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PART IV: WOMEN
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Ada Aharoni:
Ada Aharoni was born in Cairo, Egypt. In 1996, 45 years after she left Egypt, she received these two beautiful letters from one of her former teachers, Sister Mary Odile.
Letter to Kadreya - Ada Aharoni's letter to an Arab school friend in Egypt (1977)
Ada Aharoni:
Sa'ida Nusseibeh:
Zehava Rosen:
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Painting by Frederico Ningi, Angola
Ruth Ojiambo Ochieng:
A Quarter of a Century of Peace Activity:
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Poems:
Three Women Poems (Soad Sabah) |
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My interest in peace, and in women power for peace, began when I was about 12 years old, when my grandmother invited me to serve cakes at one of her "Women for Peace and Equality" meetings. As strange as it may seem, this was in Cairo, Egypt, where I was born, just after the Second World War. I was amazed to see at this meeting so many women of all ages: Moslem, Jewish and Christian women and young girls, crowded in my grandmother's sitting room, many of them sitting on the carpet, because there were no more free chairs. They had bright eyes and were enthusiastic and hopeful. Young as I was, I was caught by their spirit, and their claims for equal rights and for peace. Their message: "Women of the World Unite and Bring Peace and Equality to the World", deeply spoke to me, and it penetrated to the roots of my being. I felt I was a part of them, and their earnest cause went straight to my heart and mind. These women are with me to this day, and have influenced much of my ensuing life and peace activities.
Shortly after that, together with my Arab school friend, Kadreya, we started a school magazine, called The Rainbow, at the "Alvernia English School for Girls", in Zamalek, Cairo, where devoted Irish Franciscan nuns instilled in me a deep love of English Literature. Shakespeare, Henry Fielding, Bernard Shaw, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, and so many other writers I loved and read avidly, became my teachers of democratic and peace values. I realize today, that The Rainbow, the magazine we founded with so much love and devotion was our way of thanking those wonderful writers for all they had given us, and our attempt at contributing back ourselves some of the values they had inculcated in us.
The motto of our "Rainbow" magazine was: "To Abolish Wars Forever". The British Peace Poet, Wilfred Owen, whom we studied at school, influenced it and his peace message as expressed in his moving poems, such as "Arms and the Boy", went straight to my heart. Owen spoke to me directly; he strengthened the peace values I had gained at the women for peace meeting, and he opened my eyes still wider to the sheer absurdity of the very concept and the practice of war. I learned from history that all wars ended with a Peace Treaty, or a Peace Agreement, so why, I asked myself, and all my friends and family, do we not start with the Peace Treaty, before we kill our children in absurd wars?
It is in this early period of my life, that I became a peace builder. I carried my thoughts and perceptions of peace to the youth movement "Maccabi" which I joined, and I was quickly made chief of the children's section, which we called "Pioneers for Peace".
All my life, since those first formative years, "world peace", and peace education, have been major and integral parts of my being. My love of peace and hatred of war deepened still more, when together with my family and the 100,000 people of the Jewish community in Egypt, of which I was part, were exiled in 1949, after the State of Israel was established (1948). Out of the 100,000 Jews in Egypt then, there are only eighty Jews left in the whole of Egypt today. I went through the pain and deep suffering of losing much that was dear to me: my friends, home, books, school, almost everything, and we had to emigrate and leave all our belongings behind. We were among the lucky ones. Those who stayed on until 1956 suffered much more. My family remained in Paris, France, as we were of French nationality, but I decided that I would go to the Kibbutz in Israel, together with my group from the Maccabi, to help build Israel as a Land of Peace. I have written the story of the Second Exodus of the Jews from Egypt, in a historical novel entitled From The Nile To The Jordan (amazon.com), based on my peace conception.
Today, when I am a professor of "Conflict Resolution", and research "The Arab/Palestinian Conflict and Peace-making", I tell my Palestinian friends and colleagues, that I identify with them wanting a country of their own, and fully understand them, because I myself underwent the tragedy of an uprooting, and the pain of not having a country that I could really call my own, as Egypt did not give most of its Jews Egyptian citizenship. I also share my thoughts with my Palestinian colleagues in the IFLAC Tent of Peace, that war and violence never solve anything. They always bring pain and suffering on both sides, and they do not help to solve conflicts, but only worsen them.
After I came to Israel, four cruel wars made "war" my personal enemy, and peace became the main theme of my research, writing, teaching, and one of my main activities in life. During the Yom Kippur War, I sent a letter and peace poem to the late President Anwar Sadat of Egypt, and was surprised and delighted when he said, when he came to Jerusalem, in 1977, "let's make Ada Aharoni's poem of peace a reality". This strengthened my belief in the power of the word and in literature as a vehicle of peace.
When I think about the sources of my peace values, I realize today that literature was one of their main and deepest sources, as a child and as an adult. This is why I agree with Herbert Read, whose book Education for Peace, spells out the advantages of relating peace to the arts. His premises are that the arts are the best tools for developing personal values and moral virtue. The function of the arts in society and education is to expand human capacities and potentialities. He criticizes the over-emphasis on science and technology, and on mainly abstract thinking at the expense of emotive wisdom, or what is termed today EQ - Emotional Quotient, versus IQ, feelings, imagination and vision that can be acquired through the arts. He shows that they are even more important than abstract thought and ideas, for they involve not only the mind but also the heart. Aesthetic education properly conceived, is also moral education, for the ethical and aesthetical are intimately linked. Culture and Art, are the means by which the deepest levels of the mind combine with the deepest levels of the heart, and they are expressed through great works of art and literature. Consequently, the moral function of culture, literature and art and of aesthetic and literary education is to unite humanity in a common bond and common ideals. The theory and conception of the establishment of a peace science and culture through the arts, are especially valuable and pertinent today, and should be at the basis of the new revolutionary "global peace culture" required for sustainable global development.
Education of both the young and adults provides an important context and channel for the respect and love of humankind, and for the creation and establishment of a powerful and effective peace culture. For that to take place, modern reform of the education system is needed, as well as a transformation of the methods and aims of traditional education. This entails telecommunications as an enhancement for teaching the science of peace, peace literature and conflict resolution. Peace educators throughout the globe have established new dimensions of networks, websites, and e-mail group lists, to advance various aspects of peace research and education, including conflict resolution, non-violence, and concern for the environment. The growing boom and expanding dimensions of the Internet and telecommunications indeed offer revolutionary new opportunities and directions for the promotion of a peace culture, and a global peace science.
Recognizing the importance of this new trend, in 1997, UNESCO convened a conference on "The Impact of Information and Communication Technologies on Teaching and Teachers", to strengthen international co-operation in the pursuit of peace and international understanding.
The important and valuable links and partnerships that are created through such conferences and through telecommunications, make it possible to integrate multicultural values and views, based on global understanding and cooperation. Teachers and youths participating in such intercultural projects, acquire the potential to move beyond narrow ethnic and group identities, and to assume a wider knowledge and identification as global citizens, and as promoters of a culture of peace.
Today, as a lecturer and researcher, I wonder why peace literature is not more used in education at all levels. Probably, no area of the curriculum in education is more neglected than peace literature and the arts. They are seldom accorded a central role in the plans of those who develop educational policies and design school and college curricula, program and television. Why is it that literature and art are such an important part of our culture and of our lives, and yet are so neglected in education, and in the mass media? The use of literature as a tool for teaching peace education has received relatively little attention and it has not as yet been researched comprehensively. I hope there will soon be positive developments in this direction.
From my experience, I realize today that using literature in "Peace Education" and "Peace Studies" should become a crucial part of curricula in schools, colleges, and universities, as literature is an effective way of educating creative, imaginative, critical and self-reflective children and adults, with deep commitments to values and ethics. Literature and the arts are important sources for the promotion of ethical and liberal values, and they could become a means of fostering value consciousness, as well as sensitivity to lacks and deficiencies in our lives and in our world. They can indeed promote the building of a better world "beyond war". Schools and colleges are suitable forums where the building blocks of personal identity are built, upon the values, culture, ideals, ethics, and worldview, we acquire from books we read, films we see, TV programs we admire, and teachers we respect.
My contribution to Peace Education and Peace Culture, has mainly been in five major directions:
The publication of twenty five books, most of them on the subject of peace (available on amazon.com).
My homepage is dedicated to IFLAC: The International Forum for the Literature and Culture of Peace.
A Palestinian Woman's Appeal
To Bring Down Walls That Divide
I am a Palestinian, and I do not want to destroy Israel, neither do I want to see Palestinians suffering through closures. I don't believe that this statement of violence is the majority voice of Palestinians. But when people are cornered, as it seems to be the case right now, no wonder they are reaching in a very harsh way - and that is what the Palestinians are doing. When reading in an Internet dialogue group questions that are repeatedly asked, so the 'other' can be re-assured, I find it rather sad, that little trust is there.
It is very scary what is going on - Palestinians calling for the destruction of Israel, Israelis calling for the destruction of Palestinians.
Both sides are afraid that this is the Truth for they both come out with precise account from what the 'other' has said and done to prove that what they are claiming is the truth.
The argument is from both sides, the proof is given to you from both sides, if the Palestinians stop the violence then we will have peace/if the Israelis stop the killing/siege/ and go back to the 67 borders than we will have peace. What price is peace? How many more must be killed, before the two nations wake up to look at their blood-soaked hands?
There is so much anger, hatred and fear, and the wall between the two nations is getting higher - both sides are getting away from reality, and closing their ears, eyes and heart to the suffering of the 'other'. We should look into ways to bring down the wall of fear, brick by brick, for all the mosques, synagogues and churches in the world - are not worth the blood of one killed child.
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Sa’ida Nusseibeh is chief executive of the "Medical Aid for Palestinians," and director of LENA - The Bridge: Jewish and Arab Women for Peace in the Middle East, which is part of IFLAC.
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CONGRATULATIONS TO
SERI NUSSEIBEH AND HANA ASHRAWI FOR CONDEMNING SUICIDE BOMBING Seri Nusseibeh (brother of Sai'da Nusseibeh), and Hanan Ashrawi, have been congratulated by both Palestinians and Israelis, as well as by the European community, for writing and spreading a Petition that condemns suicide bombing, and calls for non violent Palestinian resistance. Their Peace Petition has been signed by thousands of Palestinians, and among them, prominent Palestinian leaders, writers, poets and intellectuals. It is very much hoped they will succeed. |
Unite, and Bring Peace!
Dear Palestinian Mothers,
We do not want your Palestinian children to bleed,
or our Israeli children to bleed, like our daughter Anat,
who was murdered by a cruel and demonic suicide bomber,
when she was celebrating her 30th birthday with her
baby daughter "Shani" in a coffee house in Tel Aviv.
I know your pain and your loss
for I live it every day of my life...We mothers, Palestinian and Israelis,
should all unite together and
cry a loud NO to violence -
NO to suicide bombings which lead to retaliations,
and a great YES to peace. What a tremendous
force we could be if we all unite together
and forcefully condemn war and terror,
together, all in one clear and loud voice:
WOMEN UNITE AND BAN WAR!The only way out of our cruel conflict
is the Two States solution
and negotiations and peacemaking fully agreed upon
by both the Palestinians and the Israelis.
It is the only way.
this mad bloodbath has to stop at once!Zehava Rosen,
Mother of the late Anat Rosen Winter
The late Anat Rosen Winter, a young, beautiful, successful and creative 30-year old lawyer, was cruelly blown up by a fanatic and demonic suicide bomber terrorist, while she was peacefully sitting with her 6 months old baby Shani and her school friend, in the "Apropos" Coffee House, in Tel-Aviv, in March 1997. Both girls were instantly killed, but Anat, with a mother's instinct, threw herself on baby Shani to save her, and she absorbed all the blast. Shani is alive and healthy today and she enjoys visiting her grandparents, Zehava and Zvi Rosen, in Raanana, who tell us she is exactly the joyful picture of Anat when she was her age.
We have opened a new branch of IFLAC, in Tel-Aviv and Jaffa, in memory of Anat. The spirit of Anat and her love of life, humanity, harmony and peace, will thus live on, and will be widely spread throughout the Middle East and our global village.
Anat, who always worked for peace, and for women's rights, gives us energy and vitality to continue our crucial peace work, so that such demonic violence against humanity never repeats itself.
Through her death she gave us life and courage to create the "World Beyond War" which she yearned so much for.
May she rest in peace. The IFLAC Committee.
Kuwaitian Princess and Poet:
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AT THE BEGINNING WOMAN WAS
MERELY FEMININEI could -
like most women,
behave like a woman is supposed to behave,
I could idly sift a cup of coffee
in the warmth of my bed
and talk on the phone without end
hours and daysI could all day just make myself pretty
I could put on make-up
I could be coquettish,
I could idly bronze myself in the sun,
Glide over the waves
like feminine women do
and glorify my body like a queenI could do nothing,
not read anything
not write anything,
just amble in the light
just run after fashion and travelI could agree not to refuse anything
not to be angry
not to explode before catastrophes
I could silently swallow my tears
and run away from historic riddles
and hide from soul revisionI could escape the groans of all who hurt
and the cries of all the miserable
and the thousands dyingHowever I rebelled against all
the so-called laws of womanhood -
and I chose to confront the word.
RETURN TO THE COOPWhen an Arab woman travels
To Paris, London or Rome,
She becomes a dove,
She flies over statues,
She drinks water from the fountains
And she feeds the ducks on the lakes.And on returning home,
When the captain commands to shut the belts
And refrain from smoking -
The dream vanishes
The music of the fountain stops
The ducks' white feathers fly up in the air -
And she enters the coop
Like all the other hens.
CHIEF AND MENTORThe baby suckles his mother's breasts
to his fill,
he reads in the light of her eyes
until he learns how to read and write,
steals coins from her purse to buy cigarettes,
walks all over her weakened bones
until he completes his studies at the college.And when he becomes a man,
he crosses his legs in the elegant coffee houses,
and declares in press conferences:
woman possesses merely half the intelligence,
half of the faith.Flies clap hands in approval
and so do the crowds of waiters...................................................... Translated to English by Ada Aharoni
From the book "Meourav Aravi" by Nimer Nimer
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