Six Nobel peace laureates meet in Belfast in 2013. Credit: John Murphy Aurora PA.\u201cWe want all the
\nbarriers down,\u201d declared Nobel peace prize winner Mairead Maguire yesterday,
\nopening the 10th anniversary of the Nobel Women\u2019s Initiative
\ngathering in Dusseldorf, Germany. She was, incidentally, joking, referring to
\nthe fact that \u2013 due to variations in height and levels of jet leg \u2013\u00a0 some of the five Nobel peace prize winners at
\nthe summit would be standing to
\ndeliver their opening address, while others would be sitting. But as the laureates spoke, the room moved from laugher to
\nrespectful silence as each laid out her vision for what a world without
\nbarriers to feminist solidarity might look like. <\/i><\/p>\n
The
\nlaureates have gathered from across the globe \u2013 Guatemala, Ireland, USA, Iran
\nand Yemen \u2013 and they have assembled an international team of activists here to
\nplan the future of the global feminist resistance.<\/p>\n
Tawakkol Karman,
\nwho won the peace prize in 2011 for her work fighting for democracy in Yemen,
\nexplains why they have chosen Germany as the site for this year\u2019s meeting: \u201cGermany
\nis ruled by a strong woman. She has a lot of commitment and promise for
\nrefugees. We wanted to go to Germany to give support for her policies on
\nsupporting and hosting refugees.\u201d Yet disappointingly, as Tawakkol goes on to
\nexplain, in a Europe of closing borders, the culture of welcome the Nobel
\nlaureates sought to celebrate has not been extended to its own delegation.<\/p>\n
All four other
\nparticipants to the conference from Yemen have been denied visas, as were three
\nother participants from Palestine, Syria and Lebanon. \u201dWhy?\u201d Tawakkol asked.
\n\u201cThere is no good reason.\u201d<\/p>\n
All of those
\ndenied visas are high profile human rights activists in their home countries.
\nAmong them are Aswan Mohammed from Women Journalists Without Chains and Misk
\nAl-Junai, a TV producer who works with Karman\u2019s own foundation. \u201cPerhaps\u201d, Karman
\nopined, \u201cEurope is imposing its own unwritten travel ban? Perhaps Trump just
\nannounced it, and other countries didn\u2019t?\u201d<\/p>\n
Iranian Nobel
\npeace prize laureate and human rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi was similarly
\nindignant: \u201cthere are countries that are in crisis and at war, and the people
\nare suffering in these countries, their lives are at risk and they are hungry.
\nSome Western countries, instead of helping these people are making limitations
\nfor them. It\u2019s time for Europe, and for us who are gathered here, to help these
\npeople in war-torn areas; not to build walls and to not even permit them to
\nparticipate in a simple peace seminar. This is not good behaviour with
\ncountries that are at war. And we protest this.\u201d<\/p>\n
The true
\ncost of erecting such barriers at borders \u2013 and the fundamental need to protest
\nthem \u2013 is also stressed by American Nobel peace prize laureate Jody Williams.
\nShe speaks of the work of Northern Americans assisting Muslim families to
\nreunite following the fallout from Trump\u2019s \u2018Muslim ban\u2019 earlier this year. \u201cIn
\nsuch resistance,\u201d she stresses, \u201cwe\u2019re rediscovering what citizenship is.\u201d <\/p>\n
For the fifty plus activist women in the room
\nhere in Germany, it\u2019s clear that citizenship is a duty \u2013 and it\u2019s one that
\ntranscends barriers and borders.<\/p>\n
It is her
\ncitizen duty, Shirin explains to me, that leads her to approach Majed Sharbajy,
\na Syrian activist in exile who is currently working in Lebanon near the Syrian
\nborder. Breaching the rules of the \u2018ice breaker exercise\u2019 carefully crafted by
\nthe conference organisers, Shirin makes Majed\u2019s acquaintance by looking her
\ndirectly in the eyes with a piercing sincerity, and saying the words \u201cI\u2019m
\nsorry.\u201d<\/p>\n
Majed has
\njust recounted to a small group of us how she was detained by the Assad regime
\nfor seven months. Her husband was also detained, and murdered. She has been
\ntemporarily separated from her children \u2013 aged 4, 11 and 3 \u2013\u00a0 who have sought sanctuary in Sweden with
\ntheir grandmother. Her work is simply too dangerous and puts them at risk. But
\nher work is also too important to leave.<\/p>\n
In prison, Majed educated other women detainees. Now in exile in
\nLebanon, the activists have four training centres for Syrian women to give them
\nskills to enter the labour market and participate in society. In her
\nexperience, 60% of women Syrian refugees have lost their male partners and must
\nsupport themselves.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Syrian
\nregime is the biggest dictatorship of all the regimes,\u201d Majed explains to a small group of us who are leaning in intently, to
\nlisten. \u201cThey don\u2019t just torture people,
\nreally, they take pleasure in it.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s at
\nthis point that Shirin apologises.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs an Iranian,
\nI\u2019m sorry,\u201d she says. \u201cMy government has trained Syrians how to torture
\npeople.\u201d<\/p>\n
A
\nrespectful silence momentarily reigns while each of us takes in these words and
\ncrafts our own apologies, weighing the responsibility. Letting it sink in. Then
\nthe discussion continues. Time is short and information must be gathered and
\nshared.<\/p>\n
Syria is
\nstrategically important to Iran: \u201cthey need it to get arms to Hezbollah\u201d explains
\nEbadi \u2013 arms, it has
\nbeen pointed out several times already, that travel more easily across borders
\nthan people.<\/p>\n
Women
\nfrom Guatemala, Germany, UK and Lebanon hastily scribble on notepads, desperate
\nto listen, and to record every word so that they might take it back to their
\ncommunities, like smuggled goods. Because the international community has been
\nclear \u2013 we are not meant to be here, meeting like this.<\/p>\n
Majed has given us a huge duty, to \u2018be our voice\u2019. For, she
\nexplains, \u201cthe media is mediating everything. Everyone is focusing on ISIS,
\neyes are off the regime.\u201d Children are drowning, they are choking to death on
\nthe fumes of illegal weapons. No one is stopping this. Treaties must be
\nredrafted and implemented.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe cannot fall
\ninto negative history where history repeats itself,\u201d Tawakkol reminded us in
\nher opening speech. \u201cBehind every great revolution there are bold women,
\ncourageous women. We need to be leaders of change. We need development, rule of
\nlaw, democracy. We need to fight extremism, corruption, hatred, racism and
\nwar."<\/p>\n
Taking down barriers means taking back power from the states that claim
\nto represent us. \u201cTurkey, Iran and Russia are meeting for peace negotiations on
\nSyria and there isn\u2019t a single person from Syria,\u201d Majed warns us, \u201cthe media keep saying that it\u2019s a civil war, but it\u2019s a war between
\nother countries in Syria.\u201d Shirin gives a knowing nod: \u201ca proxy war.\u201d<\/p>\n
The act of
\napologising in itself will not start a revolution but it is, to me, the core of
\nthe feminist resistance that this conference seeks to strengthen. It is the
\nbeginning of justice. It says: I am a human, and I see you as a human. I see
\nyour injustice and your pain and I accept responsibility as a global citizen
\nand I will use my power to try and help you. It is the antithesis to impunity.
\nIt is opposite to the Guatemalan courts that, until women seized justice and
\nwon, as Nobel peace laureate Rigoberta Mench\u00f9 Tum explained in her
\nspeech, \u201cnever gave victims the chance to tell the true story.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s up
\nto us to reclaim citizenship, with barriers down, Shirin reminds us. Because \u201cgovernments don\u2019t like peace. The arms
\nmanufacturers of the UK, Europe and the US have to sell their arms. It\u2019s us,
\nthe people, who have to resist our governments. This is my duty as an Iranian,
\nto tell the government of Iran not to help Bashir Al Assad and to stay away
\nfrom Syria. It\u2019s your duty as European citizens to tell the EU, to protest at
\nthe fact they refrain from issuing visas. It\u2019s the duty of people of the UK to
\ntell them to stop selling arms so that they can throw them on innocent people.\u201d<\/p>\n
I look around at
\nthe women I am with. It\u2019s the first night and the sixth edition of the Nobel
\nWomen\u2019s Initiative biennial gatherings and 50.50 has been here from the start. Many
\nof the women have become close friends, \u2018sisters\u2019 across borders. As they steal off to bed, tired from their
\ntravels (and for some, long interrogations at the border) I notice that some
\nare wearing jewelry, brought in luggage across continents as gifts to one
\nanother. Like arms and capital, gifts and words fly across the same continents
\nas the women meet, plot and share information in the global feminist
\nresistance.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Six Nobel peace laureates meet in Belfast in 2013. Credit: John Murphy Aurora PA.\u201cWe want all the barriers down,\u201d declared Nobel peace prize winner Mairead Maguire yesterday, opening the 10th anniversary of the Nobel Women\u2019s Initiative gathering in Dusseldorf, Germany. She was, incidentally, joking, referring to the fact that \u2013 due to variations in height…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1098"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1098\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}