Women wage peace together

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 16/02/2019 (2750 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Back in 2003, a group of Muslim and Christian women in Liberia created a women’s peace movement and joined together in non-violent protest to help end their country’s nearly 15-year civil war.

Inspired by that success, thousands of Israeli and Palestinian women have recently joined a social movement called Women Wage Peace in the hope of influencing public opinion and helping to end the intractable conflict that has divided their shared home for decades.

Women Wage Peace has united women from across Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, and from across the religious and political spectrums. Its activists are Jewish, Muslim and Christian, orthodox and secular, and right-wingers and left-wingers. They are women like Vivian Silver, a former Winnipegger who has been a peace activist in Israel for decades, and they are women like 38-year-old Jewish Israeli Yael Decklebaum and 24-year-old Christian Palestinian Mira Eilabouni.

An established singer-songwriter, Decklebaum joined Women Wage Peace just over two years ago during its inaugural March of Hope. Inspired by the march, Decklebaum wrote Prayer of the Mothers, a beguiling song of yearning and optimism that has become the movement’s anthem. During that same march, singer-songwriter Eilabouni taught thousands of women her Arabic-language song Love is the Religion.

“The song was written to bring together all people from all backgrounds and different beliefs to build peace together and to remember that we all deep down believe in love and need love,” Eilabouni says.

“The chorus of the song says, ‘Don’t tell me war over earth. What is earth worth without the people? Don’t tell me conflict over God. Love is the religion!’”

Eilabouni and Decklebaum met during the march and have since joined their voices in the pursuit of equality, coexistence and women’s unity. They now regularly travel around the world to march hand in hand with other women’s groups and to perform in concert for diverse audiences. They harmonize in Hebrew, Arabic and English, and consistently and candidly promote the idea that peace in the Middle East is possible.

“On this journey we are faced with a lot of questions filled with judgment over both sides of this conflict,” Eilabouni says, “but we are here to show that there is no ‘both sides.’ We are one and can live together in peace.”

“Fifty per cent of waging peace is about having faith that things can change, and being able to visualize a better future,” Decklebaum adds. “Bringing peace to a long-lasting conflict cannot just lean on the facts of our dead-end reality. If you want to change reality, a part of you must believe that there is another alternative and seek it.”

Music and marching, she adds, can play a critical role in shaping that belief.

“Through music and marching,” Decklebaum says, “we can connect to a higher frequency, enabling us to visualize that alternative of a peaceful world and to feel the positive life force that beats within us.”

Women Wage Peace, however, does not rely solely on music and marching. In the movement’s four years of existence, its 40,000 members have hosted countless conferences and parlour meetings, met with influential politicians, proposed government bills and undertaken numerous other initiatives aimed at promoting a non-violent, mutually acceptable political agreement to resolve the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Like the women of Liberia 16 years ago, they are on a mission, and they have no intention of resting until their missions is accomplished.

swchisvin@gmail.com

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