I woke up in the middle of the night with the sound of heavy explosion. It was deep at night. I do not remember what time it was. I just remember the sound was so heavy and so very shocking. Everything in my room was shaking -- my heart, my windows, my bed, everything. I looked out the windows and I saw a full half-circle of explosion. I thought it was just like the movies, but the movies had not conveyed them in the powerful image that I was seeing full of bright red and orange and gray, and a full circle of explosion. And I kept on staring at it until it disappeared. I went back to my bed, and I prayed, and I secretly thanked God that that missile did not land on my family's home, that it did not kill my family that night. Thirty years have passed, and I still feel guilty about that prayer, for the next day, I learned that that missile landed on my brother's friend's home and killed him and his father, but did not kill his mother or his sister. His mother showed up the next week at my brother's classroom and begged seven-year-old kids to share with her any picture they may have of her son, for she had lost everything.
Probudila sam se usred noći usled zvuka teške eksplozije. Bila je duboka noć. Ne sećam se koliko je bilo sati. Sećam se samo da je zvuk bio toliko jak da me je šokirao. Sve u mojoj sobi se treslo - moje srce, prozori, krevet - sve. Pogledala sam kroz prozor, i videla pun polukrug eksplozije. Pomislila sam kako je baš kao u filmovima, ali filmovi nisu preneli moćnu sliku koju sam gledala - punu jasne crvene, narandžaste i sive, pun krug eksplozije. Buljila sam u nju sve dok nije nestala. Vratila sam se u krevet, molila se, i tajno zahvalila Bogu što raketa nije pala na moju porodičnu kuću, što nije pobila moju porodicu te noći. 30 godina je prošlo, i još uvek osećam krivicu zbog te molitve, jer sam sledećeg dana saznala da je pogodila kuću prijatelja moga brata, ubila ga, i njegovog oca, ali ne i majku i sestru. Njegova majka se pojavila sledeće nedelje u učionici mog brata i molila sedmogodišnju decu da podele sa njom sliku njenog sina, ako je imaju, jer je izgubila sve.
This is not a story of a nameless survivor of war, and nameless refugees, whose stereotypical images we see in our newspapers and our TV with tattered clothes, dirty face, scared eyes. This is not a story of a nameless someone who lived in some war, who we do not know their hopes, their dreams, their accomplishments, their families, their beliefs, their values. This is my story. I was that girl. I am another image and vision of another survivor of war. I am that refugee, and I am that girl. You see, I grew up in war-torn Iraq, and I believe that there are two sides of wars and we've only seen one side of it. We only talk about one side of it. But there's another side that I have witnessed as someone who lived in it and someone who ended up working in it.
Ovo nije priča brojnih preživelih, i brojnih izbeglica, čije stereotipne fotografije gledamo u novinama i na TVu sa dronjavom odećom, prljavim licima, uplašenim očima. Ovo nije priča nekog bezimenog koji je živeo u nekom ratu, čije nade, snove, uspehe, porodice, uverenja, vrednosti ne poznajemo. Ovo je moja priča. Ja sam bila ta devojčica. Ja sam još jedna slika i prilika onog ko je preživeo rat. Ja sam ta izbeglica, ja sam ta devojčica. Znate, odrasla sam u ratom razorenom Iraku, i verujem da postoje dve strane ratova a da vidimo samo jednu. Govorimo samo o jednoj strani. Ali postoji još jedna čiji sam svedok, jer sam u njoj živela jer sam u njoj na kraju i radila.
I grew up with the colors of war -- the red colors of fire and blood, the brown tones of earth as it explodes in our faces and the piercing silver of an exploded missile, so bright that nothing can protect your eyes from it. I grew up with the sounds of war -- the staccato sounds of gunfire, the wrenching booms of explosions, ominous drones of jets flying overhead and the wailing warning sounds of sirens. These are the sounds you would expect, but they are also the sounds of dissonant concerts of a flock of birds screeching in the night, the high-pitched honest cries of children and the thunderous, unbearable silence. "War," a friend of mine said, "is not about sound at all. It is actually about silence, the silence of humanity."
Odrasla sam sa bojama rata - crvena boja vatre i krvi, smeđi tonovi zemlje koja eksplodira u naša lica i prodorna srebrna eksplodiranih raketa, toliko jarkih da ničim niste mogli zaštiti oči. Odrasla sam uz zvuke rata - nepovezani pucnjevi iz oružja, bolni zvukovi eksplozija, zloslutno zujanje aviona koji lete iznad glava i zavijajući zvuci sirena za uzbunu. To su zvukovi koje očekujete, ali su tu takođe piskavi zvuci neharmoničnih, noćnih koncerata jata ptica, piskav, iskren plač dece i gromoglasna, nepodnošljiva tišina. "Rat", rekao je moj prijatelj, "uopšte nema veze sa zvukom. Radi se o tišini, ljudskoj tišini."
I have since left Iraq and founded a group called Women for Women International that ends up working with women survivors of wars. In my travels and in my work, from Congo to Afghanistan, from Sudan to Rwanda, I have learned not only that the colors and the sounds of war are the same, but the fears of war are the same. You know, there is a fear of dying, and do not believe any movie character where the hero is not afraid. It is very scary to go through that feeling of "I am about to die" or "I could die in this explosion." But there's also the fear of losing loved ones, and I think that's even worse. It's too painful. You don't want to think about it. But I think the worst kind of fear is the fear -- as Samia, a Bosnian woman, once told me, who survived the four-years besiege of Sarajevo; she said, "The fear of losing the 'I' in me, the fear of losing the 'I' in me." That's what my mother in Iraq used to tell me. It's like dying from inside-out. A Palestinian woman once told me, "It is not about the fear of one death," she said, "sometimes I feel I die 10 times in one day," as she was describing the marches of soldiers and the sounds of their bullets. She said, "But it's not fair, because there is only one life, and there should only be one death."
Kad sam napustila Irak osnovala sam grupu "Women for Women International" koja radi sa ženama koje su preživele rat. Tokom mojih putovanja i rada u Kongu i Avganistanu, Sudanu i Ruandi, shvatila sam, da nisu samo boje i zvukovi rata isti, već je i strah isti. Znate, postoji strah od umiranja, i ne verujte nijednoj filmskoj ulozi u kojoj se heroj ne plaši. Vrlo je strašno proći kroz osećanje, "Umreću" ili "Mogu umreti u ovoj eksploziji". Ali tu je i strah od gubitka voljenih, i misliim da je to čak i strašnije. Previše je bolno; ne želite da mislite na to. Ali mislim da je najgori - kao što je Samia, žena iz Bosne, jednom rekla, ona je preživela četvorogodišnju opsadu Sarajeva. Rekla je:" Strah od gubitka svog JA, strah od gubitka svog JA." To mi je govorila majka u Iraku. Kao da umirete iznutra. Palestinska žena mi je jednom rekla: "Ne radi se o jednom strahu od smrti, ponekad osećam da sam umrla 10 puta u toku jednog dana", i opisivala je marševe vojnika i zvuke njihovih metaka. I rekla je:" Nije fer, jer postoji samo jedan život, i treba da bude samo jedna smrt.".
We have been only seeing one side of war. We have only been discussing and consumed with high-level preoccupations over troop levels, drawdown timelines, surges and sting operations, when we should be examining the details of where the social fabric has been most torn, where the community has improvised and survived and shown acts of resilience and amazing courage just to keep life going. We have been so consumed with seemingly objective discussions of politics, tactics, weapons, dollars and casualties. This is the language of sterility.
Viđali smo samo jednu stranu rata. Razgovarali smo o i bili okupirani važnim zadacima vojnih trupa, zadacima ograničenim vremenom, iznenadnim i obmanljivim operacijama, kada bi trebalo da ispitamo detalje o tome gde je socijalno tkivo najviše razrušeno, gde je zajednica improvizovala i preživela i pokazala čin otpora i neverovatnu hrabrost radi održanja života. Toliko smo zatrpani sa, naizgled objektivnim razgovorima o politici, taktici, oružju, novcu i žrtvama. Ovo je jezik izolovanosti.
How casually we treat casualties in the context of this topic. This is where we conceive of rape and casualties as inevitabilities. Eighty percent of refugees around the world are women and children. Oh. Ninety percent of modern war casualties are civilians. Seventy-five percent of them are women and children. How interesting. Oh, half a million women in Rwanda get raped in 100 days. Or, as we speak now, hundreds of thousands of Congolese women are getting raped and mutilated. How interesting. These just become numbers that we refer to. The front of wars is increasingly non-human eyes peering down on our perceived enemies from space, guiding missiles toward unseen targets, while the human conduct of the orchestra of media relations in the event that this particular drone attack hits a villager instead of an extremist. It is a chess game. You learn to play an international relations school on your way out and up to national and international leadership. Checkmate.
Kako se odnosimo prema žrtvama u kontekstu ove teme. Ovo je mesto gde silovanje i žrtve zamišljamo kao neizbežnost. 80 odsto izbeglica širom sveta čine žene i deca. Oh. 90 odsto žrtava modernog rata jesu civili - 75 odsto od toga su žene i deca. Vrlo zanimljivo. O, pola miliona žena u Ruandi su silovane za 100 dana. Ili, u ovom trenutku, stotine hiljada žena iz Konga biva silovano ili osakaćeno. Vrlo zanimljivo. I one postaju samo brojke na koje ukazujemo. Ratne linije su neljudske oči koje posmatraju iz svemira one koje smatramo neprijateljima, vodeći rakete ka nevidljivim metama, dok čovek upravlja orkestrom svih medija u slučaju kada raketa pogodi seljaka umesto ekstremistu. To je šahovska igra. Učite da igrate međunarodno u školi međunarodnih odnosa na vašem putu dostizanja nacionalnog i internacionalnog vođstva. Šah - mat.
We are missing a completely other side of wars. We are missing my mother's story, who made sure with every siren, with every raid, with every cut off-of electricity, she played puppet shows for my brothers and I, so we would not be scared of the sounds of explosions. We are missing the story of Fareeda, a music teacher, a piano teacher, in Sarajevo, who made sure that she kept the music school open every single day in the four years of besiege in Sarajevo and walked to that school, despite the snipers shooting at that school and at her, and kept the piano, the violin, the cello playing the whole duration of the war, with students wearing their gloves and hats and coats. That was her fight. That was her resistance. We are missing the story of Nehia, a Palestinian woman in Gaza who, the minute there was a cease-fire in the last year's war, she left out of home, collected all the flour and baked as much bread for every neighbor to have, in case there is no cease-fire the day after. We are missing the stories of Violet, who, despite surviving genocide in the church massacre, she kept on going on, burying bodies, cleaning homes, cleaning the streets. We are missing stories of women who are literally keeping life going in the midst of wars. Do you know -- do you know that people fall in love in war and go to school and go to factories and hospitals and get divorced and go dancing and go playing and live life going? And the ones who are keeping that life are women.
Nedostaju nam potpuno drugčije strane ratova. Nedostaje nam priča moje majke, koja se pobrinula da sa svakom sirenom, iznenadnim napadom, svakom restrikcijom struje, odigra lutkarsku predstavu za moju braću i mene, kako se ne bismo uplašili zvuka eksplozija. Nedostaje nam priča Faride, profesorke muzičkog, učiteljice klavira iz Sarajeva, koja se pobrinula da muzička škola bude otvorena svakoga dana tokom okupacije Sarajeva. Išla je peške do škole, uprkos snajperskim pucnjevima na tu školu i na nju, i nastavila da svira klavir, violinu, violončelo tokom čitavog rata, sa studentima obučenim u rukavice, kape i kapute. To je bila njena borba. To je bio njen otpor. Nedostaje nam priča Nehie, palestinske žene iz Gaze, koja je, u momentu kada je došlo do prekida vatre prošle godine, napustila kuću, sakupila svo brašno i ispekla što više hleba za sve komšije, za slučaj da sutra prekida vatre ne bude. Nedostaju nam Violetine priče koja je uprkos preživljavanju genocida u crkvenom masakru nastavila, zakopavala leševe, čistila kuće, ulice. Nedostaju nam priče žena koje jednostavno vode svoje živote u sred rata. Da li znate - da li znate da se ljudi zaljubljuju tokom rata i idu u školu u fabrike i bolnice i da se razvode i da idu na ples, igraju i žive život? A one koje održavaju taj život su žene.
There are two sides of war. There is a side that fights, and there is a side that keeps the schools and the factories and the hospitals open. There is a side that is focused on winning battles, and there is a side that is focused on winning life. There is a side that leads the front-line discussion, and there is a side that leads the back-line discussion. There is a side that thinks that peace is the end of fighting, and there is a side that thinks that peace is the arrival of schools and jobs. There is a side that is led by men, and there is a side that is led by women. And in order for us to understand how do we build lasting peace, we must understand war and peace from both sides. We must have a full picture of what that means.
Postoje dve strane rata. Strana koja se bori, i strana koja osigurava da škole, fabrike i bolnice budu otvorene. Postoji strana koja je usmerena na dobijanje bitaka, i strana koja je fokusirana na pobedu života Tu je strana koja vodi razgovore na prvoj liniji, i strana koja obavlja diskusiju u pozadini. Strana koja misli da je mir kraj borbama, i strana koja misli da mir donosi škole i poslove. Strana koju vode muškarci, strana koju vode žene. I da bismo razumeli kako da sagradimo trajni mir, moramo razumeti rat i mir sa obe strane. Moramo imati čitavu sliku toga šta to znači.
In order for us to understand what actually peace means, we need to understand, as one Sudanese woman once told me, "Peace is the fact that my toenails are growing back again." She grew up in Sudan, in Southern Sudan, for 20 years of war, where it killed one million people and displaced five million refugees. Many women were taken as slaves by rebels and soldiers, as sexual slaves who were forced also to carry the ammunition and the water and the food for the soldiers. So that woman walked for 20 years, so she would not be kidnapped again. And only when there was some sort of peace, her toenails grew back again. We need to understand peace from a toenail's perspective.
Da bismo razumeli šta mir (zapravo) znači, moramo razumeti, kao što je žena iz Sudana jednom rekla: "MIr je činjenica da nokti na mojim nogama ponov rastu." Ona je rasla u Sudanu, južnom Sudanu, tokom 20 godina rata, gde je pobijeno milion ljudi i izmešteno pet miliona izbeglica. Mnoge žene su načinjene robovima od strane pobunjenika i vojnika, kao seksualni robovi koji su prisiljeni da nose municiju, vodu i hranu za vojnike. Ta žena je hodala 20 godina, kako ne bi ponovo bila oteta. I samo onda kada je postojala neka vrsta mira, njeni nokti na nogama su ponovo rasli. Moramo da razumemo mir iz perspektive nokta na nogama.
We need to understand that we cannot actually have negotiations of ending of wars or peace without fully including women at the negotiating table. I find it amazing that the only group of people who are not fighting and not killing and not pillaging and not burning and not raping, and the group of people who are mostly -- though not exclusively -- who are keeping life going in the midst of war, are not included in the negotiating table. And I do argue that women lead the back-line discussion, but there are also men who are excluded from that discussion. The doctors who are not fighting, the artists, the students, the men who refuse to pick up the guns, they are, too, excluded from the negotiating tables. There is no way we can talk about a lasting peace, building of democracy, sustainable economies, any kind of stabilities, if we do not fully include women at the negotiating table. Not one, but 50 percent.
Moramo razumeti da zapravo ne možemo imati pregovore o završetku rata bez potpune uključenosti žena u proces pregovora. Zapanjuje me da jedina grupa ljudi koja se ne bori i ne ubija ne pljačka, ne pali i ne siluje, i grupa ljudi koja uglavnom - mada ne isključivo - održava život u sred rata, nije uključena u proces pregovora. Tvrdim da žene upravljaju razgovorima u pozadni, ali postoje i muškarci koji su iz toga isključeni. Doktori koji se ne bore, umetnici, studenti, oni koji odbijaju da uzmu oružje u ruku, i oni su isključeni iz procesa pregovora. Ne možemo razgovarati o održivom miru, izgradnji demokratije, održive ekonomije, bilo koje stabilnosti, ako u potpunosti ne uključimo žene u pregovore. Ne jedan, nego 50 odsto.
There is no way we can talk about the building of stability if we don't start investing in women and girls. Did you know that one year of the world's military spending equals 700 years of the U.N. budget and equals 2,928 years of the U.N. budget allocated for women? If we just reverse that distribution of funds, perhaps we could have a better lasting peace in this world. And last, but not least, we need to invest in peace and women, not only because it is the right thing to do, not only because it is the right thing to do, for all of us to build sustainable and lasting peace today, but it is for the future.
Ne možemo govoriti o izgradnji stabilnosti ako ne počnemo da ulažemo u žene i devojčice. Da li ste znali da jednogodišnja vojna potrošnja odgovara UN budžetu za 700 godina, i jednak je UN budžetu namenjenom ženama za 2928 godina? Ako preokrenemo distribuciju sredstava, možda bismo mogli imati bolji održivi mir u svetu. I na kraju, ali ne i manje važno, moramo da ulažemo u mir i žene, ne samo zato što je to ispravno, ne zbog toga što je za nas dobro da izgradimo održivi i trajni mir za sve nas, već i za budućnost.
A Congolese woman, who was telling me about how her children saw their father killed in front of them and saw her raped in front of them and mutilated in front of them, and her children saw their nine-year-old sibling killed in front of them, how they're doing okay right now. She got into Women for Women International's program. She got a support network. She learned about her rights. We taught her vocational and business skills. We helped her get a job. She was earning 450 dollars. She was doing okay. She was sending them to school. Have a new home. She said, "But what I worry about the most is not any of that. I worry that my children have hate in their hearts, and when they want to grow up, they want to fight again the killers of their father and their brother." We need to invest in women, because that's our only chance to ensure that there is no more war in the future. That mother has a better chance to heal her children than any peace agreement can do.
Žena iz Konga, koja mi je ispričala kako su njena deca videla kako njihov otac gine i kako nju siluju i sakate je, videla su i kako je njihov devetogodišnji brat ubijen pred njihovim očima, i sada su dobro. Uključila se u program " Women for Women International". Dobila je mrežu podrške. Naučila je svoja prava. Naučila je stručne i poslovne veštine. Pomogli smo joj da nađe posao. Zarađivala je 450 dolara. Bila je dobro. Deca su išla u školu - imaju novi dom. Rekla je: " Ono što me najviše brine nisu te stvari. Brine me da moja deca imaju mržnju u svojim srcima, i da će kad odrastu, želeti ponovo da se bore sa ubicama nihovog oca i brata." Moramo ulagati u žene, jer su one naša jedina šansa da osiguramo da u budućnosti više ne bude rata. Ova majka ima bolje šanse da oporavi svoju decu, nego bilo koji dogovor o primirju.
Are there good news? Of course, there are good news. There are lots of good news. To start with, these women that I told you about are dancing and singing every single day, and if they can, who are we not to dance? That girl that I told you about ended up starting Women for Women International Group that impacted one million people, sent 80 million dollars, and I started this from zero, nothing, nada, [unclear].
Ima li dobrih vesti? Naravno da ima. Ima ih mnogo. Da počnemo, ove žene o kojima sam vam pričala igraju i pevaju svakog dana, i ako mogu, ko smo mi da to zabranimo. Devojka o kojoj sam vam pričala je osnovala grupu "Women for Women International" koja je uticala na milion ljudi, poslala 80 miliona dolara, a počela sam od nule, ništa, nada ( nejasno).
(Laughter)
( smeh )
They are women who are standing on their feet in spite of their circumstances, not because of it. Think of how the world can be a much better place if, for a change, we have a better equality, we have equality, we have a representation and we understand war, both from the front-line and the back-line discussion.
To su žene koje stoje na svojim nogama uprkos svojim okolnostima, a ne zbog njih. Pomislite kako bi svet bilo bolje mesto ako bi, za promenu, imali veću ravnopravnost, da je imamo, da imamo predstavnicu žena i razumemo rat, sa obe strane, ratne i svakodnevne.
Rumi, a 13th-century Sufi poet, says, "Out beyond the worlds of right-doings and wrong-doings, there is a field. I will meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about. Ideas, language, even the phrase 'each other' no longer makes any sense." I humbly add -- humbly add -- that out beyond the worlds of war and peace, there is a field, and there are many women and men [who] are meeting there. Let us make this field a much bigger place. Let us all meet in that field.
Rumi, Sufi pesnik iz 13. veka, kaže:" Izvan svetova ispravnih i pogrešnih dela, postoji polje. Srešćemo se tamo. Kada duša leži u toj travi, svet je prepun razgovora. Ideje, jezik, čak i izraz "jedno za drugo" više nema smisla.". Skromno dodajem - ponizno - da izvan svetova rata i mira, postoji polje, gde postoji mnogo žena i muškaraca koji se tu sreću. Hajde da to polje načinimo većim. Hajde da se svi tu sretnemo.
Thank you.
Hvala vam.
(Applause)
( aplauz )