Thoughts On The Conflict Resolution & Peace-Building Model Of The Woman Behind The Liberian Peace Miracle
Global institutions
like the World Bank and all women and men with sound reasoning have for long
been calling on all and sundry to make crisis response programs a work for
women. It is good economics to do so, it is good politics to do so, it is good
religion to do so, it is social justice, it is smart to do so; and it is the
smartest solution to many teething issues of global concern!
Emily Murphy, the Judge who initiated the
Persons Case, once said; "I think women can save civilization." The
Liberian peace restoration process amounts to an amazing model and a highly
valuable case-study. It is a pointer to the power inherent in women and a
manifestation of the great wonders of the Feminine Mystique which has for
millennia been relegated to the background!
The history of peace in Liberia after more
than a decade of bloodbath will remain incomplete without a reference to one
woman whose ‘mystagogic’ initiative ignited the astonishing shift from a reign
of Terror to the reign of Peace in the country.
Leymah Roberta Gbowee is a Liberian peace
activist responsible for leading a women's peace movement that helped bring an
end to the Second Liberian Civil War in 2003. Her efforts to end the war, along
with her collaborator Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, helped usher in a period of peace
and enabled a free election in 2005 that Sirleaf Johnson won and became the first African
woman to become her country’s leader. Gbowee, along with Ellen Johnson Sirleaf
and Tawakkul Karman, were awarded the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize "for their
non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women's rights to full
participation in peace-building work." According to Ellen Johnson Sirleaf;
"Leymah bore witness to the worst of humanity and helped bring Liberia out
of the dark. Her memoir is a captivating narrative that will stand in history
as testament to the power of women, faith and the spirit of our great
country."
Being moved
beyond resistance point by the sufferings of her fellow women and children due
to the long period of strife in Liberia, Leymah Gbowee conceptualized,
organized, mobilized and spearheaded the Women’s Mass Action for Peace; a
coalition of women from across religious divides (Christian and Muslim women)
who sat in public places in protest, fearlessly confronting Charles Taylor,
former Liberia's merciless, blood-thirsty, red-eyed, violent and ruthless
tyrant and the rebel warlords. More still, they courageously embarked on a sex
strike; the most deadly form of protest universally known to have inexplicable
spiritual connotations and consequences. The women protest worked wonders; it
chased the tyrant out of power and sent him on an involuntary exile with even a
curse of perpetual calamities already afflicting him.
The potency of Gbowee’s model is remarkable! Today, Liberians bask
in peace and progress with the wounds of war healing fast. Her peace concept
and its formula is now turning Liberia’s tragedy into triumphs and the long
nights of darkness miraculously turned into daylight, and Liberia knew peace
after almost a decade and half of bloody and violent fighting induced by the
selfish quest for power and wealth by some pathological self-seeking villains.
Gbowee
harnessed the power within the woman, the mystagogic genius in the Feminine
Mystique and the amazing wonder of women solidarity. All over the world, when
women mean real business, they easily change situations; crisis turns to peace;
sufferings are ameliorated; hopelessness becomes hope and tragedy is turned
into triumph. This is the power of the women which the society has been
neglecting for millennia!
With the supernatural powers that always
accompany the force of their group pressure, women can cause the earth to
quake. It was women with the style of Gbowee that dramatically initiated the
change in the course of the French history for eternity and for the better. It is worthy to recollect that the women's march
of 1789 was a potent event that predisposed the masses of France to the events
of the French Revolution. The march stands
as an inspirational example, emblematic of the power of women’s movements such
as that of Leymah Gbowee. Furthermore, the Igbo Women’s demostration of 1929 played
a major role in the colonial governance of Nigeria, and the Identity of the
Igbo tribe, as well as setting in a new era of good governance in Nigeria’s
political history.
The
Liberian Peace Miracle portends that, when women rise, the world convulses;
because Mother Nature endowed them immensely with a rare mystagogic powers.
Some analysts have expressed that Mother Eve with her smartness taught them and
embedded in them a lot of smart skills. This could be possibly true, because,
even nature fears women and that is why most times it changes events to their
favor. It is no wonder then that this
power in women worked successfully for Gbowee, aiding her in realizing her
peace ambition for her country. Today, she emerges a heroine and an international
leader who changed history, marking the vanguard of a new wave of women taking
control of their political destiny around the world. To immortalize her ideals,
values and ideas for the future generations, Gbowee has authored a book in this
regard;”Mighty Be Our Powers”; a full story in her own words. It picks up
before ‘Pray the Devil Back to Hell’ and brings the reader up to date with
Gbowee's now-multinational efforts to empower women to bring peace to their
countries. Gbowee is characteristically led by the following ideals in her
pursuits for the rights of women:
“We must continue to unite in sisterhood to turn our tears into
triumph. There is no time to rest until our world achieves wholeness and
balance, where all men and women are considered equal and free.”
“You can tell people of the need to struggle, but when the powerless
start to see that they really can make a difference, nothing can quench the
fire.”
Ever-focused
on sustaining peace, Leymah continued working on behalf of grassroots efforts
in leadership positions. She served as a member of both the African Feminist
Forum and the African Women’s Leadership Network on Sexual and Reproductive
Rights, and as a commissioner-designate for the Liberia Truth and
Reconciliation Commission. Through these positions, Leymah addressed the
particular vulnerability of women and children in war-torn societies. In her
current position as Executive Director of WIPSEN-Africa, Leymah pushes for
greater inclusion of women as leaders and agents of change in Africa.
Since
winning the Nobel Peace Prize, Leymah travels internationally to speak about
the pernicious and devastating effects of war and gender-based violence. She
has been featured on a number of international television programmes and has
been a panelist at several regional and international conferences, including
UNIFEM’s “Women and the Disarmament, Demobilization, Repatriation (DDRR)
Process,” the Women in the World Summit, and the United Nations Security
Council’s Arria Formula Meeting on women, peace and security.
In
the words of a former New York Times columnist Bob Herbert, he said, Gbowee;
"should be a lesson to all of us". The
landmarks of Gbowee make it clear that Women are vital forces and
effective agents in conflict resolution, peacekeeping and peace-building. But
for long, they have remained under-represented in decision-making in regards to
the issues of violence and conflict. Their work is rarely acknowledged, nor
recognized in most cases. When it comes to peace deals and high level
negotiations, women's voices and their experiences are excluded and
marginalized.
Naturally,
women are experts in identifying what is needed to rebuild peace, yet, they are
neglected by their own governments and even the international community. But the simple fact is that, so long as women
do not have the support they need to play their role in society, there is every
likelihood that the present-day malaise will continue to put the entire the
human family at risk. Thus, that, no woman, no peace is a tenable truism!
We must thus
acknowledge that if women are to play their traditional roles in security and
maintaining peace, they must be empowered politically and economically, and
represented adequately at all levels of decision- making. This is why the world
must open its arms in support for women like Gbowee Leymah who have consented
to face the tedious task of bringing sanity to the human society being rocked
by the human-agents of destruction, and perpetrators of violence against the
voiceless of the humanity with impunity. We can count on their insight,
experience, indeed expertise, courage and determination to rid the world of the
prevailing evils.
The French
history-changing Paris women’s March of 1789; the Igbo Women’s Riot of 1929 in
Eastern Nigeria; the Gbowee-Leymah led Liberian Women’s protest; and The
Women’s Peace Parade by our fore-mothers, repeatedly demonstrate that a durable
peace and lasting reconciliation can only be built on a solid foundation of
justice and truth, where women are allowed and encouraged to play a pivotal
role in world peace process. By doing so, the world would gain their active support
and develop a global federation for Peace. The courageous women of the
fore-days challenged oppression, and our women of today have continued in that
stead. However, although it is hard for many people today to conceive of such
broad female authority, but they emanate from the truth of history. Women’s
inclusion in the global suppression of violent crimes with impunity means that,
the particular forms of violence they face during conflict, such as brutal
sexual violence can be addressed by them. The solution of societal problems
that fails to recognize the different experiences of women threatens to erode
women’s rights and put them and the entire society at increased risk. At this
crucial time for women in the world, they are they ones with the needed
ingredients and capability to shape peace and to contribute to rebuilding their
and men’s societies.
There is now growing consensus that women’s access to opportunities
are inexorably linked to peace, prosperity, human development and democracy.
Therefore, how a country taps the talents and capacity of its women will, in
large measure, determine its economic, social and political progress. In fact,
social scientists are beginning to rightly believe that women’s more equitable
role in global issues will not only ensure that the concerns of women and other
marginalized people are represented, because, when women are represented in
governmental organs such as the legislature in significant numbers for example,
they can bring their priorities forward to influence the legislative agenda.
In today's wars, the strategies adopted by armed groups seek to bring
the battle more immediately, more systematically, and more massively to the
core of the civilian population; these conflicts are characterized by a total breakdown of law, security and community
structures, with gross human rights violations perpetrated against civilian
populations, and the most vulnerable are women and children.
Moreover, while armed conflicts involving non-state actors may yield fewer military battle deaths, they
exact a high human cost; unarmed civilians are victimized, basic services
deteriorate, societal divisions deepen and local economies decline. It
is thus imperative to realize that securing durable peace depends on an
inclusive approach to peace-building and security, particularly with the full
participation of the phenomenal ultimate victims, the women, in all
decision-making to bring peace and prevent future violent conflicts.
Many issues are yet to be addressed if women are to play a key role in
building peace and security mechanisms and processes. The neglect of an
inclusive, participatory strategy of peace-building stems from a lack of a
realization of the gendered dimensions of both conflict and its aftermath. Over
the years, diplomatic efforts to end the violence between the conflicting
parties, moving them towards nonviolent dialogue that focuses mainly on
negotiation, mediation, and arbitration have been known to fail without the
direct involvement of women. And if it has any success, those successes have
always been short-lived.
While post-conflict reconstruction of political, economic, and social
structures and institutions should adopt a gendered rights-based approach to
the protection of all citizens’ rights, and development of necessary human
resources, the longer term process of social reintegration and rehabilitation
also needs to be inclusive and gender sensitive. In the post-conflict phase,
community and individual healing is possible if ending impunity and the promotion
of justice are a crucial part of the reconciliation process. Support has to be
given to direct involvement of women’s groups and organizations to develop
community sensitization and appropriately responsive interventions for
reintegration and rehabilitation programs for women and girls who have been
victims of sexual abuse. The involvement of women in the Liberian
reconciliation process provides a striking validity and testimony to the
efficacy of this prescription.
In the main, the most effective gender equality outputs and outcomes
can be achieved by applying a gendered analytical framework to the entire cycle
of conflict and recovery and prevention. The failure to incorporate such an
analysis into the initial impact assessments of the situation and develop
gendered indicators to monitor and evaluate progress has resulted in women
being marginalized in decision-making for conflict resolution and their
specific needs and priorities not incorporated into reconstruction. So, a clear
understanding of the differential conflict experiences of women and men,
authenticated with sex- disaggregated facts is essential to ensure that
analysis recognizes that their distinct needs and roles are accorded special
consideration.
Yet, despite recent progress toward being more gender sensitive, all
stages of peace-building continue to give inadequate attention to the equal
role of women. The transition from conflict to post-conflict peace-building
provides a vital window of opportunity for the inclusion of women in decision-making
structures and reconstruction processes and if a more equitable, just and
sustainable peace is to be achieved, adequate machinery has to be provided to
ensure that women are key players.
Though the Beijing Platform for
Action has increased attention to
women’s participation in peace processes and women’s organizations to
contribute to the prevention of conflict and to participate in conflict
resolution, peace-building and peace negotiations, there was still much
to be achieved. Women continue to be excluded from formal peace processes and
post-conflict implementation mechanisms. While the high levels of gender based
violence was recognized in most international institutions which acknowledge
that sexual violence in conflict has become in some contexts a tactic of war
designed to achieve military and political objectives, there are still too few
efforts to get women involved in domestic or international prosecutions of war
crimes against women and reparations programs, as well as programs that recognize
their role in preventing conflict and building peace, and programmes focused on
promoting effective ways to prevent sexual violence and help them go about
their daily activities safely in conflict- affected environments.
The Liberian ‘Miracle’ proves beyond reasonable doubts the inherent
ability of women to negotiate peace in periods of crisis. Global efforts should
hence be allocated to building capacity of women’s organizations to be key players in establishing and participating in
mechanisms for national dialogue, such as truth commissions. These must not
only involve women and women’s organizations, as was the case in Rwanda,
Liberia, Sierra Leone, etc, but should also entail legal redress by
acknowledging gendered war crimes such as rape at both the local and
international levels.
Therefore, attention has to be given to the lack of women’s
participation in peace negotiations across the conflict-ridden zones of the
globe. The present imbalance needs to be redressed by the adoption of
affirmative action measures to ensure a higher inclusion of women, with
international and regional organizations, as well as national governments
advocating strongly for such measures. Women have to have a prominent role in
the formal negotiations, as well as in their own governments
In most societies, women are accorded negligible attention when it
comes to building their capacity to be effective change agents and advocates of
social justice. Supporting them to compete in national and local elections is
lacking in these countries dominated by the ‘big man’ culture of leadership,
and without adequate resources women will remain marginalized.
Furthermore,
creating enabling mechanisms and processes for gender equality and providing
equitable resources can empower women to become protagonists in rebuilding
their war-torn countries and creating a more just, secure and equitable
society, and to bring about positive, sustainable outcomes for development at
the local, community, national and global levels.
Therefore, the international community must promote women as active
protagonists because the peace table
is a forum not only for negotiating the end to war, but also ... a platform for
transforming institutions and structures, and opening the door to greater
social justice. This transition from conflict to post-conflict
peace-building is a crucial opportunity for the inclusion of women in domestic
decision-making structures and processes.
We may recall that this was vividly engraved in The Beijing Platform
for Action which emphasized that: “The
equal access and full participation of women in power structures and their full
involvement in all efforts for the prevention and resolution of conflicts are
essential for the maintenance and promotion of peace and security... If women
are to play an equal part in securing and maintaining peace, they must be
empowered politically and economically and represented adequately at all levels
of decision-making”. The view of
Kofi. A. Annan, former UN Secretary-General reinforces this, in his view that peace is inextricably linked to equality
between women and men...maintaining and promoting peace and security requires
equal participation in decision-making. This applies to all
decision-making from peace negotiations and peace accords, implementation of
mandates of peacekeeping missions, reconstructing or constructing systems of
governance, security, rule of law, electoral and constitutional reform and
development. Since women are usually
vulnerable to societal crisis, they can thus be the most powerful agents of
change if given the opportunity; hence, enabling their social, economic and
political participations can help speed up recovery and hope for the human
race. This is why the World Bank is calling on all to join in making crisis
response programs a work for women. It is good economics to do so, it is good
politics to do so, it is good religion to do so, it is social justice,
it is smart to do so; and it is the smartest solution! But, with the sluggish
global approach to the issue of women, Leymah Gbowee’s model reveals one
readily available missile for women to take the bull by the horn; the power of
solidarity. At this juncture, it may be ripe to visit "Solidarity Forever", written by Ralph Chaplin in 1915; with the
verses added by modern women activists to reflect their concerns:
We're the women of the
union and we sure know how to fight.
We'll fight for women's
issues and we'll fight for women's rights.
A woman's work is never
done from morning until night.
Women make the union
strong!
It is we who wash dishes,
scrub the floors and clean the dirt,
Feed the kids and send them
off to school - and then we go to work,
Where we work for half
men's wages for a boss who likes to flirt. But the union makes us
strong!
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