Hello! We’ve moved to a new home on the Peace X Peace website. Week X Week will still feature commentary on each week’s news through the lenses of women, peace, and human development. Molly Mayfield Barbee and I will still be the principal bloggers, though we hope to feature more member and staff guest bloggers in the months ahead. And the format―well, Gentle Reader, that’s up to you.

Please, go to http://www.peacexpeace.org/Peace_X_Peace_Blogs/
now and tell us what you think. Many thanks!

There was a time when we at Peace X Peace had to explain how virtual social media and networking could make a difference in the real world. Do you remember that? It wasn’t so long ago. . .

Well, the world has changed. Facebook now has a VP assigned to public policy and national governments are utilizing social media tools. International relations are no longer restricted to communications between governments. It’s now about people to people, and people to government, and government to people as well. It’s new because of YOU. You and all of us who harness the power of technology to lift the voices of ordinary people—we’re shaking things up!

The core message of the Peace X Peace Global Network was highlighted this week in an interview featured by the Council on Foreign Relations, saying that such technology tools, “. . . create an opportunity for people to see the world through the wisdom of their friends. The information they get is culled not by some distant, remote editor, but by the editing skills, or by the opinions and ideas, of their friends.” There is a “. . . whole new level of accountability, because I get to see what you care about, what you’re thinking about, and it’s not just static, but you see it over time.”

More than international relations is being changed by these tools: Women’s lives around the world are affected in concrete ways. Take this new media group in India that provides a platform for local women to oppose injustice. It’s not just a newspaper, it’s a social organization run by women for women. Or  this blogger, whose experience mobilizing readers around issues in her Ohio community set her on track to run for public office. Instead of the media representing women (or not), women are now equipped to represent ourselves and leverage the tools we need to make real change.

You’ve probably seen the bloody headlines out of Sri Lanka in recent days. That simmering conflict does not seem to go away. But in the light of new social media tools for change, there are actions we can take. Learning about the work of Peace X Peace members in Sri Lanka is one, and pressuring donor countries to intervene is another. Both are possible from wherever you are, right now, even as you read this blog.

Before signing off, and while Peace X Peace is celebrating a full month of mothering at our virtual party on Facebook, I want to acknowledge the article earlier this week in which five experts in women’s issues suggested their simple measures to improve the wellbeing of mothers around the world. And did you hear about grandmother Maguy Kakon, who recently decided to be the first female Jewish candidate in Morocco’s parliamentary elections? Talk about following your dreams. There’s good news out there today for women who are determined to make a difference.

Quick: What images come to mind when you think of mothering and Mothers Day? Ads and greeting cards feature cuddly infants, tender smiles, comfort food, and flowers. Indeed, the job wouldn’t be so popular if it didn’t have a sunny side. American First Mom Michelle Obama told reporters on Monday that she’s surprised at how much fun she’s having in her new role. While prime outlets obsess about her clothes and shoes, she’s busy talking sense about the flu and setting a good example for her daughters and the nation. Setting an example is one of the most important tasks in a parent’s job description, and it isn’t always easy.

Moms know the requirements go far beyond an apron and a lap. They nurture minds and spirits, often against the grain of a culture that tells us we are what we own. They listen, clean up, get up, and wait up at all hours. Worldwide, many go hungry so their children can eat, wait up for children who never come home, even bury children and go on to mother the world, like a remarkable number of my personal sheroes. There’s a fierceness to maternal love that probably surprises most of us. I’ll never forget coming home from the hospital with my newborn second son and suddenly, for just a moment, seeing the tot who had been my baby a few days before as a large and potentially dangerous stranger.

The true, fierce, planet-protecting spirit of the day shines out in Julia Ward Howe’s 1870 proclamation to the mothers of the world, which parents and children should all read at least once a year: “We, the women of one country, Will be too tender of those of another country To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.” And: “Let [women] solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means Whereby the great human family can live in peace…”

Peace X Peace was established as a virtual, and therefore borderless place for women to take counsel with each other. While wars continue to rage across the planet, we focus on our power to connect and act together for peace. Right now we invite mothers and others to take This Week’s Peace Action, to attend our Mom X Mom virtual celebration on Facebook and contribute to the cause, and to join the conversation inside the Global Network and on Voices from the Frontline. We invite women, men, and children to nurture peace and human rights and insist that governments shift their priorities from waging war to meeting unmet needs. The information age brings us all daily opportunities to extend our caring past the kitchen, school, or office door.

With a click or two we can petition for the release of Zimbabwean activist Jestina Mukoko or Iranian American journalist Roxana Saberi. So far, more than 300 people around the world have joined Saberi’s hunger strike, abstaining for a day or longer in solidarity with this young woman from North Dakota who was arrested in January for buying a bottle of wine. Saberi now has Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi on her legal defense team, though she hasn’t been able to see her yet. An appeal of her eight-year sentence for espionage comes up next week. You can join the fast or send a letter to the Iranian government at http://freeroxana.net/.

Please tell us what you’re doing to mother the world. Tell us about your mother, your mother heroes, what surprises you about being a mother, and anything else you care to share. If you note in your comment that we can carry it over to Mom X Mom, it will do double duty and you’ll make this mother-blogger happy. To all the mothers and others who read this post, a most happy, peaceful, and connected Mothers Day.

I’m torn. I want to spend this post just gushing about all the cool stuff going on at this year’s Nonprofit Technology Conference in San Francisco. Our fearless Membership Coordinator, Kay Robinson, is there to represent, absorb, schmooze, and connect with the thousands of good souls who are researching, testing, and using high-tech tools to make the world a better place. It is an exciting, empowering time to be in this field. . . But since other important women-led things are happening in the world this week, let me get on to other stories.

Like: yesterday was Equal Pay Day. Did you wear something red to make your statement about women’s wages still lagging below the bottom line? If you’re in the US, you remember when the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act passed this January—and we’re still finding that women’s salaries seriously lag behind men’s across the board. Of particular concern is the way the gap widens for minority women. A study analyzing data from the American Association of University Women released April 23rd shows that African American women are earning 67 cents and Hispanic women only 58 cents for every dollar earned by a white male worker. Financial equity is an essential element of peace. We just can’t build the peace-filled thriving communities we seek without it.

And this news comes not long after the release of a report from Pepperdine University, which finds that companies with more female executives also have significantly higher profit margins. Commenting about this notable correlation, the author of the study writes “There are several possible interpretations . . . [we offer that] firms exhibit higher profitability when their top executives make smart decisions. One of the smart decisions those executives have consistently made at successful Fortune 500 firms is to include women in the executive suite — so that regardless of gender, the best brains are available to continue making smart, and profitable, decisions.” What more could I say?

When women are included, they elevate other fields as well. Take politics and the environment. All month you’ve been seeing earth-themed This Week’s Peace Actions and reading posts about the inseparable link between justice for women and justice for the environment. This week, President Johnson-Sirleaf got serious about cleaning up her city. Starting in May, the first Saturday of every month will be “Monrovia Clean-Up Day.” I hope other civic leaders will be inspired to do the same. In fact, don’t be surprised to find “host a community clean-up” as a This Week’s Peace Action coming soon.

Another positive step for the world’s women took place last week in Kabul. The bill so casually and quietly signed into law several weeks ago that allowed husbands to rape their wives and prevent them from leaving the house without their permission is now back in question. A group of women activists met with President Karzai at the Presidential Palace and they, along with several international groups, have reportedly pressured him to review the law once again. Perseverance and creativity cannot be over-valued in these situations, and that’s exactly what this Afghan women’s movement is bringing to the table.

Since we’re talking about the unique contributions women bring to the mix, I’d like to leave you with a little treat this week. The writer and illustrator Maira Kalman is back with her series of stories on the American experience, “And the Pursuit of Happiness,” which is currently featured in the New York Times. This month’s installment, “May It Please the Court,” focuses on systems of justice and some of the unique roles women have played in the development of judicial processes. Even if the general topic doesn’t catch your interest, her drawings and reflections on personal experiences surely will. Her voice and the women she depicts make me thank my lucky stars that these women have stepped forward to show the value they add to their field. And it redoubles my commitment to get those other women’s voices, stories, and solutions out there and shared with the world.

It’s Earth Day. My co-blogger and I have already written about the connections among women, peace, and the environment. We’ve barely scratched the surface, of course. We’ve said nothing about the Chipko women’s movement in India, the Indigenous Grandmothers whose wisdom holds out both hope and warning, or many other loving and daring women and men around the world who work to heal the world. Please, comment on this blog or last week’s to share how those vital connections work for you. Join in This Week’s (green) Peace Action. And if it’s information you’re after, read our Page X Page Peace Papers on the environment―and let me know if you can volunteer to update one or several.

We’re proud of the resources on our site! Still, on the great planetary scale, inspiration surely outweighs information. And here in the USA, it’s National Poetry Month. So rather than more words of mine, this week I offer some timeless ones that the poet Richard Wilbur published in 1961, when the willful destruction of life by earth’s inhabitants seemed far more remote than it does today.

When you come, as you must, to the streets of our city,
Mad-eyed from stating the obvious,
Not proclaiming our fall but begging us
In God's name to have self-pity,
 
Spare us all word of the weapons, their force and range,
The long numbers that rocket the mind;
Our slow, unreckoning hearts will be left behind,
Unable to fear what is too strange.
 
Nor shall you scare us with talk of the death of the race.
How should we dream of this place without us?--
The sun mere fire, the leaves untroubled about us,
A stone look on the stone's face?
 
Speak of the world's own change. Though we cannot conceive
Of an undreamt thing, we know to our cost
How the dreamt cloud crumbles, the vines are blackened by frost,
How the view alters.  We could believe,
 
If you told us so, that the white-tailed deer will slip
Into perfect shade, grown perfectly shy,
The lark avoid the reaches of our eye,
The jack-pine lose its knuckled grip
 
On the cold ledge, and every torrent burn
As Xanthus once, its gliding trout
Stunned in a twinkling.  What should we be without
The dolphin's arc, the dove's return, 
 
These things in which we have seen ourselves and spoken?
Ask us, prophet, how we shall call
Our natures forth when that live tongue is all
Dispelled, that glass obscured or broken
 
In which we have said the rose of our love and the clean
Horse of our courage, in which beheld
The singing locust of the soul unshelled,
And all we mean or wish to mean.
 
Ask us, ask us whether with the worldless rose
Our hearts shall fail us; come demanding
Whether there shall be lofty or long standing
When the bronze annals of the oak-tree close.

Commentary by Molly Mayfield Barbee

Forty-seven years ago this past Sunday, Rachel Carson published Silent Spring, her groundbreaking study of the impact of harsh chemicals and pesticides on surrounding ecosystems. Decades after its publication and her untimely death from breast cancer in 1964, some still criticize Carson for her “preservationist hysteria” and “bad science,” while others hail her as the mother of the modern environmental movement. The lessons of her book have stayed with me since I first read it as an adolescent.

What is the connection between ecological awareness and peace? It goes beyond the simple fact that if we used up all the resources on this planet we’d have nowhere to build our healthy, free-from-conflict, thriving communities of the future. Learning to live in harmony, engaging with the other, and actively seeking mutually beneficial ways to co-exist are peace principles that apply to interpersonal relationships, but also to our relationships with our environment. Rosemary Radford Ruether rocked my world as a young adult when I read her writings that connect the destructive effects of a patriarchal or anthropocentric society on women and the damage that society does to all who are oppressed—human or not.

We who call for a paradigm shift toward equitable treatment of women are de facto contributing to an earth-healing movement. True justice, equality, and empowerment for women liberate all those who have been excluded, marginalized, exploited. Eco-feminism, like Circle principles, connects us to our ancient roots, our interdependence with the earth, and our potential to reach for the sky. Ruether wrote about powering women to unlock a more balanced way of life, and her work draws on her experiences in some of the toughest conflict zones today, including Latin America and Israel and the Palestinian Territories.

Our challenge to find equitable ways to use our earthly resources is again at the front of my mind this week as US special envoy for Middle East peace George Mitchell returns for his third visit to the region since his appointment earlier this year. This persistent dispute over land, rights, and history highlights the inseparable connection we have with our environment and home. At this tenuous time when a two-state solution seems to be slipping from our reach, I believe sages Rachel Carson and Rosemary Radford Ruether can be our guides. They remind us that lethal means applied to one species (community) in an ecosystem (society) poisons all those who participate together and inhabit that space.

Peacebuilding, eco-feminism, and environmentalism have much in common, not least their coinciding concerns for the future while in the present. Investing in these fields brings about social, political, and health benefits; moreover it can stimulate the ailing US economy as evidenced by on the rapid rollout of the environmental provisions in the Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

What’s your take on the connection between peace and the environment? What other conflicts are on your mind that could benefit from a more holistic, ecologically aware perspective? How do you see women influencing the outcomes? Please share your thoughts with us in the comments section of this blog.

I spent 15 of the best years of my life as a family day care provider, feeding and reading to young children, ordering their days, and cooperatively creating an environment where we all found it fairly easy to get along. It’s no surprise, then, that I tend to see events in the adult world through a playroom prism.  This week, with news sites full of reactions to North Korea’s provocative missile launch, it seems I’m not alone.

Kim Jong Il’s North Korea is throwing things. Observers around the world describe the recent launch as a bid for attention,  depicting North Korea as a bully and a problem child in the family of nations.  Indignant voices are calling for punishment.  China, one of North Korea’s best friends, urges patience, while Japan is reportedly furious.  South Korea’s people favor kindness, though its leaders are more in step with Japan. The United Nations are divided, and President Obama, who seems to be everywhere this week, takes an appropriately adult tone of severity while side-stepping calls for a harsh reaction.  

With North Korea, as with playground bullies and disturbed young people, it’s the exceptional observer who looks away from the victims or presumed victims to ask what’s ailing the offender, though some have connected the rocket launch with the country’s urgent need for food assistance. A Japanese newspaper noted that the cost of the launch would have fed people now on the edge of famine for an entire year.

Nations that feel isolated and shunned by their peers may behave like individuals who feel shunned. Consider the young men who carried out the Columbine and Virginia Tech massacres, ten years ago and two years ago this month. Metal detectors in schools were one response, but training peers to identify and help angry classmates has arguably done more good. By the same token, former US Secretary of State Madeline Albright believes that the Bush administration’s refusal to talk with the North Koreans allowed this situation to deteriorate. President Obama’s policy of talking through disagreements and his commitment to aid may well make future outbursts unnecessary.

I am not excusing the young perpetrators, any more than I excuse North Korea’s leaders. (Where are Laura Ling and Euna Lee, the two TV journalists who have been imprisoned since March 17 for trying to investigate the conditions of hungry refugees? The launch seems to have blasted them out of the news.) Still, a small nation may help us to see the big picture, just as children so often reflect the wider world. South Korea’s missile launch is more than a tantrum; it’s an extravagant show of force that diverts resources and attention away from a looming crisis. In a world where military expenditures vastly outpace the amount spent on human needs, large nations have small cause to claim grown-up status.

Former President Eisenhower said it clearly in 1953: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of laborers, the genius of its scientists, [and] the hopes of its children…”

Women reporters being held hostage

This week the mainstream media is atwitter about tomorrow’s G-20 meeting: which countries have joined up, which didn’t get the invite, protests in the streets of London, and the Obamas preparing to meet the Queen of England. Surely what happens at that summit on “The Global Challenge: Recession to Recovery” is important, but I’ll leave it to the old standby news sources to deliver that to you. If you’re interested in the stories that didn’t “make the fold” in the past few days, then I have other highlights for you.

Tomorrow is also the first World Autism Awareness Day. Coinciding with the announcement about this day were disconcerting reports about the wide variations in occurrences of autism across different ethnic groups. The UN’s decision to designate April 2 as the day to encourage increased understanding about the disorder and people who suffer from it could not be more timely. Secretary General Ban said that the goals of World Autism Awareness Day “ . . . can be attained by promoting positive perceptions about autism, as well as a greater social understanding of this growing challenge.”

This message from the UN resonates strongly with me—not only because it matters to mothers, sisters, daughters, and friends of people with special needs, but because its strategy of acceptance and inclusion corresponds with basic principles for peacebuilding. Tackling the fear of the unknown, normalizing those who are different from ourselves, reaching out and at the same time looking inside: This is how we build thriving diverse communities. Forwarding this post to a friend can contribute to peace, not only by spreading the word about a disorder that affects increasingly more families and loved ones around the world, but also by suggesting ways different people can coexist in peace, health, and wellbeing.

On the theme of family wellbeing, women’s rights and family law in Afghanistan face another hurdle in a law signed last month by President Karzai. It includes clauses that prohibit women from refusing to have sex with their husbands and limit their ability to seek work, education, or healthcare without their husbands’ permission. This news is also accompanied by the release of a BYU study that draws a “strong and significant relationship” between peace and women’s security. Director of BYU’s Women’s Research Center Bonnie Ballif-Spanvill states, “From the overall data, it’s clear that where there is devaluation of females in the society, there is a greater tendency for conflict, both inter- and intrastate conflict.”

The experience of many women in the conflicted areas of Sudan would certainly corroborate the conclusions of this study. But thanks to UNICEF, the care and protection of women and families there has been significantly upgraded in recent weeks. A new pilot program sends motorbike ambulances into remote areas to bring pregnant women and critically sick people to healthcare centers. So there are rays of light.

We care for our families and work to ensure others the right to provide for theirs. The hubbub in the UK this week reaffirms my belief that all families deserve the royal treatment—at the very least equal treatment—and access to the resources they need to live in peace. Promoting positive perceptions about the other does increase our understanding of the vast diversity of people with whom we share this planet. Let us apply the lessons we learn at home to our interactions with those from other cultures. Programs like This Week’s Peace Action demonstrate that the actions we take, large and small, can add up to peace-filled changes at all levels, from the personal to the international, when we work together. It starts with valuing women and men equally and ripples out through the actions we take together to care for friends near and far.

Earth Day is still a few weeks away, but it’s officially springtime in Washington, DC. That’s Mother Nature’s time to shine. A number of this week’s news stories suited her flowering mood, starting with coverage of the brand new vegetable garden on the White House lawn.

 This garden that belongs to a nation is one conspicuous version of a communal gardening trend that is popping up in France, Canada, and England as well as the US. It’s fun! It’s what women in other parts of the world have always done. And it’s about time, since yesterday the dangers of eating red meat made headlines, in the US and Canada and beyond.

Most of us have known at least since Frances Moore Lappé’s Diet for a Small Planet appeared in 1971 that eating low on the food chain is kindest to Mother Earth and all her children. Even vegetables have their problems, though. In the US, overproduction of corn and soy has drastically reduced biodiversity and (when they end up in snack foods and greasy fast foods) contributed to obesity as well.

In Argentina, Cristina Kirchner Fernandez is in trouble with the farmers for refusing to lower what they see as a punitive tax on soybeans, that country’s main export crop. Overall, global trade is expected to fall off by 9% this year, so meat-loving Argentineans and Americans both will be tightening their belts. Add a global drop in prices paid to farmers while consumer prices increase, a global financial crisis, and a drought here and there, and a harvest of violence becomes more likely.

Mother Earth loves peace even more than she loves flowers. Financial equity and adequate nutrition are among the things that make for peace. And malnutrition disposes to disease. Yesterday, World TB Day, the World Health Organization released shocking statistics on the link between TB and HIV/AIDS. It is most grievous in hungry Zimbabwe, to no one’s surprise. But last week, DC’s HIV/AIDS office broke the news that at least 3% of the population here is HIV-positive, putting the capitol of the world’s wealthiest superpower on a level with parts of West Africa.

It’s just one more reminder that on our round green planet, everything comes around. We’re all in this together. Fortunately, small things can have mighty impact when we do them together. That’s the inspiration for www.planetarysurvival.net, which is aiming for a billion signatures on an earth manifesto to be presented at the UN. It’s also the inspiration for This Week’s Peace Action, at

http://www.peacexpeace.org. The current suggestion brings us back to the table: Sharing a meal with someone you don’t usually break bread with. Call a friend or relative who you have lost touch with right away. And don’t forget to eat your vegetables!

Yesterday was not only St Patrick’s Day—tip o’ the hat and wishes for peace to all our Irish friends—but for other hagiologists and/or faithful out there, it was also the Day of St Gertrude of Nivelles. Most days, I might not have given St Gertrude a second thought, but I learned today that she’s the patron saint for travelers in search of lodging. Now that my husband and I have returned from Sudan, and as we await concrete plans for our next home, I find her rather appealing. I bet those of you who are away from your homes right now due to business, political unrest, or personal circumstances might also like to know that there’s “someone up there” looking out for you.

In fact, without getting overly theological here, there is always someone looking out for you. That’s why Peace X Peace is the powerful force that it is—we’re leveraging that natural need to look out for each other to reach a global scale. And that’s why we can all celebrate with the 1,000 Women Initiative and the Small Enterprise Foundation, recipients of this year’s Champions for Change Award from the International Center for Research on Women. These two organizations exemplify the effectiveness of empowered women as agents for change, and they got some of the recognition they deserve just before last week’s International Women’s Day.

Another coalition of forces for positive change made the news this week, when 45 organizations from five continents representing Baha’i, Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, Shinto, Sikh, Zoroastrian, and indigenous traditions gathered in New York to advance a “United Nations Decade for Inter-religious and Intercultural Dialogue, Understanding, and Cooperation for Peace.” About the coalition, Stein Villumstad, deputy secretary general of Religions for Peace, said, “This is a unique opportunity for religious traditions, so easily hijacked for destructive purposes, to work with the United Nations and jointly mobilize their communities and organizations for urgent and compelling actions for peace . . . Time and space created by the decade should make a difference for the poor, marginalized, and oppressed peoples of the world.”

Great things are possible when we work together. Now if we can just ensure that the G-20 leaders keep collaboration, inclusion, and other essential Circle Principles in mind when they meet in a few weeks to discuss an international response to the global economic crisis. Shifting the paradigm for the structure and process of groups like the G-20 is one of our great global challenges. Perhaps the recent pledge by the President of the Maldives, announcing his country’s commitment to becoming carbon neutral within ten years, can be a guide and an inspiration. Wondering why a small country like the Maldives would come out as such a strong leader in the movement to address climate change? A rise in sea levels of just one meter would put that entire country under water. Even a rise of just a few inches will cause catastrophic damage for many coastal areas from the Maldives and the Netherlands to Tuvalu, Florida, and beyond.

Thinking about an entire country facing the threat of drowning brings me back to the very real needs we face as a global community today. We cannot turn our backs on one another. There is just too much to lose. What new stories caught your eye this week that should have received more attention? What stories would you post about someone you’ve been looking out for, or about someone who’s been caring for you? Please share them with us here and help raise our awareness. Sustainable peace starts with each one of us when we care enough to look out for one another.