Leymah Gbowee and the Journey for Peace

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By Kimberly Parker

After 14 years of civil war in Liberia, Leymah Gbowee and the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace, a coalition of Christian and Muslim women, barricaded the exit to stalled peace talks in Ghana and demanded a resolution. When Gbowee was threatened, she threatened back and began to take off her clothes to shame and curse the men who tried to intimidate her. Two weeks later, a peace treaty was signed.

We define revolutions in moments, but years of work, pain, and anger bring us to those moments. It was anger that guided Gbowee, and she knew she could use her anger for either good or bad. “You get angry, and you decide to put it into two containers — the good or the bad container… Those who decide to fight for peace…they were angry too, but they decided to put it in a good container,” she told MSNBC’s Morning Joe.

Gbowee, executive director and founder of the Women Peace and Security Network – Africa (WIPSEN-Africa), is one of the keynote speakers at this week’s Social Enterprise Conference and the subject of Pray the Devil Back to Hell, a film being screened on October 6. She is a Liberian and African peace activist, a social worker, the reluctant subject of a documentary, author of the recently published memoir: Mighty be our Powers: How Sisterhood, Prayer, and Sex Changed a Nation at War, and a mother of six.

On September 20, Gbowee spoke at the Clinton Global Initiative and is in the middle of an eight-city book tour, which is being financed from the personal funds of Leonard Riggio, chairman of Barnes and Noble. On October 7, she may also receive of the Nobel Peace Prize, despite the recent buzz over the Arab Spring.

After all of the accolades and numerous awards Gbowee has received, another defining moment in her life and career is approaching. On October 11, 2011 Liberia will hold its second free presidential elections since the end of the Civil War and the 2003 ousting of Dictator Charles Taylor. Gbowee has created a coalition of women from nine West African countries to monitor the elections. It is imperative that the elections are fair and peaceful in order to maintain the peace in Liberia for which Gbowee and so many others have fought so hard.

Leymah Gbowee was only 17 when the first civil war in Liberia started in 1989, 22 years ago. She has been fighting for peace almost as long, and will continue to fight, because it is a lifetime of work and dedication that brings us to those defining moments.