SOPHIE GRÉGOIRE-TRUDEAU: Awakening the Heart of Human Rights

               The education and empowerment of women throughout the world cannot fail to result in a more caring, tolerant, just and peaceful life for all.                                     — Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate

Sophie Grégoire-Trudeau

Sophie Grégoire-Trudeau is literally a force of nature. She brings a heart-centered approach to every arena of her life, from her marriage to Justin Trudeau, a liberal member of the Canadian Parliament and son of former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, to raising her two children, to being a social activist, right through to her position as Quebec correspondent for eTalk, Canada’s most-watched entertainment news program.

Listening to her speak, one can’t help but think she has a natural flair for connecting with people, especially to women and girls, who readily respond to the openness and transparency she offers. Sophie immediately demonstrates her willingness to be straightforward, speaking about her struggles as well as what brought her to the different aspects of her path as an advocate and a reporter.

“To make a long story short, I’m an only child,” Sophie states. “I was brought up in a very loving family and I was fortunate to have a privileged upbringing. We weren’t millionaires, not at all, but we never lacked anything and we led a good life. My parents sent me to camp and paid for my travels and studies, so and I was very well cared for. I’m still very close to them, and they’re also amazing grandparents. Yet, obviously, everyone has their own struggles and I had mine. In my teenage years, I was faced with dealing with an eating disorder, which of course was an illness, but it was also a symptom of greater wounds. And as any other teenager who is dealing with building a notion of self, I was having difficulty building mine when it came to who I was, why I was here, and what my place was in this world.”

As an only child, Sophie mentions feeling a special kind of pressure. “You are trying to answer to so many things that are asked of you and you’re trying to perform. I know I wanted to be good at everything. I did well in school and sports and tended to be a perfectionist. Actually, I was asking way too much of myself.”

Sophie notes that adolescence is a time, especially for girls, when bonding and intimate relationships are at the core of building self esteem. She recognizes that her desire to excel compensated for a deeper need to connect. “It’s very important to have a good social network. When I struggled for years with an eating disorder, I knew very well what I was suffering from. Every time I was into binging and purging, I was really feeling isolated in my mind and deep down somewhere in my soul. Today, as a thirty-six year old woman, and now a mother of two, I understand that I was looking for something deeper back then — for my place in the world. I had wanted to pack my bags, and just travel and explore,” she says laughing, “but obviously, you have to go to school, and there are rules to follow. But what I really wanted to do was connect with human beings.”

Raised by parents who were always sensitive to the suffering of others had its effect. Sophie mentions that even at a young age she naturally extended herself to children who were lonely or being taunted. “My parents always said I had a tender heart. And today, I’m married to someone who’s like that, too. My husband, Justin, and I are both moved easily. We know how fortunate we are, and that it comes with a responsibility. I also felt at a young age — although I couldn’t put my finger it — that I had to do something greater. Not just for me,” Sophie says, pausing to reassess, “but you know, actually it was for me — for me to become the person that I wanted to become. But when you’re a teenager, that’s all blurry, which is normal.”

After studying Commerce at McGill University and attaining a BA in Communications from the Université de Montréal, Sophie worked in advertising and sales for several years before deciding to redirect her course. “I was not finding my place in that world, and I wasn’t feeling happy in my jobs. At one point, I decided to go to radio and television school because I had a gift for sharing information and for speaking to people. So I went to school and did very well. I landed my first job as a journalist in a newsroom, writing the ticker — the news you see at the bottom of the screen. I worked night shifts and it was actually a cool job. Being in the newsroom was exciting — you’re in touch with what’s happening around the world so it was all very interesting. And then, a couple of months later, there was an opening for a cultural entertainment reporter on the same channel. I was called in to audition, and I got the job.”

Being a media personality provided Sophie with an additional opportunity to connect with people, but now on a much grander scale. Literally having a voice that could reach millions of viewers, Sophie disclosed she had struggled with an eating disorder. “I remembered journalists asking me, ‘Have you ever had a problem with your body image?’ When I actually told the Quebec and the Canadian public that I had suffered from an eating disorder, the response was so amazing. At first, some people would ask, ‘Were you completely insane when you came out with that? Didn’t you wonder what people would think?’ And to be honest with you, No. Because I knew that so many of my friends and so many girls that I didn’t know were suffering. And from that point, it became a snowball effect. I started giving speeches and being invited to host events. And as more time passed, I really started to invest myself in women’s issues.”

As Sophie notes, she moved into advocacy work as a matter of course. “I didn’t wake up one morning saying, ‘Okay, now I’m going to do this.’ It just came naturally. I started to get more and more requests to speak. What really struck me was the response I received when I met people after a speech, and how the women — mothers, aunts, grandmothers — came up to me with tears in their eyes and shared their stories. It just all made sense. The message became loud and clear: This is what you have to do.”

Telling her own story was just the beginning. The open doorway Sophie provided, allowing people insight into her personal struggles, proved to be the passage she used to venture out into the world, acting as a voice for women and children in need.

One journey that was especially moving for Sophie was the trip she took to Ethiopia in 2006 with her mother-in-law Margaret Trudeau, Honorary President of WaterCan, a leading Canadian charity dedicated to fighting global poverty by helping the world’s poorest people gain access to clean water, basic sanitation and hygiene education. Their life-changing venture was captured in the CTV documentary, A Window Opens: Margaret and Sophie in Ethiopia.

As Sophie explains, the trip to Ethiopia with WaterCangave her further insight into the difficulties people were facing. “I had been to Africa and had seen suffering,” Sophie remarks, “but not in the way that I did in Ethiopia. We traveled through the country with WaterCan, an organization which among other things, builds wells and brings clean water to remote regions in Africa. When we were traveling, we stayed with families for many hours during the day, and we saw that women were actually victims of the water problem more than men. That’s because they’re the ones who usually fetch the water and put their lives in danger, walking miles and miles and sometimes meeting up with violence. Little children are also walking way too far and are involved in accidents. So once again, when it comes to basic human rights, women and children are often the first ones to pay.”

Sophie has also lent her voice to a number of other initiatives, including being a spokesperson for Shield of Athena, an organization which operates therapeutic services for women and children who are victims of domestic abuse and violence. Among their services, they provide emergency housing and offer a safe and empowering environment, employing social workers, educators and cultural intermediaries who offer multilingual services. In addition, Sophie encourages girls’ activism through Girls for the Cure, a student-led initiative of young girls from six independent Montreal-area schools — Miss Edgar’s and Miss Cramp’s School, Queen of Angels Academy, Sacred Heart School of Montreal, The Study, Trafalgar School for Girls and Villa Maria — who work together to make a difference in their communities. They offer a Student Scholarship Program which allows young women of participating schools the opportunity to develop projects focused on philanthropy, volunteerism and education. “In September, Girls for the Cure [watch the 2010 CTV video] will be doing an amazing event where thousands of girls will be uniting on Mount Royal Summit in Montreal,” Sophie informs. “They’ll be walking to raise awareness for women-related cancers and research.”

As Sophie clearly indicates, women’s issues are of primary importance to her, both in Canada and around the globe. She points out that even today, in 2011, over sixty million girls cannot lay claim to basic human rights, including access to education or personal safety. “When you think deeply about it, women today are being raped, violated, coerced into the sex trade, and humiliated for one reason — and for one reason only — because they’re women. That is unacceptable. And we’re paying the price worldwide since nations are becoming impoverished because women cannot fully participate. Obviously, there are some regions in the world where this problem is extreme, like in China and India, where we’re talking gendercide and infanticide with regard to girls. The situation is quite alarming. If you read the facts and know what’s going on out there, there’s no way that you’re not going to be touched by all of this, especially if you’re a woman.”

At the same time, Sophie acknowledges the importance of men’s participation regarding women’s rights. Respecting women and focusing on their empowerment does not represent a ‘women against men’ issue, but rather only helps to create a balanced approach to human rights in all sectors of life. “Each time I get to address an audience, and I see the men that attend these events, I always thank them because without them, without all of us holding hands together, where are we going to go with all this?”

As Sophie indicates, more men need to advocate for girls and women in order to turn the tide. “Unfortunately, when we talk about these problems, about gendercide and crimes against girls and women, especially within some regions of the world, these extreme actions have often been led by men. Obviously, there have been some instances, especially with regard to female genital mutilation, where it’s a vicious cycle. Women who have not known anything else actually encourage young girls and other women to get that sort of thing done.”

Nonetheless, the pendulum has been stuck on the side of patriarchy a bit too long. There’s no doubt that it’s an unbalanced paradigm, with disregard for the feminine creating its own deficit problem.

“I truly believe humanity is facing a huge imbalance between the male and female energies,” Sophie asserts. “We have disrespected, in such a deep way, the womb of humanity — women — and we are paying the price right now on all levels. We’re even seeing it in our pop culture. It’s so in our faces that it’s kind of hidden at the same time, because we’ve become accepting of it. Talking with young girls, I realize that there’s a culture of self-hatred that really has been rampant, and it’s actually normal to hate yourself when you’re a teenager today. That’s unacceptable. That is why we have to address these issues, and we have to do it locally, one baby step at a time.”

And those baby steps have led to much bigger strides. As Sophie travels have informed her, more and more women are coming to the fore around the globe, supporting one another and advocating for their basic human rights. “There are women’s movements all over the world, including in the poorest regions and places where women have not had a political voice,” Sophie states. “I think that’s because we’re in an era of information. These women now have more of the facts and they realize this is not right. So as much as in Canada as abroad, I think that these little cells of women, of energy, are feeling one another. I don’t want to sound too esoteric, but there’s definitely something remarkable happening and more and more men are beginning to address the situation. And fortunately enough, I’m with a man who shares my values and thoughts, and obviously part of his battle will be dealing this issue as well.”

Adding more women to the mix seems not only rational, but essential. Sophie emphasizes the importance of women’s roles as leaders, whether in politics, education, or any other sector of society, noting that women bring certain qualities to the table that benefit the whole.

“You know, there’s a reason why there are more women in volunteer work,” Sophie remarks. “There’s a reason why there are more women in social work. The reason is because in times of struggle, we tend to open our arms and build a social network, to come out with our problems and to talk about them because we need to. Also, women leaders have been shown to be more compassionate colleagues. Generally speaking, that’s been demonstrated. Of course, many women are occupying amazing roles in society, but there’s still a huge gap in the financial world and the political world.”

Sophie indicates it’s really about our future. Her panoramic view takes in the larger sphere of the human family where additional women in leadership means a more balanced paradigm, one that would help us take the next step as a noble humanity. That includes peace resolution work as well.

“You know, I don’t want to fall into a cliché because there are clichés out there,” Sophie notes, “but yes, I do believe that women have certain qualities — especially when you’ve become a mother or you go through your own struggles — that have allowed us to build a larger tribe to face our problems. And once again, if I go back to volunteer work, social work, health care, or nursing, I think there are a lot more women doing these types of things because some part of our bodies, not just our minds, are meant to create peace around us and to foster democracy and justice.”

Philosophically speaking, Sophie notes that we all have masculine and feminine qualities, and our internal dynamics have often set the stage for the larger societal problems we face. “When it comes to talking about gender discrimination, I think that the first thing you have to ask yourself if you’re a woman is how do I treat the man in me? And if you’re a man, it would be how do I treat the woman in me? I think that’s the first question you need to ask yourself, and the answer probably indicates how, as a human being, you interact with your environment as well as how you perceive others and the world around you.”

Sophie also enhances awareness of gender discrimination in her role as national ambassador for Plan Canada.

Plan International’s Because I am a Girl initiative is a social movement to unleash the power of girls and women to claim a brighter future for girls in the developing world.

And just why is focusing on girls’ empowerment so important?

“Helping young girls throughout this world is really at the core of the issue,” Sophie asserts. “First of all, we need to stand up for the millions of girls around the world who face barriers to their survival, basic rights and their ability to develop simply because they are young women. And when we invest in them we are directly reducing global poverty and suffering for the whole, for all of society. It’s incredible that right now, over sixty-five million girls are being denied even a basic education.”

          Girls and women are particularly affected by poverty. This is partly because they have less power to fight it, less access to the means to overcome it, or their entire families are suffering in poverty. Being born underweight, given little or poor-quality food and having little or no education can prevent girls from developing properly. Poverty can also force girls to work or get married at young age instead of going to school.        — Plan Canada

“Plan Canada really believes in the Because I am a Girl project. We really want all young Canadian women to be aware of what’s happening because we feel that we have the power, the tools and the democracy to create movements that can help abroad and bring about social change.”

Girls advocating, giving public talks, driving transformative agendas . . . Plan Canada’s Because I am a Girl clubs and speakers bureau engage girls to do just that, empowering and supporting their efforts to stand up for girls’ rights at home and abroad. “The girls give speeches and are really creating a social movement with others their age. There are website blogs and fundraisers and there’s also been a documentary made. So they’re using different kinds of media to really get out there and reach out to each other.”

With regard to Plan International’s other initiatives, Sophie explains there are current projects such as the one in Bangladesh, which supports human rights, including the protections of women and girls. She also mentions the Early Girl Child Marriage Project in Kenya which works to protect girls from this illegal practice. “There have been some documented impacts,” Sophie indicates, “and they have seen a reduction in teenage pregnancies and marriages. Also, in Burkina Faso, there’s a program called BRIGHT — Burkinabé Response to Improve Girls Chances to Succeed. So once again, it’s about education. Obviously, when you get to girls, you’re also getting to young boys and their families. So we’re trying to change parental views on girls’ education as well. That’s where it starts. If a girl is not educated you’re losing her whole soul and heart and mind. Not being educated means a girl isn’t able to fully participate in society, and the nation will be paying the price for that on every level.”

Plan Canada has also championed the presentation of a motion which was passed by the Canadian Parliament, proposing the creation of a UN Resolution proclaiming September 22^nd as the International Day of the Girl.

“I think that because of the privileges we have here in Canada, we need to be leading the way on this matter,” Sophie states. Spearheading the initiative, Canada has now established the groundwork for a global movement. In fact, the call for the International Day of the Girl is imminent and can also be supported by signing the Girl Petition.

As Sophie reflects on her own advocacy work dealing with women and children’s issues, she remarks pointedly that no matter who she meets or what type of position they may hold, there’s are certain type of person that inspires and impresses her. “Women following their own passion. Their message and their energy are completely contagious.”

As eTalk’s Quebec correspondent, Sophie is also in a unique position to not only inform but to do her own brand of inspiring. “This job is an amazing tool and a window for me to connect with youth because so many of them watch the show. Besides doing interviews, I also talk a lot about the responsibility of public personas and stars to use their voices for something important because young people look up to them so much. And there are some people in the entertainment industry who are doing amazing things. I would say that celebrities like Angelina and Brad are putting it out there that it’s important to do things to make this world a better place. I also know many other celebrities who have started fundraisers and foundations and who are doing great work.”

Sophie also mentions finding inspiration through many adventurous avenues. She plays flute and guitar, composes songs, and loves to sing (perhaps we’ll hear her sing at an event one day).

“I also get inspired a lot from my yoga practice,” she reveals. “I think that it brings me to that little person inside of me that’s the same as in everyone else. As yoga philosophy mentions, that person is in a continuous state of gratitude and peace . . . a person that’s both male and female — the perfect balance between the two. Then there’s the feeling yoga gives me of being connected to everyone — from the people in my class to every human being on this planet. It’s a feeling that really pushes me on a deep, deep level. Also, in yoga practice, there’s always this little voice that comes across in its own language and vibration that makes me feel that everything is going to be okay. That good does prevail.”

Idealistic and passionate, Sophie inspires in a way that is both personal and touching. Even as she reflects on the advice she would give her own children, one can’t help but think that, on a universal level, the message is meant for all of us.

“If I were to say one thing to my little ones, I think I would tell them that the only word to live by is love . . . self love and love for humanity.”

As a reporter, an advocate, a wife and a mother, Sophie Grégoire-Trudeau is a woman whose struggles have awakened her heart to the world, allowing compassion and tenderness to direct her course . . . a woman who understands that the light of courage is far more powerful than any darkness.

*******

Photo Credits:  Sophie Grégoire-Trudeau headshot – Courtesy of CTV, Bell Media. Photo of Margaret Trudeau and Sophie in Ethiopia – Peter Bregg, 2006. Photo of Mutsumi Takahashi of CTV News, Sophie Grégoire-Trudeau and Elena Kratsios – Courtesy of Girls for the Cure. Because I am a Girl Ambassador photo – Courtesy of Plan Canada.

Article written by Angelina Perri Birney, author of the blog, Powerful Women Changing the World, dedicated to women’s influence on world affairs. Angelina is also coauthor of the novel, PURE VISION: The Magdalene Revelation, available in print and as an eBook on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and Apple.

Follow @perribirney 


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Just Vision’s RONIT AVNI — BUDRUS and The Power of Nonviolence

          Non-violence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man.                                                                 —  Mohandas Gandhi

Ronit Avni

Human Rights . . . filmmaking . . . a vision of justice. Ronit Avni has fused these elements as founder and Executive Director of Just Vision, a non-profit organization that uses documentary film and educational tools to tell an otherwise untold story, disenfranchising outdated stereotypes and supporting and inspiring nonviolent peace initiatives. In short, Just Vision focuses on increasing the power and legitimacy of Palestinians and Israelis working for nonviolent solutions to the conflict.

The award-winning director and producer of Encounter Point and producer of Budrus speaks about her background and her own evolution as a human rights advocate.

The daughter of a Canadian mother and Israeli father, Ronit grew up in Montreal among an expatriate Israeli community. “Many of my friends were Israeli or had Israeli parents. Eventually, my father moved back to Israel when I was a teenager, so I would go back and forth.” Ronit eventually studied Theatre Directing in Montreal and Political Science in the United States. “I went to Vassar and then got a job at a human rights organization. Basically, I wanted to fuse my passion for the arts with my political interests. I felt that documentary filmmaking and human rights advocacy would combine my interest areas, so I began looking for ways to bring together those two fields and came across a human rights group called WITNESS that was founded by the musician Peter Gabriel. At the time, it was a project of the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights (now known as Human Rights First). The vision behind it was to equip human rights defenders around the world with video cameras, train them to document violations and work with them to deter abuses — to capture evidence for courts and tribunals and to mobilize their constituencies.”

Ronit had already laid the foundation for continuing her advocacy with WITNESS by previously interning and volunteering with two prominent Israeli human rights organizations: B’Tselem—The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories and the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel. She also mentions having bought her own camera at the time and training herself to use it. “I was eager to bring my creative and political interests together professionally. After I got a job at WITNESS, I began working with human rights advocates all over the world — primarily with groups in West Africa, the United States, and in the Middle East. So I was working in everyone else’s backyard. After September 11^th, which took place a few blocks from our office, and after the collapse of the OSLO process, I felt that I needed to focus exclusively on my own backyard which was that bridge between North America, including the North American Jewish community, and the Israeli/Palestinian context. And so I embarked on a two year research process while I was still at WITNESS.”

As Ronit relates, that process involved interviewing four hundred and seventy-five Israelis and Palestinians engaged in nonviolent conflict resolution work based in Israel, the West Bank and Jerusalem. “For me it was consultative to understand what was going on — what people were thinking, what they needed, and what they were doing,” Ronit enumerates. “It was very informative and people were very generous with their time. This was during a period when many people and organizations didn’t have websites yet, so the feeling was one of invisibility, where the people that I met with felt that they tended to only know others in their own field. If you were a human rights advocate, you knew other human rights advocates. If you were an educator, you might know other educators engaging in this kind of work. But you didn’t know people beyond your field. And so there was this heightened sense of isolation and a sense that the world didn’t know about their work. They really wanted media attention and a way to connect to broader communities of support. So after that two year process, I felt that there was a gap to be filled. Although I loved my job at Witness and was very reluctant to leave, I felt that I could apply the skills I’d acquired there to this work which I was very passionate about. I then received a two-year fellowship from Joshua Venture that enabled me to take the risk to leave my job and to start to lay the groundwork for Just Vision.”

That foundational work, as Ronit describes, developed organically as those media experts resonating with the initiative entered the picture. “One person that came on board right away was an American journalist who had been working with Linda Gradstein from NPR, named Nahanni Rous. Because of her journalism work she had extensive contacts and began researching and interviewing. I also moved to Jerusalem and set up a small office there in 2003. Then, through a filmmaker friend, I got in touch with the first Palestinian female pilot, Joline Makhlouf, who had been helping her on a film she’d been working on . . . So very quickly our team grew. Soon thereafter, I saw Control Room, and really loved the handling of the multiple narratives featured in the film. I reached out to the director and asked her to recommend one of the four editors listed. She recommended Julia Bacha (Director of Budrus) who ended up coming on as our Media Director.”

So Just Vision initially began as a core team of women –- Israeli, Palestinian, American and Brazilian. “Two of them have moved on to having children and building their families,” Ronit mentions, “but they are still consulting for us and working with us. I joke that we’re like the Mafia –- once you’re involved you can’t leave. We’ve developed really close relationships. There were years that were incredibly intense during the height of the Second Intifada. I felt we were like a little engine, and we were. We had no money. We had an idea and no track record at the time. But the idea was always to create media and to document the stories that you weren’t hearing on the nightly news.”

               Just Vision emerged in response to the lack of media coverage of Palestinian and Israeli civilians working to end the occupation and the conflict. While violent extremism receives front-page exposure, courageous nonviolence leaders and peacebuilders are relegated to occasional human interest stories. Consequently, at Just Vision, we work to ensure that these Palestinian and Israeli civic leaders are not only taken seriously as partners in the quest for peace, but are also more visible, valued and influential in their efforts.

Of course, most nonviolent initiatives by their very nature don’t make it to prime time, where sensation and drama drive ratings. Yet, the fact remains that it’s essential to depict the other side of the story, where peaceful attempts at resolution, even if initially thwarted, give rise to possibilities for lasting change. The bottom line:  Extremists get plenty of press. Stories need to be told that spotlight the peacemakers.

Ronit recognized the imbalance long ago, as well as the need to broaden the scope of the narrative. “You know, the thing that I really want to be clear about is that we’re not doing this to make people feel good about themselves. A lot of people just want to hear good stories so they can just relax and not do anything. That’s not why we do the work we do. We do it because the people who are working toward ending the occupation and the conflict are doing something really important. They need to be supported, and they need to be understood. We’re not saying that every initiative or every individual is equally effective or compelling, but we need to start from a place of knowledge and understanding. We need to try to remove the barriers toward engaging in nonviolence and conflict resolution work. I feel strongly and I’ve felt this from the beginning—and, in fact, the effects in Tunisia and in Egypt have only reinforced this for me—that any political agreement reached at the top will not hold without support from the bottom.”

Ayed Morrar of Budrus

And at the end of the day, as Ronit concludes, civil society is what leads. Eventually politicians come around, and they of course, have the power to make specific agreements, but the community-at-large is critical. “We’ve seen that with the feminist movement, the civil rights movement and so many other social movements historically, as well as those today around the world. So neglecting civil society is a major strategic mistake and also one that is going to have negative consequences in the future. That’s why Just Vision focuses exclusively on civil society and on grass roots . . . Those people who say ‘Enough is enough. I have to personally get involved in some way and do something.’ And sometimes it’s at great risk to themselves and to their families. Those are the people we don’t want to leave isolated. That’s why we try to tell their stories. We try to drive attention to them through print and broadcast media and also through social media. We create tools for educators, community leaders and faith leaders to use with their constituencies. We bring thought leaders to meet some of the people that we profile and also get them to see the stories that they may not be aware of. There’s a feedback loop. President Obama in his Cairo speech several years ago implored Palestinians to adopt nonviolence, and he cited examples from all over the world. He devoted an entire paragraph to it, but he didn’t cite a local example. He didn’t cite one because he didn’t know of one—not because a local example didn’t exist.”

Just Vision actually underscores those examples and brings them to light. “Because doing that has implications. It’s how policy gets formulated,” Ronit explains. “You know, we’re not an advocacy organization. We don’t prescribe policy, but the policymakers should not be in the dark about civil society initiatives that are moving in the direction of resolving the conflict or challenging the occupation.”

Have Just Vision’s films, Encounter Point and in particular, Budrus, made tangible impacts in promoting the idea that nonviolence is a powerful and viable avenue toward achieving a sustainable peace?

“Yes, absolutely,” Ronit confirms. “It’s happening on multiple levels. First of all, when we decided to make Budrus, we set out to put the village and the story on the map. We did a search on Google of all of the references to Budrus prior to the film production. Because the events of Budrus happened in 2003-2004 and we only started making the film in 2007, it’s very easy to look at the before and the after. Before, there were only a handful of activist websites that told the story of Budrus. But none of the major media outlets from Al Jazeera to the Israeli Press, from the NY Times to the BBC, knew the story. Some local press had gone to a few of the demonstrations but they never went back to find out what happened. But now if you were to do a search on Budrus, you would literally find thousands of references, including those from all of the top journalists and top media outlets . . . My favorite is seeing the story of Budrus mentioned without any reference to the film — where it’s now just part of the popular discourse.”

When the residents of Budrus learn that the Israeli army plans to build the Separation Barrier through their town, cutting them off from neighboring Palestinian villages and uprooting their precious olive groves, they decide to organize. Under the leadership of Ayed Morrar, Palestinian men of all political factions come together to wage an unarmed struggle to preserve their lands. Victory seems unlikely until Ayed’s 15-year-old daughter steps in to organize a female contingent that brings the women of Budrus to the front lines in a tense stand-off with the military.

Ronit also conveys another example of a village facing similar circumstances as those in Budrus — vying the placement of the Separation Barrier. “They showed the film in al-Wallajeh, and several days later when they had another demonstration, we were told that about four times as many people showed up. We also found out that after a screening in the actual village of Budrus, a march was held down to the places where they were slated to lose land, and the people planted trees to commemorate what had been done. When we showed the film to a woman’s group near the Bethlehem area that had never seen women play such a pivotal role, they were so moved that they asked to meet with the women of Budrus.” The documentary was also screened in a more unusual venue: a preparatory program that included about thirty young people who were about to enter the Israeli military. “One of them was going to be in the exact same unit that [squadron leader] Yasmine Levy was with in Budrus,” Ronit informs. “It raised some very important questions for her about what it was going to mean ethically, and what she might be faced with.”

Screenings of Budrus continue to spark both awareness and dialogue. “We don’t tell people what to do, but we want people to think,” Ronit states. “We want them to think about what constitutes a nonviolent movement and what an ethical response to a nonviolent movement would be. We also want them to think about the role of ordinary people. These are all questions that come up in the film.”

And what about the role of women? As conveyed in Budrus, fifteen-year-old Iltezam Morrar, daughter of the Palestinian leader of the village, questions why women are not involved in the protest. Once they are allowed to take part in the demonstrations, a palpable change occurs which definitely affects the process.

“Well it’s interesting,” Ronit relates, “Ayed Morrar, who is the Palestinian protagonist—the father that leads this movement in Budrus—said that the men in the village behaved differently when standing next to their wives, daughters and mothers, and that the soldiers also behaved differently. It seems there’s a kind of restraint, or at least, a relative restraint that could kick in around the presence of women. It doesn’t always kick in, but it has a greater probability of doing so than when men are just facing one another. But of course, we do see instances of Yasmine Levy beating some of the women with a baton. Yet, their presence was incredibly important, and there’s a very interesting rapport and dynamic that emerges between the women of the village and Yasmine. You can see it. But women are not playing a central role in some of the other villages that are engaging in similar kinds of demonstrations today. And none of them, to date, have had the success that Budrus has had. We can’t say it’s causal, but I think there is a correlation between women’s participation and a higher probability of a successful outcome. It’s not the only factor, but it’s certainly a factor.”

Ronit also addresses the fact that both Israeli and international activists played an important role in the protests held in Budrus. “The Israelis that came into the village recognized that they were going to be treated differently by the soldiers because they were Israeli. So that was a way to help lessen some of the violence—it would make the military think twice about using force. But it’s a very complicated dynamic. I think that the relationships built among the demonstrators were very strong. When we brought the film back to the village of Budrus, all the different political factions and the Israeli activists came to the screening and so did another seven hundred people. It’s only a fifteen hundred person village. So literally half the village came to watch the movie.”

Dubai Film Festival

Budrus is a wonderful example of the power of the media to touch us in profound ways, challenge our preconceived notions and open our hearts and just maybe our minds.                 — Her Majesty Queen Noor of Jordan

The film, undoubtedly, created a lasting impact. Empowering communities . . . conveying the positive results of nonviolence . . . depicting women coming to the forefront. Ronit describes another compelling factor within the Israeli/Palestinian peace initiative which, when unleashed, thrives on its own momentum. “The relationships that get built defy stereotypes and defy expectations. They’re really deep relationships. It doesn’t mean now that they’ve had exposure to one another that they’re going to embrace – that every Palestinian is going to embrace every Israeli . . . But there are deep relations of trust that are being built among these constituencies. I think those bode extremely well for the future. For example, we had a screening in Gaza, and the young people there had never seen Israelis like the activists in the film. They were fascinated.”

Prolific and often seen as much more impactful, violent images sweep across movie screens and consume the front pages of newspapers and magazine covers. Since the media is such a powerful tool, it’s important to offer alternative depictions which are just as real, and certainly just as important, in order to balance our view of the conflict and the players, as well as the possibilities for resolution.

“I think that’s a big issue in the conflict in general,” Ronit states. “I think both Israelis and Palestinians need to be able to make distinctions because if you see each side as just a homogeneous group, then it’s so much easier to demonize. It’s so much easier to say ‘All Palestinians are terrorists, or all Israelis are soldiers and settlers who only understand violence,’ or whatever the caricature language is. That’s why it’s important to understand that there’s complexity within these societies, that there are different kinds of people. Not every Israeli is Baruch Goldstein. It’s really important to not only make distinctions but actually put your actions where your values are to make sure that the other side sees the difference.”

Recognizing the potent realities of Just Vision’s work, one can’t help but wonder how covering and documenting the ongoing conflict in Israel has affected Ronit personally, perhaps shifting some ideas she may have previously held.

“It’s hard to separate out the filmmaking from the day to day work,” Ronit admits, “because Just Vision’s work is not just about making films. We interview people in the field, and we conduct outreach on a continuing basis. So my interaction with Israeli and Palestinian culture and society is ongoing. I think that certainly I’ve grown over the years in terms of my involvement with Just Vision. I don’t have any romantic illusions about anyone. It’s messy. Movements are messy. Governments and populations are messy. There are no righteous or noble victims just by the virtue of being a victim. These are things that I knew but they’ve certainly been reinforced. Yet, I am constantly inspired by ordinary people who have everything to lose. They put their families, their lives, their reputations, their liberty on the line in order to change circumstances on the ground. So I’ve simultaneously seen some very ugly expressions of human behavior as well as some of the most courageous, empathic and generous expressions of it.”

Ronit also recognizes she has gained a deeper understanding about nonviolence and what it means. “I had not been exposed to the nonviolence movement that existed historically in Palestinian society before the Second Intifada. For example, I didn’t know about the incredible protests and marches or the strikes and sit-ins that took place during the First Intifada or that have been taking place since the ’20s and ’30s in Palestinian society. None of that history was something that I was aware of. I had seen the First Intifada through the lens of the Western media and through the Israeli press. I also didn’t grasp the extent to which ordinary Palestinians were sitting in Israeli prisons. I think my default assumption had been ‘Well, there must be a reason.’ Also, over the years, after seeing the arbitrary nature of how people get detained, how violence gets used and how decisions get made, that instinctive benefit of the doubt that I afforded one community and not the other while I was growing up is gone.”

Since films like Budrus have opened the aperture further, highlighting nonviolent leaders in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and recognizing the power of peaceful demonstrations, there’s been a promising breakthrough. Although there are still exceptions, Ronit notices a difference in how other journalists and documentarians are treating the problem.

“There’s been an improvement in terms of recognizing that these movements exist, and that they’re important,” Ronit asserts. “So I do think that there’s been a change. There’s no question. I mean the fact that people are referencing these movements is the biggest change, frankly.”

Ronit also underscores how Budrus has helped in thwarting old narratives. “I think the narrative amongst the Israeli public has been Why don’t Palestinians adopt nonviolence? If they did, there would be peace. In Palestinian society the narrative has been Nonviolence doesn’t work. We’ve tried it. The American society narrative is Where is the Palestinian Gandhi? . . . This film challenges all of those assumptions. You’re seeing journalists pick up on those themes and write about them differently or reference and incorporate them into their arguments.”

And so another salient and controversial issue rears its head. Responsible journalism. Is it important for journalists and filmmakers to not only present “facts” but to use the force of media to benefit and not exacerbate the problem?

“I think that journalists have a responsibility to report on events and phenomena that are taking place in a particular region,” Ronit states, “and to try to do so dispassionately in general and get a complete picture of what’s going on to the best of their ability. But very often in this context, people default to the closest native speaker of whatever language the journalist speaks as opposed to the native language of the region, whether it’s Arabic or Hebrew. So that limits the pool of people that are featured. Also, it’s very hard to encapsulate these movements in a photograph or a headline. If you show a building that’s been bombed or a bus that’s exploded, it’s easy to make sense of that immediately. Whereas, if you see a picture of a group of people standing around, it takes a lot more work to really cover the story. And often, I think many journalists make the mistake of waiting for it to be a mass movement like what we saw in Tahrir Square (Cairo). They wait for it to get to that critical mass point before giving it coverage.”

Ronit also recognizes that smaller, less dramatic peace initiatives are staples in building a movement. “In fact, the building blocks are as important as the outcome. Those building blocks are critical – and often they’re small and disjointed in some way. Reporting on these stories requires a lot of patience, a lot of effort, and a desire to really understand the local dynamics. And I also think, along with budgets being slashed in terms of long-term reporting and the default, especially, to local English speakers, that there is a general bias against nonviolence. There’s a feeling that it’s not as newsworthy as violent actions.”

As Ronit indicates, there are a number of obstacles to having stories on peace activism see the light of day. She notes it can be frustrating when a local stabbing involving one militant actor warrants media attention while five hundred people at a nonviolent demonstration doesn’t receive coverage. “There’s a question of proportionality and scale that I think is often missing,” Ronit indicates. “So at Just Vision, we try to complement existing coverage. We don’t say that we have all of the stories. We’re not outfitted as a twenty-four hour news cycle type of organization. We’re there for the long haul. We work exclusively on this issue because we want that depth of knowledge and that scope of contact on the ground so we can really understand what’s happening.”

And that understanding provides a powerful framework for Just Vision’s goal and philosophy: To direct attention to Israeli and Palestinian nonviolence and peacebuilding efforts, working with and beyond traditional media. Top down leadership is clearly not enough; an end to the conflict will be rooted in the work of Israeli and Palestinian civilians.

“I think that we want these nonviolent leaders at the table,” Ronit elucidates. “By ‘at the table’ I mean being covered by journalists, paid attention to, taken seriously, taken into consideration on the diplomatic level and supported on the grassroots level. Those who are favoring a nonviolent approach — one which recognizes that the two peoples are here to stay — are the best hope we have for a stable future.”

The film, Budrus, highlights and gives voice to that recognition, inspiring hope in the most basic aspects of human understanding. Originally released in 2009, it makes its DVD debut on May 10, 2011. And the Budrus Outreach Campaign is on the move as well. “It’s been very positive. We have different staff members who engage in outreach in the United States, in Palestinian society, and in Israeli society,” Ronit states. “Fundamentally, no matter the specific audience, there are three core messages: unity across divides, the power of nonviolence, and the strategic importance of women’s involvement.”

By exposing us to nonviolent leaders and initiatives, Just Vision provides a more encompassing view of Israeli/Palestinian relations, one where human decency and fair treatment is given a chance for survival. Within these small grassroots movements, we can recognize the power of peaceful resistance, where individuals, armed only with passion and principle, can make a difference.

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.    —  Mohandas Gandhi

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All photos used by permission. Photo of Ayed Morrar by Aisha Mershani.

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Waging Peace: MEDEA BENJAMIN of CODEPINK

       Any woman who chooses to behave like a full human being should be warned that the armies of the status quo will treat her as something of a dirty joke. That’s their natural and first weapon. She will need her sisterhood.  — Gloria Steinem

Medea Benjamin of CODEPINK

A radical, a crazed lunatic, unpatriotic, a communist. . . perhaps even a sorceress.  

Strong women speaking truth to power have always received some form of derogatory press. By the time either the media or more conservative, political zealots are through, an outspoken intelligent woman can be portrayed as the next Medusa.  

Medea Benjamin is no exception to the rule. Brushing past the slurs, an intelligent observer quickly concludes that Medea is no ordinary woman. With a master’s degree in public health from Columbia University and another in economics from the The New School, Medea has worked as an economist and nutritionist in Latin America and Africa for the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Health organization, the Swedish International Development Agency and the Institute for Food and Development Policy. Medea is also co-founder of the San Francisco-based human rights organization, Global Exchange, as well as co-founder of CODEPINK Women for Peace.  

So what turned “a nice Jewish girl” from Long Island into a political activist?  

“Now that goes back some,” Medea remarks. “Actually, I think it all began for me in high school. I remember when my sister’s boyfriend was sent to Vietnam and mailed home a souvenir of an ear of a Vietcong. I was so disgusted by it that it set me on a path of trying to understand why some people considered others lesser human beings. I wondered how we could reverse that. Also, there were real inequalities in the high school that I went to which resulted in race riots. So here I was in a supposedly quiet, suburban Long Island neighborhood that was suddenly racked in the sixties by race relations and war. That kind of thing certainly leaves a mark on you, especially if it happens earlier in life as it did in my case, when you’re just trying to figure out what you want to do and become, and how you want to live your life. All of it urged me down a path of trying to get people to like each other more.”  

Helping people to like each other can sometimes be a monumental task. Intolerance, abuse, greed, political gain . . . War is often the sad result of their erosive wear. CODEPINK Women for Peace is dedicated to turning the tide -– from funding war and aggression toward looking for new avenues for our resources such as green jobs and better healthcare. They are resolved to helping support policies based on diplomacy and compassion rather than those rooted in fear and suppression. From stopping the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to preventing new aggressions from arising, CODEPINK seeks to activate, amplify and inspire a community of peacemakers through creative campaigns and a commitment to non-violence.  

Oftentimes when we hear of such monumental endeavors, we tend to envision some huge campaign behind them. Not always the case. CODEPINK, Medea explains, started when a group of women concerned about the environment got together for a retreat that was organized by a group called Bioneers. “We sat around for several days talking about ways we could address the environmental crisis. During our breaks, we also talked about 9/11 and the US response—the bombing of Afghanistan. We discussed the pending war in Iraq and the color coded alert system that Bush had just declared. It was so odd and nobody knew what to do. We were laughing about it and saying ‘okay if it gets to orange is that when we get out the plastic tarps? When do we use the tape? Do we put it around ourselves or the terrorists?’ So initially, we had some good laughs about the whole thing. But of course, we also realized how serious it was. We could see there was all this negative male energy out there — Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, and also George Bush. We felt we needed to inject some rational, loving female energy into the situation. So we put the group together, initially thinking we’d call it Code Hot Pink until we found that the URL was taken by a porn group,” Medea conveys, laughing. “So we dropped the “hot”, which was very disappointing to some of us, and we went with the name CODEPINK. The idea was to turn the color pink on its head from being this nice, feminine, sweet color to one that was very energetic, bold, and determined.”    

That bold determination has created initiatives like Women Say No to War, inspiring women around the world to become active participants in peacemaking and social change. “We wanted to mobilize women in this country, but we also found in the process that women from other countries were contacting us and saying it’s time we all work together across borders. So Women Say No To War is our attempt to take on issues that we can work on with other women. Some are joint projects like supporting refugees from Iraq who are now living in countries all over the world, but particularly in Syria and Jordan. We’re also helping to promote women’s voices in Afghanistan who are speaking out against the war, as well as working on smaller scale projects run by women that we feel are helpful in building community.”  

CODEPINK has actively supported women of the Middle East when they have risen up to oppose injustice. “In Afghanistan, when the Karzai government was passing a law in order to get more votes from the Shia community, the president, Hamid Karzai, agreed to a law that basically instituted marital rape. Some of the women in Afghanistan rose up to oppose it under very difficult conditions, and we were there to support them and to echo their desire to get rid of the law. Our efforts were successful to a large extent. Then there’s Iran. We have looked toward people like the Nobel Peace prize winner, Shirin Ebadi, for guidance with regard to good campaigns to support. We have also taken groups to Iran, Afghanistan, and to Iraq—obviously places that are oftentimes dangerous and difficult for Americans. That’s because we feel it’s important for us to meet directly with women from different countries so we can learn from them and have a deeper understanding of how we can best support their efforts.”  

Women-induced peace initiatives are creating imprints in other Middle Eastern arenas. CODEPINK, as Medea explains, is one of several groups which are taking on the gritty task of demanding humanitarian relief for the Palestinians virtually imprisoned in Gaza. “CODEPINK became very involved in Israel/Palestine after the Israeli invasion of Gaza that left over 1,400 Palestinians dead. We felt particularly concerned that US tax dollars and our military hardware was used in the attack. CODEPINK has also taken many delegations to Gaza in the last two years. It’s hard to get in which is why many other groups don’t try. We had a beautiful delegation of almost 100 people, including Alice Walker, that went in on International Women’s Day in 2009.”  

Medea also stresses the need for us to remember what’s actually happening in Gaza. “There’s a population of nearly 1.5 million people who are living in what’s equivalent to an open air prison. They aren’t allowed the freedom to go in and out of the area, really only surviving thanks to the United Nations and other charitable organizations,” Medea states. “So we’ve been trying to push the Israeli government to lift the siege. Along the way, we’ve made great connections with the women inside Gaza and have been encouraging them as much as possible, both politically and practically. We support projects like women’s crafts, for instance, so they can make a living. That’s what we do — back concrete projects as well as longer-term policy goals.”  

Yet real change in policy will never manifest while human beings are being held in bondage and humanitarian aid denied as the international community stands by, allowing it to occur without repercussions. The Humanitarian Flotilla situation is no exception. What have we really seen in the Obama administration that leans toward condemning such actions, especially with regard to the Israeli government?  

“We haven’t seen much change from the Bush administration to the Obama administration in terms of policies toward Israel,” Medea asserts plainly. “They’ve been somewhat firmer on the issues of settlements but continue to really turn a blind eye to Israeli violations of human rights.”  

          The U.S. government has been complicit in arming Israel and enabling its human rights abuses, including the ongoing siege of Gaza that has kept 1.5. million people living in the world’s largest open-air prison. In July 2008, the United States signed a contract worth $1.9 billion to transfer the latest-generation of naval combat vessels to Israel at U.S. taxpayer expense. Currently, Congress is in the process of appropriating a record $3.2 billion in military aid to Israel this budget year. This aid must be stopped.   CODEPINK – May 31, 2010  

Medea gives her assessment as to why the U.S. government continues to support Israel in such a biased way. “If you look at who controls policy, it’s really the lobby group AIPAC –- American Israel Public Affairs Committee. It’s really strong and well organized. On one level, you have to be in awe of their ability to influence policy. They even draft legislation and get it passed before we’ve even heard of it. It’s quite remarkable,” Medea states. “Along with the NRA and AARP, AIPAC is one of the strongest lobbies we have in the U.S. It gives tremendous amounts of money to the Democratic and Republican parties so it has a very fierce stranglehold on policy, always showing unconditional support for Israel. We’re actually mobilizing now to try to directly expose AIPAC and how it’s policies control American interests. When AIPAC holds its annual meeting this coming March in Washington, D.C., CODEPINK will have a counter gathering there at the same time in order to discuss what we consider a more even-handed policy.”

No doubt, confronting organizations such as AIPAC by shedding light on hard-nosed and unfair tactics are becoming more and more necessary. It’s also become obvious, as well as essential, that women’s voices are heard in any serious attempt to attain peaceful resolution.  

“Oftentimes women and children are the number one victims of war, and they are usually excluded when it comes to trying to find peace,” Medea remarks. “Take the example of Afghanistan where women’s oppression is used as a justification for U.S. military intervention, and yet when it comes to trying to develop a process of reconciliation, women in Afghanistan have had to struggle hard even to have a place at the table. CODEPINK has been working with the women there to push for them to gain that seat. It’s not easy because whether it’s the Taliban or the Karzai government or whatever, no one wants to include women in peace talks. So since most of the time women are not at the table, then the process often doesn’t take into account women’s needs. Using Afghanistan again as an example, any peace process has to include a guarantee that girls will be able to go to school under a negotiated peace settlement. For women, that issue is high up on their list. Yet if they’re not at the table, who’s going to voice those kinds of demands. That’s why CODEPINK is helping to support them in having more of a say. That’s why the United Nations passed Resolution 1325 which states that women must be part of any peacemaking process.”  

Although women’s roles are emphasized, CODEPINK is not exclusively an organization of women. Medea talks about men’s response to the organization’s mission.  

“The support we get from men, depends on what part of the world we’re in. Unfortunately, there are still many areas where women are treated more like property than like human beings. There’s still so much work to do to guarantee women’s rights. Actually, we have a lot of men that work in CODEPINK that are our allies, our colleagues. They’re some of our best activists. So even though we’re a women-initiated group, we have never been exclusively made up of women. We feel that this gives us a unique kind of position. We have the women’s perspective that’s front and center because it’s run by women, and yet we get the best of both worlds because we have a lot of good male ideas and energy behind our initiatives.”  

And some of those endeavors can take on a life of their own. People from all over the world converging in Egypt in order to cross the border into Israel to help the people of Gaza . . . Sounds like a stupendous feat meant more for a movie screen, yet a real life attempt was made during the Gaza Freedom March on December 31, 2009. What happened during that initiative and what was CODEPINK’s objective?  

“We had been taking delegations into Gaza through Egypt on smaller levels — about 100 people each time,” Medea explains. “The Gaza Freedom March was an attempt to scale that up. We thought that meant we might get something like 300 people joining, but it turned out that 1,300 people signed up from around the world.”  

Egypt is the route that the delegations have been taking to get into Gaza because the Israelis won’t let them in if they make the attempt within Israel. This particular time the additional people joining the march was a surprise for Egyptian officials. “The event became massive, and that really scared the Egyptian government,” Medea states. “They had been allowing us in with these smaller delegations, but since this one was so big, the government clamped down and said that they would not allow us into Gaza, and they would not allow us to be meeting in Cairo where everybody was converging.”  

The official Egyptian government explanation was that seven or more people gathering would be considered illegal. “So imagine,” Medea adds, “here we were in charge of 1,300 people from all over the world, and we’re told we can’t meet. So it ended up that we had a lot of demonstrations in the streets of Cairo that really shocked and rocked the government there. Because we were coming from so many different countries, officials were too embarrassed to really crack down on us the way they would have if we were Egyptians. As it turned out, they eventually allowed 100 people out of the 1,300 to go into Gaza with humanitarian aid.”  

And what about the possibility of holding another Gaza Freedom March? “What we’re doing now is going back to smaller delegations,” Medea conveys, “more manageable ones. In fact, the next delegation we’re taking will consist of about ten people. In terms of doing something massive, we would prefer doing that in Washington D.C. where we can try to influence the politics of our government and where we have more control over our ability to meet.”  

In the midst of her reflections on the Gaza situation, Medea reveals that it’s difficult to perceive how a resolution will come about. “It’s so hard to see, with the one-sided nature of U.S. policy, how we’re ever going to move in a direction that will give peace to the people who are living there now,” Medea remarks. “I still tend to feel very despairing about the future of that tiny strip of land.”  

Medea also recognizes the need to be lighthearted from time to time to alleviate the gravity. “We did a little parody of the peace talks in front of the White House the other day [Peace Charade 2010]. I play Hillary Clinton. We try to have some fun with this stuff so we don’t get too despairing. Doing protest after protest all the time — it can become overwhelming.”  

As the world watches the Israeli/Palestinian dilemma, many of us wonder what is happening among the women of Israel—Jewish and Islamic—with regard to their own ventures toward peace. Are more peace groups forming and are some of them working directly with CODEPINK?  

“There are a number of wonderful women’s groups,” Medea offers. “There’s one called Coalition of Women for Peace that consists of both Jewish and Arab women. These women have learned over the years how to work really well together. They hosted one of our delegations that went to Israel. At one of the separation walls, we did a very creative protest that consisted of Arab, Jewish, Israeli and American women, calling for the removal of these walls. We basically forced the Israeli military to let us go through one of the checkpoints which had been closed so that we could meet and embrace. It was a very beautiful moment. In general, when protests are led by women, it’s almost guaranteed that it will be peaceful. That really challenges the Israelis in their response, making it harder for them to react with violence.”  

Still, the occupation is affecting women and children on both sides, Israeli as well as Palestinian. “The other day, there was an attack on Israeli settlers that led to the death of four people, including a pregnant woman, and Hamas took credit for it. Credit . . . what a horrible term. It’s awful when you see civilians being killed no matter who they are, and in this case, a pregnant women was murdered. It’s very painful. There’s been worldwide condemnation of that attack, and rightly so. But what I have also seen are daily attacks of women and children in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and in Gaza. As a Jewish American woman, I feel that I have to speak out against those incidences because my government, the Israeli government, and the media tend to belittle the lives of the Palestinians. When a pregnant woman dies at a checkpoint because she was not allowed through to get to the hospital in time, that does not become worldwide news. When a woman in Gaza is killed by an Israeli bomb, that does not become worldwide news. So I feel that we have to speak out against all violence against civilians.”  

There are other ways in which the Israeli occupation, especially the siege, has taken its toll. “In Gaza, where the economy is disastrous, there’s about a fifty percent unemployment rate. So just trying to put food on the table is very difficult for women. Men are feeling impotent because they don’t have jobs and because they don’t feel they’re fulfilling their obligations toward their families. So you also see a rise in domestic violence. All of this, unfortunately, relates back to the lack of basic freedoms.”  

Yet, no matter how often women around the world hear about the situation in Gaza as well as in other conflict zones, it is becoming more imperative that we not only feel the outrage and compassion and desire change, but we actually become forces of that change—basically being less abstract and more concrete. In short, taking it out of our heads and onto the street.  

Medea addresses the concept. “One of the most exciting things for me about CODEPINK has been empowering so many women around the country and around the world to become active because we tend to complain a lot and oftentimes on the computer—writing to each other, bemoaning the state of the world and not getting out to really make change. It’s too easy to be an armchair peacemaker. So we’ve got to get people off their couches and away from their computers and out into the world, be that into the streets or into the halls of congress or into their local shelters helping poor women, wherever that is. We have to be actively engaged in changing this world. Actually, it’s the best possible antidote to depression. It’s very easy to get depressed when you watch the news or you sit around and exchange e-mails about how bad things are going, but it’s very inspiring and refreshing when you get out in the world and try to make change, mostly because you’re surrounded by other women—and men—who are doers rather than talkers. And that is very inspiring.”  

Seems like CODEPINK is appealing to the deeper qualities of women as a whole. There’s a spiritual element to how women are being addressed:   

            We call on women around the world to rise up and oppose the war in Iraq. We call on mothers, grandmothers, sisters and daughters, on workers, students, teachers, healers, artists, writers, singers, poets, and every ordinary outraged woman willing to be outrageous for peace. Women have been the guardians of life-not because we are better or purer or more innately nurturing than men, but because the men have busied themselves making war. Because of our responsibility to the next generation, because of our own love for our families and communities and this country that we are a part of, we understand the love of a mother in Iraq for her children, and the driving desire of that child for life. — Starhawk  

CODEPINK calls women to break free from learned roles and become more of what many consider to be spiritual activists. It seems to be a revolutionary call in its most positive sense.  

“It’s a call that really involves all aspects of our lives,” Medea relates. “How can we be nurturing in our homes and out in the world, how can we be compassionate in our communities and build a government that reflects that compassion? How can we find beauty in our daily lives and bring more beauty to the larger world? So it’s a very holistic kind of call that really looks toward an era of cooperation and negotiation over the use of force, as well as having that sense of cooperative involvement prevail in everything from our homes and families to our government policies and the way we live and work with each other in the broader world.”  

Yet, in order to create an era of national and international responsibility, we cannot avoid asking ourselves a simple question: How are the actions of our government affecting us as people? If we allow leaders to actively support, especially financially and militarily, nations that are consistently involved in human rights violations, we are basically signing our name to their agenda. In essence, we are condoning their actions by not speaking up to refute them and demanding change.   

But is the tide finally turning in our own country? Are men and women in the U.S. getting the message?  

“Yes and no,” Medea states. “I think that there was tremendous energy that people put into overcoming the Bush years and bringing in a new era. We pinned a lot of hopes on Barak Obama and then felt that after that huge rush of energy to get him elected that we did our job and we could go home and relax. That was a huge mistake because, unfortunately, there is no relaxing. This work is a constant. It requires constant involvement and vigilance, and I don’t say that in a negative, exhausting kind of sense. I say that in a positive, energizing sense. We need to remember that when we let down our guard, the forces of violence never lets down theirs, and we can find ourselves back where we were before.”  

It appears that people may have become a little too complacent since the election of Barak Obama, too willing to allow the policies to emanate from Washington instead of from the grassroots? “The energy we used to get rid of the Bush administration should have then been turned into positive energy to force the Obama administration to be the government that we hoped we had elected,” Medea asserts. “Instead, it went from how do we push against something we don’t like, i.e. the Bush administration, to just feeling like the Messiah had come and he’ll take care of it. Let this powerful, wonderful man, Obama, just do his thing and we’ll be okay. I think that, particularly for women, we should have known better, and we should have not let down our guard. Actually, it’s been very difficult for CODEPINK to organize since Obama has come into power. We still want to end the wars and bring our troops home. We still want to close the foreign military bases that we have–over 800 bases around the world–and invest that money in green energy, good jobs and education. We still want to have our government support basic human rights and close down Guantanamo and restore habeas corpus. There’s all kinds of things that we still have left to do, and yet we haven’t found the same energy among our supporters that we had during the Bush years.”  

Whether we hear it through the media or during town hall discussions, people have expressed a sense of deflation.  

“They certainly feel let down,” Medea concurs. “First they were elated. ‘Okay, let’s let Obama do it for us.’ And then when he didn’t do what we wanted, whether that was ending the wars or bringing in new policies that we desired on everything from jobs to the environment to immigration, we got disappointed and depressed. That’s not good for us as individuals and it’s not good for making the changes we want to see. That’s why CODEPINK is constantly out there trying to revive people’s sense of being active, engaged, and involved. Presently, we’re part of a big mobilization [One Nation: Working Together to Fund Jobs, Not War] that’s taking place on October 2nd in Washington, D.C. It’s being organized by civil rights groups and unions, and we’re bringing the peace message into that mix. It will definitely be bigger than Glen Beck’s and certainly not as white,” Medea adds. “The point is rather than just complaining about Glen Beck, we had to ask ourselves: How do we mobilize forces for what we believe in?”  

Perhaps part of the answer lies within a simpler framework—how men and women can become more pink.  

That may sound a bit too simple, maybe even frivolous. After all, when one thinks pink one does not normally think strong or unwavering. Perhaps, as CODEPINK co-founder Medea Benjamin concludes, the color pink has taken on a special meaning and force.  

“Wearing some pink helps,” Medea says. “We had a lot of people who hated pink when we started who have now come to really love it, including me. I was not a pink person at all. I’ve learned a lot from the whole pink thing. It sort of brightens up my outlook a little more. People’s responses are certainly a lot more positive. Sometimes doing and saying something dressed in black tends to put out a little more of a dire, negative energy than if you’re conveying the same message dressed in pink. The color can be very disarming. It can disarm the police, it can pacify your adversaries, and it can make people want to join you because it’s more inviting and positive. So I would say in general, while we’re working on these issues of life and death, rape and violence, and so many other negative and heartbreaking conditions in the world, adding a little pink can bring some joy into our work.”  

That may be worth contemplating. After all, pink is the color of universal love . . . the color of approachability, harmony and inner peace. The color pink is connected with the heart, our source of compassion and human decency. It’s even been known to neutralize violent behavior—definitely a desirable result.  

Maybe we do need a color-coded, wake-up call:  The heart of humanity is blocked, causing fear, anger, and hatred. In short, it’s causing war.  

So pink may be the warning color we require, detangling us from the knots of domination and greed that have enabled us to squander human life. Perhaps what we really need is to be saved from our own ignorance.  

Now that’s a CODEPINK alert.  

                                                              ****  

Photo credits:  Introductory photo — Julie Brashares. Medea at the podium — Rae Abileah. All other photos — by permission. 

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CARLA GOLDSTEIN of OMEGA INSTITUTE: Women, Power and a New Paradigm

                                         We are not human beings having a spiritual experience.                        We are spiritual beings having a human experience.          – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

 

Carla Goldstein

The Omega Point. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin imagined such a critical threshold, where humankind would reach its highest point of socialization and consciousness, breaking through time and space to a new level of enlightenment. The organization’s name reflecting this idea, Omega Institute for Holistic Studies is dedicated to fostering movement toward that pivotal point of integration, encouraging both individual growth and social change.

Sitting in her office located amidst Omega’s sprawling, nearly two hundred acre campus in Rhinebeck, NY, Carla Goldstein, Director of External Affairs as well as Director of the Women’s Institute, describes how she discovered Omega and how that meeting transformed her life.

“I consider myself an advocate,” Carla relates. “That’s really been the bulk of my professional life. I’m a lawyer by training and spent many years on the public policy front. I worked in the New York State legislature as well as in the City Council. It was while I was working for Planned Parenthood that I discovered Omega. I found out about the Women & Power conference and it looked really interesting, so I decided to attend. I heard Jane Fonda speak that weekend. Eve Ensler and other great women were there as well. It was such a powerful event, the best conference I’d ever been to, bar none.”

Elizabeth Lesser, Eve Ensler, Jane Fonda, and Sally Field

Carla found herself thinking it was a shame that those amazing women were not being heard more beyond the conference environment. “This was all happening pre-digital download and the internet had not become what it is now. That’s when it occurred to me that since Planned Parenthood was a global organization, we might partner with Omega to figure out how to get that content distributed in some way, so I approached Omega with the idea. This was all happening just when the organization first began its Service Week program, opening its campus to nonprofits to do their own retreats. Through Planned Parenthood, I went on a retreat along with a team of thirty leaders, and we all fell in love with the place. After that, I brought my family to Omega during Family Week. It was a very transformative time for us. That’s when I realized Omega really had something going on that was special.”

Carla expresses that Omega’s and her own desire seemed to be synchronizing. In the universe of her policy work, while people were talking about heartfulness, caring, community and childcare, Carla reveals her personal experience was that “there was something missing underneath the rhetoric—a depth of spirit and community. And as far as Omega was concerned, the organization was at a time in its development when it was feeling its ‘grownupness’. The mission to bring hope and healing to individuals and society had been expressed really one person at a time through various educational programs. Omega was now interested in figuring out how it could deepen its impact on the social/cultural questions. So meeting up with the organization at that time was perfect. I was looking for spiritual depth, and Omega was looking for political/social action.”

Since joining Omega, Carla has seen the organization realizing its goal. The Women’s Institute . . . The Omega Center for Sustainable Living. . . The Scholarship Program . . . building a program around Mindfulness for Educators . . . the development of a Veteran’s Week. “The road has led to really figuring out how to serve the greater good at a social level in addition to the individual level,” Carla states. “The way I see it is that coming on the heels of the 60’s and the 70’s there were really two paths to social change. One path advocated changing the social structures—the laws, the policies. The other was the Ghandi path, the eastern path. ‘We’re going to be the change.’ What Omega was coming to understand, as well as what I and many of our teachers have come to understand is that it’s not an either or situation. It’s a both and more situation. So the question is how do we really bring these different prongs together in an endless cycle.”

Seeing two sides of the coin, Omega recognized that a deeper balance within the world at large needed to be attained for successful social changes to take place—a new paradigm where feminine wisdom is valued. Supporting a balanced power paradigm that is neither feminine nor masculine, but a healthy blend of both, will help create a more peaceful and just world that honors our interdependence with each other and the Earth itself. Thus, the formation of the Women’s Institute, a dynamic and innovative part of Omega’s mission to attain that objective.

Empowering women around the world, the Institute supports them in developing their visions and their voice, recognizing that feminine wisdom is an essential element in any effort toward sustainability and global peace.

“The goal of the Women’s Institute is primarily to cultivate women’s leadership and empowerment so that women can be change agents,” Carla notes. “We’re interested in helping women who want to transform the power paradigm from being one of dominance and exploitation to one of cooperation and collaboration. We’re interested in not mimicking the kinds of leadership that we have grown up watching but inventing our own authentic leadership using our whole selves—mind, body, spirit, and heart—and doing it in the global context. The way that I understand it, where we are as women in the west today stems right from WWII. Since that time, when 6,000,000 women went to work and then left their jobs when the men came back from war, we have been in a largely adaptive relationship to power—conforming to the existing structures in relation to questions like ‘How do we get what we want? How do we hold it? How do we find our way? How do we navigate the power structures that exist that were created without us?’ But that’s changing. We’re now moving into a period where women are very interested in having power redefined to reflect our own unique values and visions. This is not to say that women are monolithic. We are as different as we are many, but nonetheless all of the social constructs were created primarily without any input from women, so we’ve been functioning in them in this adaptive mode and now it’s like ‘Well, wait a minute.’ Not to discard it all, but how can we infuse the power structure with our own visions? How do we challenge some of the assumptions upon which the system was based—a lot  of those assumptions having to do with the exploitation of women? So that’s really what the Women’s Institute is interested in helping women do.”

But it’s not only women’s empowerment that the Institute is promoting, it’s feminine wisdom.

By healing and promoting feminine wisdom in women and girls as well as in men and boys, all of society benefits.

“The terminology is all problematic,” Carla explains. “When we use the term ‘the feminine’ which we mean in the Jungian psychological sense, people think we’re talking about feminine hygiene products or a hyper-genderized sense of the feminine so there’s all these challenges around stereotypes due to the language. That makes it tough, especially for men. In reality, we’re trying to convey the word feminine in the sphere of nurturing, as well as in reflective and relational qualities. Gloria Steinem once said at one of the conferences that every human being possesses all of the qualities that are available—360° around the wheel—but we grow into them at different stages of our lives. So the best aspiration would be to help all humans experience all aspects of themselves. With regard to women’s empowerment work, it’s about helping women find their own authentic voice and visions. It’s also about helping them become more comfortable in their masculine traits. It works the other way around with men. Many men can be extraordinarily nurturing. So none of this is simply biologically predestined. The real question is how can we bring balance for everyone? Of course, from a resource point of view, the Women’s Institute is interested in empowering women, but helping to awaken, enliven and support the feminine in men will definitely be a part of our agenda.”

Emphasizing female leadership in the world is essential at all levels. Carla makes reference to Nicholas D. Kristof’s book, Half the Sky, which describes the brutal inequality that women and girls face in the world today as well as the powerful resilience of those who have been harmed, who literally changed their oppression into opportunity. “Allowing women to play key roles is one of the answers to many of the development questions that we have,” Carla asserts. “It makes sense. Actually, it’s kind of a no brainer. If you have all these human problems and half of the humans are not at the table to help solve them, then you’re really not utilizing the full of human potential. It’s very simple. We need more women in leadership positions. At the same time, it’s an oversimplification to say it’s just about the biology. A lot of the reasons why have to do with patriarchy and what the overarching system is valuing. So although we need more women leaders, it’s not just more women in the biological sense, but specifically, more women who are interested in bringing in the values of the feminine.”

Omega’s Women & Power conferences, cultivating those values, are dynamic events, inspiring and affirming women’s leadership and empowerment. “Of course there’s only so much one can do in a weekend,” Carla remarks, “but it’s definitely an inspirational event and acts as a confirmation for those of us who think Hey, I want to wake up and strengthen this part of myself. Also, the conference offers a sense of community. Even though technologically the web connects us more than ever, we’re very isolated from one another. We live in a hyper-specialized society and culture so you could spend your entire life just staring at a computer screen. That’s why one of the main goals of the conference is to bring people into community with each other and to build a movement — a social movement.”

And that movement seems to be emerging around the globe. An amazing number of women’s organizations are bringing women together to explore the power paradigm as well as to create some changes in the blueprint. Carla points out that “everywhere you look, even on the internet, if you google women and power conferences, you will find events all over the world now. The Women’s Institute is not unique in the sense that we are part of a growing movement. That’s another one of our goals—to share that information, to help people feel connected to something larger than themselves. It’s important for us to know that we’re a part of an emerging global network of women trying to change the path of history, trying to bring a different set of values and experience to the table as well as forging new pathways and new vocabulary for what is developing.”

That initiative vocabulary will have the chance to be explored at the next Women & Power conference scheduled at the Rhinebeck campus in September. OUR TIME TO LEAD is a call-out to women of all ages and backgrounds to become the leaders we have been waiting for. There is no ambiguity in the program’s agenda—the recognition that sustainable change is truly dependent upon more female leadership.

“I think I heard a statistic recently that women have only been officially part of 3% of all global peace negotiations,” Carla asserts. “The percentage is very small. There’s a problem with that. I think women have an enormous potential contribution to make toward conflict resolution. I have met some extraordinary women who have been key in the reconciliation process in their countries. There’s Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela who was important in the reconciliation endeavor in South Africa. I have just come back from Rwanda where I met Aloisea Inyumba. She was instrumental in the peace process post-genocide. One of the women coming to our conference this September, Leymah Gbowee, organized Christian and Muslim women in Liberia.”

Leymah Gbowee, as documented in the film Pray the Devil Back to Hell, was one of the main organizers of a band of several thousand women, who helped bring peace to Liberia after a 14-year civil war.

“So once again,” Carla stresses, “it’s a no brainer—tapping  the potential of women to bring the fruits of our wisdom to bear on the peacemaking table is essential.”

And what qualities did these women posses that magnetized their ability to achieve peaceful resolutions? “A willingness to process grief,” Carla reflects, “to be open to the other even though they may be classified as an enemy, to see the common humanity and to be committed to finding nonviolent solutions.”

In fact, many women around the globe are committed to using those attributes to realize peace in their countries. At the International Forum on the Role of Leadership in Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment that convened in Rwanda in May, an alliance of women met to regard the issues of achieving greater gender equality, human rights, and security for all.

As Carla mentions, as well as relates in her article (also accessed through her column at Feminist.com, Spiritual Activism), the Conference in Rwanda was focused on sharing that the country has become a world leader in women’s empowerment and equality. It’s the first country in the world where the majority of legislators are women—56% in fact. Even the head of their supreme court is a woman.

A stunning achievement. The establishment of so many women as leaders seems an incredible landmark.

“I think it’s complicated,” Carla remarks. “I’m not an expert in Rwandan history or politics, but what I discerned from what President Paul Kagame said is that women had a key role in the liberation struggle to end the genocide. I met several women there who were part of that–one of them happened to be a major fundraiser for the liberation struggle and one was a general. So it seems that personally, the President is committed to women’s empowerment. He was the commander of the revolutionary struggle, the Rwandan Patriotic Front. I was told by the women I met at the conference that during the process of organizing the RPF, he asked women to play key roles. Then, when he ultimately became the president, he insisted that the constitution require that 30% of the legislators be women, which is the UN recommendation. As we know, it turned out they exceeded that figure. The women also mentioned that President Kagame and the leadership in general view women as key to development, and that is why the country has succeeded in turning around from the crisis. So Rwanda is definitely setting an example for the world. In a country where nearly a million people were killed in a hundred days, they are now utilizing female leadership to rebuild.”

On May 16, Carla witnessed the One Million Women and Girls’ March for a Better Future which convened women and men, girls and boys, from across Rwanda. “The most impressive thing about that March was that almost half of the people were men. I did not get the feeling that they were marching to patronize the women, but to support their leaders and to support the idea of women’s equality.” When Carla asked their male guide why the men were so supportive, he said that it was because of watching the women in leadership: They have helped save the country and pulled everything forward, and the men are grateful.

Awareness of impactful events like the One Million Women March seems to create its own momentum. “If something happens in one part of the world,” Carla contemplates, “it becomes easier for the rest of us to imagine it happening where we live. ‘Well if they did it there, then we can do it here.’ It’s inspirational. My sense of all of these women’s groups coming to the fore everywhere around the world is that there’s an emergence. The why of it, like why now, we don’t know. I think there’s an evolutionary quality to what is happening, probably something to do with  the evolutionary nature in which we have lived and seeing that what used to work for us in the past is no longer viable. There’s also the issues around distribution of resources and the other challenges we face. The analogy that comes to mind is rotating crops. We started with fertile soil. Patriarchy spread through that soil and we were ruled by it. But now that system is failing. It’s breaking down. It’s done. So the new bed of soil has to have the capacity to allow many more people to grow. An essential quality to cultivate to that end is love—being able to nurture and understand our interdependence. The ability to do that is something women have been honing all the more, specifically because they’ve been surviving in a patriarchal system. So feminine wisdom, if you will, is what needs to be planted.”

Relying on those qualities, women are amassing globally, highlighting the issue of gender equality and underscoring its importance regarding the establishment and continuance of peaceful resolution and justice. Organic and growing exponentially, this powerful movement, like others throughout history cannot easily be explained. Many have asserted it’s a spiritual revolution that is creating the tide.

Considering the idea, Carla weighs the concept. “It’s too complex to reduce this down only to the spiritual. I think that it’s also a question of leadership. Martin Luther King was a leader and Gandhi was a leader. I think that people become leaders for a lot of different reasons, some of which are definitely spiritual, and some of which have to do with grief. It reminds me of the women in Nigeria, in particular this one woman who lost her seven children. She didn’t have any reason to live, yet she was determined to march. Then there’s Pastor Esther Ibanga,” Carla adds, “the woman who led the march of 100,000 people. A minister, she was definitely coming from a place of being a spiritual warrior. So I guess it’s a vocabulary thing for me. I believe we need to be careful and clear about what we really think is happening. One can always say there’s a spiritual dimension to what’s going on. ‘It’s spirit at work.’ But it’s important to also ask what else is at play. What are the other forces involved?”

Whatever they may be, each an every social action—all of the women and men who are working toward gender equality, every march, including the 1,000,000 women march in Rwanda—all of it has made a difference.

                The story of Rwanda and the wisdom shared by the 400+ women who came to the conference from around the world gives real grit to the possibility that we are finding our way out of the endless cycles of retribution, war, and conquest. I come away from this event with a profound sense of having been completely rearranged. It will take me some time to process the genocide of Rwanda, which also has brought me closer to my own history as a Jew, and to knowing that the seeds for love and hate lie in all of us. Sitting shoulder to shoulder with wise, accomplished, daring women from many different countries and contexts, who have helped build and heal their communities and create bridges over seemingly impossible divides, radically affirms my belief that women’s leadership is helping to change the face of human relations all over the world.       — Carla Goldstein

And women’s leadership is needed now more than ever. So much of the work regarding peace negotiations and creating the reconciliatory atmosphere post-conflict appears to be contingent upon making sure more women are at the peace and security table.

Perhaps, as Carla suggests, a big part of accomplishing that aim is unlearning what we have been taught about our capabilities. “We need to become a bit more gutsy,” she advises. “The world could look differently. A lot of things are based on religious storytelling and explanations that basically regard the nature of existence as just being the way it is—that it would be a folly for us to try to change things, that relationships between men and women have a natural or God-ordained hierarchy to them, that violence itself is natural, that survival of the fittest is the mode or mechanism of human existence, and that it’s a pollyannish view, a naïve view, that anything could be different. I think that since half of the human beings haven’t really participated in designing the system, then to say that the way things are is the only way they can be is missing half the beat. I think that part of the Institute’s work will be to encourage and to give women the confidence and the strength to bring their visions forward and to affirm the possibility that the world can, in fact, look differently than it looks today because we have not been a substantial part of the creators, the philosophers, or the visionaries. All of the storytelling about what life is and all of the structuring about how we will organize ourselves at a societal, public, resource distribution level as well as how we will solve our conflicts—all of that has been created without our voice by and large. Of course, the story can be very different if our voices are a part of it. So it’s really about that. It’s about being strong enough and brave enough to bring our voices forward so we can change the story.”

Yet, to make that transformation, there must be a breakthrough. Unifying around the globe, women’s voices are being powerfully unleashed to that end. As Carla and Omega suggest, it’s certainly our time to lead—not instead of men but with them. Together, we can design a new matrix, connecting and nurturing, creating a new paradigm that honors the feminine in us all.

* * * * *

 

Our duty, as men and women, is to proceed as if limits to our ability did not exist.

We are collaborators in creation.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Intoductory photo of Carla Goldstein - Courtesy of Omega Institute for Holistic Studies. Photo of Carla Goldstein from Women & Power: Connecting Across the Generations (2009) – by Dan Goldman. Photo of Elizabeth Lesser, Eve Ensler, Jane Fonda, Sally Field from Women & Power (2004) – Courtesy of Omega Institute for Holistic Studies.

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Women’s Rights are Human Rights – UNIFEM’S Nanette Braun on Women, Peace & Security

               Violence against women and girls is not inevitable; it persists because it is allowed to persist, and it can be stopped . . . Together, we have the will, the conviction and the means to make the dream of violence-free generations of women and girls a reality.   –   Inés Alberdi, UNIFEM Executive Director

 

Nanette Braun

Women’s rights are, of course, human rights. So why is it that we seem to need to emphasize their reality? The answer lies in the simple fact that women’s rights throughout the world are constantly being violated. Access to education, employment, fair salaries, justice in courts, land and home ownership, physical and sexual safety—within all these spheres women have been discriminated against and violated. Thus, the need for specific laws and policies both created and implemented to uphold women’s rights is an essential factor in their being realized. And that also means we need organizations who are monitoring adherence to the underlying principles of these laws as well as reporting on women’s participation in peacebuilding. 

UNIFEM (United Nations Development Fund for Women) works toward the advancement of women’s human rights and the achievement of gender equality worldwide. UNIFEM grounds itself on the premise that “it is the fundamental right of every woman to live a life free from discrimination and violence, and that gender equality is essential to achieving development and to building just societies.” 

Nanette Braun, Chief of Communications at UNIFEM, believes this as well. She begins by sharing some of her own background and what eventually brought her to UNIFEM’s door. 

“During my university studies in Germany, the Berlin Wall came down. At the time, I was a journalist writing for mainly German publications. It was a very exciting period—a time of big talks about a new world order, and people were looking very strongly at the United Nations. I thought I would like to join them, so I did an internship with the UN. Eventually, in February 1995 I started working in the Communications area. I first became involved with UN Volunteers, an organization that works with professionals from around the world who support the UN in areas like electoral and humanitarian missions as well as in development related works. As a journalist, I found myself covering UN events like the Conference on Population in Cairo, and since gender issues had always been a strong interest for me, I eventually joined UNIFEM and relocated to New York. That was seven years ago. It appears that the longer I’m with UNIFEM, the more important I find the cause. UNIFEM is a dynamic organization with a very important mandate, and I’m happy to be on board.” 

An important reference for UNIFEM’s work in support of women in conflict and post-conflict situations is UN Security Council Resolution 1325. “Resolution 1325 was a landmark resolution in that it first looked at the impact of war on women and viewed it from a security perspective,” Nanette states. “What we know is that war affects women differently than men. One horrific manifestation of the impact of war on women is the systematic and widespread use of rape—something we know is happening around the world.” 

Resolution 1325 highlights the following issues:   

• The participation of women at all levels of decision-making.
• The protection of women and girls from sexual and gender-based violence
• The prevention of violence again women through the promotion of women’s rights, accountability and law enforcement.
• The mainstreaming of gender perspectives in peace operations

As Nanette reflects on how war impacts women differently, she emphasizes the need to look at related issues such as the process of peace negotiations and the composition of international peacekeeping missions. “There are far too few women involved in these negotiations—negotiations which will directly affect their communities and their country,” Nanette asserts. “Women are not in enough decision-making positions at either the national or the international level.” As noted, in many cases where sexual violence is the heavy fist utilized to beat the enemy, victims need special care. “We know that it makes a big difference for a woman who is a survivor of violence if she can speak to a female officer rather than have to speak with a male. “ 

But are UN resolutions like 1325 really making a difference? “It’s been ten years since Resolution 1325 was created,” Nanette states, “and there were other landmark resolutions that followed. In June 2008, UN Security Council Resolution 1820 focused for the first time specifically on sexual violence in conflict as a threat to international security. And it certainly is. It’s horribly effective. When rape and sexual violence are systematically used as tactics, communities are disrupted. Basically you destroy the social fabric that holds them together. This degradation and humiliation of human beings is what makes populations flee. With regard to the women who are violated, in addition to the shame, there is also the stigma attached to the rape itself and the resulting pregnancy. Women are very often shunned by their families and their communities.” 

The epidemic drama of widespread sexual violence will only be curtailed through watchdog efforts. Follow up resolutions—Security Council Resolution 1820 and 1889—which specifically relate to the two previous ones have resulted in a new UN office headed by Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict Margot Wallström. In this newly created position, Ms. Wallström will lead efforts to end conflict-related sexual violence perpetrated against women and children. 

During her presentation as the United Nations’ first Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, Ms. Wallström stated: 

In my view, women’s security is the best measure of national security. 1820 acknowledges this. It affirms that steps to prevent and address sexual violence, are also steps to maintain peace and security. In a way, 1820 is itself an answer to the question posed by this panel. While important progress has been made on 1325, sexual violence has continued – even escalated. 1820 represents a sharpened response to a pillar of 1325 that remains woefully weak.

Nanette Braun also indicates that although the last ten years have offered very important developments with regard to Resolution 1325 and the resolutions that followed, there still remains a need to look into how to realize their aims more effectively.

At the moment, UNIFEM is part of an effort do just that—to develop indicators “to improve the ways in which we track and count the impact of conflict on women and their efforts to build peace.” As Nanette explains, “One example of an indicator with regard to Resolution 1325 is the number of female peacekeeping personnel in a given situation—the number of women in peace negotiations, the number of women as mediators. Through the indicator, we can look at the baseline and how things are being monitored. Indicators help us review whether a resolution like 1325 is being implemented, which is a very important aspect of driving this agenda forward.” 

An example of the ground level results of including more women in peacekeeping has already been seen in Liberia. “There is a police contingent of Indian women stationed as part of the peacekeeping mission there. Because it’s made such a difference to the women in the country, and they’ve felt encouraged by it, there is now a deliberate effort in Liberia to increase the number of women in the police force. The women themselves are also coming forward, saying they want to become policewomen. Also, Liberia now has a special unit on sexual and gender-based violence which is very important since it is necessary to have trained personnel in the police who know how to speak to victims properly. You need special training for that. You also need to know the services you can refer the women to. And that’s not only medical services, but also counseling and legal services. In addition, now Liberia also has a special court that only deals with sexual violence crimes.” 

Although Nanette notes that developments like these are extremely encouraging , there is work yet to be done. The goals of Resolution 1325 are still far from being realized. “More efforts have been made through the years,” Nanette remarks, “but I think we haven’t seen as much change as we would have hoped. Yet, the fact that it’s not only Liberia that is trying to increase things like the number of female police officers, and other countries are making similar efforts, is an encouraging development. In Rwanda, UNIFEM has worked very closely with the police and the military on addressing sexual violence so that you now have gender-based violence units within the Rwandan police force and an active campaign in the military as well. This means that both police officers and soldiers are presently being trained with regard to sexual violence issues before they go on peacekeeping missions. Representatives from other countries are actually going to Rwanda to see what the leaders there are doing and how their police force and military are addressing all of these concerns. This is most definitely an achievement. “ 

Another incidence of Resolution 1325 in action was the conference held in Madrid, Advancing Women’s Leadership for Sustainable Peace in the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict and Worldwide, which was supported by the government of Spain and hosted by UNIFEM and the IWC (International Women’s Commission for Just and Sustainable Israeli-Palestinian Peace). The goal of Israeli, Palestinian and international women leaders who attended the conference was to end the occupation and achieve a two-state solution. “UNIFEM helped by providing a platform for these women to meet and exchange their thoughts, ideas and opinions. It’s very important that there is a dialogue between like-minded women from all sides. This conference highlights how women can be involved in peace negotiations as well as in setting an agenda for the future of their societies.” 

Nanette also notes that during the month of June, in order to commemorate the 10^th Anniversary of Resolution 1325, UNIFEM, together with the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, the Department for Political Affairs, and the UN Development Program, has organized Global Open Day for Women and Peace. In more than twenty post-conflict countries, senior UN officials are literally opening their doors to women peace activists and leaders. “This Open Day,” Nanette explains, “ is an opportunity for women to come forward and speak to the heads of peacekeeping missions in their countries and to voice their concerns and their recommendations.” 

UNIFEM has also launched a petition, SAY NO to Sexual Violence Against Women in Conflict, that people around the world can sign which will be used to show global support for the issue of ending violence against women. “There will be a high-level ministerial meeting in October on the 10^th anniversary of Security Council Resolution 1325,” Nanette informs. “Before this meeting takes place we would like to show through these signatures that there is global support for Resolution 1325 and for its implementation. Everyone signing the petition helps make it a more powerful force in assuring that the resolution is carried out.” 

In fact, the history of SAY NO – UNITE TO END VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN is a testament to the dedication of both UNIFEM and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s commitment to prioritize the issue of women’s rights violations as well as resolving the dilemma. 

“SAY NO started in November 2007 as a signature campaign,” Nanette relates. “UNIFEM put out a global call to make ending violence against women a top policy priority because it’s become an issue of pandemic proportions. This violence exists within every country throughout the world. It has nothing to do with whether that country is of the global north or the global south, rich or poor. We also realized that what was needed was something stipulated in the framework of the UN Secretary-General’s campaign on the issue. You need laws. You need national plans with enough resources to implement these laws and policies. You need more data, and you need more public events and more social mobilization. Also, you very much need to address the actual violence in conflict. So what UNIFEM did through the signature campaign was to appeal to policymakers around the world, requesting they make ending violence against women a top priority in their work. The response was astounding. Within a year, we had more than 5,000,000 signatures. Even many parliamentarians—the whole Tanzanian Parliament, for example— signed the petition.” 

When lawmakers publically express their will and intention to act on an issue, it’s a powerful statement. Nanette expressed UNIFEM was a bit overwhelmed, although positively, by the response. “We thought we would stop after a year,” Nanette divulged. “We were then urged by many of our partner organizations to continue, but to continue in a slightly different way. As I mentioned, the UN Secretary-General had launched a campaign on the issue, UNITE TO END VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN. It was at that historic moment that we realized how we could bring our own constituency to the Secretary-General’s initiative. That brought us to the second phase of SAY NO which we call SAY NO—UNITE TO END VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN. “ 

And SAY NO-UNITE focuses on action—individual and group. “UNIFEM’s partners wanted to be able to publicize the different advocacy actions occurring throughout the world. This resulted in providing partners with tools to build their own web sites, thereby getting the message out to more and more people. Obviously a web site allows even the smallest group to make others aware of the issues as well as to basically alert people to events that they are organizing. So now, if you fundraise you can talk about it. If you go to schools, like in Thailand, and start to interact with the school children and develop a curriculum together with the authorities, then others can be aware of that action. In the end, it all feeds back into the global whole.” 

And that’s the crux of the idea—individual and small group empowerment—linking the local to the global. “Being inspired and encouraged by what others are doing is an important aspect of building a web site and using the advocacy tools UNIFEM provides. If you find a particular action interesting, you can then replicate it. It’s a kind of cross fertilization. It also gives a platform for small, local initiatives that are driven by individuals. They can now reach a global audience.” 

UNIFEM has also seen the SAY NO project embraced by the European Parliament. “They took SAY NO as an occasion to adopt a declaration of zero tolerance on violence against women,” Nanette states, “and to call for an International Year within the European Union on ending this violence. So that is a breakthrough. It was adopted by the parliament through a majority decision so we knew that meant the parliamentarians were fully behind it. Eva-Britt Svensson, chair of the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality has been instrumental in driving this agenda. She says that through the engagement on SAY NO, there is a new awareness within the European Parliament. Her own testament actually involved a quite moving moment. When the declaration was adopted in the European Parliament, she gave an interview and basically talked for the first time about the fact that she was a violence survivor herself which is why she is so strongly behind this agenda. Actually, on the SAY NO site, we have an interview and video of Ms. Svensson. She is a very avid supporter of women who have been in the same situation and gives them a lot of encouragement. Of course, in her function as a parliamentarian in the European Parliament, she is now able to carry this agenda forward .” 

And highlighting such an important message is of great importance. Nanette recognizes that no organization can stand alone and UNIFEM has a number of partnerships—enabling them to strengthen the advancement of gender equality through collective power. 

“One strong relationship we have is with Amnesty International,” Nanette mentions. “Amnesty has their own campaign on ending violence against women and has reached out to all their chapters. So basically, we’ve joined forces on that agenda. We’re also working with The World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts, The World YWCA, and a number of other groups. In the end, you can only work on an issue of this magnitude and drive it forward effectively if you have a network of partners. 

Making people more aware of these types of issues can be difficult. UNIFEM’s Goodwill Ambassadors—persons of international stature from the world of art, music, film, sports and literature—volunteer their time to accent important agendas to the public. Celebrated and famous individuals such as HRH Princess Bajrakitiyabha Mahidol of Thailand, HRH Princess Basma bint Talal of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, and Hon. Mrs. Phoebe Asiyo, Chair of the Women’s Political Caucus of Kenya and Member of the Constitution of Kenya Review Commission, work tirelessly to advance gender equality. Academy Award-winning actress Nicole Kidman, also a Goodwill Ambassador, is the spokesperson for the SAY NO-UNITE initiative. “We are very happy to have her on board as a Goodwill Ambassador who supports this cause so strongly,” Nanette says. 

Yet, although fame offers a powerful platform to proclaim the need for advocacy, all of us can use our voices to highlight and resolve a devastating and horrendous practice—the sexual violation of women and girls as a military tactic. And it’s all the more imperative that we do. Let us remember that those violating women have their own public platform—a world stage where they voice their agenda loudly and forcefully. They know that in the wake of war, a raped woman is a potent message: 

Flee or there’ll be others like her. We can get to your women, we can get to your soul. 

If we are to attain peace anywhere it means we must protect that soul. In the sphere of human rights, Nanette reminds us that “women’s rights are violated more often and to a larger extent. But in essence, we are still talking about the same thing. There is no divide. Women’s rights are human rights.” 

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SAM COOK: Human Rights, An Inclusive View

                 “. . . recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world.”

                     —Preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948

Sam Cook

Sitting with Sam Cook in a café in downtown Manhattan, in the financial district no less, to speak about human rights seems downright ironic. Formerly the Project Director of PeaceWomen, a project of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, Sam is now Director of Communications and Research at the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC). IGLHRC’s mission is to “advance human rights for everyone, everywhere and to end discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression.”

A woman of peace and  fairness, Sam has dedicated her life to human rights advocacy. She reflects on the evolution of the process. “I didn’t have a plan to get either this or that type of job. It was just as my life unfolded, the choices came. I had always been attracted to law as a way to bring justice and a system that everybody was accountable to. So I went to the University of Cape Town law school, not because I wanted to practice, but because I wanted the skills—things like learning how to draft a good contract. Also, I had always been drawn to doing work around gender equality. While getting my law degree, I was interested in writing papers around sexual violence and/or around socio-economic rights. It was like an instinct thing, not really planned.”

Although she may not have had a specific plan in mind, Sam’s perspective naturally lends to giving to others while remaining aware she also has much to gain. “Basically, I wanted to do something that felt like a positive contribution to human beings,” she says, “all the while never being under any kind of illusion that I was going to make any great difference. My approach was more like ‘we all put in something, but we take a lot out.’ Still, I wanted the thing that I put in to be a positive thing.”

Growing up during apartheid in South Africa had its own effects. “On the one hand, of course, being born white, I was privileged in apartheid South Africa. But I grew up with a father who made me aware of the injustices of apartheid and of the privilege that I had because of my race. I cannot pinpoint what parts of my work or my life’s approach are a result of what. I have a low tolerance for injustice in the world, but is that a result of exploring aspects of what it means to be human, or is it a result of seeing massive injustice? Perhaps seeing racial discrimination so blatantly manifested and up close—although not as close as those who lived the discrimination—made me more acutely aware of what discrimination was about. Maybe experiencing the emergence from apartheid and grappling with its effects, both in terms of suffering and privilege, made it easier for me to talk about race more explicitly—something many in the U.S. seem afraid to do. I’m not sure, but overall I believe it is impossible to grow up in such a situation without being profoundly affected at some level.”

With respect to the impact apartheid had on African women in particular, Sam is distinct in stating, “I cannot nor do I want to speak for black women in South Africa. [As a side note, Sam adds that that the term African is not necessarily a helpful one outside of the U.S., and African is also an identity claimed by some beyond those who were racially discriminated against for being black.] But, there are certainly clear examples of how being black and a woman meant a compounded experience of discrimination. As I’m sure many women in the United States who are of African descent or who are black would say, experiencing the intertwined systems of racism and patriarchy is to experience double discrimination and injustice.”

Currently that level of discrimination exists for the LGBT community as well, and shedding light on the difficulties so the public is aware is always a concern. Supporting LGBT equality and empowering those individuals who are working as advocates, Sam explains her role at the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission as “trying to find the best way to communicate our work to others, not just to the media.”

Sometimes the venue for that is reflected through how IGLHRC works with advocacy groups around the world. The commission looks at each group’s concerns and really follows the agenda of local activists. “One of the simplest thing we do,” Sam enumerates, “is give a voice to the situation. If activists are working on a particular issue in X or Y part of the world, as a Human Rights organization based in the U.S. and because we’re also near the U.N., we have a voice that policymakers look upon as one of pressure which local activists might not have. We also have more of a voice in the sense that we have a website, we have a mailing list that goes out to thousands of people that can then spread the message of these local activists. So we’re like a megaphone. But at the same time, we’re not a megaphone that will just project any message.”

Sam explains that besides listening to activists’ concerns, IGLHRC makes a real attempt to let people know what’s occurring at the ground level while still trying to follow some strategic global vision. “I think that’s part of the difficulty we face regarding our strategy. Do you come up with a strategic vision that you determine is the best one and then identify the work of local activists which supports that vision, or rather do you listen to all the local voices and then say, ‘Okay, listening to all of this, it seems that the common thread is X or Y, and so how do we do bigger projects that meet those issues?’ I think that figuring out the best way to be a partner and respect the work of local activists while operating under a particular theory of how change happens is something that the organization grapples with very seriously. It’s just a continual process, especially since for a long time the work has centered around the emergency response aspect—like providing limited grants and emergency funds to assist people when they need to get out of a town and get to a safe house, for example. Also, in cases like when gay men are being arrested in Senegal, or there are laws on the books in Malawi where a couple celebrating an engagement ceremony is put in jail, or when a lesbian/gay political party in the Philippines is refused registration, we then assist in responding to that.”

Letter-writing campaigns are another effective but more traditional measure used to create public support. “Basically, we utilize our larger constituency to act as a voice,” Sam explains. “These days a lot goes by e-mail. People get to send a letter to the Human Rights Commission of Philippines or wherever to create some sort of pressure for the decision makers to change the policies. That’s good, of course, but the campaigns do other things. They creates a sense that there is a movement out there as well as generate a sense of support for those who are sitting in jail, like in the AMNESTY model. There’s a consciousness created that you’ve got people on your side. So we are helping people to be more protected. The more people who know about somebody sitting in jail, the less likely that person’s going to disappear or be tortured or abused.”

As far as educating the public about human rights violations or about the discrimination of persons due to their sexual orientation or gender identity, the easiest place to reach an audience is in the United States, but it’s not necessarily the place that needs it the most. “Although there are violations everywhere, including in the U.S.,” Sam emphasizes, “many of the really serious violations are actually happening outside the United States. Torture, sitting in jail, massive killings. These are mostly happening in other countries.”

Clanking coffee cups underscore Sam’s remark. Sitting around us in the café, male and female corporate execs sip their lattes and espressos—the environment acting as a reminder of how much we as westerners take for granted in our corner of the world. Even gay and lesbian issues in America can, for those who have seen far more serious consequences, take on a note of frivolity. Whereas, internationally, there are those who are losing their lives merely by the fact that they are gay, here in the U.S., issues such as allowing gays and lesbians to marry and have families, although serious, are nowhere as lethal as the violations occuring in certain areas of Africa and the Middle East. As Sam indicates, “difficulties like losing your job, or not being able to get married because of your gender identity or orientation may be seen more as concentrating on ‘luxuries’ to activists in other parts of the world.”

It does appear, though, that no matter what the particular contention is surrounding the sexual orientation debate, religious posturing has definitely fueled the fire. Although some religious leaders have diffused prejudice, many have helped create the difficulties and have encouraged human rights violations.

“The immediate thing I noticed,” Sam states, “is that a lot of the work against the human rights of the LGBT community is very much linked to conservative religious forces—religious fundamentalists.”

The Uganda Anti-Homosexuality Bill of 2009, introduced last October 2009 is an example. The bill targets lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgenders, as well as those who support them in any way. Not only does it uphold criminalizing homosexuality, it calls for imprisonment for life for anyone convicted of the “offense,” proposing the death penalty for those who repeatedly engage in same-sex relations. The bill is a human rights nightmare, allowing for the annihilation of those of non-mainstream sexual orientation, as well as wedging another discriminatory block for HIV patients in dire need of proper care.

On the U.S. front, Senators Russ Feingold (D-WI), Tom Coburn (R-OK), Ben Cardin (D-MD) and Susan Collins (R-ME) introduced a resolution (H. RES. 1064) calling on members of the Ugandan Parliament to reject the Bill as well as any standing or newly presented laws that criminalize homosexuality. The resolution was passed in the Senate and is now moving through the House of Representatives.

The Ugandan Bill, Sam notes, has been driven by U.S. Christian Fundamentalists. “They have gone there and cultivated relationships with leaders, getting people to promote their conservative Christian agenda. It’s not only in Uganda. They have cultivated relationships with leaders around the world. Conservatives, in general, have pumped their ideas into the human rights field, including women’s rights and LGBT rights.”

Yet, there are also religious leaders who are fighting against this. “There are still many wonderful people,” Sam says. “Even most religious entities who are against recognizing the rights of lesbians and gays to have families or to get married will not sanction people’s lives being criminalized and will not sanction torture of human beings on the basis of their sexuality. The Vatican coming out during an event at the U.N. last December (2009) and saying that they did not condone torture or criminalizing people’s lives was really, really powerful. While they are still negative in a number of other ways, that was really positive. In general, this event helped to bring to the surface and show the support at this basic level.”

Sam’s statement appears true. When the atrocities are exposed, the sheer horror of them can activate people’s compassion and sense of decency. How far are you willing to go to condemn another?  Those previously lending their voice to judgment may find themselves speaking out against governments that torture their citizens based on sexual orientation discrimination.

But shouldn’t this all be falling under the umbrella of human rights? The concept emphasizes that fundamental rights and freedoms belong to every human being merely by reason of being born. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948, sets the assertion in writing.

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

—Article 1 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights

The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission utilizes the declaration as a cornerstone for their activity. “I think the Universal Declaration and basic human rights laws are very foundational in this kind of work and are used all the time,” Sam asserts. “For example, when we do a letter to a government that has violated certain rights we can say, ‘Everybody has the right to X or Y, and you are actually discriminating against your citizens by denying them these rights.’ So the declaration is deployed often.”

Putting the rights in a document form gives people something solid they can refer to. “Many people don’t believe in doing things unless they are obliged by something that they see as a legal document,” Sam states. “Sometimes even people who are activists don’t believe they have the right to stand up unless they have the form there—not just because they know that governments won’t respond without it, but because they mistrust their own sense of justice and their own sense of what it is to be human. They are insecure about their own claims.”

So being human is the starting point and, as Sam indicates, IGLHRC begins there as well. “Rather than saying ‘I have a certain kind of right because I am a gay man or a lesbian, our tagline is HUMAN RIGHTS FOR EVERYONE. EVERYWHERE. And that is where we begin. It is so much more powerful because we do have many governments that signed the Charter and accepted the various covenants. We can show that what we’re asking for is an obligation that arises from accepting the document.”

Still, how do you make the concerns of people who are being subjected to sexual identity and sexual orientation discrimination the concerns of the majority?

“Looking at the discrimination of women and how it is detrimental may be easier to do,” Sam says. “When we point things out to men regarding this issue, they may be able to see how it will affect their home and families. But bringing out the discrimination against gays and lesbians or those who are transsexual or bisexual is harder since the majority, not only men, don’t feel personally affected by it as much.”

Could any of this be tied to another aspect of the power structure—the role of women in human rights advocacy? Could more women in leadership roles make a difference including within the arena of LGBT rights?.

“I believe that just being a woman is not enough to balance anything,” Sam states. “I think their have been too many Golda Meirs and Margaret Thatchers who have been militant. Yet, I do feel that women for the most part tend to have an approach to things that will more likely result in social justice. At the same time, qualities that are considered feminine which may be seen as powerful and positive by some people, might be regarded as weak by others. So I think the difficulty with regard to presenting the concept of more women in leadership as actually being an asset in human rights issues throughout the world is in how we talk about it. What are the actual qualities that women may have in more abundance that can help?”

All in all, Sam does say she believes that women in more leadership roles would be helpful. “What I struggle with is how to figure this into the power structures that exist—how to shift what people think of as powerful and impactful and what might be able to bring about human flourishing, without turning it into a competition between the genders, which is what many men have succeeded in doing. It doesn’t have to be that way. I know it would be difficult to talk to a man about women being perhaps more in tune with their nurturing side. So how do I talk about it without forsaking my beliefs, because I don’t want to model that old form of power.”

Yet, by her own example, Sam proves she’s already cast aside the mold. Thoughtful and conscientious, her approach to her own advocacy work is a far cry from the patriarchal model. “I don’t require for my own satisfaction that I be the personal author of things,” Sam states. “I don’t need to see my name on change. I think you have to be that way in order to do work in big political arenas because no individual is responsible for the changes.”

That may be the case, but as Sam reflects, the larger picture still takes its personal toll. “If you do human rights work and you find yourself not crying every now and then or not get angry every once in a while, you need to take a break because letting things touch your soul is part of what drives you.”

Maybe detachment and cynicism are the diseases infecting most of us. Human rights issues are wearisome. We would rather find an escape from the daily grind of suffering, something that entertainment venues like American Idol or Cash Cab offer us. Certainly nothing wrong with that, as long as we pinch ourselves every once in a while and, like Sam, realize we “need a reality check here.”

You know . . . let human suffering touch our souls. Perhaps even let it drive us toward inclusion. 

HUMAN RIGHTS FOR EVERYONE. EVERYWHERE.

 

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