RIGHTS:
To the World's Unsung Feminists, We Salute You!
Katherine Stapp
NEW YORK, Jun 29 (IPS) -
What do a Muslim advocate for battered women, an African American
congresswoman, and the singer of a hit cover of the song "Santa Baby" have in
common?
All three, and 37 others from the United States,
are among the 1,000 women from around the world who have been collectively
nominated for this year's Nobel Peace Prize, as part of a novel project meant
to highlight their work for a better future.
Noting that only 12 women
have ever won since the peace prize was first awarded in 1901, the Swiss-based
project -- simply called 1,000 Women for the Nobel Peace Prize 2005 -- is
using three proxies to represent the thousand nominees -- themselves
representing the "millions of women (who) work day in day out to promote
peace."
By contrast, 80 men and 12 organisations have received the
prestigious award.
"The nominated women all commit themselves daily to
the cause of peace and justice, often under the most difficult circumstances,"
the organisers said in a statement released Wednesday.
The Nobel Prize
statutes limit simultaneous awards to three individuals at the most, or to an
organisation.
The U.S. nominees include Hadayai Majeed, whose "vision
is both simple and huge: gives Muslim women the tools to change their climate
by changing themselves."
In 1977, Hadayai founded the Baitul Salaam
Network, Inc., whose goal is to end silence about domestic violence and to
help abused Muslim women and children obtain shelter, food and clothing. The
organisation also teaches strategies for self-sufficiency and personal
confidence.
"Just after we opened, a child of one of our residents
danced in the middle of the floor, dived head-first into the toy box and
squealed with joy. I knew then we were doing the right thing," she says on the
project's website.
Nominee Cynthia Basinet, while best known as a jazz
singer, has also been involved in drawing attention to the plight of some
200,000 refugees living in the western Sahara desert. In May 2001, she
travelled to the Algerian camps and performed for the people there, who are
more than 80 percent women and children.
"Displaced societies are of
value," according to Basinet. "Their issues are our issues."
And
Cynthia McKinney, a Georgia congresswoman who has been one of the most
outspoken critics of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq, has
successfully fought for legislation to extend health benefits for Vietnam War
veterans and victims of Agent Orange, and sponsored a bill to end the use of
depleted uranium weapons.
As a ranking member of Human Rights
Subcommittee, McKinney urged the United Nations to investigate the Rwanda
genocide. She lost her seat for one term following widely reported comments --
which McKinney apparently never made -- accusing the administration of having
advance warning of the Sep. 11, 2001 attacks, but was returned to office in
2004.
"We really believe that a multitude of people can outweigh any
special interest every time," she said in a victory speech last November.
"That media magic has little persuasion over an informed people. That we as a
people are way more powerful when we turn to each other and not on each
other."
"We are way more powerful when we turn to each other and not
on each other, when we celebrate our diversity, focus on our commonality, and
together, tear down the mighty walls of injustice," she said.
The
1,000-woman project takes a broad view of peace based on human security, which
includes nutrition, health, the environment and human rights. In selecting the
nominees, special emphasis was placed on unknown grassroots activists who do
not exercise any coordination function, but do direct and active peace work
within their own immediate regions.
So while some of the nominees
already have high profiles, like Noeleen Heyzer, head of the United Nations
Development Fund for Women, others do not.
Take Rev. Mother Mary
Elizabeth Thunder, founder of Thunder Ranch and the Blue Star Church in West
Point, Texas. Thunder has played key roles at various Wolf Songs,
international gatherings of indigenous peace elders.
In 1997, she was
invited by the Dalai Lama to travel to France and speak about peace and women
at the Spiritual United Nations, an international gathering of spiritual
representatives.
"I want to remind people that in the indigenous
traditions, women are very important," she told an audience of 8,000 people on
that trip. "Not because we are told we are important but because we know that
since forever and always, we have had the power and the capacity to give
birth, raise women and men and to take care of the earth."
"It is
today that I thusly give celebration to all the women on Earth. I would like
to ask my sisters to give up the thoughts and actions of the word victim. We
are no longer victimsàWe are strong!" Thunder declared.
Economic and
social justice are also the main concerns of Chicana (U.S.-born Latina)
activist, author and educator Elizabeth (Betita) Martinez, who has published
six books and many articles on grassroots movements in the Americas.
"If being a writer implies sensitivity to the complex reality of human
existence, then how can one not seek to end the conditions that suffocate all
but a tiny number of those who walk this earth?" she asks.
Other
nominees include Charlotte Bunch, founder and executive director of the Centre
for Women's Global Leadership, and Anne Firth Murray, who created the Global
Fund for Women, the largest foundation in the world focused exclusively on
women and girls.
Since its inception in 1987, the fund has granted
more than 35 million dollars to 2,500 women's groups in 180 countries.
The 1,000-women project was launched in 2003. And last year the winner
of the Nobel Peace Prize was a woman: Iranian human rights activist Shirin
Ebadi.
(END/2005)
