We Made a Deal

A young mother told me a story about her seven-year-old daughter.  It was pizza day at her daughter’s school and the young girl wanted to know if her mother was going to help out as she usually did.  “Of course,” the mother reassured her.  As it often happens, the mom had many things to do in the morning and before coming into the school she sat in her car and ate her own lunch. 

Meanwhile, in the school, the pizzas had arrived early and two mothers were distributing them to the classes including the daughter’s classroom.  When the little girl saw that her mom was not there she crumpled, sobbing.  The teacher tried to console her but to little avail.  By this time the mom was in the school and helping out in a different area.  She was told of her daughter’s situation and went to talk to her.  It seemed that the girl wasn’t so much disappointed in missing her mother but in not being allowed to help distribute the pizza.  She enjoyed having this important role. The mom who had come to the classroom had allowed her own daughter in the same classroom to help instead.

The two mothers talked afterwards and they both agreed that whichever one was giving out the pizzas, would make sure that both daughters would be allowed to help out. “We made a deal,” the young woman told me, smiling.  It was an easy solution that took into consideration the mother’s schedules and the daughters’ needs.  Easy, obvious, sensible and caring.  They would just cooperate.

When I heard the story, I laughed and said it’s too bad that mothers weren’t running the United Nations.  No one would want their children to be hurt.  They would just make a deal that worked for everyone.

Shortly after I heard that story, I got a DVD from the library called Pray the Devil Back to Hell (2008).  This documentary tells the story of the women’s peace movement in Liberia, West Africa.  After fourteen years of civil war between the dictatorship of Liberian president Charles Taylor and the rebel group LURD, social worker, Leymah Gbowee decided to organize Christian women to work for peace.  Tired of the fear, atrocities and destruction, she started with her own church and then brought women from other churches together as well.  At one meeting a Muslim woman spoke up, saying that Muslim women should be added to the group.  The Liberian president was Christian but the rebels were Muslim.  And so the women made a deal, an alliance, to work together and the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace Campaign was born in 2003.

The women, numbering in the thousands and dressed in plain white clothes to signify mourning, started by protesting at the fish market that Taylor drove past every day, holding signs, singing and praying.  Eventually the Christian women convinced Charles Taylor to come to peace talks and the Muslim women convinced the rebels to attend as well.  After weeks of the two sides holding meetings in nearby Ghana without any progress, the women staged a sit-in that prevented the men from leaving the meeting hall, thereby forcing them to make a deal which they did.

The UN Peacekeepers arrived in Liberia and Charles Taylor who had been charged with war crimes was exiled to Nigeria. However, the UN Peacekeepers who thought they knew best, created chaos and the women realized that they would have to lead the way with forgiveness and reconciliation in order to achieve disarmament of the country.  Having achieved this, they focused on the election of a new president.  The women’s peace movement continued to work during the election process, getting young women interested in voting.  The outcome was that the first female president of an African country, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf  was elected in 2006.

This non-violent peace movement created by women who came together to work for their commonly held desire for a cessation of violence and a democratically elected leader also created healing in the communities as the perpetrators of violence were forgiven and welcomed back home. They put aside their differences and focused their considerable energy to create change and healing.  The film is inspiring and affirming.  Coincidentally, it also seemed to answer my question about what would happen if mothers ran the United Nations.

Soon after that, a friend sent me a link to Today I Rise, a beautiful poem/film on Films for Action which I invite you to watch here .

It begins with a whisper,

 “Where are you? Where are you, little girl with broken wings but full of hope?  Where are you, wise women covered in wounds?  Where are you?”

It continues…. “The world is missing what I am ready to give/ my wisdom, my sweetness, my love and my hunger for peace…”

“Today I rise….”