Living Beyond War Examples (PSU)

[Debbie Kaufman]

Portland State University students will be using this space to post examples of people or organizations who are living beyond war. We hope that you will add your comments.

[Teresa Lopez]

What a wonderful philosophy, thanks for sharing. If we follow the concept and believe in the concept that "we are one" as a people, there wouldn't be violence. Many violent conflicts throughout have been attributed to differences in religion for example but what religion teaches violence or harm to others? If we talk about religion, we can not only follow the concept of "we are one" but we can also appreciate the analogy that was given to us by Mahtma Gandhi:"We will all reach the same summit. Does it matter what side of the mountain we choose to climb?"

[Leigh Brown]

Leymah Gbowee (pronounced LAY-mah BEAU-wee) has been an inspiration for many through her humanitarian work in helping liberate Liberia from a second civil war (1999-2003). In the early parts of the war she was a trauma counselor and worked with the ex-child soldiers of Charles Taylor’s army (former president of Liberia). She came to find that these children were victims too. Wanting to make a difference and stop the spread of hatred and violence in her community she came to be a part of the organization Women in Peace building Networks (WIPNET) and quickly rose to leadership. She then started the Liberian Mass Action for Peace which incorporated the Christian and Muslim women in Monrovia to protest the war. They were called “the Market women” for they paraded down the market in their white T-shirts. There leverage, sex. The market women would not have sex until the war was over. This beautifully orchestrated non-violent protest gave an end to the many years of bloodshed and unwanted violence.
Since then Leymah Gbowee has been honored by multiple organizations for her peace building efforts. She has been honored with a Blue Ribbon for Peace by the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. In 2009 alone she was presented with Gruber’s Women’s Rights Prize and the John F. Kennedy Profile for Courage Award. She is currently heading another organization, Building Women, Peace and security Network Africa, an organization that is helping women across the West African sub-region live together without conflict. There is currently a documentary about this amazing and courageous woman who brought Liberia together and out of a civil war. The documentary is called “Prey the Devil Back to Hell”
Link to the documentary website & trailer for the film- >http://www.praythedevilbacktohell.com/v3/

[Winslow Myers]

Wonderful example! The withholding of sex recalls the 2000 year old comedy "Lysistrata" by Aristophanes, where the plot revolves around the women of Athens and Sparta refusing to go to bed with their husbands until they ended their war with each other. Judd Apatow could do it justice in a remake.

[Anne Millhollen]

We are thinking of evaluating "Pray the Devil Back to Hell" for our core list of films in the category of the Means are the ends in the making. Alternatively, we could use the Bill Moyers Journal program that featured this. Has anyone else seen one or both of these?

[Victoria Penna]

The international organization Avaaz.org is a great stepping stone into putting your beliefs into action. Sometimes it is hard to know where to start when you are wanting to get involved with making change in your local or global community and websites like Avaaz.org can help make that leap easier. When you sign up on their website they will send you an email about once every week or so. Most of these emails have a prewritten email to your Congressman or representative calling out for them to sign (or not sign) a bill in order to for example help with humanitarian aid, international relations, nuclear disarmament or environmental causes. All you have to do is sign your name at the bottom and send the email. There are always other steps they encourage you to do if you feel inclined to do so. I highly recommend Avaaz.org for people who want to start getting involved in global issues or to those of us who feel we are too busy for activism.

[Elaine Hallmark]

Do you think Beyond War should start some kind of automatic action reminder similar to Avaaz.org? If so, what do you think would be a helpful way to move people Beyond War through their actions?

[Teresa Lopez]

The example I would like to share of living beyond war makes reference to a person. Her name is Ingrid Betancourt. She was born in Bogota Colombia in 1961 and holds dual citizenship as a French and Colombian. She served in the Chamber of Representatives in Colombia from 1994 to 1998. From 1998 to 2002 she served as Senator. During one of her campains in 2002, she was kidnapped by the Armed Forces of Colombia- a guerilla terrorist organization. She has served as an anti-corruption activist and ran as part of the Oxygen Green party. Betancourt tried to talk with FARC as an attempt to convince them to stop the terror and to stop the kidnappings. As a result she was held captive for 2321 days. In 2008 she was rescued under Operation Jaque. Fourteen other hostages were rescued that year. Ingrid Betancourt currently resides in France with her family and she is a Nobel Peace Prize nominee.

Below are some links you may find helpful to learn about her and her movements:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7266587.stm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUXodqupIX8&feature=PlayList&...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNDXnAvH2dc&feature=PlayList&...