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Editor: Shelley Anderson
Layout of print edition: Françoise Pottier
Proofreading: Amy Shifflette and Joyce Mumford
The Asking the Right Questions: Gender and Nonviolence Consultation was made possible by the generous support of many individuals and donor agencies. Organizers and participants thank all of them and in particular the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Peacebuilding and Good Governance Division; the conscientious objectors group in Madrid; Equity Trust; Mama Cash; PeaceFund Canada; Stichting FIC; and Stichting Leven in Aandacht.
Founder, Sierra Leone Lesbian and Gay Association. Testified before the UN Commission on Human Rights. Murdered September 29, 2004, at the age of 30.
by Shelley Anderson
Like all good gatherings, the Asking the Right Questions international consultation on nonviolence training and gender raised more questions than it answered. More than 300 inquiries and application were received by the organizers of the consultation, indicating a high interest in the issue of gender-sensitive nonviolence training.
The goals of the consultation, established by a team of six organizers (Joanne Sheehan, Dorie Wilsnack, Ellen Elster and Casha Davis of the War Resisters International Women's Working Group; and Isabelle Geuskens and Shelley Anderson of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation's Women Peacemakers Program) included:
Asking the Right Questions was a collaborative effort between the International Fellowship of Reconciliation's (IFOR) Women Peacemakers Program and the War Resisters International (WRI). The consultation follows a long line of international anti-militarist women's gatherings organized by WRI, the last of which took also place in Thailand, in 1992.
The two organizations, both founded in the early 1900s, find common ground in their memberships' commitment to social change through active nonviolence. Some women in both organizations have also found another commonality: their skills and ideas are underutilized and ignored, exactly because they are women. In WRI's case, this led in the early 1970s to the establishment of the WRI Women's Working Group, which provides a space for women nonviolence trainers and activists to network. In IFOR's case, this led in 1997 to the establishment of IFOR's Women Peacemakers Program (WPP), which works to empower women both within IFOR and the wider peace movement through active nonviolence.
It was clear from the large number of applications received that Asking the Right Questions was answering a need. During the consultation nonviolence trainers identified a need for more information and practical training materials (especially videos and DVDs, training and resource manuals with exercises) on gender, while gender trainers requested more education and training materials (including case studies on successful nonviolent campaigns and actions; success stories on women peacebuilders, especially from Asia and Africa; and training manuals) on nonviolence. The need for materials in local languages, reflecting local contexts that demystified gender was equally clear. The emphasis from all trainers was on the very practical and on the very participatory.
Most of the 35 women trainers from 25 countries who met at Asking the Right Questions shared a sense of pain and anger at the way women are treated within their organizations. This reflects the denial of women's rights within their larger societies. Peacebuilding, in their view, is inextricably linked to women's equality.
This premise was shared among participants from a wide variety of social movements and training backgrounds -- in peace education, youth work, human rights, anti-trafficking, gender, and nonviolence. In order to achieve women's equality empowerment is needed. During the consultation many trainers repeatedly pointed out a need to increase women's self-confidence, especially at the grassroots level, and particularly for rural women, girls and youth, women in villages and illiterate women.
This need to empower women has many implications for training. There were repeated observations on the need to include in all trainings concerns and experiences of women themselves; examples of successful women's peace actions, and women roles models. Women, as peace researcher Cynthia Cockburn has pointed out, learn from women's lives.
Gender was a confusing concept for many of the participants. Practical exercises and materials that explained how gender impacts and involves everyone -- women, men, girls and boys -- were essential. How to involve the entire community, and men and boys in particular, in the struggle for equality, was a major issue for participants. How to deal with men's sense of being threatened or disempowered by a change in the power balance between women and men? Many trainers had experiences where the struggle for women's empowerment had resulted in a sometimes violent male backlash. Gender also includes relationships among women themselves, and many participants raised questions about the extent of solidarity between women.
Support is absolutely critical in women's work for social change. As one participant said, "You can do nothing alone." Most participants found support from close family and welcomed support from networks of like-minded activists and trainers. How to stay in touch with one another, and how to continue learning and sharing experiences and ideas, was an often-asked question during the consultation. This points towards the need for a network for women trainers (or for both women and men trainers) around the issue of gender and nonviolence.
The need for support includes another component. Many participants spoke about the need for more training and resources on how to heal the wounds of individuals and communities after systematic violence -- including violence against women during 'peace time' and the wounds inflicted by armed conflict. Healing in this context included trauma counselling (including feminist counselling), psycho-social support and reconciliation. Participants also spoke about the need to heal themselves from past violence -- one trainer specifically mentioned how the trainings she was doing were also helping to heal her own wounds.
This led to many discussions on ways to integrate spirituality into one's daily life and work, about avoiding or dealing with burn out, and about ways to retain and sustain one's own values and integrity. Many women found sustenance in a major world religion (Christianity, Buddhism and Islam were primarily mentioned). This was not unproblematic. Women rejected patriarchal interpretations of religion and were developing their own interpretations and analysis. They were outspoken in their criticism of religious extremism and the political manipulation of religion for political purposes. A few women rejected patriarchal religions outright and followed more goddess-oriented spiritual practices.
Gender is not the only factor in women's lives. More education and training materials that explore diversity issues such as ethnicity and race, in addition to gender, are needed. Training that examines globalization was also identified as a need.
After five intensive days of exchanging experiences and ideas, training methodologies and exercises, enthusiasm and questions, many participants asked perhaps one of the biggest questions: where do we go from here? Follow-up was built into the consultation from the beginning, as participants will provide important feedback in the development of gender-sensitive training materials. For many participants, staying in contact with each other as part of a network was also important.
Dorie Wilsnack, former WRI Treasurer, former IFOR co-Interim International Coordinator, and long-time WRI Women's Working Group member, was part of the consultation's organizing team. She said, "The consultation's most important accomplishment was planting the seeds of a network. It was clear, even with the few trainers we brought together (given how many trainers there are), that having a link and communication internationally is quite important.
"The question we have to think about, from both the gender and the nonviolence camps, is the idea of bringing more of the other into the work is important. It's clear that more resources, manuals and tools that bring the two together is an exciting idea for people. It's also clear that we have to find a way to build a network. We need to ask what it is that makes successful networks really work. How to do this internationally is a real challenge. We need to ask others: are you part of other Internet networks that excite you to get the emails? What is the best kind of network of nonviolence women trainers? A network of trainers interested in linking gender and nonviolence? The Internet is one tool to do this but it isn't enough.
"Creative networking is one area that needs real brainstorming and strategy. We also need to think how to create resources on gender and nonviolence and how to spread the idea.
"Another tool to keep the network alive and promote the ideas and information is to tell personal stories. We need to collect women's training stories, both the nuts and bolts and what strategies you use, but also narratives that build the emotional links. How do you provide these important emotional links and the skills at the same time?
"Another question is how do you bring spirituality into your work? What are the deep roots of what I'm doing? What is it that motivates me to be a trainer -- what are the values that I'm trying to promote? It was clear that trainers need some opportunities for reflection.
"It's important to make sure we see the consultation as the beginning of something, not something in and of itself. We need to remember all the women who didn't get to come. How do we introduce them to the women who got to meet each other?"
IFOR and WRI are committed to following up the consultation. The work to integrate gender into nonviolence training, and nonviolence into gender training, has begun.
There was a welcoming ceremony on the evening of October 3. The ceremony began with a traditional northern Thai ritual, where strings were tied around each participant's wrist during a chant to bring our wandering spirits back. Dorie Wilsnack, former WRI Treasurer and former IFOR co-International Coordinator, then welcomed all present on behalf of the consultation's organizers. WRI Chairperson Joanne Sheehan and IFOR WPP Program Officer Shelley Anderson briefly introduced the organizing groups. Both IFOR and WRI were founded in the wake of World War I by Western pacifists determined to prevent future violence by providing alternatives to war. Both organizations now have a worldwide membership and are committed to active nonviolence and social transformation.
Ouyporn Khuankaew of the International Women's Partnership for Peace and Justice, the local organizing group, gave a briefing on the situation in Thailand. While Thailand has many vibrant nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), there are very few women trainers in peace and nonviolence. Currently there is armed violence in southern Thailand, and daily violence against women. Violence against women is common, due to the patriarchal nature of Thai culture, and modernization and globalization are increasing the violence.
"In Thailand, the government tries to deal with poverty by giving money to villages, which actually destroys village life," she said. The prevailing Buddhist belief is also used to support patriarchy. Many Thai women accept violence against them thinking that it is their karma -- that their negative actions in a previous life have resulted in violence against them in this life. Yet women are often the first to protest government plans to turn village farm land into golf courses or tourist resorts, or to protest the building of dams which will displace thousands of villagers. "Women take action first and stay active longer, and are in the front when the police come, but they start disappearing into the kitchen when the media come," Ouyporn said.
The International Women's Partnership for Peace and Justice (IWPPJ) began almost four years ago. They have conducted 10-week trainings with women activists from Thailand, Burma, Tibet, India and Cambodia in Buddhist peacebuilding; organized workshops in direct action, and conducted trainings in feminist trauma counseling. "We start from empowerment. We combine feminism and nonviolent action," said Ouyporn. Rather than seeing Buddhism as an obstacle to social change, the group promotes an engaged Buddhism that supports social transformation. "Many social movements do not have a spiritual practice. But when we talk of sustainability, it is not budgets or money that sustain, but the spirit," she said. The Buddhist teachings on interconnection and on impermanence offer hope, as they show that "oppressive situations can change," she said.
This approach has changed many activists that IWPPJ works with, both in their personal life and in their work for justice. Hseng Noung is one such activist with the Women's League of Burma (WLB). She gave a presentation on the situation in this neighboring country. She belongs to the Shan people, one of the almost 40 ethnic groups that make up Burma. "It is sad to say that violence is an everyday issue in Burma, whether domestic violence or state violence perpetrated by the military." Burma has been suffering under military dictatorship and a civil war for over 40 years. The military dictatorship, called the State Peace and Democracy Committee (SPDC), is responsible for systematic human rights abuses such as forced labor and portering, rape, torture, forced relocations and extra-judicial killings.
"Burma has a population of 50 million people. There are about a million internally displaced people inside Burma, and about 120,000 in refugee camps along the Thai border, in addition to two million migrant workers from Burma inside Thailand. Some 2,000 to 3,000 people leave Burma every month, at least half of them women. They have lost their livelihood, and face extortion as they try to leave the country. The military junta buys tanks from the Ukraine, planes from Russia and guns from India and China. We (the WLB) try to find what can be done in our own way as a women's organization and how to use international mechanisms."
"The international community knows about these human rights violations and the systematic impunity. But the arms deals haven't stopped. It is very hard, but it is not only up to the people of Burma, not when there is such economic power behind international arms deals. Big nations only see business. We do not have much space to work inside the country, but in Thailand and India we try step by step. It is most important to empower the women to work for better change."
Joanne Sheehan and Dorie Wilsnack then led the group in several exercises. "As a nonviolence trainer," said Joanne, "I know how much my training improves when I share with other trainers. This sharing is one of the most important things I do. We are going to look at nonviolence and gender to see how we can do this together. Our long-range goal is to plant seeds and structures for the on-going empowerment of women trainers. What are the needs and resources we need together? We are going to look at how we can define the kinds of training we do, to see the similarities and the different perspectives, so our trainings can improve. Hopefully we will all go back with a bigger bag of tools."
The first exercise drew all participants into two circles, an inner circle and an outer circle. Facing each other, participants shared on a one-to-one basis their responses to questions like "What was your first experience as a participant in a training? What does being a trainer mean to you? What was your first experience as a trainer? What was your first experience with nonviolence? When did you first become aware of your gender?"
In the next exercise, each participant wrote down her name and then, on separate pieces of note paper, the types of training that she did. These were then categorized and placed on the walls, where all the participants could look at them, and talk with women who did the same type of training. The group had a broad range of experience, with training for economic literacy, women's empowerment, nonviolence, strategic development, anti-trafficking, awareness on HIV/AIDS, fundraising and more. The evening then closed.
Summary: How can a common base of understanding be created among activists coming from so many different movements and cultures? This was the challenge facing participants today. The discussions on definitions showed that women have many varying definitions and concerns, ranging from intensely personal to critical social analysis. One common denomination was an understanding of the destructiveness of violence against women, and a desire to learn from other women's experiences. "What we have in common is that we are all women-- and we all have suffered violence," said one participant. Learning that "gender isn't just about women" was important to many participants, as was learning how to deal with men's fears of changing gender roles.
The day began in plenary session. Organizers introduced the consultation's aims and goals, reviewed the agenda and explained the methods that would be used for working together during the consultation. Each day would have a theme and would begin in a plenary session. The plenary would open with a personal story told by a participant. Next, a panel of selected participants would explore the day's theme.
Today's story was told by Sahro Mohamed, a young woman from Somalia now living in the Netherlands. "I am so honored to be here today, to experience this wonderful opportunity. It's very important for me to be here so I can take the knowledge I gain here back home to the women I represent.
"I begin with a poem, as it's important for me to write down my thoughts. This poem is called I Am.
I Am
I will make no excuses for being a woman A woman, a woman the woman I am I will make no excuses for being
an opinionated female A lady, the lady I will make no excuses for my curved femininity. I will not make excuses for being
the woman I become.
"When I was 10 years old I experienced a war. I hesitated to tell this story because if there is anything I do not want to be, it is to be seen as a victim. I'm not here to create a negative picture of my culture, but as long as a cultural practice creates harm to a human being, it should be told.
"I was born in Somalia. I fled with my parents from Mogadishu to a neighboring town, where we took shelter in a school. Suddenly men with a lot of guns came into the school, and my parents were killed. That hurt me so much. It began my hatred for Somali men because I held them accountable for a lot of my suffering. My fight for women's rights began.
"I came to the border of Kenya with a lot of other children and women, taken out of Mogadishu by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR). I met Corinne, an African-American woman working with refugees. She adopted me and we lived in Kenya with her son. I went to school. She taught me a lot of things, like to believe in myself. Corinne had to go back to the United States. She could not officially adopt me. When I was 18 I followed her to the US, but while transferring at Schipol Airport (in the Netherlands) I fell down. I had malaria and they would not let me proceed.
"In hospital I met a social worker who advised me to take asylum in the Netherlands. I did. I have no regrets. I believe in God. I believe that there was a reason why I was directed to go to the Netherlands. Corinne has been in the Netherlands to see me.
"I came to the Netherlands six and a half years ago. I am studying cultural anthropology, specifically gender violence. I will go to Africa to document crimes of violence against women in times of war. I want to find out how many crimes go to justice, and why not. I'm the secretary of the Somali Women's Association in the Netherlands. We help women integrate into that society, not taking over Dutch values, but to find your way and to lead an independent life. We help kids with homework, design projects for little girls to become conscious of their skills. We educate the world, men and women, about female genital mutilation (FGM) -- which is the worst thing that can overcome a woman.
"FGM is a cultural practice. There are two kinds. The old way is called Pharaonic -- it was done in the times of the Pharaohs in Egypt, when men used women slaves as sexual toys. Men thought if they made the woman's genital opening smaller they would have more pleasure.
"The second way is clitoridectomy -- a more modern tradition, the result of international and regional pressure to modify the practice. This is more humane in Somali men's eyes. You cut bits of the clitoris, and don't stitch it, so it won't grow. In Somalia and Sudan the clitoris is seen as a very bad thing. Infibulation -- cutting off the entire clitoris and stitching it all up, leaving a tiny hole the size of a match stick -- is also practiced. There are always problems as a result of this form of circumcision, problems with menstruation, urinating, delivery of a baby, sex.
"I am going to read another poem, this time about marriage, the time when defibulation occurs, when her husband starts to beat her.
Of Girls and Women (excerpts)
"As a child why should a girl of six have a voiceless child with no power to resist Being scarred for life why should mother be assigned to be second or third or fourth wife because she isn't tight? What makes a woman complete, only giving birth to a son, she becomes Westernized, a bitch, a pagan.
"We use two visual models of the vagina to educate people about FGM, one circumcised, one not. We have made an impact. We are trying to create a law against FGM. France is the only European country with such a law. Every summer a woman comes from Italy [to the Netherlands] to circumcise girls behind closed doors for 3,000 euros. We find out when she comes and work together with police and social workers to try and stop it. We want to make this issue discussible among Somalis themselves. Men do come to our discussions. We are finally hearing from women themselves. Women were suffering in silence, as result of the diaspora and the war.
"There are many Somali women organizations in Europe, at least seven in the Netherlands, united in fighting this. Some women have been threatened, because men will not marry a woman who is not circumcised. It is a slow process but we are beginning and we are seeing the fruits of our work."
The first day's panel, facilitated by Saswati Roy (of the nongovernmental organization Swadhini, India) consisted of Veasna Am (Cambodia), with Sarom Sek translating from Cambodian into English, and Okama Ekpe-Brook (Nigeria, working in Sri Lanka).
Veasna Am is Executive Director of Women Peacemakers, and a nonviolence trainer who works for women's and children's rights protection. Sarom works with the Dhammayietra (Peace Walk) in Cambodia, while Okama is from Nigeria. She has worked in Thailand and Laos, and is now in Sri Lanka with the United Nations, working with 50 volunteers in human rights and humanitarian aid.
"I am a gender trainer and the concept of nonviolence is quite new to me. How have I tried to integrate nonviolence into my gender trainings?" Okama began. "We are still trying to integrate a gender perspective in training, so I ask you this question, too. How can we marry these two concepts together?
"I will start with some definitions I found while searching the Internet and in dictionaries. Gender is about social roles which give men more power over women. Sexism is about the categorization of a person's status as male or female. There are different categories of sexual identities and sexual preferences. This gives some problems: are we talking about a genetic status or a social level applied to us by our birth certificates when we are born a woman or a man? Sexual preference refers to a preference for the same or opposite sex partner. There is a distinction again between a sex object and someone one builds a relationship with. Gender role refers to a person's understanding of their social role.
"I think I was born a feminist. Feminism is both a social theory and the political movement primarily informed by women who are promoting women's rights, interests and issues. In this promotion of women's rights for women and by women, one challenge is how women working for women can engage men in forwarding women's rights. Violence describes behavior that causes injury to people. Violence can be very subtle and unrecognized, and be sexual, physical or economic. Violence can be done with community assistance, or random, but it affects individuals, families and communities, in public or private. Violence can range from small-scale acts to coordinated violence, like war or terrorist acts. Again, some forms of violence are socially sanctioned. Different societies apply different standards.
"Nonviolence is a set of assumptions about morality, power and conflict. Sometimes it is used as a synonym for pacifism. Since the 20thcentury two examples of nonviolence are frequently given: Gandhi and Martin Luther King. Some advocates of nonviolence emphasize respect and love. I try to use this in my gender work. We don't listen very well to others, don't go into dialogue with open minds. With this technique we can go into discussions and come out with concrete results.
"Power is central in this definition. In nonviolence theory, power depends on cooperation with others. Power becomes less, or can be undermined, if we do not cooperate. In Sri Lanka the rulers are those in uniform with guns. In our gender trainings in Sri Lanka we try to integrate nonviolence by telling people that uniforms do not necessarily contribute to one's power. Our gender trainings try to promote empowerment, or having control over decisions in one's life. In Sri Lanka we only look at economic empowerment, not other types of empowerment. Lastly a definition of training: the process of transferring skills to do things.
"I'm going to tell a personal story now, and I hope you can give me some advice. Years ago I was physically assaulted in Sri Lanka. I refused to dance with a high ranking military man at a club, and he got angry and punched me. It took hours to even get his name. The police were reluctant to act. I did not get the support I needed from my work, and the witness and his family was harassed and threatened. I got letters saying 'we know where you are.' The incident got misreported in the media. I was feeling vulnerable and let down and I made the decision to let it go. In the long run I don't know if justice could have happened anyway. I could have left the country, but by staying there, by giving testimony of what happened to me, I have become a thorn to those who didn't do anything.
"I discovered that when gender violence happens to a woman, regardless of their organization or employment, there is no implementation of gender policies. How do you deal with this as a trainer working on violence against women? You have to choose your entry points. You have to make sure the person who is victimized isn't further victimized in the process of seeking justice. You try to strategically remove the victim from the immediate situation, you try the media and the courts. In my case it was important to deal with the trauma. I had allies all around me, even in the government. So I now try to integrate this into my training -- the importance of having support. It is important to do confidence building and networking because the person violated may not even have the confidence to talk to another person," Okama concluded.
Okama later facilitate a workshop on Training for Victims of Personal Violence. This looked at ways of surviving painful experiences, in particular of gender-based violence.
After a break the panel continued with a presentation by Veasna Am. "I will focus on what happened in Cambodia's bitter history," she began. "During the Khmer Rouge (KR) period from 1975 until 1979, half of the population was killed or starved. In 1979 the country was liberated and former KR became refugees living along the border areas. In 1998 a formal government came into power. The KR is being reintegrated now. Many former KR living in the forest are illiterate. Since they were born they were trained to kill. They have no education, they just make their living cutting trees or working in the forest. I have a simple definition of nonviolence in Cambodia: non-harming.
"In terms of violence, there are three kinds. The first is physical violence. We can all see this type of violence. Harder to see but very dangerous are two other kinds of violence: structural violence and cultural violence. In Cambodia there is a lot of confusion about the term gender, but we say it means equal participation in society.
"In Cambodia when we talk of gender we mostly focus on women. If there are too few women at a meeting, someone will say, we are not gender sensitive! We just focus on the number of women involved. We get confused. Some say gender and sex is the same. Sexism is hard for us -- women are portrayed as objects to be violated physically or spiritually. Feminism we define as the philosophy or political force that gives expression to women's voice for cooperating in society. The most difficult definition for us is power. What is power all about? In our traditional thinking, power is not for all, only one group of people can have power. The definition of empowerment is similar to that of nonviolence: respect for other people.
"We try to give people confidence to do something useful for society. For us training is a place for people to share, to give and take. We have Cambodian trainers, but they use lots of English words, though we do have a specific Khmer word for nonviolence. In Cambodia, people don't have knowledge but do have experience. We use pictures and role-plays to help people understand what we are doing.
"I would like to share now our own experience with active nonviolence training. My work is mostly with people who lost their land, because the powerful take the land from the people. I also deal with the fishery issue in Cambodia. When we first provided training about resisting land grabbing, we forgot about the process. Many women came to our training. We thought that men were stronger than women, especially when fighting economic power structures. We trained men, but we forgot about women. Yet many times women are very brave. When people struggle with the police or government, sometimes men want to fight back violently, but women will try to persuade people, to talk politely to them. It was a turning point for me, seeing this, how men forgot their training. I want to train women, as women have another way.
"Now we focus on inviting women to our trainings and we have gender issues in our trainings. When women participate in our training, it is very powerful. We see that women can lead in social change. We face many problems in Cambodia. Nonviolence is a new concept and the government doesn't accept us. We have to work underground; when I go to villages, I say I am a student. I hide my identity, because the government can kick me out or injure me. Now it's not many, but more people try to respect women. Yet most feel women should stay in the kitchen; women are born for men or for feeding your children.
"But we say women can do something. Women must have more respect for themselves. There is no domestic violence law to protect women. Less than 10 percent in Parliament are women. Many NGOs are trying to draft a law against domestic violence, but they can't change Parliament because many parliamentarians beat their wives. If there is a law, they will be the first to go to jail.
"Cambodians are taught in school that women are inferior. That's why there is so much domestic violence. Men think they are the leaders. Men fear that in the future they may lose power over the family. So they do everything they can to prevent this from happening. In the family, if you have a daughter and a son, the son gets the education. If the daughter finishes high school, the family will not allow her to go on to university. This happens especially in the countryside where girls who want to continue study or work are not allowed. They must stay at home and take care of husband and children. Also, in remote areas, there are few schools, and schools are far apart. When girls walk to school, they are raped. This is a very bad problem in Cambodia now," concluded Veasna.
The panelists took questions from the audience. Many questions asked for more background information. Veasna was asked about women's roles in the Khmer Rouge and how women's reintegration is proceeding. "During the Khmer Rouge period we were all equal. We were all slave labor," Veasna said. "After only a few days of giving birth, women had to go back to work in the rice field. We were all equal. After the Khmer Rouge we women had to go back to the kitchen."
Okama gave a briefing about the conflict in Sri Lanka.
"It's a two decade long conflict, based on ethnic grounds," she explained. "There is a Sinhalese majority, with Tamils and Muslims in the minority. There was large discrimination against Tamils, in the north, and it got so bad that Tamils were prevented from going to schools or having positions of power. Rebel groups developed, including the LTTE or Tamil Tigers, who want an independent state for Tamils in Sri Lanka. There have been different negotiations. There is a cease fire agreement, brokered by Norway, which was progressing successfully until last year, when the Tamil Tigers felt their demands were not being taken into consideration. They pulled out of peace talks in April 2003.
"Although there is a female president in Sri Lanka, there is little interest in empowering women or in social development. The President and the Prime Minister (PM) belong to different parties. When the cease fire had problems, the President decided to get involved, as the PM was involved. The President took over three government ministries, dissolved parliament, and called for elections in April 2004. To win she went into alliance with the strong JVP party. The government is composed of two minority groups and unable to move ahead with peace plans.
"There are many other factors, including religion. The Sinhalese are mostly Buddhist. Buddhist monks feel threatened now as their religion is losing prominence. Monks have formed a political party and now are in Parliament. Women are hardly involved in the peace process, which is falling apart. Although women are over 50 percent of the population, there are less than 5 percent women in parliament, 3.4 percent in provincial councils, less in local councils. Women have a high suicide rate. There is a debate now if this is related to sexual harassment in homes. While there is high literacy, violence against women is increasing. Sometimes I feel very sad. We have no data on human development in the north. Women are a strong force in the rebel movement and are combatants. In essence, the situation is very poor for women. In integrating nonviolence into gender work, peace cannot be sustained without the involvement of women. I see that in Sri Lanka, where the largest segment in society -- women -- hasn't been involved.
"The UN is looking at how to combine programs with the struggle against violence against women. We've decided to use the country's constitution, which preaches gender equality. Sri Lanka has signed the Treaty on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), and has also adopted a women's charter, on how to eradicate violence against women. So women have a right to education, to protection from gender based violence, to an economic life. But this gets blurred, because in our trainings we target the heads of households -- and men are the heads of households in Sri Lanka. One entry point is working with war widows, or female headed households, when you provide trainings. The ones who apply such training in day to day activities are women, so we could target war widows, especially in using the approach of nonviolence, which is more effective when used with women. In real empowerment we have to look beyond just offering an opportunity of participation. We have to ensure that when women do participate, that their voices are heard -- and also in actually monitoring and evaluating these programs.
The reaction of men to women's empowerment was an important issue for many participants.
Veasna asked, "I learned from you that you try to get more women in trainings. This gives new value to women, so women have new respect for themselves. Yet men feel they are losing power. How do you tackle this? We get some reactions like this. In our culture women are second class, so now we must empower women as leaders. It is very hard to persuade men to help and try to give them a picture of a future where men and women cooperate. We try to make a picture of a woman with a thousand hands, to show how hard women work in the home, and to say that women can also help in changing the system. It is hard for men when women go out to work or join social activities. Now men have to do some housework and this is hard for them to accept. But we ask men to give women a chance! When they succeed and get a good result, it is encouraging."
Saswati added, "When training people for empowerment, there is also a threat of a violent reaction when men feel threatened. It is a difficult job but we must incorporate in our gender empowerment also nonviolence work. What works well in your training, and what doesn't work?"
Okama said, "In our gender training, one of the most useful tools has been working at the family level. We need to get to the family as a whole. Usually gender training targets the woman, but in so doing we start to create gaps between husband and wife. The whole family must be involved in awareness building. Once this is established, then we can work with women to go to a higher level.
"Another tool I use is the concept of love for others, which is a nonviolent concept. When I was violated I was very angry and wanted revenge. When I become reconciled with myself, the other person has learned something. Maybe this will influence his behavior in the future. We should try to forgive, to love the other person and put yourself in their position. Do to them as you wish they would do unto you.
"Tolerance is another useful tool. The impulse is to just go with women, but we need to understand the threat men face and bring them along. We cannot accomplish gender equality without bringing men into it, and the qualities of nonviolence like tolerance and forgiveness. It is very challenging."
Saswati raised another issue. "You said that power is from the few to the many. For us, power is a most hated word. Please elaborate on your definition of power sharing. When one person is alone we don't know if she is powerful, but if she is with other people, we see clearly she has power. In our training [in India] we say power is with a group. We work with illiterate women in villages. We think it is better to work with women in groups, as as individuals they have little self-confidence. They come together, train together, work together and this gives them an immense sense of power. Many women have never seen a train or bus in their life, forget about a doctor or electricity. As a group they work together, with the idea of sharing the value of nonviolence. This binds them together and makes them stronger."
The plenary session broke into smaller groups, to discuss more in depth the issues that came up during the panel, in particular definitions of the key concepts. Saswati concluded, "Our fight is against society. We have learned from the definitions of gender we heard that gender is all socially constructed. Society is us and the people around us, so when we look at our definitions we must also look at our role in supporting and changing these definitions."
The small group discussions were lively as participants actively shared their experiences and challenges.
In one small group, Ia (Georgia) asked, "We work with parliament, with grassroots people and students. How do others work?" Ouyporn (Thailand) said, "When we work in Cambodia the problem we face is an understanding of nonviolence as patience and passivity. But that is a misunderstanding of nonviolence and of Buddhism. The government says nonviolence means 'you listen to me, submit a letter and wait.' How are you dealing with the misunderstanding of Buddhism and nonviolence as just waiting and praying?
Group members responded that in their experience, too, nonviolence was often misinterpreted as passive resistance. This is why many always added the word active in front of nonviolence, to show that nonviolence is a constructive and vital response.
The need for both women-only trainings and mixed gender trainings was discussed. One participant said in her country [the Netherlands] feminism was considered passe and women-only trainings old-fashioned. The fight for women's emancipation was popularly considered won, although this was far from the case.
Shelley (USA/Netherlands) pointed out the research of British sociologist Cynthia Cockburn, who found that women respond most readily to the experiences and insights of other women. It was thus critically important for women to have their own space in order to learn from other women.
Women learn from women's lives. Women's lives are different in many ways from those of men. Women's characteristic life experience gives them a potential for two things: a very special kind of intelligence, social intelligence; and a very special kind of courage, social courage. The courage to cross the lines drawn between us -- which are also lines drawn inside our own heads. And the intelligence to do it safely and productively. [from The Space Between Us: Negotiating Gender and National Identities in Conflict, 1998, Zed Books, London and New York. By Professor Cynthia Cockburn, Department of Sociology, City University, London.]
In another small group, many different types of violence were identified. These included cultural, physical, emotional and psychological violence. Violence could manifest itself in many forms, including domestic violence, structural violence, injustice, war, discrimination, deprivation, racism and a lack of equality.
Appearing non-threatening to an opposition group could be problematic: in cases of affirmative action or mass actions for justice, any attempt to shift the power balance or to ensure equality could be seen as a threat. Whether or not activists should then compromise depends on the situation.
This group wanted to see the definition of power include the recognition of needs. Disadvantaged groups gain some power via solidarity groups and the support they receive from outsiders. This can at times be exploited by the disadvantaged groups. Power differences and the abuse of power positions is also violence. The perpetuation of violence must also be looked at -- while British colonialism helped create the current violence in Burma, it is also being perpetrated by the Burmese elite. People in a position of power should share power and be modest -- they can use their position to influence a situation either positively or negatively.
The group cautioned that a distinction must be made between training and teaching.
Several questions arose about gender. For example, why is it sometimes easier for women to comprehend gender concepts than men? Why do men feel threatened by women's emancipation? Men often cannot listen to information about gender because they become too defensive.
After lunch, the first series of afternoon sessions took place. These sessions, each facilitated by a participant, involved small group discussions to share definitions, noting differences and similarities.
Each small group listed the highlights of their discussion. As part of the commitment to supporting women's training skills, participants were asked to make time at the end of every workshop to give the facilitator constructive feedback about her facilitation during the workshop. Some of the discussions focused on what participants needed in terms of definitions, workable concepts and tools; and on the participants deepening insights into gender and nonviolence. Many questions remained. The needs included (from Group 1):
[from Group 2]
[from Group 3] The Francophone group consisted of seven women, from Burundi, Canada, Germany, Switzerland, Macedonia, Madagascar and Rwanda.
Nonviolence:
Nonviolence
Genre:
Genre: pas biologique (seulement)
[from group 4] This workshop began with the facilitator sharing her own definition of non-violence: Any action that supports the sanctity of life and recognizes the inherent value and sacredness of all living things. Nonviolence also means opportunities to develop one's own potential.
"When we kill animals or plants to eat them, is that violent?" asked a participant. No, responded another participant, "because holy books of religions say you can kill if you do it in specific ways and for your own needs." The facilitator said she felt eating meat was nonviolent if "you do it with reverence, that you recognize that other animals and plants give their life to nourish us."
"I look at nonviolence as any action or way of life that recognizes, protects or promotes human dignity. Nonviolence respects and preserves peoples' sense of space and well being," said a third participant.
In English the word nonviolence "is a negative thing due to the prefix 'non' -- so I like to add that it is not just not doing something, not an omission, but something positive. Our definition should incorporate something about resistance." "It's as if we would call ourselves non-men. What this shows to me is how deeply rooted violence is in the English language," agreed a participant.
In Sanskrit, explained another participant, there is the word ahimsa, or non-harming, which contains the meaning of an internal force that gives power. "The interpretation is that it is not a passive force," she said. Some definitions of nonviolence deal with this by using the phrase empowered action. In Latin America the phrase for nonviolence translates as relentless persistence.
"When I go back to my situation at home [in India], I see a lot of violations taking place. I would like to see nonviolence defined as a behavior, action or attitude to respond to a situation that helps to move things in a positive direction by respecting, nourishing and valuing one's personality or dignity. Nonviolence supports the resources necessary to support life. It is a way of life that recognizes, promotes and protects human dignity. In Buddhism nonviolence might translate as compassionate action or charitable action."
The group then moved to defining violence. One definition was the capacity or action to inflict physical harm or death, to punish by restricting freedom, to withhold resources, to inflict mental, emotional or psychological harm.
Was violence always intentional? There was some discussion on how bystanders may be genuinely ignorant of structural violence. There is unconscious structural violence, such as acts of daily racism, where pain is inflicted by an oppressor without knowing s/he is inflicting pain. "We all have to accept responsibility for our capacity for violence," said one participant. "Johan Galtung's definition of violence is 'an avoidable insult to human dignity' -- or to the value of creation."
Cooperation with violence is violence, said another participant. Violence could not survive without our cooperation, even when the violence done also harms the perpetrator.
Gender was defined as the socially constructed identity based on perceived biological sex.
Gender is always biased, maintained a participant, because as a social construction it implies women have lesser status compared to men. It depends on black and white thinking about what is male/female, and elaborates power inequalities between men and women. "Gender elaborates the power inequalities between the sexes -- it's not just the socially constructed identities, but the power inequalities between men and women. Sometimes society makes men more powerful, but sometimes the female is powerful," said a participant. "What societies exist where women have more power than men? Can you tell me?" challenged a participant.
"I am trying to make gender less threatening to men," was the response. "Women are becoming strong, and men are saying 'women are oppressing us now'. Men and women can be gender insensitive. It's imbalance, not just power."
"But men are saying this because they are losing privileges! Is losing privileges real violence?" said another woman.
Another activist gave an example from her country. "In Sierra Leone we campaigned for a 30 percent quota for women at the local election. And men said this is gender violence against them. So the government gives micro credit to women now, but men are still in control. What we see is access, not control. Men still have the control of decision making.
"We need different treatment and approaches to men based on gender. In five refugee camps in Sierra Leone we are implementing work against gender-based violence (GBV). Our big question is how to deal with the male perpetrators? When we mainstreamed men in the GBV work, they said one of the roots of violence is illiteracy. So they create an adult literacy program which was actually an income-generation project for the men, because they rejected having women teachers."
"This is an example of the misuse of gender," said another participant. "In Nicaragua a women's group working on violence against women was denied funding by an international donor, because the donor said they didn't have a gender perspective -- because they didn't work with men. But it was women who needed the attention and support first, because they were the ones being beaten to death! This is cooptation -- gender concepts being used by those in power so they will stay in power."
Sexism refers to a system of oppression based on gender and the belief that women are inferior to men. It is based on biological sex -- on perceived identity -- and oppressive roles based on power over women.
Others argued for a more open definition of sexism, whereby one sex is superior to the other, a system of oppression based on the belief that one sex is more human than the other. "In my community [in Indonesia] gender is the expectation about the roles and behaviour of boys and girls," said a participant.
"Biologically we're more complicated than we thought," commented one woman. "In Kosovo a boy was born with very, very small genitals. He was treated as a boy, but then he started to menstruate. Biology made his life extremely complicated, and then society made it worse. There are people born with genitals of one sex, but feel intensely that they are of the other sex. It's dichotomy thinking, to think in such either/or terms."
Power was the key in both definitions of gender and sexism, as both involved control and decision-making power. Some women said that participants in their trainings often had a very negative reaction to the word power, based on their experiences of being abused by those in power. "Political power is so much misused, we think about it in terms of control, politicians taking control, even in the homes. It has very negative connotations," said a Kenyan participant. Other trainers agreed.
In the Philippines, however, because of the Peoples Power nonviolent movement that overthrew the Marcos dictatorship, whenever the word power is used, even among children, the image is one of power through people's cooperation.
There were different definitions of power (with both constructive and destructive potential) and different kinds of power: power over (domination), power with (what we have when we work collectively, in a group), and power within (power inside each of us). Power was defined variously as:
"I have trouble with this word [empowerment], and with the word reconciliation," said a participant. "Those with power over others say 'we will empower you'. According to this definition you can't do that. I think it's being coopted."
"Or donors say 'We will empower the women,'" agreed another participant, from Sierra Leone. "For me empowering is a two-way process, giving and taking. In empowerment we also recognize that we are also different. Empowerment is a process -- and it doesn't mean we all have the same thinking, background and strategies."
The group's definition of empowerment is "not the banking model, but the calling out model of empowerment. The 'banking' model of power leaves one person (the giver) with more power than the receiver. In banking -- I deposit something in you, I give, you receive, which leaves me in a position of power. Whereas the calling out is more in your definition. Power is a give and take process, recognizing our differences. 'We' cannot empower 'you'. I want to see a definition that appreciates everyone's uniqueness and challenges women to work as a team. For this women have to learn to appreciate and value themselves. Empowerment is a collective process that includes building the capacity to value and esteem oneself and others," responded another participant.
The exploration of empowerment led to other issues. There is a perception that women are their own enemies, one participant pointed out. This challenges us as women, to work together, so empowerment is also about the need to reconcile with yourself, appreciate yourself. Because if you think there is nothing in you then you can't work together as a group.
"We had our first female presidential candidate in our election in Sierra Leone," a participant said, giving an example. "In the process she forgot about the women populace. She got 0.05 percent of the vote. She disempowered herself by stepping on other women. You cannot get the power alone. For women our greatest weapon is in our numbers. But this means women must know what they want -- and someone to represent them. We want to be big cotton trees, not just grassroots. So empowerment is very important in our solidarity struggle."
"In the Somali women's movement, because we have been empowering each other, working together as a team, we have been able to get 35 seats in parliament, since the first president was elected after the war. It's a start. We had to really fight hard for this," said another participant.
An evaluation of the workshop was held, in particular of the facilitator's practice. On the positive side, the facilitator "called us by our names, wrote our words down, gave us the confidence to talk more." "She drew us out." Her use of the flip chart board, in writing down key words and definitions, was rated good. There was discussion about her choice of giving her definition of the key words first. The consensus was that it might have been more useful to elicit some words from the participants first.
At the end of the afternoon participants gathered again in small groups to reflect on what questions they have learned to ask. "I find gender a very confusing issue," said one participant. "What I learned today was that you need to learn how others perceive and define this concept." "It's been very good to be in such mixed groups," said another woman. "We are learning from each other and from our different cultures." Participants found the day's work "very comprehensive" but "it is too early to think about what resources do we need". Learning that gender encompassed relationships between women, relationships between men and relationships between women and men was an eye-opener for many participants.
Other questions that were identified included:
Resources that were identified included:
A cultural sharing, organized by Suseela Mathew (India), ended the evening. All the participants were asked to bring a piece of cloth. One by one, each woman laid the cloth on the floor and explained where the cloth came from, and why it was meaningful to her. A colourful mosaic soon formed, with some women sharing tie-dyed or batiked cloth from women's income generation projects, or a piece of crocheted work made by a participant's mother. Some women shared their own dresses or an article of baby's clothing. Suseela concluded the sharing by giving each woman a handkerchief she had brought from India.
Summary:After exploring definitions and their commonalties and differences yesterday, the work on day two was devoted to sharing training techniques and methodologies. While participants conducted a wide variety of training, from economic literacy to preparation for direct nonviolent action, they all shared a common understanding that without peace, development and gender equality were impossible. In addition to this awareness was the understanding that women's empowerment was inextricably linked to the empowerment of the entire community. Community-owned agendas, flexible training programs that responded to the real needs of participants, and highly participatory methodologies were repeatedly emphasized as essential parts of any successful training. How to include men in creating change was a primary concern of many of the trainers present.
It was clear that many participants were confused about gender and wanted more information, especially practical and concrete ways to integrate gender into their trainings. Some very experienced nonviolence trainers acknowledged that it was only recently that they had begun to think about how gender influences their training, and how they can integrate gender into their trainings. Much uncertainty was expressed about exactly what gender is. Much pain was also expressed as women shared stories of discrimination and gender injustice within their own organizations. Other participants were already gender trainers and were interested in how to integrate nonviolence into their gender trainings.
The day began with Mai Jan, an activist from Burma, telling her personal story.
"I want to thank the International Women's Partnership for Peace for making it possible for me to be here. I am with the Women's League of Burma's women's peacebuilding team. My husband is Shan and I am Kachin [these are two of Burma's many ethnic groups]. I work with the pro-democracy movement of Burma. I go back and forth [across the Thai-Burma border] to give peacebuilding training. Last year I did a nonviolence training for the first time," she said.
"There are 30 armed ethnic resistance groups in Burma. My father was a famous soldier for Kachin independence. He was a fighter, now I'm a peace builder. I was born in the jungle during the civil war. My mother was fleeing our village, which was attacked by Burmese military. If my parents had been caught they would have been tortured and killed, so they fled to the jungle to survive. There were no refugee camps then in Kachin state, no schools, so the jungle was our refugee camp.
"It was hard to get education. There was no more school after grade four, so I was sent to a town under the control of the Burmese military. If the government knew who my parents were I would be kidnapped or killed. So I learned to lie. I said I was a parentless child.
"There is a very big problem in Burma between the ethnic groups and the Burmans. All the armed groups are fighting for freedom and independence. This struggle started after Burma's independence in 1948. Our history taught us how to hate Burmans [the majority ethnic group in Burma which dominates the government and military, at the expense of other ethnic groups]. The new generation was trained to hate. We were taught that nationalism means to love the nation and hate other nations, especially the Burmans. So when I was young I hated Burmans a lot. I was never in touch with them, but I hated them. As a child I learned that their failure is our success. I was very happy when my father's troops had military victories, happy to hear how many Burmese soldiers had died in battle. Kachin soldiers ate Burmese soldiers' brains, and Burmese soldiers ate the enemies' flesh, to make them braver. So this is how my community taught me about violence.
"In 1988 when I studied in town, the Burmese protests broke out. Some soldiers, many students and civil servants took to the streets in non-violent demonstrations. It was my first experience of non-violent action. I learned there is another way to resolve conflict by not harming other people. The military cracked down on the demonstrations. Lots of students were killed and all the schools were closed. I went back to the jungle. University and secondary students from the cities fled to the jungle to begin a military struggle against the government.
After I finished my education in a theological college I was eager to work for social change. After becoming a WLB peacebuilding trainer I see the connection between peacebuilding and non-violence. I understand that without the participation of our people nothing will change. The people don't understand the decisions from high up. We have to give awareness training to the grassroots in Burma to build peace. Although 24 armed groups have signed a cease fire with the SPDC [the State Peace and Development Council, or SPDC, is the military junta which rules Burma] both sides train people to increase their forces through conscription. I hope you can imagine now how people of our country are trained to kill each other and to be familiar with violence," Mai Jan concluded her talk.
Jill Sternberg, a nonviolence trainer from the US who had just returned from working three years in East Timor, moderated this morning's panel. The theme today is integrating non-violence and gender in training methods, she said. "Yesterday we learned about concepts, today we learn how to practically bring these concepts into our work," she explained, and then introduced the first panelist: Rini Maghi, of Flores, Indonesia. Rini works with the Women's Network in Flores and is a subcommittee member of the peace education division of the Nonviolent Peace Force.
Rini began with a briefing about Indonesia: "Indonesia has 6,000 inhabited islands and a population of 300 million people. The first President, Sukarno, used a cultural approach [specifically Javanese culture] to join the different cultures together into one country. Then Suharto became president and ruled for 30 years. The government became very centralized in Jakarta. In 1998, following the economic crisis in Asia, there were many [pro-democracy] demonstrations. After Suharto the government began to decentralize. Things were very chaotic for awhile. In 2000 Megawati was elected president, and many thought that finally, under this woman's leadership, democracy can be applied. In September we had our first direct elections for president, and the winner will be announced very soon.
Indonesia faces many challenges in political, economic and social terms. In the 1990s there were lots of conflicts, religious and ethnic conflicts. Hundreds of churches were burned, there were rapes and killings. Indonesian women started talking about overcoming violence against women. Two weeks ago the government established policies against violence against women.
The women's movement began in the 1920s with women's organizations in many parts of Indonesia. The focus was first on social aspects, then shifted in the 1930s to political aspects, inspired by western women's movements. In the 1960s, during the economic crisis, the Indonesian National Women's Movement (NWM) was very big and powerful on many islands. When Suharto took over, he destroyed threatening organizations like the NWM and the Communist parties, saying they were responsible for the coup and for killing generals. Many NWM members were killed and the leaders detained. Since then organizations have been restricted and no more women's organizations allowed to be involved in politics. The government has set up organizations for military wives and for wives of civil servants. These are involved in family welfare, income generation, and not allowed to go further. It is just recently that Indonesian women are trying to get their political rights back.
The discussion about gender is relatively new. It is a debate -- do we need this concept of gender? Many women are still afraid to talk about the NWM and the strong women leaders of the past. These women with strong spirits are popularly seen as evil. When I was in elementary school we had to go to the theatre for the September 30, 1967 coup commemoration. All of us were indoctrinated that Suharto was a hero who saved the country from groups like the NWM.
In 1998 there was a rise in ethnic conflicts, for example in East Timor, West Papua, and Aceh. These are conflicts about land ownership, ethnicity, and religion. It is important for us to have conflict management training. My experience with this started in West Timor, with tensions between East Timorese refugees and the local community. The East Timor referendum in 1999 [about whether East Timor would become independent or remain integrated within Indonesia] split refugees into pro-integration or pro-independence groups. Provoked by the Indonesian military, these groups were killing each other. [After the East Timorese voted overwhelmingly for independence] the pro-integrationists left East Timor [for West Timor]. When they came [to West Timor] they felt like heroes for defending Indonesia, so they felt they deserved to be treated better in the camp areas. They terrorized local people. So we need conflict resolution, for the military men, the refugees and civilians.
This wasn't easy because many of the refugees were used to using violence. When we gave peace trainings, a guy would come with a gun to the training. It is a challenge to build solidarity between these groups so they can live side by side. I joined Peace Brigades International and was asked to co-facilitate trainings on Flores.
In our trainings, we try to involve female local facilitators, in order to influence local ideas that women can speak out and be leaders. We try to make sure the number of male and female participants are balanced. We try to encourage women to speak up during the trainings because men tend to dominate discussions, especially in Flores, which is a very male-dominated society. We try to address gender issues, because if you dig deeper into certain problems and issues, gender issues underline these problems. We use an elicitive approach, like John Paul Lederach's model [see
Building Peace: Sustainable Reconciliation in Divided Societies, by John Paul Lederach, 1997, United States Institute of Peace Press, Washington, DC]. We get models from the participants themselves because the potential for conflict is within the community, so too is the solution. Some trainings focus on women's issues and are women-only. This is very good because women can share their issues. These women-only trainings are very empowering and build trust among women in the community. The discussions start to focus on the effects of local tradition in terms of disempowering women and consistently making women take second place in the community.
When we discuss conflict resolution, even in women-only groups, they will propose men's involvement, especially the involvement of male leaders. Even though the focus is not therapeutic, these trainings are still good for women because they can share their pain. Among other women they are freer to express, to acknowledge and to let the pain go. We call them check ins and check outs. Every day we ask the women to do check -ins and –outs, just to share their feelings at the time, what your worries are, what your dreams are. There is no need to respond to these worries or dreams, we are just trying to build a spirit of togetherness among the groups.
Susan Granada was the next panelist. She has worked with the National Council of Churches in the Philippines, in Mindanao, and now with the Nonviolent Peaceforce among Tamils in Sri Lanka. She began by showing participants maps of the Philippines and Sri Lanka.
"There are three main islands in the Philippines, with a total population of 18 million people. 15 percent are Protestant, 5 percent Muslim, the rest are Roman Catholic. In the conflict area of Mindanao, an armed Muslim group is claiming areas as their homeland. There has been a migration of Christians to the area, so now there are portions populated mostly by Christians, and other portions populated mostly by Muslims.
"Spain colonized the Philippines for 300 years, followed by the USA. Much Spanish culture still remains with us. During World War II the Philippines became part of the US fight against Japan. The Japanese commander occupied my own family's house during the war. We became independent in 1945. There was a joint Philippines-US military defence treaty which allowed US military bases in the Philippines for 50 years. [After a massive anti-US bases campaign] in 1991 the Philippines Senate rejected the retention of the treaty that allowed these US military bases.
"Since independence there was a lot of poverty and corrupt government. In 1967 the Communist Party established the New Peoples Army as an armed force. Around 1968 the Marcos dictatorship trained Muslims to invade Saba island, to claim it for the Philippines. There was a massacre of Muslim military trainees, which started discontent, and led to the creation of Muslim insurgency groups. From 1972 to 1981 there was martial law. The country was under military rule; there were massive human rights violations, with 10,000 arrested, and a curfew. Civil society began to organize. Would support the armed struggle like the Muslim insurgence or the Communist insurgence? Or is there another way? Inspired by the nonviolence of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, civil society began a mass movement for active nonviolence.
"This led in 1986 to Peoples Power. There had been a coup by some military members who decided to align themselves with the people. The coup leaders sought the help of the Roman Catholic Church, which sought the help of the people. At EDSA [a main intersection in the capital city] a million people gathered to separate the military factions. We saw we could change the government without bloodshed. We saw that people power was the way. I was five months pregnant and I was happy to be on the streets. People Power arose again in 2000 [to oust a corrupt political leader]. My first daughter was in high school then. The students wanted their parents to accompany them to where the first protests against Marcos had happened, in order to protest again. It was a great opportunity for me to connect with my high school daughter.
President Corey Aquino initiated peace talks with the insurgents, which collapsed. Civil society came up with a Peoples Agenda for Peace. Groups like farmers, women, workers, fishers, and the urban poor each met together and came up with their own agenda for peace, which was collated into a national agenda for peace. Civil society called for this agenda's implementation. Meanwhile a new President, Fidel Ramos, the former secretary of defence, came up with a comprehensive peace program with the Moro Islamic front and the Communists. The government tried to co-opt the church leadership by some national consultations in cooperation with the National Council of Churches (NCC) and the Bishops' Council. But religious leaders came up with a plan with more integrity that really consulted the people. 92 percent of the country was reached and there were also sectoral consultations. We asked people what kind of peace do you want and people came up with recommendations for a plan of action.
"The NCC developed a basic course on peace, which was distributed to 72 out of 76 provinces. This course incorporated the people's peace agenda. It worked with three levels: the upper (decision makers), the middle (church leaders, NGOs, schools), and the grassroots. Training this way helped people to develop networks. It was also useful because we found that the different levels had different needs. Decision makers wanted negotiation skills and information on peace negotiations elsewhere; the middle level wanted information on peace processes and cultures of peace; while the grassroots needed leadership skills and ways to establish peaceful communities. We adapted the course's methodologies to each sector. Decision makers wanted lectures; the middle level wanted case studies and lectures; and the grassroots wanted an activity-oriented methodology which used relevant language. For example, farmers, women, fisher people, and the urban poor wanted to talk about their economic, political and cultural needs. During the upper level trainings there were very few women; there were more women at the grassroots.
"The work in Sri Lanka is very multicultural, because the Nonviolent Peaceforce works with Buddhists Sinhalese and Muslim Tamils. I respected these differences when developing training materials. In giving training you use the culture of the participants. The methods we used with Christians were not relevant to the Muslims. I really felt I was a Christian when I worked in Mindanao [Philippines], and in Sri Lanka. To speak of Christ is normal to me, but I realized I had to learn the culture of the Muslims. So I adapt the training. I don't talk about Jesus, but about Allah. I respect the Muslim prayer times, and Friday as a holy day."
Ysabel Perez, a feminist from Peru who has lived 16 years in the Netherlands, was the next panelist. Between 1980 to 1987 she coordinated a women's organization in Peru. In the Netherlands she has worked primarily with migrant and refugee women, where she has won recognition for pioneering training which supports the involvement of migrant women in Dutch politics.
"In my experience gender has been articulated with other issues," she began. "In Peru women were concerned about survival first and then empowerment. Gender was important but other relationships were also important, especially class issues for women in poor areas and in villages. We quickly learned that there was a difference in the language with grassroots women and with students and professional women. We tried to find out what was more important: do we organize around gender or class? The most important issue for my colleagues and I was if the work was feminist. We thought we could link feminist women and poor indigenous women, to combine and work on both issues.
Why did we think we had to link both identities? In Peru, we worked for 10 years during an economic crisis. Women began working together as a survival strategy. Women were buying and cooking food together, in communal kitchens. We helped organize women for this so it did not take up all their energy, so they could have time for leadership training.
Gender is not the only factor shaping women's identity and status in society. Identity and status are influenced by other power relations, such as class, ethnicity, sexual preference, etc. So in this way city women are different from women in the Amazon or in the Andes. We had the liberation theology methodology. In Latin America we have books with thousands of techniques. We had manuals and technical exercises on to how to build people's confidence or how to create a group, but most of these guidelines didn't reflect women. We didn't find our values in these manuals, or the values of the women we worked with.
So to the definition of empowerment by Paulo Freire we added the gender issue. We saw similar principles with feminism in Freire's work. In our workshops we emphasized self-confidence and autonomy. We helped build up confidence slowly. The women would get into small groups, say their name, then say why they'd joined the group. After talking in small groups they had no problems to stand up in the bigger group and give their opinion. Some of the women were illiterate, some were 20 years old with four children already.
The women made group decisions, about the group's names, what type of group they wanted to be, what activities to do. We met for a two-part meeting on Saturday afternoons. They would come in slowly, then the first part of the meeting would be to relax. The women decided what points to put on the agenda, and about the activities. They were worried about their children, about getting enough food, about health care and the economy. They wanted support for their activities. During the second part of the meeting we would use a technique or exercise, then talk about how they felt about the meeting's theme. We'd talk in small groups, about personal problems, how they felt, then do a summary together, so they could see all their experiences and worries were reflected. Then they took decisions. They could see the relationship between the technique or exercise and the decisions they took.
This methodology of empowerment was first not a goal in itself. We wanted women to be leaders. Before this communal kitchen group I was leader of a group who fought to get homes. After working with this group for five years, only two other women emerged as leaders. This was too long to wait! We had to get more women involved.
While we used empowerment methodology, we also used other techniques, like what is the structure of an organization, how to create an agenda, how to evaluate a meeting or a program. The women organized meetings of the whole community, which we helped them prepare. They planned strategies on how we would present ourselves, on what was our message. They decided where women would sit in a meeting and placed themselves strategically. In this way we helped women get involved in their community.
We used empowerment training for women to become leaders. But we were very aware of different dimensions of empowerment. Women needed to criticize their own values and thoughts. No one can empower you.
Empowerment is an internal option; it's something you decide for yourself.
What were the lessons we learned? We learned we needed to build a safe place, a woman space where women can find support, solidarity and courage. Other important lessons:
is central.
The results of linking gender with class by using empowerment methodology included:
decisions and becoming leaders
"In the Netherlands I was asked to develop a project to get women into decision-making positions. About 30 percent of the Dutch Parliament is women-- and about three percent of them are black [i.e., ancestors coming from Africa, Asia-Pacific, Latin America-Caribbean and Middle East], migrant women. This low rate of involvement is caused by several things: government stagnation, the culture of political parties, issues like paid and unpaid work and child care, women's political and management skills.
"We began the project in Rotterdam where there were organizations working on all these issues. Migrant women lack access to resources (financial and material), so women could not pay for expensive training. We aimed at a specialized training because we needed to have results. The goal was getting migrant women of diverse backgrounds into politics. It was a very practical training, so that after six months the women could go into politics. It provided insights into the Dutch political system and social and political decision-making processes. There was training, coaching, and developing women's leadership skills.
"The strengths of this specialized training included working from within an empowerment and diversity perspective; a large diversity of groups was reached; the empowerment methodology had a holistic approach and a low threshold. There was a real link and match between the decision-making bodies and the trainees.
"I adapted some of the methods we had used in Peru. Some principles remained, especially about creating a place of safety, self-confidence, and the capacity for tolerance (because it was important to work with women of different cultures and religions). We had criteria to select women by beforehand. The women were nominated by different organizations. There was a half-hour interview of each candidate in which she explained her motives to be a leader, why she hasn't been a leader until now, how she reacts to dominate and to passive women. Some of the women are now elected in municipal councils, or working in their own migrant organization or another Dutch organization. Only four women aren't chairing something. There is a waiting list of women who want to be part of the training."
After Ysabel's presentation there were questions from the participants. Susan was asked how she integrates gender and nonviolence into her trainings.
"In the Philippines," Susan replied, "when we talk about training it is more in the context of support for social change. It is related to the peace process. In integrating nonviolence, my assumption is that since we are talking about peace we are talking about nonviolence. So I assumed in training that if you talk about peace, you are talking about nonviolence. I only learned that some people make a distinction between peace and nonviolence when I was studying in the US.
"We have People Power so we know that nonviolence is not separated from peace. Since I have been involved in the Nonviolence Peaceforce (NP), in Sri Lanka, and the NP exploratory mission in Philippines, I am developing a training program on nonviolence. I do non-violent communication training. The assumptions of this model are very Western based. The context is that you are direct, confrontational, for nonviolent communication. But in a southern context we are indirect.
"I am part of the people's movement in the Philippines, so gender has always been an issue. Yet when I came home after a gender training, and my husband asked me for a cup of coffee, I was shocked. I am still learning about gender."
Rini, in response to the same question, answered, "In our trainings we discuss about power over, power within, and power with; about emotions, and about how we can escalate or de-escalate conflict. In doing our training, we try to make deliberate strategy to involve women as co-facilitators."
Ysabel was asked about the criteria for participants in her trainings with migrant women in the Netherlands. "We work with groups of 20 women. I developed five criteria, based on the work in Peru. The first ting to realize is that women must reconstruct each woman's own image, and validate her own life experience. This means women had to be in touch with her own energy and spirituality, her inner energy. We need to criticize the imposed image of woman, through socialization.
"We need to work on the fact that women need to have more self-confidence, and we need to discover our inner energy and spirituality. Love on this planet starts with one's self -- if we can't love ourselves, we can't love others. This was powerful personal experience.
"Women should have the capacity of deciding their sexual preference, and who their partner is. We worked a lot on anti-contraceptive methods: we named different parts of our bodies, talked about machismo, the women saw jell and condoms -- those were fun sessions. We considered which kind of decisions women want to have. This is a second step, because giving information is not enough. So we brought doctors in to give consultations with the women, so the women could make decisions about what contraceptive they wanted.
"Through a folder, information packet and press release, I shared information with the women thinking about the leadership course. We identified three groups of women: the ones who were ready to participate, who have paid jobs and were in politics; the second group, who had background experience in volunteering or organizing, but no money or networking contacts; and the third, who might want to participate, but don't know the political system.
"I targeted the second group, identified the groups in Rotterdam that may have these women, visited these groups and asked if they had women who wanted this experience. I was looking for women of different nationalities, so some of the organizations, for example, were working on diversity. The women had to have a good level of Dutch; time to do a practice internship; then they filled in a formula and we had an one-hour personal interview. This interview was a simple conversation with a cup of coffee. We wanted to know if the women had the time to do the course, if they could take up a political function after the training, and how we should adjust the program to fit the women."
A participant asked, "We hear of King and Gandhi -- where are the women leaders? How do you take the theories of men like John Paul Lederach and use them to address gender? Are there women theorists and models you use in your training?"
Susan responded, "To be truthful, I haven't thought about it. Women and men in my trainings see that I am a decision maker, I'm articulate, that I am not a member of the women's movement, but that I practice [what I preach]. I look at theories and models more in light of whether it is applicable to our culture. So it doesn't matter if the theory comes from a man or a woman. I have to study gender further."
Ysabel answered, "In Peru we used already existing methodology and modified it to include gender. I'm very open to whatever helps social change. We don't need to re-invent the wheel. There are lots of women blind to gender."
Rini said, "We also use Lederach to try to develop local models of conflict resolution. We ask women to brainstorm about some one whom at one time acted as a helper to them. Then we brainstorm about the qualities of helpers in resolving a conflict. We divide into small groups to relate all this to their local conflict. This exercise gives some points on who needs to be involved, [in resolving a conflict]. At first we didn't mean to integrate gender, but because most of the trainers are also gender trainers, we can't help ourselves. We stress more on justice, not gender, so we use no specific woman theorist."
The lack of women role models and theorists can be explained in several ways. Most cultures place more value and importance on what men do, so women's activism and theories are not highlighted, or are ignored in historical accounts written by men, or are ridiculed or suppressed if they challenge traditional balances of power between women and men. Women often do not have access to education in order to document their ideas and experiences. Two-thirds of the world's illiterates are women and so cannot write. Ysabel also pointed out that women shoulder an unequal amount of the world's work load: "Many, many women have enormous experience, but we have to combine our activism with our family work and other work. I was an activist, but it was only when I had to leave my country that I got the opportunity to reflect on 15 years of activism. Writing is more something men do. We [women] have to find the time to analyse and write and publish our experiences."
"This is why my organization asked me to apply for this conference," said Rini. "This is the question we are asking ourselves -- how do we integrate gender and nonviolence? This really motivates me to be here and to get experience here."
Jill concluded the panel by summing up. "Many of us feel incredible pain that our work is not more widely spread because of our gender," she said. "Now I suggest we break into small groups, based on the type of training that we do. There are four groups: third-party intervention, conflict resolution, empowerment and nonviolent direct action, but additional groups can be added, such as such as gender and women's rights training, or peace education/working with children, as needed. Please find a group in order to share your thoughts and feelings raised by the presentations."
The small group of trainers working on conflict resolution included women from Rwanda, India, Georgia, Peru, Sierra Leone, and the USA, among others. One participant began by pointing out the need to validate women's experiences in trainings. Such validation is necessary if women are ever to gain the self-confidence necessary in order to be leaders, she said. "In Switzerland, in schools books girls become nurses and men become doctors. Boys and men are portrayed as leaders, not women. We need role models to become women leaders, role models like Aung San Suu Kyi. In my work I try to find women role models. I find women in groups reluctant to become leaders. Is this because the idea of power is frightening, or do women reject power because they have seen such abuses of power? Or maybe women don't want to have leaders?"
A trainer from Sierra Leone continued, "I tend to mainstream nonviolence in my gender work. I work in five refugee camps in Sierra Leone against gender-based violence. One tool I use is singing. In Sierra Leone we've experienced over 11 years of war. People are not patient enough to listen to other people. Singing is the only time men will sit and listen to women. Women sing a lot. When singing in my tradition you use motivating words. I've supported the production of a cassette called 'Peace from the Family Line', which talked about violence against women and how it can lead to violence in the wider society. I think if you talk about peace you must talk about women's rights.
"I also use the Bible and the Qur'an. The greatest commandment is to love. Jesus emphasized this. Respecting women's rights is not against our culture or our religious beliefs. Eve was Adam's first neighbor. To love your neighbour means to love Eve, to love women and to respect women.
"One common point in concepts of gender and in nonviolence is the belief in solidarity, in togetherness. We need to build alliances and networks everywhere. We can only do this with dialogue, which non-violence also talks about. It is also important to me to engage the oppressor as well, because, in nonviolence, you free yourself and the oppressor as well. When I learned about nonviolence, this helped me to deal with my anger against men."
Another woman commented, "I work with refugee women in Rotterdam [the Netherlands]. I see women have many ambitions, but also have a problem to communicate among different groups because of conflicts in their countries. I'm here to learn how to integrate nonviolence into my gender work. I am really committed to learn more from all of you. In my city [in the Netherlands] there is a restaurant that forbids women to come in wearing a head scarf. This made me think of the US campaigns of desegregation [during the US Civil Rights movement]. We need active resistance against this kind of segregation. We need networks, in order to build everyday change, everyday revolution."
A Rwandese trainer now living in France said, "I want to share something from my experience, as an activist, about women learning from women's lives. I think when we work together in groups the synergy between women is contagious. If we look at the paths women travelled in their life, many women have suffered domestic violence, or mutilation. It's something we can all relate to whether we are from Burma, Peru, or Africa. Whether this suffering comes from men or institutions, we can relate to it. It's as if you are being emptied of your strength, becoming anaemic. In the group there may be a quiet woman, but after listening to other women, she hears of women survivors. Through your vulnerability you can be transformed, and that gives you strength. The first time I took part in a nonviolence training I was a refugee in a camp. We women had been completely broken and flattened. We felt we had no power. But the IFOR Women Peacemakers Program (WPP) organized a training in the camp. When I came I said to myself I'll keep quiet, it's not appropriate to talk about what I've been through. But I heard other women talking about what they'd been through and that was liberating. By speaking out about your suffering your reappropriate your own body and strength. You can go out again and do your work. As Gladys said, we African women express ourselves in singing and dancing, in touch, with tears, with bodily communication. I see that as like a transfusion we can give to women who are anaemic."
"In Georgia," contributed another participant, "we have worked on women's leadership in non-violence for the last seven years. Women often are too busy, so they decide that men should be in leadership positions. In our training we teach women the skills about their rights, about laws in Georgia, and how they can use them. We always say that no body else can solve their problems. We had a big demonstration when, under the church influence, abortion was made illegal. Because of this the government gave the law back to NGOS, who drafted a new proposal.
In 1992 when war began in our country, men trained to go to war, while women tried to gather together to solve the problem. After an IFOR WPP in 2000, we translated training materials and set up a network of women's NGOs for peace building. We introduce nonviolence into our programs with internally displaced people, but this is hard to do."
An Indian trainer asked, "Gender is about both men and women. I get afraid we concentrate on women's issues, so men will retaliate and feel frustrated. We need to address both genders simultaneously. We need men's empowerment because emotionally they are oppressed. So how to develop exercises for men also? We need practical exercises for men too."
An indigenous woman from Aotearoa responded, "In New Zealand we deal with this partnership by asking the men what they want. It is not women's responsibility to empower the men. Men have been empowering themselves for centuries. We have to include men when we organize women in villages. We do women's empowerment training, but we never say we are including non-violence, yet these values come up. These days we do need to stress non-violence because our society is becoming more intolerant. I never thought we were following men's models. This morning's stories were so inspiring. I will collect them and write an article for village women."
"I look at different models of feminism, and form questions in my head," said a Nigerian participant. "The models are mostly Western. Where are the Asian and African models? How does their work on empowering women relate to non-violence? Personally I would like to do this work in Sri Lanka, where a lot of the refugee camps are lead by women. But if there is a workshop or foreign visitors, the meeting is led by a man -- especially the religious leadership, which is usually men.
In my gender trainings we look at the impact on both men and women. For the most part we have to empower women first, but we need to look at the family as a whole and within that family, who needs what. I'm already labelled a woman's woman. I have to get beyond that in order to convince people to change.
Picking up on the question of where women's movements are, and what role models women have, one participant said, "In the Balkans we realized when we started to dig and publish our history that the feminist movement existed before us. But we had to research and write our own history. We need to share the stories that women identify with. You are right that gender is not only about women. In Serbia I cannot work on gender if I don't include men. How to raise this issue? We [women] are raising the issue because we are the ones who are not equal in this society, but we must include both men and women."
A workshop on From Violence to Wholeness, facilitated by Cindy Preston-Pile (USA) and Martine Sauvageau (Canada), was four hours long. This workshop utilized the specific ten-part training in the spirituality and practice of nonviolence developed by the Christian-based group Pace e Bene. The manual has been translated into French, Spanish and Portuguese, and is being adapted for use in different faith communities.
The workshop began with an opening ritual, and included an introduction to the process, agreements, a name game, an exploration of responses to violence, images of nonviolence, embodied power, and circle-of-truths. The workshop concluded with an evaluation and closing ritual.
For copies of the From Violence to Wholeness (FVTW) manual contact FVTW, Pace e Bene, 1420 W. Barlett Ave., Las Vegas, Nevada 89106, USA. Tel/fax +1 702 648 2281. Email: fvtw@paceebene.org. Web: www.paceebene.org For information about the manual or training in French, contact: Martine Sauvageau, 259, 388ème Avenue, St-Hippolyte, Québec, Canada J8A 3A2. Tel. +1 450 563 2922; email; martinesauvageau@ videotron.ca
Natasha Dokovska (Macedonia) conducted a Training Workshop on Peace Journalism, which included examples of the roles media play in both peacebuilding and in inflaming violence. The role of new technologies such as the internet was also discussed.
Lee Mckenna duCharme (Canada) facilitated a
Training for Economic Literacy with Popular Education Methods. Participants were divided into two groups and asked, as a group, to design together the ideal village. Two very different and beautiful drawings were made by the groups, who then explained why the villages were made the way they were. Then Lee, complete with hat and tie, and a volunteer visited each village as representatives of a multinational corporation. The two, speaking quickly and persuasively, tried to persuade the villagers that their lives would be better if they sold the communities' natural resources to the corporation. Specific villagers were offered large sums of money to sell the resources to the corporation.
The second half of the "Village Game" consisted of a debriefing: discussion about what had happened, and about the successful or unsuccessful ways the villagers developed to retain their ideal home. Some villagers stood on their drawing when the businessmen tried to grab it. Others linked arms and physically separated the businessmen from the drawing. One village leader, drawing on local custom, walked the businessmen away from the other villagers, insisting that the businessmen must drink coffee with the village elder before any negotiations began.
The exercise was very participatory and there were several questions about the methodology. For example, the 'villagers' belonged to many different nationalities -- how would it have played out if it had been participants from only one country? Or if it had been a male-only or a mixed (female and male) group? Lee said she has used this tool in mixed groups, and that while women were normally the first to feel anxious about the appearance of the businessmen, the women in mixed groups usually wait for a male leader to take action. Men were often the first to create physical protection for the village, and were often very confrontational. Often during the game a villager will agree to betray the village. It is almost always a man who agrees to betray the village, perhaps because "men usually receive the economic benefits first."
Lee said she would point out the differences in behaviour between women and men as the differences appeared during the game, in order to raise questions about gender. She might also ask some participants simply to be observers during the game, and ask them to tell the entire group what they saw. "Observing is a great way to elicit discussion without judgement," she said. The game is most often played with between 20 to 25 people.
Popular education methodology involves supporting people to name their Experience, then to Reflect upon the experiences, Generalize the experiences and reflections, and then to Apply the learnings to reality.
Sarom Sek of the Dhammayeitra Center, a peace center, in Battambong, Cambodia, led this workshop. She began by reviewing some of Cambodia's recent history because "my work is connected with what happened 50 years before."
"In 1953 Cambodia became independent from France, and was governed by its own king. In the 1960s there was increasing unrest because of unequal distribution of wealth. "In 1968 a civil war started in my home town of Battambong," Sarom explained. "In 1970 a coup threw the king out and a US-backed government established the Republic of Cambodia. In 1975 the Khmer Rouge overthrew this government and renamed the country Kampuchea. Nearly half the people were killed or died during the Khmer Rouge regime. In 1979 the Vietnamese invaded and threw the Khmer Rouge out. Many Cambodians lived in refugee camps along the Thai border. I was born in a refugee camp.
"The peace accord was signed in Paris in 1993. All the refugees could come back and begin reintegration. Some Cambodians from the USA and Australia came back to rebuild the country, but went back because they could not deal with the corruption. The Kingdom of Cambodia was re-established. [In all this history] each regime used violence. Who is the victim? The Cambodian people. They killed each other and caused a lot of suffering. Now it is peace time. Yet when we started school in 1996, when the students were asked 'do you believe peace will happen?', none of them agreed. We are still fighting each other. When I begin a training I always write first Peace is Possible.
"Cambodia has huge problems after 30 years of war. Corruption is everywhere. We are not a rule of law country. Why does rape happen so much? When a man rapes a girl nothing happens -- no one trusts the courts. We call the Justice Ministry the Injustice Ministry. The rapist just pays the family off and the family accepts this because they are so poor. We don't know what is right or wrong. It's a confused country. Cheating is every where, in schools, in government. People don't see it as an injustice -- and it is very dangerous if you can't see injustice.
"In Battambong we have the Dhammayietra Center. Dhammayietra is a Pali word for peace walk. The work has three parts: reading (there is a library on peace and nonviolence, but there are no books in Khmer, only in English), AIDS work, and the annual Dhammayietra walk. We are volunteers. The Buddhist temple kindly gives us a building, but the temple has a bad reputation. I am the only woman there. The rest are monks, 90 percent of whom are 25 years old or younger. (All the older monks were killed by the Khmer Rouge.) Some of them take drugs. Half of the people we work with are monks. We try to get monks to do good works, because traditionally monks are very respected in Cambodian society. Our goal is just to be a place different from other places, a place for people to come and meditate together, where they can share stories of what they face in their communities.
"People come for our free course. Sometimes we get hundreds applying for class of 25. The course is a six-month seminar. We study one hour a day and have a weekly and a monthly exam. We study the history of the African-American civil rights movement, and the leadership of Martin Luther King. Why did some of King's strategies fail and others succeed? Nonviolence comes in a lot.
"There is hard pressure on the students to work hard -- if they don't work, they don't come. They study in groups of four or five. Before they begin they must sign an agreement that they will finish the course. They don't like the hard work, but when they finish they see how valuable it is. We tell them this is real life, that we must struggle together. We don't expect them to change after only six months, but we realize that peace is a process.
"In Cambodia women are not allowed to study outside the home, especially in the countryside. They live under family control. Even mothers won't let daughters study outside the home. Girls are forced to marry at 14. There are no jobs so a girl is dependent on her husband. There is no money for either boys or girls to live away from their family. If a girl does work outside the home, parents worry that she will be abducted for prostitution, or she might have an affair. But if she gets married the husband will give them [the parents] some money. We have few women who can come to study with us. We try so hard to get women to join, but haven't found a right way to do this yet. We did have a short seminar on women of hope, like Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma. We studied for one month the lives and work of five women.
"But when young women do join us, they have a chance to talk about their problems. This talking goes against custom in Cambodia. When you have a group of young women talking together, their parents criticize them."
Veasna from Women Peacemakers in Phnom Penh added more on gender in Cambodia. "Women in the city can have freedom to do what they want to do. But girls don't have that freedom. There's two kinds of girls in the city -- those with educated parents who give some freedom to daughters; and others who don't allow their daughter to study, who keep their children at home, and try to find a rich husband to feed their daughter. But daughters married to rich men aren't happy either. In Cambodia nearly all husbands go to prostitutes. This hurts the wives but if they talk about it, the husbands beat them. So women go crazy. Nearly all Cambodian women have mental problems. They don't want to divorce because their life depends on their husband. Widows and divorcees are unacceptable, so the woman will keep living with her husband," she said.
Sarom spoke more about her work. "In our course we focus on spirituality. Our physical body needs food every day but we also need food for our spirit. We study a lot about how to live mindfully, like the Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hahn teaches. This is very important for peacemakers because we need inner strength. Peace is a very dangerous business. When you call yourself a peacemaker it goes against the government; when we talk about gender it goes against custom. We stay in the middle so we get accused from all sides. We need inner strength to continue.
"It is hard to know the results of our work. Many students are told that if you go to Dhammayietra Center you will suffer. When they go on to university, they don't cheat [or pay bribes in order to pass tests] and they protest against cheating. Many people hate them then. They come back to us and talk about their hurt feelings. We have a plan to meet when I go to Phnom Penh, to share what they do.
We try to work with Youth for Peace in Phnom Penh, try to help the faculty work for a better salary [teachers, as other professionals, make about USD 20 a month in Cambodia]. We want to work with people with education because they are the future. We try to influence them for a better future. Now in Cambodia there are hundreds of private universities. This is a real problem because they just want money. Students or faculties don't strike [to change things] because no one will come.
A participant working in Kosov@ commented, "I see lot of parallels in Kosov@. I think people are not prepared for how hard peace is. We can say there's peace in Kosov@ or Cambodia, but we don't know what it's like. Professors at Prishtina University get paid 140 euros. Many were in the non-violent resistance before the war, but are now struggling to make a living. They don't care about their students. This kills the spirit and is very difficult for young people. I'm trying to do things in a different way. Students bargain for grades like they are at a market. I say you can have a principled negotiation with me, you can argue with me, but this is not a market. Some get angry, others say 'you're right'.
Another parallel between Cambodia and Kosov@ was the presence of UN Peacekeepers. UN peacekeepers sent to Cambodia to ensure free and fair elections also committed human rights abuses, and introduced AIDS into Cambodia. Said one participant, "Under the umbrella of peace building, we as an international community are introducing structural violence. In Kosov@ old men are in power, and young women and men head NGOs. NGO workers become rich comparatively in terms of salary. They receive 600 to 800 euros per month for working with a Western NGO. Kosovar doctors are driving jeeps for UN personnel, because it pays better. This is not being properly analyzed, and we keep doing it."
There is some support from Cambodians in the diaspora, but Sarom personally gets inner strength from the Cambodian Buddhist monk Maha Ghosananda. It was his idea, almost 15 years ago, to organize the first peace march in Cambodia. "92 people along the Cambodian border came back to march. Maha Ghosananda led the walk, starting from a refugee camp. They walked in dangerous places where the United Nations would not allow them. People sat along the road with water and flowers for us. Some saw a relative they hadn't seen in 20 years. By the end of the peace walk 1,000 people had joined us."
Originally planned as a one off event, the peace walk has now happened at least 12 times. Before the UN monitored elections, when there were threats of violence from all sides if people voted, the Dhammayietra marched into Phnom Penh and is widely credited with reducing tensions and laying the foundation for a violence-free election. Five years later, when walking through Khmer Rouge territory, some marchers were killed in cross fire between government troops and Khmer Rouge troops. Nonviolence training is now provided before each walk. Information on deforestation, AIDS, living peacefully and the Five Precepts (Buddhist teachings on living an ethical life) are distributed to passersby throughout each march.
Peace is still a desperate need for Cambodia; a need that cannot be fulfilled until the past is dealt with. "In schools they don't teach about the Khmer Rouge period," said Sarom. "When I lived in the refugee camp they taught us to hate the Vietnamese inside." It is dangerous to talk about the genocide in Cambodia because former members of the Khmer Rouge are still in power. "What is justice for us? We were all victims. The Khmer Rouge were also victims. When we had the war with Vietnam the US dropped a lot of bombs secretly on Cambodia. There was corruption everywhere, with the rich getting richer. The Khmer Rouge told their fighters 'there is a new way. We will fight the rich because that is why you are poor.' So they ran into the forest and trained to kill. Many Khmer Rouge were good people, but they didn't know how to control their heart. I don't know what happened to their heart, but that's why they came back and killed. They killed teachers, monks, officials -- all were killed. This is why we don't have good human resources. If I look into the future, I am afraid it will happen again. Many young people don't have work to do, they go to drugs, or they feel hopeless. Any political group can use them for their political aims. People are very tired of corruption. I am very worried."
"In 1998 during reintegration, many Khmer Rouge hid their identity. Some have become very rich selling trees to the Thais and Vietnamese. Some of their children are gangsters, especially the young boys. Some old people just don't want to talk about this. I want to forgive but I don't want Cambodia to forget that time.
"How to bring the Khmer Rouge to trial? When I read of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in South Africa, which let people tell the truth to the victims about what happened, I feel a little hurt for my generation. My parents don't talk in public. I would like to create a forum to allow people to talk. They were all victims -- you had to kill, they trained the children to kill their parents. Just tell us why you did this. I don't want them [the Khmer Rouge] to die in jail. They c