By Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson
On April 30th, hundreds of women, peace-builders, and peace activists from around the globe will gather in Dallas for the Annual “A World of Women for World Peace” Conference. During the annual event attendees will share strategies for building bridges toward global peace, a role for which women are uniquely qualified to assume.
I began the peace conference 15-years ago, shortly after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. I was horrified by a picture of boy-soldiers from Liberia, ages 12 and 14, on the front page of Newsweek magazine. They were dressed in war gear and armed with machine guns. At the time, two of my grandsons were about the same age as these young boys, and I just thought “enough is enough!” I knew that I had to do something about the situation. I knew that every solider I saw had a mother, a sister, an aunt, or a grandmother. These women in their lives were uniquely positioned to influence these soldiers, no matter where they are in the world. My efforts started with women who are the mothers of young boys like the ones I saw on the cover of that magazine, whose lives are sacrificed in the name of war. We must recognize and empower these women to facilitate peace-building, peacemaking, and peace-keeping activities across the world. We must also recognize the experts and leaders who help us to plant the seeds of peace. As a result, the annual peace dialogue was born. I know that when women are at the tables of power and influence, they can directly influence a peaceful resolution to many of the world’s conflicts.
Over the years, proponents of peace from throughout the world have participated in the event. Conference participants have included elected officials, international peace activists, victims of violence and aggression and ordinary citizens. All of them have contributed significantly to the global effort to bring about peace. Last year, we held a peace conference in Taiwan.
This year’s conference promises to be as exciting and productive as the others. Our featured panelists include Sister Rosemary Nyirume from Gulu, Uganda; Mu Naw Di, a teenage survivor of conflict in Myanmar and Nikiya Natale, a distinguished immigration attorney for Refugee Services of Texas.
Sister Nyirume, sited as one of the most influential people in the world by Time Magazine, operates a shelter in her country for women and girls who have been the victims of rape, domestic violence, and war. She has also helped to change the lives of young girls who were once forced to become child-soldiers.
When writing about Sister Rosemary, the academy award winning actor, Forest Whitaker, said “The traumas she heals are unfathomable, but the reach of her love is boundless.” Sister Rosemary’s commitment to healing the wounds caused by war and conflict are illustrative of the meaning and purpose of “A World of Women for World Peace,” and of the women whose lives are devoted to ending human conflict for the sake of our planet and for all of its inhabitants.
I am looking forward to this year’s conference and hope that all of you will us re-emphasize in your own communities the necessity of peace and diplomacy, both here at home and across the globe.
Representative Johnson talks a good game for the concept of Peace. I believe this is more for the support she might get from her endorsement of the conference than for her true belief in Peace. If she really believed in Peace, she would be against trade policies like the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP). Such trade policies will almost certainly make life miserable for many people in this country – thereby creating a climate of desperation which will make it easy to find desperate folk who will go to war just to get jobs. If she was really for Peace, she would take steps to prevent the conflicts that come from the income inequality that TPP will create. Instead, she wants to only give lip service to something that people all over the world love – Peace. But her action of support for TPP makes her whole program suspect.