In a recent article, I talked about the responsibility of the media to exercise restraint and report developments fairly to ensure they do not derail fledgling peace moves. Civil society organizations, too, have a crucial role to play. By mobilizing pacifist forces, they can help create an environment that will embolden decision makers.Look at any long-lasting conflict around the world, and you are likely to find grassroots initiatives against the war. Many of them have been launched by women from both sides of the political divide, who suffered from the direct impact of the conflict and united to remind politicians that war carries an exorbitant human cost. In Israel/Palestine, women have worked together, so have their counterparts in Sri Lanka and other hot spots of the world.
Most mainstream newspapers in recent days have carried pictures of moving encounters between the mothers of Turkish soldiers killed by the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and Kurdish mothers whose militant sons died during clashes. The efforts of these grieving women, who are working together to ensure that others will not need to experience the same devastating loss, symbolize the growing momentum for peace that is taking hold in Turkey.
Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan acknowledged that “women, who know the price of conflict so well, are also better equipped than men to prevent or resolve it. For generations, women have served as peace educators, both in their families and in their societies. They have proved instrumental in building bridges rather than walls.”
Their calls are not always heard when the guns are speaking. In the mid-1990s, Tomris Özden, the widow of a colonel allegedly killed by the PKK (his suspicious death is now part of the Ergenekon investigation), traveled with Kurdish women on a peace train to Diyarbakır. She was harassed and at times publicly vilified for her attempts to shed light on her husband's death and her calls for peace, as were the Kurdish women who joined hands with her.
For many years, the authorities were also deaf to the mothers of the disappeared. These women sat patiently in front of Galatasaray Lisesi every Saturday throughout the 1990s, holding a peaceful vigil for loved ones who had disappeared. Today, many of these unsolved cases are being reopened.
Reaching a peace agreement, as difficult as it is, is only the first stage in the painstaking task of rebuilding unity. Women can also take a leading role in helping to restore confidence between the two sides and soothing the deep emotional wounds left by thousands of deaths. In Turkey's Southeast, the conflict forced many women to move beyond their traditional role and become involved in public life. As a result, they are now active citizens who can make a contribution to the social, political and economic development of their region.
In Rwanda, a country torn apart a decade ago by a genocidal war, women were active in the slow process of reunifying their deeply scarred society. Today, their involvement has led their country to become the one with the highest proportion of women in Parliament.
Many women around the world were inspired by Julia Ward Howe, an early peace activist who, in 1870 as her country, the United States, was still reeling from the devastation caused by the Civil War, introduced Mother's Day as a celebration of peace.
Ward Howe would probably be dismayed to see that the day for peace she had envisaged has now turned into a consumer fest, but the powerful Mother's Day Proclamation she penned at the time still resonates today, and her call for peace and common sense has been taken up by generations of women around the world seeking to end conflict between countries and communities. Now it seems it is time for Turkish and Kurdish women in Turkey to follow her lead.
“Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."
