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The
dream of an international Women's Security Council
The women's action Scheherazade proposes a global Think Tank
Ute Scheub
There was once a bloodthirsty sultan, who spent every night with a different woman. These women were then killed the following day, on his instruction. Scheherazade however, approached him and told him a thousand and one stories for a thousand and one nights. In this way she saved herself and all the women of her country.
Dialogue instead of
Violence
This is the legend on which the women's action group Scheherazade (1) which
was founded in 1991 in Germany out of protest against the Gulf War is based.
The manifesto entitled "World vote against war", was signed by about 50.000
women from all continents of the earth and handed over to the UN secretariat
General. In 1992, on the invitation of the Moroccan sociologist Fatima Mernissi
in Rabat, the Scheherazade women discussed the idea of an International Women's
Security Council with Algerian, Tunisian and Moroccan writers. Many were
in favour of such a council, however at that time, no one had the energy,
the time or the finances to undertake such a project.
After 11 September
2001
the women's action group Scheherazade was re-founded in Berlin out of protest
against the bombardment of Afghanistan. Unlike ten years ago we are now convinced
that the international stage has subsequently become available for an
International Women's Security Council.
The international committees (including the United Nations Security Council), dominated by the super powers prove to be incapable of guaranteeing the safety of all inhabitants of the earth. Instead they produce intolerable double standards with the enforcement of international law and human rights. According to them, the life of white people from northern industrial countries is considerably more valuable than the life of people from southern countries. Today modern wars are carried out in the South and East with weapons obtained from the North and West, and 90 percent of their victims are civilians - especially women, children and the elderly. Furthermore in practically all wars, women are tormented by sexual violence.
It was not only since 11 September 2001 that expenditure on armaments and weapons increased again worldwide. In the world, every second almost 30.000 dollars are wasted on armaments, whilst at the same time, one person dies every second from starvation. The USA in this respect is by far the largest producer of weapons. As a result of the terror attacks, the Bush administration wants to increase military expenditure by 2007 to the unimaginable sum of 2,1 Billion US dollars in total. A small portion thereof should suffice to ensure that each person on this earth leads a decent life with sufficient nourishment, drinking water, healthcare and education.
A visible sign of rebellion
against the order of violence -
that's what the International Women's Security Council would be. It would
be a feminine counterweight to international councils that are almost entirely
occupied by men, namely statesmen, senior army officers and diplomats. Women
understand considerably more about civil conflict resolution than men do
- not because they are better people or because they would be more peaceful,
but because their social role has predestined them for the purpose. All over
the world women's initiatives and human rights groups predominantly comprise
of women: the Palestinian-Israeli Women in Black, the Afghan RAWA women,
the women's initiatives around Africa's Great lakes, the Northern-Irish women
for peace, the Russian Mothers of Soldiers, the Argentinean Mothers of the
Plaza de Mayo … This enormous potential should be used, concentrated
and given a clearly audible voice.
The speakers of the
International Women's Security Council should be well-known writers, renowned
female scientists and committed activists, whose integrity and authority
would not be subjected to any doubt and which they would vouch for with their
independent thinking and courageous actions. This is the only way in which
it can function from the beginning as the mouthpiece for all those who would
otherwise not have a chance to be heard by the media.
Famous personalities alone
however, do not suffice. An International Women's Security Council can only
function if it networks with existing women's initiatives and NGOs and becomes
a global Think Tank for civil conflict resolutions. In close co-operation
with female experts from the current crisis regions the council should develop
conflict resolution strategies and propagate them on all levels. And it should
exercise its veto if decisions of the United Nations Security Council or
other international councils clash with the spirit of peace and international
understanding.
The UN Councils however
produce the best decisions on paper….
Resolution 1325 of the UN Security Council for example demands the inclusion
of women on all levels of peace processes 2). In actual fact however, these
decisions are hardly put into practice anywhere - neither by the UNO, which
has been crippled financially because its main donors are saving their money,
nor by the affected nations. In Afghanistan, for example, women continue
to be kept away in a scandalous manner from the process of nation building,
even though the country was exclusively destroyed by men, causing war and
gender apartheid.
To wait for the UN to establish
an International Women's Security Council themselves would mean waiting until
the 22nd century. Such a Council could only arise with in an international
"non-parliamentarian" process of democratic discussions. Scheherazade therefore
proposes the International Women's Security Council to be created as a
trans-national NGO as soon as enough international support has been
secured.
Whether the UNO will recognize the International Women's Security Council,
perhaps as its seventh council is not an issue. In the meantime, it is more
important not to have to consider any UN conventions and not the diplomatic
discourse.
The International Women's
Security Council must be used as a free space and a workshop for the future,
in which finally utopias can be developed again: for example a worldwide
Marshall Plan for peace and gender justice; another form of "Tobin Tax" or
even "perversion tax" for arms' exports; the appeal for female conversion
and disarmament ministers in all governments, the legal anchorage of the
principle in international law that the party responsible is liable for the
damages. In the case of Afghanistan this would mean that the unscrupulous
business men who flooded the land with about 10 million mines and a further
10 million small weapons, would be forced to gather up their products of
death and to pay an appropriate compensation sum.
Naturally there is also
criticism from women's circles….
Some for example have commented that the founding of an independent Women's
Security Council would be a return to gender division. It would make more
sense to demand a quota of the entire UNO including the enforced peace troops.
Our reply to this is that it is not an issue of gender division. The
international Women's Security Council should be totally open to all men,
who prescribe to its aims, however the council of speakers should remain
female. The demand for steadfast quotas is easier to enforce by means of
political pressure from the outside than within the UNO, which neither offers
positions, nor programmed freedom for women. The UN Security Council, which
almost totally comprises of men, would be quoted in a practical manner by
the founding of an International Women's Security Council. Many committed
female activists for women's and human rights have commented that they are
positive and almost thrilled with the Scheherazade idea 3) whereby the opinion
was represented from many sides, that it would be a great political advantage
if such a Council were to be founded not on US- but on European territory.
There was once a small women's group, that told the fairytale of a Woman's
UN Security Council for a thousand and one days. If the bad sultan has not
destroyed them then, the council will most probably be founded after 11 September
2003.
Ute Scheub Is a freelance journalist, who lives in Berlin (Germany) and is active for Scheherzade.
1)
(www.sheherazade.org).
2) More detail under
www.peacewomen.org, here it is possible
to subscribe to an Email-service "1325-news").
3) Representatives of the Working Group on Women and International Peace
and Security
(www.globalpolicy.org/security/ngokgrp/index.htm)
support the founding of an International Woman's Security Council. This working
group, which after much effort was able to implement the passing of "Women's"
Resolution 1325 in the UN Security Council, is a merger of the following
women's and human rights organisations: International Alert
(www.international-alert.org),
Hague Appeal for Peace
(www.haguepeace.org), Amnesty
International (www.amnesty.org ),
Women´s Caucus for Gender Justice
(www.iwtc.org),
Women´s Commission for Refugee and Women and Children
(www.womenscommission.org)
and Women´s International League for Peace and Freedom
(www.wilpf.org). Also the trans-European
Organisation Women in Europe for a Common Future
(www.wecf.org) demanded at their European
Women´s Conference for a Sustainable Future in March 2002 in the Czech
Republic the creation of an International Women's Security Council.
Scheherazade activist Halina Bendkowski, after several weeks spent probing
in New York, received the promise from well-known activists, to commit themselves
to the idea of an International Women's Security Council. Those that are
interested in the project for an International Women's Security Council include
amongst others Charlotte Bunch, founder and director of the Centre for
Women´s Global Leadership
(www.cwgl.rutgers.edu), Alisa Salomon,
specialist of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Azza Karam, programme director
of the World Conference on Religion and Peace
(www.wcrp.org), Hibaaq O. Basbas, Chairlady
of the Centre for the Strategic Initiatives of Women
(www.csiw.org), Felicity Hill of UNIFEM
(www.unifem.undp.org), Pam Spees,
programme director of the Women´s Caucus for Gender Justice
(www.iccwomen.org) and Chris
Cuomoco-organiser of the anti-war coalition New Yorkers say No to War
(www.nysaynotowar.org) .
Translated from German by Heathor Beachalor