Excerpts from Leymah’s speech at the Good Fence in Metulla at the Lebanese Border, 18 Oct 2016
It is truly an honour to be standing at the Good Fence. It is truly an honour to be in Israel where women have gathered and have decided that now is the time for our voices to be heard for peace. It really is a good thing to see that the world is watching when the women of Israel decided to join here with their sisters on the other side to make peace come to our region. Eight years ago, in 2008, what many of you will not know is that I was in Israel. Eight years ago I came here with a group of women when the film, Prey the Devil Back to Hell, that you have been using, has just come out. I remember going to a screening of this film and when we came out one of the women came to me and said – you know, this is a very good movie, but it does not apply to us. She said it’s because we are still too comfortable. We are too comfortable compared to what it was like in Liberia. She said, I don’t think a movement like yours is going to be possible here. Eight years later, I’ve come back. I said yes to this trip because I knew that this is something that I have to come and see. Eight years later I have come back to this country to the same space where someone told me women could never do this. It has happened. Let’s congratulate ourselves.
Someone asked me, and I have been asked a lot of questions, What do you think the women of Israel will gain by carrying on this march? We don’t think it’s going to end the war. My response is – the intention is not to end the war. The intention is to force everyone in power to begin a conversation about peace. The intention is to get the optimists and pessimists, from the left, right and center, to be thinking about peace. The work of these women is to show these young children that have come here, and are standing on their fathers’ and mothers’ shoulders, that the lifestyle will no longer be of young people going to war and dying. The intention, I believe, is that the women of Israel together with their Palestinian counterparts on the other side, as well as women in other places where we have problems, will be joining up to ensure that all the pain that they have gone through in the past will no longer be the same. The intention is to force the political establishment to sit down to think positively about peace because war is not the answer.
We stand at this Good Fence, at a place that historically marked the generosity of the people of this country. I am proud to say that I stand with my sisters who are seeking a lasting solution. I am proud to say that it is important for all of us to remember the history of this site and to push the message of peace, that this is the time for us to change the narrative of the country. Several years ago, in my own country, in Liberia, we were at war. There were many different descriptions of us as a people. Some people said we are cannibals, other said we are evil; other said we will never see peace. But when mothers, like you, stood up and decided that it was time for peace, there was no stopping them. Women of Israel you can make peace, you can do peace. Don’t let anyone stop you. You have got the power to change this country around and you must continue to do it. Every time you turn around and you feel tired and you want to stop, look at that baby, look at these children and tell yourself what future we want to imagine for these children. There have been too many cries of death of children on this side and of death of children on the other side. It’s time for women to stand up for peace.
Eleanor Roosevelt, the great first lady of America, used to say – do one thing that would scare you. What I am going to tell you the women of Israel – continue with this peace that you have started working for, because everyone else in this region is scared to do peace and they are depending on you – WWP do peace for this country. May peace reign in this region; may we work for peace and do what it takes to bring peace. And I want to promise you that if you call me, I would come back. If you say let’s go to the west, I’ll march with you, let’s go to the south, I’ll march with you. Because I believe that no woman can be at peace if there is another woman who is not at peace. So let’s work for peace, let’s go for peace and let peace be our hope. Thank you.
Excerpts from Leymah’s speech in Umm al-Fahem, 18 Oct 2016
Women are the hope for peace in this region. We have two groups here and I’ll tell you a story:
When we started our work in Liberia we decide to bring together Moslem and Christian women. As we met together we realized that they had issues among themselves, and that we couldn’t make peace if we have issues among ourselves. So we brought 2 women, one Moslem and one Christian who had been friends for over 50 years and we asked them to tell the story of their friendship. The Moslem woman told about bringing her friend to her house for the first time and how her husband behaved, drinking and shouting. The Christian woman asked her why she stayed with him and why she didn’t get a divorce. She promised to help her friend to help her get land and build a house and became her advisor. They were asked how their faith affected their friendship and both women were astonished. The Moslem woman asked her Christian friend “when you look at me do you see a Moslem woman?” and the Christian woman asked her friend if she saw her as a Christian. They both said NO! All we see is a woman, a woman with my pain, a woman who suffers the same fate , a woman who has been affected by tradition. As we sat in that room we asked ourselves how foolish can people be to imagine that faith, ethnicity, political ideology, where we come from can be a factor for peace.
I’ll ask you now, if someone started shooting in this room right now, would the bullet distinguish between Arab and Jew, between right and left, between a single woman and a married one, between a woman who gave birth and one who hasn’t yet given birth? For peace to be solid, for people to take us seriously, for this group to live, each and every one of you must hold on to the other and tell yourself “we are sisters, we are mothers, regardless of how we pray or what side we’re on”. Peace is the only thing that will keep us together!
Excerpts from Leymah’s speech at Charles Clore Park on the beach in Tel Aviv, 18 Oct 2016
Forward to minutes 47:30 – 57:00 to see Leymah speaking in Tel Aviv www.youtube.com/watch?v=snyqJrSNVk8
Women have the power to change things around. Not only do we have the power to change things around, we are the ones you have the ability to look hardship in the eye, put our pain aside and focus on the greater good of family. People ask me: What is the drive? Why do you want to make your voice heard? What is your inspiration? I’ll tell you a story that I heard about the leaders of South Africa meeting after apartheid in order to set up the constitution but couldn’t find a compromise because they were trying to find the language to to reconcile a nation that had suffered so much. There was lockdown. And then the baby of one of the participants started crying and the mother started nursing the baby ; people turned to each other and asked “what are we doing? What about the children?” This was the end of the impasse.
You the mothers of this country have the power to end the war. You, the mothers of this country, are the ones with the sense and sensibility and intellectual ability to tell the leaders of the country that militarism is not the way. You, the mothers of this country, are the ones who will stand up firmly and usher this nation into a peace that your children will look back on and be proud of.
A journalist asked me, Why Israel? Why not [go to] Syria? I said that no amount of violence outweighs the other. As long as one mother is crying in one part of the world, all mothers are crying everywhere. No child’s death is more bitter that another’s. I’m here because my sisters from Israel invited me and I’m here to journey with them. If my sisters from Syria will invite me, I will be there with them also. Harriet Tubman the great Afro-American activist said: If you are hungry – keep walking. If you are thirsty – keep walking.
If you want a taste of freedom – keep walking. You , women of Israel, if you want a taste of freedom, peace, justice and a safe future for your children, never give up because PEACE IS POSSIBLE, if you work for it, if you stand [up] for it. Never allow anyone to tell you there are no partners. PEACE IS POSSIBLE!
Excerpts from Leymah’s speech at Qasr el-Yahud, 19 Oct 2016
Many people have asked me, What is this going to achieve? If you have done this march today and you don’t see hope and you don’t see peace then you are blind. What the[se] women have done today is to prove to the world, and to put an end to political rhetoric that there are no partners for peace, because [yes] Israeli and Palestinian women are partners for peace. Women of both countries should reject the narrative that war is your future; reject the narrative that war is the destiny of your children; reject the narrative that we have been in this for so long that there is no way we can find a peaceful agreement. It is a lie; reject it and work for peace.
Over a hundred years ago, during WWI, a group of women decided to go to The Hague to make peace. The uniqueness of these women was that one group of them was from a country that had intense war; another group was from a country that had no war. The group that came from the country with no war said it was their conscience which brought them to The Hague. The conscience of nurses on the wards, seeing dying soldiers who asked them, Can’t the women do something for peace? So even though they had no political reason to come to The Hague, they came because their conscience did not permit them to sleep, because where there is injustice in one place there is injustice everywhere.
Many of you have come today; especially I would like to speak to my Israeli sisters: you may not have felt the war like your Palestinian sisters, but the effort for peace is because your conscience is telling you that when one mother cries it is also the cry of every mother. I made this journey because you made me believe that if one mother is hungry it is your hunger also. On the first day I came I said to you, when we started our work in Liberia, I received an e-mail from someone who said that the women are the Hope. And I sat down in my house and I thought: Hope for a nation – that is a huge responsibility. No one told you, Israeli women – you decided for yourselves that this is a March for Hope. I’ll say what I said to you the other day – are you serious about hope? Are you serious about being the future of peace in your region? Because you have to be prepared, after this march, that there will be tough times. You will have to say – this is our position, this is what we want. I know we all say we want peace, we want justice, we want respect for the rights of every human being. You can’t stop now. Stopping is never an option for you. You should never stop until this region has peace, even if you are sleeping in your comfortable beds, you are at war. There is no way anyone in Israel can say, I am at peace, this does not touch me, because psychologically, regardless of where you find yourself, you will still be imagining that something can happen to you or to your children. No one should live this way.
And to my Palestinian sisters, I want to congratulate you also. I want to congratulate you and the Israelis for making the journey and coming regardless of everything that has happened. You are proving to the world that we are going to build peace regardless of what our political leaders say.
By coming out in our numbers today, the Palestinian and Israeli women are saying to the rest of the world that we are making it impossible for anyone to take our children and kill each other. As we stand in this space of equality, in this space of justice, in this space of oneness, I think the message that I get, as a Liberian coming to Israel, and working with the Israeli and Palestinian women, is that this space is a representation that we are doing peace because we are equal and none of us is better than the other. We are one and we will continue the cause for peace.
I believe, regardless of what anyone will say, today’s event is forcing everyone in the political leadership of both countries to rethink how to do peace. And I want to congratulate you sisters – you have made history this day. History will talk about the day when all of you – free, not free, pass, no pass – came together and celebrated peace and joined their voices to say We want a negotiated agreement that respects the rights of every citizen on every side of the divide.
I want to thank you women. I have come to Israel to balance this equation. I am waiting for you to invite me to Palestine so we can walk, march and do the same thing for peace. May peace prevail in our world. May peace prevail in this region, may peace prevail for all of our children. Thank you for this wonderful venture. Thank you so much.
Transcripted by Sarit Bloom and Sue Levinstein
