No Peace without Women and Peace Education

Happy International Women's Day, everyone.

Woven through the many discussions at this 48th Commission on the Status of Women meeting has been the celebration of Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women Peace and Security. 1325 was the creative initiative of civil society women working together with UNIFEM and in collaboration with the government of Namibia. Its purpose is to assure women's Participation wherever the fate of humanity is at stake, the Protection of women and girls during armed conflict, and the Prevention of violent conflict. Its purpose is not to make war safe for women.

Why do we now speak of delegitimizing war, of the need to abolish the institution of war? The two themes of this CSW, role of men and boys in achieving gender equality and women's equal participation in conflict prevention and resolution lead directly to the question. Why war?

Since the very purpose of the UN is to prevent the scourge of war, and since just in the 11 years between 1989 and 2000 there were 111 armed conflicts can we say there has been a mammoth failure of the international community? So, is it a dream to say that the time for war to go has come? "Nothing happens unless first a dream," said our great poet, Carl Sandburg. But is it possible? After all, say most folks, history is replete with one war after another. Our national monuments are of men on horseback with rifles, our statues are dedicated to the fallen heroes in war time. Battlefield cemeteries are tourist attractions. War is inevitable. It may even come with our DNA, they say. But the UNESCO Seville statement on violence of 1989 says, "We conclude that biology does not condemn humanity to war.... Wars begin in the minds of men...the same species who invented war is capable of inventing peace."

People once thought slavery inevitable, and laws and taxes supported it. People once thought colonialism inevitable, and again, it was supported by laws and taxes. And so too, apartheid. These three major historic institutions were rejected after bloody struggle. I submit that the institution of war, protected by laws, so-called humanitarian laws, and paid for by taxes, can and must be put on the shelf of history with slavery, colonialism and apartheid. I do not come to this position from the ideology of pacifism. Rather from pragmatism. The world has moved in fifty-five short years from being nuclear free to supporting a nuclear club and now has become a "nuclear bazaar" (Dan Schor). Neither humanity nor the planet Earth can survive nuclear omnicide.

A quick scan of today's, or any day's newspaper shows one photo after another of children, civilians, dead from gun fire. Women mourn. Small arms are a big problem. As long as there is a barely restricted availability of guns they will be used to kill. We need to rid the world of manufacture and sale of guns except for police defensive use.

War and the preparation for war rob resources from human security. As long as we honor war and warriors we maintain fear and hate, always based on ignorance; and fear is the enemy of learning, it gives ignorance its power. As long as we misplace money for weapons we keep water polluted, we keep far too many women illiterate and unskilled, we prevent health care and education from being universally enjoyed, we promote poverty. And all of these are among the root causes of violent conflict.

We are not the first women to raise the question of the illegitimacy of war. In 1870, Julia Ward Howe who wrote the Battle Hymn of the Republic and invented Mother's Day, said, "From the bosom of the devastated Earth a voice goes up and says, Disarm, Disarm." "In the name of womanhood and humanity", she called for "a congress of women without limits of nationality to promote the amicable settlement of international questions and the great and general interests of peace." (Sept. 1870)

In 1876, Alfred Nobel hired the Austrian princess, Bertha von Kinsky as a secretary. She persuaded him to turn the profits of his invention, TNT, into a peace prize. She was an international peace leader, a founder of the International Peace Bureau and its vice president, and author of one of the most influential books of the 19th century, Die
Waffen Nieder, Lay Down Your Arms, a best seller. She called a congress of 20,000 women, which called for Justice instead of Violence. She married, became Bertha von Suttner, received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1905, and should be a subject for every student when they are asked about heroes and heroines.

Marie Curie, a Nobel laureate with her husband in 1903, and again alone in 1911, changed the way the world thought about fundamental principles of matter and together with her daughter, Irene Joliot Curie, who also became a Nobel laureate in 1935, was a great woman's and peace advocate.

In 1897, Emma Goldman said, "When you are educated, when you know your power, you'll need no bombs, and no dynamite or militia will hold you." (Sept. 6, 1987)

Margaret Mead, the great anthropologist as early as 1940 recognized the wrongness of war, "If we despair of the way in which war seems such an ingrained habit of most of the human race, we can take comfort from the fact that a poor invention will usually give way to a better invention."

Eleanor Roosevelt, mother of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, warned that if we want to rid the world of war we would have to think of an alternative activity for young men who were attracted by the excitement of war and the idea of becoming heroes. And her husband, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, President of the US said, "I hate war."

Linus Pauling, wanted to share his 1963 Nobel Prize with his wife, Ava Helen, because she persuaded him to learn everything he could about the science, social, political and economic effects of nuclear testing and weapons to make a case for their abolition.

Shirin Ebadi, from Iran, the first Muslim woman to become a Nobel Laureate said in her acceptance speech, "If the 21st Century wishes to free itself from the cycle of violence, acts of terror and war, and avoid repetition of the experience of the 20th century - that most disaster ridden century of human kind, there is no other way except by understanding and putting into practice every human right for all mankind, irrespective of race, gender, faith, nationality or social status." (Dec. 10, 2003)

History is replete with women who have spoken, written and organized against war. They have been joined by great men including Professor Joseph Rotblat, a refugee from Hitler's Germany, Martin Luther King, and now the Families of September 11th for Peaceful Tomorrows who lost relatives in the terrorist attacks and are now organizing families whose relatives have been victims of violent conflict around the world, against revenge.

The latest initiative, 1000 Women for the Nobel Peace Prize is a clear demonstration of the work of women working against war and for peace.

Women are the glue that hold societies together. The deliberate bombing of the market place in Sarajevo, Bosnia is the most dramatic example of that truth. Rape as the latest weapon of mass destruction, is further evidence of the war makers need to destroy, humiliate, disempower women and by infecting them with HIV/AIDS, to kill them and their children. That is why I firmly believe that it will be women, acting together, acting strategically, teaching, and organizing who will be responsible for enacting the Culture of Peace that will be necessary for the survival of humanity.

The Culture of Peace has become a well-worn phrase and indeed is a UN "law". "It is a set of values, attitudes, modes of behavior and ways of life that reject violence and prevent conflicts by tackling their root causes to solve problems through dialogue and negotiation among individuals, groups and nations."

So how do we get from a culture of violence that defined this past century to a culture of peace that must define this new century? I am reading the biography of a refugee from Iran, and she tells of her Grandmother, who, "seeing the potential of an untimely argument, summoned everyone to dinner." Conflict prevention begins at home. How many mothers break up fights among children? Last week we read the report from the Middle East, where Palestinians joined Israelis to block bulldozers from destroying olive orchards to construct the wall. "An elderly Palestinian woman in a white head scarf paused atop a heap of rocks to help a gray haired Israeli woman. Together they cleared the way and kept holding hands as they walked toward the crowd." Conflict prevention. Non-violent, practical doable immediate acts that buy time, that divert violence.

To raise new generations of people with the skills, values and knowledge to create and maintain peace, we need peace education. Peace does not come with our DNA. It must be learned. Peace education is not a separate course. It is a holistic participatory process that includes teaching for and about human rights, non-violence, social and economic justice,
gender equality, environmental sustainability, international law, disarmament and human security. It prepares us for democratic participation and is based on values of dignity, equality and respect.

We advocate the integration of the values and skills of peace education into classrooms, community and families. You can learn more about this from our web site, www.haguepeace.org.

There is another important opportunity to prevent the re ignition of violence after the end of a conflict. Peace agreements are important places to not only announce the rules that will end the violence, but to promulgate the way to build a sustainable peace. We believe that education, peace education must be part of every peace agreement. It appears in none. We have a template that is available for any peace accord which was prepared by an Israeli woman and Palestinian man who direct MECA, which trains teachers and monitors text books. It is available for comment, amendment and enactment. Teachers will have the task to help students understand the peace agreement reached, and should be among the negotiators at any conflict resolution table.

Of all the peace agreements reached since the end of the Cold War, only the Irish Good Friday Agreement, South Africa and Guatemala have had women at the table. In each case a substantial difference was made. The Irish women never let the negotiators forget their commitment to human rights. The South Africans have a constitution that insists that 30% of Parliamentarians be women. Women must be at every negotiating table, as well as in the rest of the peace process. Because disarmament must be part of the agreement which takes away some of the tools that make war possible. And there needs to be promulgations on the arms trade and on how much of the national budget a post-war government may spend on weapons and so called defense.

At a recent peace round table in Italy a measure was passed that they will try to introduce into the European Union Constitution promoting the idea that going to war will be illegal in the new EU. An Italian woman, who has a degree in nursing, has organized a European coalition to introduce a law on restricting the arms trade in Europe. You may recall it was Jody Williams who saw one blown off leg too many and organized a global campaign to ban land mines.

We thought the world had tired of war with Vietnam. But alas, war fatigue only lasted a few years. Massive public opinion against the illegal unilateral act of war against Iraq may provide us with the moment to move into gear to raise the issue of the legitimacy of war from the halls of the CSW at the UN to every village and town where the women will return. It is time to have this discussion replicated in schools, at parent and teacher meetings, in city halls, at town council meetings, in the parliaments of the world and in the Security Council. Why war?

Over the years we have developed the art of peace making, we know the signals of the inevitability of violence and armed conflict. But will Grandma be there to invite the whole world to dinner?

The Hague Agenda for Peace and Justice for the 21st Century is a 50 -point program for getting from a culture of violence to a culture of peace. It is a guide to conflict prevention and conflict resolution. We can use it, study it, discuss it, add to it...we have the tools, we have the women. Let's move forward from 1325 to a petition calling for the abolition of war. Let's get to work. Your children will thank you.

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