Nobel Women's Initiative 2009

Nobel Women's Initiative calls for the immediate release of Mairead Maguire and other Human Rights activists detained by Israeli authorities on June 29th.

Iranian journalist Zhila Bani Yaghoub and her husband Bahman Ahmadi Amooyi were arrested in Iran over the weekend after government forces reportedly raided their home.  Yaghoub is a veteran journalist who has worked to promote women's rights in Iran. She spoke recently at the Nobel Women's Initiative conference on 'Redefining Democracy' held in Guatemala.

The Nobel Women's Initiative issued a statement saying:

"We are worried for the safety of Zhuila, her husband and the countless other Iranian activists and protesters currently being detained in Iran. We encourage your support in this ongoing struggle"

Read more

I am back from Guatemala, from this exciting, spiritually-connected gathering: a great dance, party, food, and robust conversations at an invigorating meeting. It’s so exciting that I keep smiling to myself remembering the energy in the room, the sisterhood, the fact that as women race, colour, region, affinity, language never matter. For us it was about how to make a difference and truly redefine “Democracy”. As I transit in Texas, my realities hit again and I leave dreamland.

Many of us travelled on the same flight from Houston to La Aurora International Airport. Our entry into Guatemala was grand. We were welcomed by Erin Allison and the other organisers.

There was a comfortable minibus waiting to take us to our hotel, Casa Santa Domingo in Antigua city. Six of us, an ‘assorted' group of sisters, enjoyed the unknown landscape, and each other's company.  A few of the sisters already knew each other but the others were meeting for the first time. We easily fell into a conversation that took us from the personal introduction to the introduction of our organisations. We shared our hopes and excitement for the conference and located ourselves in it. Before we went to our different rooms, we agreed to meet at the end of day two, go into town and explore pubs, restaurants, the remarkable history of Antigua; its taste, texture and smell.

Behind the high walls of a hotel in Antigua, the tranquil colonial capital of Guatemala, as the more than 100 women participants moved into the third day of “redefining democracy” some 40 miles away in the modern capital Guatemala City, democracy did a little redefining of its own. It was precipitated by an event unusual even for Guatemala: the distribution at the funeral of a murder victim of a video in which the deceased, a respected lawyer, accused the president, his wife and his secretary of organising not only his own murder – he was shot on the streets of Guatemala City while riding his bicycle on Sunday - but the murders earlier in the year of two of his clients.

Declaration of the Nobel Women’s Initiative Conference on
Women Redefining Democracy
Antigua, Guatemala, May 10-12, 2009

We call upon all states and multilateral institutions to recognize that the democratization process is incomplete, and does not end with elections.  No country or society can claim to be democratic when the women who form half its citizens are denied their right to life, to their human rights and entitlements, and to safety and security.  Despite this, we women have made extraordinary efforts to democratize the institutions of society that frame our lives and the well-being of all humanity – the family, the community, clan, tribe, ethnic or religious group, political, legal, economic, social and cultural structures, and the media and communications systems.  But our search for justice is continually overwhelmed by the violence perpetrated upon us, by the exploitation and colonization of our bodies, our labor, and our lands; by militarization, war and civil conflict; by persistent and increasing poverty; and by environmental degradation.  All of these forces affect us, and our children, far more severely and in unique ways.  We know that democracy that comes from the heart is not the rule of the majority, but safeguards dissent and difference with equal rights, and fosters a culture of peace.  We are in search of democracy that transforms not just our lives, but all society – and we will not be silenced until it is achieved in every part of the world.

First published on the Nobel Women's Initiative website.

It’s Time to Return to the Hotel Brochure

Day Three. One of the plenary speakers, I can’t remember who it was, told the delegates, ‘We are the privileged ones’. People nodded and you could see that this struck a chord. I have been wondering exactly what it meant. The most obvious reading belongs to the same family as the jesting remark made by Jane Austen’s Elizabeth when she suggests that she fell in love with Darcy when she first saw his lavish ancestral home, Pemberley.

It's hard to believe it's the third and final day of the conference. In a way, it seems like we just arrived. In another, it feels like we've been here for weeks, if not longer. We've come to expect conversations across meals and coffee breaks that span region, sector, discipline, and point of view. So, another morning in Antigua, Guatemala: Safaa, from Darfur in Sudan, is explaining to a small group of Americans and an Australian what's next in terms of the political process, specifically the Sudanese national elections planned for February 2010. I join in, along with my breakfast plate: black beans (frijoles), plantains and a fried potato cake. I listen and then I ask a question, to which Safaa replies. "We are not going anywhere."

I'd wondered whether, if the south of Sudan decides to become independent in 2011, Darfurians might want to join them. Safaa goes on to describe, briefly, the history of Sudan and the centrality of Darfurians to it. She reminds us that nearly everyone in Darfur is a Muslim, like those in the north of Sudan. Moreover, she continues, it's the politicians who have made use of "tribal" identity, or Arab and African, as a means to divide people. At the local level, Safaa assures us, such distinctions don't have weight. There, it's not about tribes. "People at the local level can work out their issues," Safaa says.

Meeting someone like Safaa turns prevailing and gendered images on their head. Yes, the suffering in Darfur has been immense, and yes, women's rights and bodily integrity have been attacked relentlessly. Yes, most of the hundreds of thousands of displaced people in Sudan and Chad who've fled the conflict in Darfur are women and children. They are victims, but they are also leaders—exercising agency for themselves and many others. Safaa speaks with determination, force even. She's tall; unbowed, one could say. Her organization is based in Khartoum, but her work is, she says, "on the ground in Darfur".

We discuss a recently published book about Darfur and the Save Darfur Coalition by political scientist Mahmoud Mamdani, a Ugandan who teaches at Columbia University in New York. He views the conflict as having been simplified—Arab vs. African—in a way that has ultimately made the Western response at best unhelpful and at worst detrimental (devastatingly so) to a durable political solution.

I ask if the Sudanese government gave her trouble about traveling outside the country. Yes, she says, but that's nothing new. She and her colleagues expect it now, but they proceed with their work in any case. In fact, Safaa's just spent 10 days in Germany, working on constitutional issues related to Darfur in the context of the Comprehensive Peace Accord (CPA). The Khartoum government sees Sudan as an Arab country, she says, as we walk to the morning plenary. But it isn't, she continues, and won't be. As we part, Safaa greets Lena, from Palestine, in fluent Arabic, on the terrace.

First published on the Nobel Women's Initiative website.

Shirin Ebadi, Jody Williams and Mairead Corrigan speak to FIRE about their involvement with the Nobel Women's Initiative.

Press the play (>) button to listen. (Note that sound level on this audio clip is low - you may need to turn up your volume control.)

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With thanks to FIRE for use of their audio material.

All events of this kind have their own shape and dynamics. If Day One was an eager and passionate Tatiana’s letter, not to Onegin, but to an already cynical yet surely reclaimable democracy – we seem to have collectively matured overnight. There are three major themes to this great day’s proceedings: lessons from some extraordinary women who have run for and held political office, strategic thinking from women reporting unforgettably from the front line of war-torn societies, and the sliding into place of the last gargantuan building block for our overhaul of democracy – the battle for women’s human rights.

When men have done making war on each other and on each other’s women, many return to home to make war on their own. Aftermath is the neglected story of war: what happens to the guerrilla fighter after he lays down his gun? Or to the former soldiers with stories of horrors never told, men cast adrift from the companionship of shared military experience, alone with unspoken memories?

The evidence is that many come home to act out their nightmares through violence against women.