One Thousand Women for Peace

By Kamla Bhasin, India Together. Posted July 20, 2005.

For those of us involved in the 1000 Women for the Nobel Peace Prize initiative, the process itself has been a journey of and for peace. Connecting locally and globally with like-minded people has strengthened our resolve and energized us.

For us, this initiative has also been about fighting cynicism and defeatism. It is about fighting the debilitating TINA (There Is No Alternative) syndrome. It is about saying — in Pablo Neruda's words — "They can destroy all the flowers there are, but they cannot stop the spring from coming."

This innovative and very political project began in 2003 with the objective of making visible and acknowledging the peace works of women in different spheres and at different levels. Five Swiss feminists and peace activists — project initiator Ruth-Gaby Vermot-Mangold (member of the Swiss National Council in Bern and of the European Council in Strasbourg), Monika Stocker (City Councillor in Zurich), Rosmarie Zapsl (Member, Swiss Parliament), Eva Mezger (Moderator and Journalist), and Christine Menz (Communications Specialist) — came up with the idea. They then identified 20 women in different parts of the world to join the team as regional coordinators.

It was as if the time was ripe for this initiative. Everyone could see that without a strong and global peace movement, human survival itself was at stake. A legal entity called the “1000 Women for the Nobel Peace Prize 2005” was registered in Switzerland. Swiss Peace, an experienced and reputed organisation in Bern, provided the project a home. Impressed by the objectives and commitment of the people involved, the Swiss government, individuals and foundations provided the financial resources.

When invited to be the coordinator for South Asia, I embraced the initiative without a moment's hesitation. I thought advocating for giving the prize collectively to 1,000 women would state loudly and clearly that peace cannot be achieved by one individual. Peace is, and has to be, a collective dream, process and task. In fact, the number 1000 is only symbolic. It is symbolic of the millions who want and are working for peace and justice; the millions who are saying “another world is possible.”

I joined because I felt that, through this initiative, we could show the different faces of war and peace. For example, totally avoidable poverty and disease are the most debilitating and dehumanizing wars; patriarchal violence is a war against half of humanity. Then there are caste and racial wars; wars against the “other,” like in Gujarat or Sudan or Bosnia.

For us in this project, peace is not just the absence of war. Peace is comprehensive human security. Peace, for us, is not possible without justice. The joint nomination of the 1,000 women from 153 countries was officially handed over to the Nobel Peace Prize Committee in Oslo in January 2005.

On June 29, about 50 press conferences were held in different parts of the world to publicize the names of the 1,000 women. In South Asia alone, we organized 12 press conferences in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka to release the names of the 157 South Asian women who are amongst the 1,000.

South Asia has the largest number of peace women from any region, and India's 91 peace women are the maximum from any one country. There are 29 peace women from Pakistan, 16 from Bangladesh, 12 from Sri Lanka and nine from Nepal. These figures speak for the amazing work being done for peace, justice, rights and sustainable livelihoods by women in South Asia and the resilience of the people's movements, of which women are an integral and big part.

The nominated women have committed themselves to the cause of peace and justice, often under the most difficult circumstances. About 20 percent of the nominated women are from the grassroots level. They are fighting against totally unnecessary and avoidable poverty, hunger and disease; struggling to get access to clean water, control over land and other resources; struggling against big dams, and big multinational corporations destroying local diversities, both biological and cultural. These women are trying to build bridges between conflicting communities. They are working to protect the human rights of women, minorities, Dalits, HIV+ people and sex workers. In our list are several illiterate but “life-educated” wise women. There are also highly literate lawyers, doctors, social scientists, physicists. And there are writers, poets and theater women.

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