President & Founder of Partners for Peace, Jerri Bird, Gives Keynote Speech at Fort Myers in Observance of Women's History Month on March 13, 2008
FORT MYER MILITARY COMMUNITY
WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH OBSERVANCE
THURSDAY, MARCH 13, 2008
11:30-1:OO
Thank you so much for honoring me by asking me to speak for your commemoration of women’s history month.
Since I am not a historian I will not attempt to speak about the history of women either here in America or abroad. Instead I want to speak to you about my experience in finding a way to share the understandings I gained in living in very diverse societies in the Middle East. It is quite amazing to me that without any degree in conflict resolution, or women’s studies, or political science, or whatever…. a woman can still do something significant about her concern whatever it may be. I really believe that it doesn’t take a village to change hearts and minds….even one person can begin to do that.
Let me say a few words about my experiences just to put my remarks in some context. My father was a veteran of the First World War. I grew up in Oregon and was in high school during the Second World War. I sang at the wedding of a pair of close high school friends (he was a paratrooper) and a few months later sang at his funeral and lost many high school buddies who didn’t survive the war. My husband was a naval officer during that war. And I remember singing at USO events at Fort Adair during that period. I am very aware of the sacrifices of the American military, and particularly relate to the women who have to assume responsibilities of children and family and worry and wait.
I married at twenty-two and thereafter worked as a legal secretary, a social worker, a teacher, a financial officer and an administrator. I was a quick learner I guess! In any case, I can probably reasonably claim to be a jill of all trades and mistress of none. ( Not much of a resume for a new career in activism for a women in her sixties!)
But my experiences as the wife of a foreign service officer in many countries in the Middle East and India and my many friends in these societies were an incredible learning experience. In all of them there was either a war or a revolution while we were there. I was evacuated with my children twice when the US government ordered that dependents leave. I didn’t want to go because I had no idea if I could manage. I hadn’t even signed a hotel register or traveled on my own. In the fifties an evacuation was a new problem for the Department of State and evacuation simply meant that I had to leave and took the last commercial flight out of Jerusalem, landed in Beirut and found a hotel. But there was one funny moment! With my 3-year-old in my arms and my 5-year old holding on to my skirt we walked across the tarmac in Beirut from the plane to the terminal. I suddenly realized that a cameraman was filming us and I automatically smiled. He put down his camera and said, “Stop smiling, lady. Don’t you know this is a serious situation!”
My role as wife of a diplomat was to learn about the country and people and represent America as best I could. I remember an incident that I find particularly illuminating. We were in India where people are charmingly direct and don’t hesitate to tell you what they think. It was a terrible period for me in the sixties because it seemed my country was losing one after another leader to assassination. Martin Luther King had just been killed and at a party I was asked “Why do you have such a color bar?” I found myself offering defensive arguments, saying that we were making changes and laws were being passed, but that wasn’t what this Indian meant. He pursued it with, “But I mean why do you have such a color bar?” I finally said, “But why do you ask me when you even express a preference for fair complexion in your advertisements for a bride?” His answer was unforgettable. “We expect better of you.”
Women during such periods of turmoil inevitably find themselves facing much more responsibility than is expected of them during times of peace, particularly today in the more traditional societies. This is something I observed first hand and I have grown to have great respect for the additional roles and responsibilities that women have taken on.
Too often, however, the voices of women in countries far from our shores are not heard. Increasingly they do have a need to be a part of the political process because they have experiences to bring to the table that should be considered both in terms of the development in their own civil societies and in bringing wisdom to the negotiations with their neighbors and world players (such as the United States). And increasingly they try to speak out – particularly to us.
After more than twenty years abroad in the Middle East and South Asia I became acutely aware of how seldom the women of these areas are heard in reporting here.
I probably have an especially idealistic belief in American Democracy and how effective it can be. But faced with coping with the relationships and problems worldwide Americans need much more information and though the subject is fraught with emotion I felt I had to do something.
My work has grown out of these twin concerns:
1. Our democracy requires active and informed citizens and Americans are not exposed to the multi-faceted nature of the conflict.
2. The voices of women in the midst of conflict and turmoil are not heard in our country and should be heard.
This is the reason I decided to resist going along with the mainstream, complaining as we all do about the terrible state of the world, but feeling powerless to change anything. I’m sure this audience knows even better than I that there has been too much war and violence in my lifetime. My experiences in times of war and revolution are nothing compared to the trauma for women living in the midst of the conflicts, worrying about their men and terrified for their children. This universal fear is something women everywhere share.
And so I found others who shared my vision and we were able to found an organization almost twenty years ago, Partners for Peace, to bring to the American people information they need in order to make sound decisions that can lead to peace and justice in the Middle East. Enough of the violence……Women and children in modern conflict are the victims and that is our front and center issue.
We developed a project that was aimed at giving Middle Eastern women a voice in America and enabling them to provide much needed understanding about the nature and consequences of the violence in Palestine/Israel.
We sponsor tours of three-women teams to visit communities across the United States to speak of their experiences in the midst of long term violence. The tours are called “Jerusalem Women Speak: Three Women, Three Faiths, One Shared Vision.” The women are not famous, even in their own countries. One is a Christian Palestinian, one a Jewish Israeli and one a Muslim Palestinian.
We arrange the tour and events in church, mosques, synagogues, universities, civic organizations, retirement communities and even high schools. We arrange talk show and television appearances and, of course, print media interviews. We seek to bring them face to face with American communities, large and small.
The impact of this project has amazed us. There is almost always lively, if not confrontational audience response. I introduce the women as “extraordinary ordinary” women and they are! The single absolute requirement when we recruit them is for them to speak and understand English, but in the Israel and Palestine this is not a barrier. Each team of three is different, but over the ten years of our tours there have been more than thirty women from age 20 to 70 as participants. Many have never given a presentation to an audience before. Many have been very nervous. But all have been so eager to tell Americans about their experiences that they have surmounted those fears. And they have carried their messages to literally millions of Americans. We feel that our Jerusalem Women Speak tours are accomplishing our goal of carrying the voice of women from Israel and Palestine to Americans, face to face.
Their audiences without exception find they have learned a lot from them including such basic perceptions as the “oneness” of women and their problems.
Second, these women leave our country with a very positive feeling, a warm glow even, about Americans. They may come feeling some resentment that no one listens to their tragedies, but they learn that we are a very caring society and they feel that.
In addition they learn communication skills on the road that serve them well when they return to their own home communities. And they learn about each other and come to empathize with each other across the lines of conflict.
And for those of us who accompany them on the tours it is an amazing learning experience. These are women who under occupation have no opportunity to meet each other since Israelis and Palestinians are not allowed across invisible lines that separate them and even in Palestine (the so-called Occupied Territories) the Israel Defense Forces have established “checkpoints” that separate one Palestinian village from its neighbors (over 500 checkpoints in this small area) about the same size as the state of Delaware.
So they get to know each other while participating in this very emotional situation – each speaking of her personal experiences and the pain and trauma suffered. To observe the grace with which the women handle this is truly a gift. When tensions arise, and they can, it can require some careful, thoughtful intervention, but amazingly this has been a serious need only once in fourteen tours.
To sum up I think I need to tell you why I still do this. After all, I am so fortunate to still be active at 82, to still be married to my husband – now 60 years - --- I have four wonderful grown up children and six wonderful grandchildren. Maybe I should be just relaxing and counting my blessings and avoid the inevitable stress that dealing with this issue brings. And I certainly can’t claim to have solved this terrible conflict and many times feel it has even become more desperate.
I can best tell you why I do it by quoting Susan Sontag.
“ We don’t have to think about whether acting on principle is expedient, or whether we can count on the eventual success of the actions we have undertaken. But it is still a political act, in that you’re not doing it for yourself. You don’t do it just to be in the right, or to appease your own conscience, much less because you are confident your action will achieve its aim. You resist as an act of solidarity. With communities of the principled and the disobedient here, elsewhere. In the present. In the future.”
I am humbled by her words and want to place myself in the company of resistors throughout history. My role is miniscule in the big picture, but that doesn’t matter. I believe that our work in arranging the tours gives women of conscience who are living in the midst of conflict an opportunity to share their lives and experiences with us and this may stir in those who have not known of their traumas a willingness to look at injustice, wherever it occurs.
And I am inspired to work with and stand with the peoples whose voice needs to be heard and heeded. It is an honorable thing to do.
