Avoiding War: Peace Leaders Speak

[Editor's note: This is the second in a series of articles interviewing peace group leaders about the recent terrorist attacks and their suggested alternatives to war. Part one of the series was published on September 17.]

Ambassador Swanee Hunt, Director of the Women and Policy Program at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. She is the founder of Women Waging Peace, which brings women peacemakers from conflict areas around the globe to Harvard for two weeks each November to attend workshops and network, and to share their experiences in dealing with conflict.

We are hosting conversations around the current situation with Harvard faculty and women here from Sudan, Bosnia, and Afghanistan. The women talk about what it is like to live in a society warped with terror and the lessons they have learned.

Regarding alternatives to war, I am not a pacifist. Certainly there are people in our group who have the strong conviction that violence begets even greater violence. Others say that military intervention can be the less violent of the alternatives. There are women from Kosovo who were pleading for military intervention long before it occurred. But it is very important to distinguish between military intervention to stop genocide and military intervention as a form of retribution or retaliation.

What else is possible in the current situation? In talking to a former member of the Clinton cabinet, I said that we must come to grips with the fact that we cannot ultimately defend against terrorism. We can make airports safer, but then terrorism shifts to the less protected areas. If we again try to protect these, we can become a locked society.

Ultimately we are left with what happens at a person-to-person level. Let me suggest this. What if we decided to put $40 billion into the 10 countries in the world most thought to harbor terrorists? What if we put that money into economic empowerment, micro enterprise, elevating the voice of women in the society, and massive citizen-exchange programs? Can you imagine what $40 billion could do? That approach has a much higher possibility of providing safety for us all.

Think of community policing, where policemen and women get out of their cars and walk their beats. They get to know their neighbors, and the neighbors are more likely to say, I saw this suspicious character. Then if the policeman says I want to keep an eye on him, the neighbor is likely to invite him to watch from his son's bedroom.

We forget all of this in our foreign policy. In Bosnia, U.S. troops were told to stay on the base for security reasons and were not allowed to go out and help someone putting a roof on a house. The Brits were out there doing all kinds of things to help the community, and their morale was great. These are all basic ways of interacting with other people at a human level that I think women are particularly adept at.

Regarding the Women Waging Peace Conference this November, this attack will certainly change the dynamic and tone of our colloquium. Instead of the West offering advice, help, and counsel, we will be joining our sisters from around the world with much more understanding.

Janice Auth, Executive Director, Pennsylvania Peace Links:

We issued a statement last week condemning and mourning the terrorist acts while also calling for a peaceful resolution of the conflict. We believe that violence begets more violence and that we must work for justice through international collaboration and systems such as the International Criminal Court.

Next, we wanted to take this to another level. We decided to send a letter to the President and the media, urging the President and his advisors to bring the great peacemakers of the world into his discussions of how to resolve this problem. President Bush is now meeting only with his military leaders. Yet this problem, which is a problem for the world, demands the wisdom of the minds of peacemakers. We're including a list of 16 peacemakers, including Nobel Peace Prize recipients, in the letter.