Nobel laureate says selfless action critical to building world peace
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The challenge of building world peace cannot be tackled by "individualistic thinking" but through collective action and selflessness, 2011 Nobel Peace Laureate Leymah Gbowee said in Bangkok yesterday.
Gbowee was in Bangkok to give a keynote speech at the Rotary World Peace Conference.
Gbowee said when people stand together, such as in Syria, Egypt, Tunisia and Libya, “the evil have no option but to back off”.
She urged people to follow their heart and passion in what they are doing without thinking about money first. Gbowee decried the monetisation of all works and said: “Every service and action has been given monetary value… it’s all about what is in it for me.”
Liberia’s Gbowee won the 2011 peace prize together with Tawakkul Karman for their non-violent struggle for “the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work”. She called her activism, not a job, but a calling.
“You have to have a faith in the higher up, whether you are Jews, Christians or Buddhists, you have to believe in a higher power?”
Dressed in a splendid ethnic costume, Gbowee said it takes strength to be compassionate towards perpetrators of violence but that is the way to forge peace.
“You bury your pain and continue to show your compassion. Peace and justice is costly and service to humanity takes a lot of effort.”
Back home in Liberia, Gbowee reached out not just to victims of the Second Liberian Civil War, which she helped end in 2003, but also to the perpetrators and child soldiers whom she helped reintegrate into society. “Forgiveness is a big thing, but people have to also feel justice.”
Many women fall victim to sexual violence and genital mutilation and even today, the struggle continues to fight against a belief that female genital mutilation is the best way to curb male sexual assault.
In Liberia, said Gbowee, three out of 10 girls have premature pregnancy, the highest rate in the world, severely limiting girls’ opportunities to continue schooling.
Gbowee decried the irony that millions of dollars have been spent on the International Criminal Court trial and conviction in The Hague of former Liberian President Charles Taylor for abetting war crimes in Sierra Leone, while many of his victims, who have had limbs amputated, do not even have food to eat.
She also criticised the United States’ preoccupation with “physical security” in countries like Afghanistan and said it cannot bring about lasting peace unless it addresses the issue of the sense of injustice amongst Afghan people.
“[America] spends millions a day in Afghanistan, [but] have you seen security in Afghanistan?... You cannot seek physical security at the expense of people’s emotional security.”
Gbowee said America should treat other people with more respect and dignity, adding that many travellers to the United States who wear ethnic costumes and speak “funny English”, including herself, are often kept at the immigration office at US airports.
“I am kept in that room for no reason, for hours,” she said, adding that some have become resentful of America as a result.
“When [the] country learns to be more respectful, [America] won’t have to spend that much on security,” she said, adding that America’s defence spending abroad with no efficacy is “the equation of insanity”.
