:58:35.745]plenty troubles.
[00:58:38.314]I mean in every part of the world
[00:58:43.152]it's very difficult to find a balanced news.
[00:58:48.925]It's worse in this country.
[00:58:53.363]You go on this side, it's this thing.
[00:58:55.965]You come on this side, it's that thing.
[00:58:58.234]That's the first thing.
[00:59:00.036]So the polarization of all of our societies
[00:59:03.806]is primarily contributed to by
[00:59:07.277]the kind of journalism we have.
[00:59:10.747]I don't listen to radios when I go to Liberia.
[00:59:13.816]You just have to turn it on to know
[00:59:15.618]who's for the President and who's against him.
[00:59:18.988]Internet radio is the same thing.
[00:59:22.558]The second thing is, all of these projections
[00:59:25.762]of women as victims perpetually,
[00:59:30.099]is exacerbated by the reportage from wartime.
[00:59:33.937]Because most of the report that the journalists
[00:59:37.040]want to carry is about the rape and abuse,
[00:59:40.543]and not about the strength that these women possess
[00:59:43.680]even in the midst of all of the pain.
[00:59:47.984]So there's a lot as we re-imagine the world,
[00:59:50.753]journalists need to re-imagine how to put stories out there.
[00:59:54.557]The more you put the stories of the guns,
[00:59:57.827]and the weapons, and the non entities that become warlords,
[01:00:01.898]seeing themselves on CNN, and Al Jazeera, and BBC,
[01:00:06.436]the more you embolden other non entities to take guns
[01:00:09.772]and wage war on their people as a means of coming to fame.
[01:00:13.142]So we really need to re-imagine journalism,
[01:00:16.012]moving away from militarism, overly sexualized content
[01:00:22.385]into those things that really preach peace.
[01:00:25.455]One of my favorite moments was after one of
[01:00:27.623]the mass shootings in the US and I think it was the one,
[01:00:32.495]this person went to a predominantly gay bar
[01:00:36.566]and shot up a whole bunch of people.
[01:00:38.868]And I watched Anderson Cooper 360 that night.
[01:00:42.905]And one of the things he said I refuse
[01:00:46.109]to mention your name on this program.
[01:00:49.946]And I think there more people take stands to say
[01:00:53.282]I am not going to call the name of a warlord on my program,
[01:00:57.520]not giving you access to this news feed.
[01:01:00.123]I'm not giving you access to front page headline
[01:01:02.625]to New York Times, to Al Jazeera,
[01:01:04.527]the more we're making it impossible
[01:01:06.929]for foolishness to reign in our world.
[01:01:11.167]The more we decide we're doing these things, the more these
[01:01:14.504]people would be emboldened to do what they need to do.
[01:01:17.940]So I met a professor of chemistry,
[01:01:21.544]and he was the one a few weeks ago he said, for him his role
[01:01:26.783]in preaching gender equality in the world today,
[01:01:29.585]he refused to be on all male panel anymore.
[01:01:33.556]He refused to go to a man-posium.
[01:01:37.126](audience applauding)
[01:01:40.363]So each and every one of us in our different fields
[01:01:43.199]can do what we can do to transform the world, yeah.
[01:01:46.636]ZELENY: Thank you.
[01:01:48.271](audience applauding)
[01:01:52.008]How can we build women women solidarity networks
[01:01:54.610]that can overcome racial class, and geographic differences?
[01:01:58.915]GBOWEE: You know this is something that is,
[01:02:04.053]I won't say difficult to do,
[01:02:06.389]but I would say it is gonna take a lot of work.
[01:02:09.859]Because women are not just there.
[01:02:18.901](audience laughing)
[01:02:23.206]They knew what they were getting
[01:02:24.507]into when they invited me here.
[01:02:27.510](audience laughing)
[01:02:30.379]We are more than our bodies.
[01:02:36.185]I think before we talk about building any kind
[01:02:38.788]of movement across geographic we have to consider,
[01:02:43.126]what is bringing us together as a group.
[01:02:47.763]The mistake we often make when we talk about
[01:02:51.067]movement building is to think that we can build movement
[01:02:54.003]based on our sex, or our gender identity.
[01:02:57.773]There has to be a particular theme.
[01:03:00.977]In Liberia the theme that brought us together
[01:03:03.613]was peace, and the quest for peace not our, no.
[01:03:12.455]So if we find a group of women, and there are
[01:03:15.658]definitely women across borders working
[01:03:18.461]on issues that they are passionate about.
[01:03:20.997]But for people to begin to imagine that just because
[01:03:24.000]I am a woman I can come and mobilize women in Nebraska.
[01:03:28.538]If I asked her now, I'm just here to listen to this talk.
[01:03:32.241]And she probably has something
[01:03:33.743]else that she's passionate about.
[01:03:35.711]And if you ask another woman there's
[01:03:37.246]something else she's passionate about.
[01:03:38.881]And another person is passionate about something else.
[01:03:41.083]So it's going to be very difficult
[01:03:42.385]to try to bring all of us together based on that passion.
[01:03:47.723]You have some women who, like me, do things differently.
[01:03:52.428]You have some who do things different.
[01:03:54.764]So we are not just one group of people based on this.
[01:03:58.768]We have our own brains and to think that
[01:04:01.404]we can bring all of us together on the basis of this.
[01:04:08.077]You understand what I'm trying to say?
[01:04:10.012]ZELENY: Loud and clear.
[01:04:11.814](audience laughing)
[01:04:14.617]GBOWEE: We have to spice it up a bit.
[01:04:18.554]ZELENY: Leymah one last question this evening.
[01:04:20.256]As a survivor, you don't seem angry.
[01:04:23.226]How do you take anger and create passion and change without?
[01:04:29.065]Yeah we'll stop there.
[01:04:30.299]How do you take the anger and create passion and change?
[01:04:35.871]GBOWEE: First thing first.
[01:04:38.808]Unforgiveness is having someone have power over you.
[01:04:43.446]Can I have two volunteers?
[01:04:45.781]Since this is the, come on baby girl, come on mama.
[01:04:50.753]Since this the last question I'll take my time.
[01:04:54.657]Because I really want people to capture this.
[01:05:00.830]Come.
[01:05:04.533]I tried to be modest tonight, to cover all of this.
[01:05:10.006]Can you come and help me a bit here?
[01:05:15.144]Just to hold my mic for me.
[01:05:17.713]All right so, I'm not going to say who is who but
[01:05:23.152]this is a victim and a perpetrator of war.
[01:05:27.690]Someone hurts someone.
[01:05:32.461]So one person is hurt, okay, excuse me for saying
[01:05:35.631]you are hurt, she hurt you.
[01:05:38.534]Bring your hands.
[01:05:43.606]No no no.
[01:05:46.008]So during the moments of traumatization
[01:05:50.012]what I've come to recognize is that
[01:05:54.517]you are bound to the person that, thank you.
[01:05:59.021]You are bound to the person who traumatized you.
[01:06:02.625]Think for a moment, I'll bring it home.
[01:06:06.028]You're married to this nice man.
[01:06:09.098]You work so hard for everything you got.
[01:06:12.101]You had his babies, and then
[01:06:17.940]you added a few pounds like me.
[01:06:21.043]And after 10 years he leaves you for a young thing.
[01:06:28.651]You're angry, you're upset.
[01:06:30.219]He's angry because of certain things.
[01:06:32.121]There's a bitter divorce, you're tied together.
[01:06:36.826]Someone you're close to sexually assault or molest you.
[01:06:43.132]You're angry, you're bitter, you're tied to them.
[01:06:47.069]Someone kills your relative, you know them,
[01:06:50.606]they know you, you're tied to them.
[01:06:54.343]Try to go left, and try to go right.
[01:06:58.714]It's impossible for you to make any progress
[01:07:04.754]psychologically, but let me bring it home.
[01:07:09.525]Imagine refugee communities.
[01:07:13.996]If you've been to any refugee community,
[01:07:16.665]people are sitting and the grass is growing literally in.
[01:07:24.273]There's very little development around them
[01:07:27.943]because there is this feeling of
[01:07:30.279]I got to deal with that issue.
[01:07:33.048]So there's all this anger there.
[01:07:36.252]So since she is the perpetrator, she decides.
[01:07:44.059]But first thing first, every time the way
[01:07:47.430]you know you are tied to this person,
[01:07:49.765]every time you see them your heart skip a beat.
[01:07:52.301]Anyone have seen this happen to them?
[01:07:58.541]I know I'm not a crazy African woman.
[01:08:01.911](audience laughing)
[01:08:04.613]Psychologically, emotionally you are tied to them.
[01:08:07.149]Every time you see them your body
[01:08:09.318]go through some kind of emotions.
[01:08:11.954]Some people have stomachache ache.
[01:08:14.590]Some people have bitter biles in their
[01:08:17.859]throat and they want to throw up.
[01:08:19.595]You're tied.
[01:08:21.663]And this person who did this to you
[01:08:24.899]is also going through similar emotions.
[01:08:27.970]They are always own attack mode, I wonder they're?
[01:08:33.242]Am I making any sense here?
[01:08:37.046]So then she says I can't deal with this anymore.
[01:08:43.886]So I'm going to her to apologize.
[01:08:48.224]She is the perpetrator, right.
[01:08:52.995]So she comes to her and say, I'm sorry, forgive me.
[01:08:58.868]I want to make amends for everything I did to you.
[01:09:02.837]And she says till I die, I will never forgive you.
[01:09:18.854]She's free.
[01:09:21.156]And she's carrying all of it.
[01:09:27.263]Or she decides, I don't want to deal with this anymore.
[01:09:34.002]So she confronts her.
[01:09:36.337]What you did to me really hurt me.
[01:09:41.609]But you know what, I forgive you.
[01:09:46.448]And she says I'm justified.
[01:09:49.417]It was the war, and I have no remorse for whatever happened.
[01:10:04.867]She's still carrying, and she's free.
[01:10:09.471]Help me people.
[01:10:12.107]Do I want to carry my own burden,
[01:10:16.378]and someone's burden for the rest of my life?
[01:10:19.815]So that's why it's so important when we say to people
[01:10:25.321]it's painful, it's hurtful, but sometimes
[01:10:31.060]you have to find that place of healing, not just
[01:10:35.931]for yourself but for progress, and for your future.
[01:10:41.303]Because by carrying this burden it becomes
[01:10:44.173]impossible for you to have relationships.
[01:10:46.475]It's impossible for you to keep a job.
[01:10:48.611]It's impossible because you, you're still carrying this
[01:10:52.014]and you're still thinking someone is about to attack me.
[01:10:55.951]Meanwhile this person has moved on.
[01:11:00.189]And some days when I want to make women vexed,
[01:11:01.790]when I tell this story I say in cases of divorce,
[01:11:06.061]the man will come and say I'm so sorry.
[01:11:09.498]It just wasn't working.
[01:11:11.600]And she's like no I can never forgive you.
[01:11:14.570]Those are the moms who show up in sweat pants
[01:11:16.839]to their children's school, scattered hair.
[01:11:21.243]And the father has moved on and he's looking
[01:11:24.580]20 years younger with his young, whatever.
[01:11:28.517](audience laughing)
[01:11:29.351]And you're still adding on pounds, still angry.
[01:11:32.121]Men are just horrible.
[01:11:34.323]Because you're still carrying that baggage of your past.
[01:11:40.829]Girl, boy, women, men
[01:11:48.404]save yourself that extra burden.
[01:11:53.242]Life has its own burden, let it go.
[01:11:57.346]I refused at one point in my life, and that was 1999,
[01:12:04.353]to allow the pain of my abuse, the pain of war,
[01:12:10.259]the pain of many things to keep going with me.
[01:12:14.496]Life is too damn short to be angry for a long time.
[01:12:19.802]I bundle up all of my pains, gave them to Jesus.
[01:12:24.206]And now I am just being pretty.
[01:12:25.407]Thank you all.
[01:12:27.576](audience applauding)
[01:12:38.787]ZELENY: Ladies and gentlemen thank you
[01:12:39.988]for attending tonight's Thompson Forum.
[01:12:43.292](audience applauding)
[01:12:48.797](calm music)

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Mighty Be Our Powers: Building Women, Building Peace

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