#1 Leymah Gbowee: How to Fight a Dictator, and Win
Leymah Gbowee, mother of six, began a journey that would lead to nothing short of a revolution when she was working as a a trauma counselor in Monrovia. The backdrop? Fourteen years of bloody war in Liberia, the death of 200,000 people, the displacement of 1 in 3 people in the country, and the regular use of rape as a weapon of war.
The Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace group, led with spirit and dynamism by Gbowee, stood outside in the fish market, united by simple white shirts and placards, in a place Charles Taylor drove by each day. What followed was two-and-a-half years of protest, led by women united across religions. Their motto? “Does the bullet know Christian from Muslim?” This movement finally brought an end to the Second Liberian Civil War in 2003.
These are the facts. The passion, the fierceness of Gbowee though, is best seen in the film, “Pray the Devil Back to Hell,” which documents the movement and the monumental changes it managed to effect.
The story doesn’t stop with the movie, however. When Taylor left Liberia, and the UN came to try and disarm the population, the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace talked to the warlords, convincing them to turn over their guns. Eventually, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf was elected President, the very first female head of State in all of Africa. As Gbowee stresses in the video to the right, so much of the story was not captured on the film. You could fill 100 books with the work the women did to bring their country out of darkness.
Since the release of the film, Gbowee has worked with women in conflict and post-conflict countries all over the world. She is currently the executive director of the Women Peace and Security Network-Africa. She has presented on several regional and international panels, including UNIFEM and the United Nations Security Council’s Arria Formula Meeting on women, peace, and security. She continues to teach, inspire, and speak out against violence:
I first saw this film at the Tribecca Film Fesitval in 2008. The audience gave it a standing ovation. During the Q&A period, a young woman got up, and said that she was so moved by the film, and also so embarrassed. Here she was, a person of great privledge, living in America, and yet she felt she has less power than Gbowee did in inciting change. Gbowee’s response has always stuck with me. She said, the world is so dark. There is so much suffering, so much violence. Her hope is to be a tiny, tiny flicker of light in this terrible darkness. She encouraged all of us to do the same. She still does, as evidenced by a recent interview she gave to YES! magazine:
One Saturday, I got some popcorn and invited some of these girls into my house. We met for many months. That was the beginning of our teen-adult coalition. Three of these girls graduated from high school without getting pregnant.
I tell you this because there are many things happening in our communities. Just look in your backyard. For example, where we see a rising tide of violence and crime in youth, it is a cry from our next generation: “We need you to pay more attention to us.” Can you start tutoring a child? Can you mentor a student? If you are able to touch one person, you have done a whole lot. [5]
If you do NOTHING else in 2011, rent “Pray the Devil Back to Hell” from Netflix, and get acquainted with Leymah Gbowee. You may be surprised how different you feel about what you are capable of after you do.
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