When 3 car bombs shook Baghdad famed Iraqi maestro Karim Wasfi set up his cello at the site the next day and played to show resilience against terrorism.
“The focal point is to beat terror and intimidation through beauty and refinement in civilization,” Wasfi told our partners at PeacePrints.
“Those who can hate do not recognize beauty, they can’t hear beauty, they can’t see it, they can’t feel it,” he said.
“Maybe because they were never even exposed to it, so there is a responsibility on our shoulders also to share with everyone the solid, concrete, basic foundation of good-doing and beauty because it’s something that you can build upon.
Wasfi’s bomb site performance earned him international fame and he created the Centre for Creativity-Peace through Arts, bringing youth from different ethnic backgrounds together to play on the streets of Baghdad.
“So instead of just the National Symphony Orchestra performing every month or two months, we’ll have like 5 or 7 groups performing around the city all the time,” Wasfi said.
“I wanted to flood the scene with culture and beauty, against intimidation and against fear.”
His approach seems to be working.
“One positive experience was when I realized there were around 14 militiamen decided to give up their commitment to their weapons and to resolving disagreements through fierce fighting to becoming musicians,” he said, “and not feeling weak about it.”
Footage courtesy of PeacePrints, a Peace News Network partner and independently funded blog for peace projects around the world. Learn more about PeacePrints here.
An increasing amount of attention to peace indexes has provided insights into the levels of peace and conflict around the world. The indicators used in Vision of Humanity’s renowned Global Peace Index have now been adopted in a Nigeria Peace Index, created by the Foundation for Peace Professionals (FFP), with slight adjustments made to suit local use. FFP Executive Director Abdulrazaq O Hamzat is a Human Rights ambassador, and shares his views on what the NPI can provide peacebuilders in the country.
Measuring peace at the national level allows a country to assess the social, political and economic factors that create peace. More importantly, the NPI will allow peace builders in Nigeria to change the narrative, by concentrating the advocacy on foundational indices of peace, not conflict management. By focusing the discussion on fundamental indices of peace, we are channeling efforts towards advocating for improvement in those factors that make the society empowered and less prone to conflict.
To design the NPI five broad indicators were adopted; crime rate, level of human rights abuse, level of poverty, level of education, and rate of incarceration. Under these five broad categories, there are sub-indicators, which include rates of communal clashes, kidnapping, extra-judicial killings, unlawful arrest and detention, armed robbery and many others. We collected data from across the 36 states of the federation between 2010 and 2016.
It is important to note that a perception of peace is not the same as presence of peace. Perceptions can be shaped by external factors, such as media reports. The more coverage of negative stories a state receives, the greater the perception of lack of peace and vice versa. It is on the basis of news coverage that newspapers give opinions on their op-ed pages. Talk shows on television have turned the sharing of opinions into a national pastime. Editors and talk show hosts strive to give us a range of opinions that stretch from one end of the spectrum to another. At another level, people are enlisted to share their thoughts and feelings publicly on any number of social, moral, and political matters. As a result, some people spend valuable time sharing only feelings or uninformed opinions.
However, that is not the case with the NPI, which was designed based on facts and verifiable data. It is not about opinion or perception of peace. It is primarily focused on rating the peacefulness of states based on foundational indices of peace, which are verifiable and not tied to singular events. Upon my submission, we all agreed that such a fact-based index needed to be given more attention to improve the general state of peacefulness in the long-run. More importantly because, the NPI will help leaders at various arms of government come to term with fundamental issues needing proper attention to guarantee long term peace.
In conclusion, let me ask a question we can all ponder: How can media contribute to peace building and preventing conflict in Nigeria? To me, it is by giving voices to those who are advocating tolerance, peace building and understanding and promoting such other efforts geared towards strengthening the foundational indices of peace. Nigeria Peace Index (NPI) is one of such effort, and we all need to embrace it.
Civil war, genocide, and extremist groups leave women’s lives, health and security at risk, but this series from Women for Women International introduces us to eight women who have taken their destiny into their own hands and are empowering other women to do the same.
1. The Woman Who Overcame Emotional Trauma and Found a Community
Zarghuna suffered from depression after being severely abused by her husband’s family. When she visited a doctor, he suggested that she find a community that could help her heal. This is when she decided to take her future into her own hands. She joined a program offered by Women for Women International where she learned embroidery and business skills and met women with shared her life experiences. At the program, she also learned about her rights and health and gained the confidence to start a business. Today, Zarghuna employs more than a dozen people and she is much happier knowing that she has other women who support her.
2. The Woman Who Has Dedicated her Life to Help Others
Roxanne is the president of her local association of women called “Probudi se,” which means wake up in Bosnian. Her association produces handicrafts and teaches local women business skills. After the war in Bosnia ended, many women were left with scars of war and lack of employment opportunities. Through her association, Roxanne gave them the tools they need to become economically empowered. She believes that this is a worthy cause because it can help women escape intimate-partner abuse by making sure they have financial resources and community support.
3. The Woman Who Gives Hope to Survivors of Rape Honorata is one of the many courageous women served by Women for Women International in the Democratic Republic of Congo. She was kidnapped by armed rebels and forced into a year of sexual slavery. She escaped, but rebels raped her again. This time, in her own home and in front of her children. But Honorata never gave up. Today, she is a trainer in our program and uses her story of recovery to inspire and give hope to other women in her community.
4. The Woman Who Will Never Give Up on Her Daughters
Among those who managed to escape the chaos of the August 3, 2014 ISIS attack on the Sinjar region in Northern Iraq were Seve, her husband, and her six children. After a grueling and sleepless journey from Sinjar, they finally reached Khanke, a small town in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI).
Now out of immediate danger, Seve remains traumatized by the sexual violence she witnessed, and her children face a new battle: poverty and hunger. They were middle class in their home village and have never experienced such deprivation before. Despite the violence of her past, Seve has not given up. She has now made it her goal to make sure her daughters go to college and build successful careers. With help from a local partner of Women for Women International, Seve is learning new skills so she can start a small business and support her family.
5. The Woman Who Provides Jobs for Other Women in Need
Remzije was widowed very young and left to take care of five children on her own through the Kosovo War in the late 90s. She never had the opportunity to go beyond elementary level in her formal schooling. But, undeterred, she took initiative to learn important skills, and now leads an agricultural cooperative of 78 women. She says, “I feel empowered. I am aware of my value and that I can contribute, for myself and others.”
6. The Woman who is Advocating for Her Rights and The Rights of Other Women
Faith is a widow with three daughters and lives in Nigeria. Because she has only daughters, her husband’s family would not allow her to inherit his possessions. They took her home and anything else of value. Because her husband hadn’t left her any land, Faith struggled in poverty as she raised three children, however after going through Women for Women International’s program she not only learned a skill to earn an income but also learned about women’s inheritance rights. She now educates her family and community about the importance of leaving inheritance for women and has convinced her father to leave his inheritance to her and her sisters as well as brothers. Faith uses the profits from her knitting business to pay school fees for her daughters, and to buy food for her family. She says, “My hope for the future is to provide a good education for my daughters. I will also teach them how to knit, so they have a skill.”
7. The Woman Who Doesn’t Let Gender Norms Define Her
Caritas lost half her family, including her husband and child, in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, in which 500,000 women were raped and 800,000 people were massacred. She was forced to flee to Uganda to survive. When she returned to Rwanda two years later, Caritas joined the Women for Women International year-long program, along with 24 other women. Twenty years later, they continue to support each other. Caritas now leads a cooperative of 125 women in the male-dominated business of beekeeping. She says, “It’s not only the money, but the way we gather together that has changed my life.”
8. The Woman Whose Future is Bright
Konga is 49 years old and she has five children. She was in the bakery training program in partnership with Women for Women International in South Sudan, a country that has been plagued with conflict and civil war since 2013. Konga says that this training is changing her life because she has not only gained a new skill but has also gained respect form her husband for taking initiative and contributing funds to the family. Her courage has served her well and she is now able to send her children to school.
Join Women for Women International and Peace News Network in celebrating courageous women around the world. Share this blog on social media using #MatchHerCourage.
Photo Credit:
Zarghuna by Women for Women International
Roxanne by Nikola Blagojevic for Women for Women International
Honorata by Ryan Carter for Women for Women International
Seve and Remjize and Cartitas by Alison Baskerville for Women for Women International
Faith by Monilekan for Women for Women International
Konga by Charles Atiki Lomodong for Women for Women International
Alva Myrdal grew up in rural Sweden with her four siblings, and fought with her mother to attend university (even offering to pay with her own money). Myrdal went on to become one of the most influential social reformers of the 20th century.
Alva Myrdal was ahead of her time. She introduced new ideas on women’s roles, social welfare, and refugee rights. She lived through two World Wars and became a diplomat, working at the United Nations, but was best known for her work on disarmament. She led negotiations in Geneva in 1962 in attempts to convince superpowers to disarm and co-founded a Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, SIPRI.
For her efforts, she was awarded the 1982 Nobel Peace Prize her calls for nuclear disarmament still resonate today and she remains one of the most remarkable women.
“I have never, never, allowed myself to give up,” – Alva Myrdal
Viola is from Yambio County, South Sudan. Four months ago, she started volunteering with the Self-Help Women Development Association (SHWDA), which works in five counties affected by the Lords Resistance Army. The organisations involved in this association support women returnees and women affected by conflict through trauma healing and practical help to enable them to re-start their lives.
I think most people are ignorant about the situation in South Sudan. No one really understands the reasons why there is conflict in our country. If you ask somebody ‘why are you fighting’ I’m not sure they would be able to tell you.
I was born in war, and I have never experienced peace. Sometimes I can just sit and cry, because I can’t see how the situation can end. But we have to work towards peace, I will not just sit back.
I used to work in community radio in Yambio. I was a presenter and manager at the radio station, but I would also write and edit the shows. I had my own program discussing human rights, and I have a degree in journalism.
In my future career, I can work in the radio or television, but whatever I am doing, I want to use my skills for peacebuilding.
Women can play a great role in peacebuidling in their communities, and we need to encourage and train more women to talk to people about peace and reconciliation. Peace is possible in South Sudan, and for myself I hope I can do something constructive to help the people of my county.
