„Lysistrata, a female character of antic Greece, reasons that because both Athens and Sparta are of a common heritage and because they have previously helped one another and owe a debt to one another, the two sides should not be fighting.“
Suggestions by Irene Eckert
There seems some actuality in this bridge building female idea. Are 70 years of global postwar
confrontations not enough? Is peace still a women's issue? Has it
ever been? The founding mothers of Women's International League
For Peace and Freedom thought it was. The turn of the 20th
century saw a bunch of influential female pioneers for peace: Bertha
von Suttner, Nobel Peace Price initiator, Jane Addams, social
reformer, Aletta Jacobs, doctress, Anita Augspurg, lawyer, Rosa
Luxemburg, economist, Clara Zetkin, teacher were among the
most outstanding women of their days, struggling each in her way for
peace and justice.
Mairead Corrigan-Maguire, Nobel
Peace laureat of 1976 says „peace is a human right“ and
she continues to struggle for it. Indira Ghandi was not
the only head of an influential state, who paid with her life, while
struggling for peace in the international arena.
However, peace, unfortunatelly, is a
controversial issue, among women, too. Women's Suffrage Societies
with 50,000 members, and the smaller Women's Social and Political
Union, both split on the war issue.1
So if women 'peace makers' want to help
save humanity from the scourge of war and militarism and all the
violence that comes with it, that affects women, children, the
elderly and the poor in the first place, we have to join forces with
those indivuals, states and larger alliances who work for the same
ends. We simply cannot rely on women alone, nor on former peace
alliances, parties or unions. It is tragic but true: Success in the
struggle for women's rights pushes more women to the side of those in
power, to the side of the military machine. Having said this, it
does not necessarily mean that the struggle for peace is lost, on
the very contrary.
Major changes in global human affairs
and in the balance of power are under way. We are witnessing
tectonic shifts that will eventually help better the human fate.
Those developments will help improve the situation of women. Positive
tectonic shifts from West to East, from North to South bear the
potential to saveguard peace on a global scale. Our duty as peace
loving people, as women who strive to overcome structures of violence
is raising awarness towards those driving forces and to rally local
support. Consciuosness is the key factor in this potentially healing
process.
For anyone who cares to see clearly, it
has become more than obvious: The US strive for global hegemony,
supported with all its destructive consequences by the Western world
has come to a dead end. The policy of blackmail, of sanctions, of war
and desasterous military interventions has failed the world over.
The unique advantages after the end of the Cold War have been gambled
away lightheartedly, carelessly.
BRICS members are strongest not only
in demografic numbers and economical figures but also in space and
spirit. Their united efforts are already being supported by the
SCO-Shanghai Cooperation-Alliance, an expanding body of member
countries like Kasachstan, Kirgistan, Usbekistan, Tajikistan but also
by observers like Afghanistan, Belarus, Iran, Pakistan and by
dialogue partners as Mongolia, Turkey and many more. These recent
alliances are not striving for hegemony, they do not count on
military strength, they do not even mean to challenge aggressive NATO
but in reality they do weaken its possibilites to enforce their will
on others.
BRICS has come up with a New
Development Bank whose intention is to assist poorer countries in
building up their infrastructure unconditionally. 2 NDB offers an alternative to the World Bank and the IMF, whose policies
have had destasterous effects on weaker countries so far. 3 . This newly created bank is supposed to mainly
support the development of the Asia-Pacific region. But it also
wants to be seen in connection with the New Silk Road Project4.When
completed, like the ancient Silk Road, this vision will connect three
continents: Asia, Europe, and Africa. The chain of infrastructure
projects will create the world’s largest economic corridor,
covering a population of 4.4 billion and an economic output of $21
trillion. In addition China has initiated the AIIB Asian Infrastructure Investmentbank, The launch of an Asian International Infrastructure Bank
(AIIB), will provide seed funding for the project, with an initial
Chinese contribution of $47 billion. It has already won 57 countries to join in as founding members, including many „friends“ of the USA (!)
On July 8-10, 2015, the summits of
both the BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) took
place in Ufa, Russia. These events occurred in a particular context in
which the West as well as Asia is facing a growing terrorist threat,
and diplomatic and military complications are multiplying on the
geopolitical scene. Syria, Ukraine, the Pacific Ocean are all
geographic areas where conflicts could potentially turn into major
bloodier wars. This offered an opportunity for Russia to
successfully assess the diplomatic stance of its partners as regards
the talks of the P5+1 over Iran’s nuclear program.
However, this is mainly about
economics and finance that these two summits could be of significant
importance following the establishment of the new Asian
Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) which ambitions to provide the
BRICS and all partner countries with the financial means they have
not been able – or not wanted – to obtain elsewhere, meaning the
IMF and the World Bank. All this was happening as Greece could be
just days or weeks away from leaving the euro area and become the
first “customer” of this alternative world finance, much to the
discontent of the Euro-Atlantic alliance.5
Peace workers are
aware of the need to establish trade relations and treaties on an
equal footing if violence is to be overcome in international
relations.
Russia and China
have been untruthfully portrayed as our enemy nations. In reality they
are both our partners in trade and they do always refer to us in these
terms. Facts need to be taken into account, if we want to make a successful contribution for world peace. We might not love each other but we do
indeed need each other and we do have to treat each other with respect.
It seems to me that
as women, as peace makers, as citizens who work for total
emancipation and for overcoming structures of violence we need to
spread the word about the recent UFA summit in Russia. It is also important to talk about the Saint
Petersburg economic gathering, about the general trend of economic weights shifting away from the West.
As women we tend to be aware of the fact that structural
imbalances and structures of unhindered violence always hit the
weakest ones the hardest. We therefore need promote the word about the global processes under way. We must talk about activities for more peaceful and more effective trading efforts, for alternative fiscal solutions that are putting limits on the dollar based Bretton woods system.
We need to support all diplomatic efforts on non-military conflict
solutions as recently took successfully place with the P5+1talks over the Iran nuclear issue*. We
need build up support for the Minsk Peace agreements and for the
Geneva process to end the war against Syria. We need to build up
respect for other nations and their achievements as prescribed in
the frames of the international law system, the UN-Charter + follow up
Conventions. These documents must be studied and brought home in its
essence to our constituencies.
By working for such
objectives women can indeed help build up momentum to save us all
from the scourge of war and from the environmental distruction that
follows war and militarism as rain follows the cloud. Women are
strong, women are multi-tasking, women are brave and together with
noble minded men we sure will overcome the aggressive brutality prevailing in our days, eventually.
May the ancient Greek spirit of
Lysistrata and of its creator genius Aristophanes
guide us.
__________
2
The New Development Bank BRICS (NDB BRICS), formerly referred to
as the BRICS Development Bank, is multilateral development bank
operated by the BRICS states (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South
Africa) as an alternative to the existing US-dominated World Bank
and International Monetary Fund. The Bank is set up to foster
greater financial and development cooperation among the five
emerging markets. Together, the four original BRIC countries
comprise in 2014 more than 3 billion people or 41.4 percent of the
world’s population, cover more than a quarter of the world’s
land area over three continents, and account for more than 25
percent of global GDP. It will be headquartered in Shanghai, China.
Unlike the World Bank, which assigns votes based on capital share,
in the New Development Bank each participant country will be
assigned one vote, and none of the countries will have veto power.
4“How
Can the World Be Win-Win? China Is Answering the
Question.”http://thediplomat.com/2014/05/chinas-new-silk-road-vision-revealed/http://
„New Silk Road Could Change
Global Economics Forever“
time.com/3893977/new-silk-road-global-economics/
*http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2015/07/21/iran-deal-implications-and-lessons-to-draw.html
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