A QUIET REVOLUTION - Part 3

Please read Parts 1 and 2 first by scrolling down.

It is a challenge to attempt to share what I learned at the Third Women’s Peace Conference held in Dallas, Texas from July 10-15. The bridging of cultures, religions and politics flowed beautifully through the conference. Unfortunately the media missed this.

A number of times I heard “Where attention goes, energy flows.” In various workshops women were urged to contact their newspapers and ask for more attention given to efforts for non-violent peace efforts. Peace should be a sustainability initiative. We should be made visible to each other. In 1948 the United Nations created and passed the Universal Rights. (http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html) It will have its 60th anniversary in 2008. Perhaps it is time to call forth the implementation of these universal rights!

Each of us can contribute and make a difference in our own way.

Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, Senior Consultant for the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation, South Africa is a beautiful example. She wrote “A Human Being Died That Night” and in 2007 was awarded the Eleanor Roosevelt Human Rights Award. She told us that we live in difficult times and we must work for peace, justice, compassion and community with others.

She spoke of non-violence and we “…must avoid falling into the pit of hatred.” Her organization is about truth and reconciliation in South Africa. Forgiveness is a healthy response to those horrors that occur…Truth will out…People become traumatized by abuse, horrors and are unable to often verbalize. She said the story of forgiveness begins with a trauma. Forgiveness is a possibility that we can dialogue with our enemies.

When loved ones are tortured, maimed and killed, they lose their sense of self. When people are tortured, it becomes their identity. Trauma is the unmaking of self. Vengeance makes them suffer and injures their emotions. She spoke of her work into assisting others to dialogue by testimony and witnessing about the past. It is a beginning of forgiveness.

When looking at perpetuators, one sees the pain of guilt and denial. She spoke of having each side look into the other’s eyes and it becomes power and this leads to compassion. Power lies in our center and it takes the risk to dialogue with others. Guilt locks people in denial and justification. Forgiveness evolves into remorse and then apology, thereby alleviating the guilt. She gave an example of a perpetuator standing before one of the victims who had his family killed. It took awhile before each could look the other in the eye. When they finally accomplished this, the perpetuator apologized and a healing began to take place because the apology was accepted. When there is the act of truth and reconciliation, then the deep pain in the soul is resolved.

Nobel Peace Laureate Jody Williams said she is now age 56. She is a dynamic woman. She has been active in getting most countries to sign the Ottawa agreement to ban land mines. The U.S., China and Russia have not signed the treaty. She has led a mission to Dafur and said they are using rape as a tool of war. It is the Genocide Olympics.

Jody Williams said she is a spiritual vagabond. She champions human security and peace. She is sick of the wimpization of peace. Peace is not a rainbow or a dove. That is serenity. It is not Kumbawa. Peace is people security and not state security. Human security means threats are minimized. It means the needs of the people are met. The basic needs of the majority should be met. She sees the important issues to be water, rape or killing. She is tired of hearing that state security is taking care of needs. State security is about preserving.

Re Dafur: It is about cleansing. Rape is about destroying families. Peace is not about the absence of war. This is about men who send other men’s children to die…Violence is a choice.

Isms are intellectualized. Violence, bigotry, prejudice is a choice. We have to learn to make other choices or we die. She was asked about 9/ll and replied that at that time to ask why was treason. Know your history. She gave her email address and said I don’t want to hear any whining. Don’t email to whine. She suggested researching http://www.hwr.org/ - the Human Rights Watch.org. She spoke of cluster bombs. Cluster bombs maim children and women. There is disinvestment in Sudan.

If every person gave one hour a month and agreed to do something, then we would hit critical mass and a major change would occur. It does no good to just talk. Take action.

This was stated in another way the following day when former Ambassador Swanee Hunt spoke. “Pacifists have to put their bodies where their mouths are. There are no women on negotiation teams and this is why warlords say women compromise.

Hunt was Ambassador to Austria during the Bosnia War. She told several stories because being so near the war zone, she was well informed. A Muslim family was captured and the father killed outright. His liver was cut out and his son was forced to eat it and then watch his mother being raped.

Hunt told another story. Even though the UN was bringing in flour, it had not reached some of the people. In Sarajevo, a Bosnian young woman had no food and she met a 70 year-old man. He took her to his home where she met his wife and they fed her even though they had very little food. They lived in the basement of a burned-out building. When she left, she was given a small packet of beets, cabbage and sauerkraut. She shared her story that the man and his wife had managed to have a small garden where they grew beets and cabbage. They gardened by flashlight after dark because of the snipers. The man and his wife were Muslim and she was Christian. They remained friends.

The Nobel Peace Prize for 1991 was given to Aung San Suu Kvi of Burma. Her party won 80% of the seats in a democratic election in 1990, but the military government refused to recognize the results. She was not allowed to accept her award and was incarcerated. She is still under house arrest today despite the efforts of many to have her released.

I experienced a wonderful encounter with a delegation of nine women and one man from Novosibirsk, Siberia, Russia. Larisa Cherepanova is the Director for the Center “Women Together.” She was the interpreter for the rest of the delegation and yet we all communicated. One of the women is a designer for clothes and her designs are beautiful and outrageous. Another teaches school. Larisa is a poet and a songwriter and singer with a beautiful voice. I have been invited to visit them in Novosibirsk – and doors can open for me to take them up on their offer.

I attended the circle gathering led by women of Gather the Women, of which I belong and it was a beautiful experience of coming together and sharing. This organization has a great on-line forum where we can communicate with each other. Women may also create a circle in their own community. http://www.gatherthewomen.org/.

A woman vendor was selling bracelets of silver beads. In the center of each bracelet was one black bead representing that it only takes one to make a difference. Each of us can be that one.

The conference ended Saturday night and I left with my mind filled with so much information along with stories that were happy and stories that were extremely sad. What I am taking with me is the message to expand awareness. Take an action. You don’t know where it will lead you.

Find a cause and commit even if it is only one hour a month.
Peace is security. Peace is using non-violent methods to settle conflicts.

The greatest thing we can do for our self is to give up prejudices, bigotry, and hatred. Only by doing this can we find our own inner peace.

It is awesome to contemplate a meeting of over one thousand minds from all over the world and each one of us points of light and each one making a different in her/his (yes there were men attending) way.

Why do I call this the Quiet Revolution? It is because there is change and women will not be put back into a toothpaste tube of being considered no better than a breeding animal for men’s pleasure. Women all over the world are gradually realizing that they have worth and want to end the discrimination against them. Women are now gaining education and now want an equal voice. Women do not want to dominate. They are asking for balance in an unbalanced world. Their voices are now being heard and will become louder in a non-violent way. This is the way of the Quiet Revolution.

I want to say that I would have never attended this conference if I had not been a student of Ramtha for twenty years. The Ramtha School of Enlightenment is an academy of the mind and by applying what I have learned, doors opened for me to do what I have done. Now, I know more doors are opening and where they are taking me – well who knows because I am making known an unknown.

Bettye Johnson, July 19, 2007