Down the rabbit hole & out the back door

This past year has been a bit of a limbo year as I have endeavored to figure what to do next with my life. As those who know me well will already know, the choices I have contemplated are many and seemingly have little or nothing to do with one another. They include doing a PhD continuing my MA research on women and war, pursuing new research on the impacts of social media on accountability in non-democratic regimes, continuing to consult work with New York-based organizations on women in conflict, starting up my own NGO to support women peacebuilders, starting up my own business, and more.

In typical Renee-style, I have had a difficult time discarding any of these ideas and the consequence is that I have in some way pursued them all. I recently submitted a paper proposal to the International Studies Association on social media & accountability, which will likely be the basis of a PhD should I decide to pursue one. In September, I found out that I was accepted to present that paper in March in Montreal.

I also spent March and October in New York, first for the Commission on the Status of Women and then for the 10-year anniversary of Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace & Security, consulting with the Global Network of Women Peacebuilders, in between my contract with the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games in Vancouver. I also finished my contract with UNIFEM, where I authored the web site content for their Women, War & Peace section.

In late spring, I also decided to pursue a business idea that I devised years ago after my friend Matthieu developed a little web site for my condo association to help with document sharing, community building, condo greening, and strata professionalization. The result of these efforts is my first small business, Stratasphere, which will launch in a few weeks time.

November also brought a rather unexpected connection my way in the form of an NGO upstart called United Girls of the World. The women with whom I will serve on the Board aim to strengthen the self-esteem of women and girls (as well as boys and men) by engaging on projects addressing critical issues affecting girls around the world.

In November, I also got my first article published in Vancouver paper The Georgia Strait which discussed the missed opportunity of engaging the talents and skills of our civil society at home in supporting those abroad. Both that article and a screening of 'Pray the Devil Back to Hell' have together catalyzed the assembly of a wonderful group of 50 (and counting) fabulous women and men volunteers who have come together under the name Women in Peacebuilding to find new ways to use our skills, time and networks to support women's peacebuilding initiatives in conflict-affected countries. This group is weeks old and I am very excited to see where it goes in the new year.

I also keep getting asked to speak in various venues on some of these issues. A woman in Calgary asked me to speak to her high school students on the ways that social media is being used to promote accountability. I have been asked by Engineers without Borders to work on the Women in Development panel at the Bridging the Gap conference in March, and separately to host a screening of Pray the Devil Back to Hell followed by a workshop on the role of women in peacebuilding. UBC has asked me to do something similar as well.

These are all really exciting development, and the only concerns I have are around how exactly I will support myself financially as I pursue these projects, and how I will get over my extreme nervousness of speaking to crowds. I am excited to face both challenges and explore these new directions in the new year.

With these new opportunities, I have also identified some habits that I need to break, including:

• Doing less distracting and avoiding recurring patterns in my life and instead dealing with things more openly and honestly
• Spending less time in virtual reality and more time in actual reality
• Getting past being nervous and being more confident in my ability to move people with stories
• Avoiding cutting people off and instead listening carefully and with curiosity

With that in mind, my goals for the new year are as follows:

1. Be happy & healthy
2. Take music lessons & live with music in my heart
3. Pursue meaningful relationships
4. Help people in difficult situations in meaningful & empowering ways
5. Find new ways to challenge my heart and my mind
6. Listen carefully to others
7. Continue to explore new places
8. Use my time well, including relaxing time
9. Change the rules of the game

I am incredibly grateful for the people I have met, and the opportunities and experiences I have had so far and I'm excited to face the challenges and opportunities that 2011 will bring!

The Art of Policy

When I was in New York during October consulting with the Global Network of Women Peacebuilders on events for the 10-year anniversary of Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace & Security, I attended a wonderful exhibit in a part of the UN known as the Delegates Hall, an area that most people don’t see, except perhaps when escorted by a Member State delegation.

Entitled ‘No Women, No Peace,’ the exhibit was produced by a Geneva-based NGO called PeaceWomen Across the Globe, was hosted by the Mission of Switzerland to the UN and consisted of several components, including:

• Pre-recorded video messages from women around the world who spoke about how to support, secure and empower conflict-affected women;
• An uneven negotiations table from which the panelists spoke and which symbolized the disproportionate power held by men during peace negotiations;
• A red carpet with the names of the countries to date who have developed National Action Plans for UNSCR 1325;
• A series of banners with powerful quotes and images from the likes of Desmond Tutu, testifying to the critical contributions women have made in conflict resolution and prevention

However the masterpiece of this remarkable exhibit was a 1000-card display that hung suspended from a cable at least 60 ft off the ground and that stretched across the length of the back wall. On it hung roughly 25 rows and 40 columns of cards, each of which featured the photo, profile and work of a specific woman from one of 150 counties who has been recognized for her contributions to peace initiatives and to the advancement of women’s rights in different parts of the world. Among these cards was one of the guest speakers that night, Cora Weiss, whose insightful suggestions clearly provoked the imagination of the attending policy makers.

One of the evening’s messages delivered by our host, Ambassador Paul Seger, the Permanent Representative of Switzerland to the United Nations, is that these ideas, messages and stories are not reaching enough people both in the policy world and in the mainstream, that they are not well enough understood and that they need to be brought more into the mainstream. He challenged attendees to bring the message of ‘No Women, No Peace’ to everyone, and suggested the need for a song that would become as well known as the Bob Marley song in the same vein.

Being blessed to have many friends who are talented singers and songwriters, this comment piqued my interest. I challenged my friends (none of whom knew anything about Resolution 1325) to come up with songs within seven days that we could use to close a week-long Peace Fair entitled “Women Preventing War Promoting Peace” that featured civil-society led talks on the progress of UNSCR 1325. I also indicated that I would also pass the song along to any organizations involved in this area in case they could use it to promote the cause of women and peace within their specific contexts.

It seems to me that engaging artists in such initiatives hold promise on many levels. First, music is a powerful tool that can help to unite people around a common theme or message. Political messages already frequently influence music of all types from rock, pop, punk, hiphop, raggae, gospel, traditional and countless other forms of music. They have been used to try to connect people to important issues, including poverty, corruption, war, power, unity, and many other topics. Yet few songs talk about the power of women, and even fewer talk about women and peace.

Second, engaging non-traditional allies in the task of spreading political messages highlights useful information for advocates:

• it reminds us of the challenges in disseminating complex messages even to supporters;
• it enables us to see the issues and solutions with fresh eyes and from new perspectives
• it is a model for engaging other non-traditional supporters of these issues

This latter point is perhaps the most important. I myself come from a private sector background where I worked on technology projects for eight years. I am struck by how many people (and women in particular) from all walks of life are interested in using their talents, connections, and ideas to help conflict-affected women to transform their societies from within. These include social workers, marketing professionals, programmers, web designers, lawyers, stay-at-home moms, actors, journalists, naturopaths, and many others who want to engage in these issues, but don’t yet know quite how. To me, unleashing this power holds enormous potential.

Today, there are some isolated, but exciting examples of how artists in different communities are using their talents in innovative ways to bring these messages into the mainstream. One is Abigail Disney who produced a movie called ‘Pray the Devil Back to Hell,’ which documents the story of how instrumental the women’s peace movement in Liberia was to ending both the conflict and the terrorizing reign of President Charles Taylor. Another is ‘The Voice Project,’ in which musicians have come together through technology in a cross-cultural internet musical exchange with their peers around the world to both raise awareness on how women’s peace initiative have helped to stabilize conflict-affected communities and to raise funds to support their important work.

By the week, a number of artists had worked on this challenge and in the end, the song that was chosen to close the anniversary week is a fun, insightful and energetic song called ‘Let the women inside,’ which prompted a number of women in the room at the time to start dancing spontaneously. This song was written and produced by Michael Dewey, an artist and marketing professional for a natural products company who lives in Vancouver, and was performed by musicians Gina Hetland and Iain House.

They not only worked tirelessly to put together this song in a very short time, they shared the message with their peers, are willing to re-record the song as they learned more about the topic, and have offered to produce a musical score for a promotional video being produced for the Peace Fair, which we probably wouldn’t be able to afford otherwise.

It is noteworthy that mainstream media were not present or at least did not cover either the Peace Fair or the 10-year anniversary celebrations at the UN in any significant way. Even within the UN, former colleagues in a number of agencies noted that they had heard little to nothing about events marking the 1325 anniversary. This is a real shame, as there is unlikely to be another occasion in the near future where there is more concentrated attention to these issues as their was during the anniversary week of UNSCR 1325.

Yet it makes it all the more important to be strategic about finding new ways to get the message out, to seize opportunities to engage new contributors, energy and perspectives and to help unleash the potential of those who can help us bring these ideas into the mainstream. Moreover, surely we lend credibility to our own calls for action and for adopting new perspectives to problem solving if we ourselves are open to innovative ways of mobilizing action and getting these messages out.

Traffic

During a recent project for work, I was reminded of an incident that happened to me years ago... one of the very many 'I'm glad I don't know what that was about' stories that kept my parents ever-fearful about me arriving back home in one piece

When I was 17, I went to Rome for Easter break with a group of classmates from the Lycee I attended in France. On the whole, I loved my visit to this stunning and ancient city, with its wonderful architecture, artwork and imperial history. But for several reasons, I am very lucky that I came away from there in one piece.

For one, I still had not lost the Haligonian habit of stepping off the curb in the middle of traffic and expecting everyone to stop and let me cross the street… even during rush hour… and across a 5-lane roundabout. No, in Rome, they not only don’t stop, but in many cases I’m pretty sure that the drivers actually speed up and gun for you.

However there is another story of note. The day before returning to France, my classmates and I had taken the train to Naples, and we continued on to Pompeii, where we visited this fascinating city, renowned both for its history of phallic worship and for meeting its fate at the hands of a volcano. After an exhausting day, of wandering around museums, churches and galleries, and even playing a somewhat intoxicated game of hide-and-seek among Pompeii’s erotic ruins, we returned to Rome by train, a trip that was interrupted when someone apparently jumped in front of the train to end their life. Although we were largely oblivious to what had happened, it took a toll on those of us who eventually heard this story.

When we finally arrived back at our hotel late that night, my travel companions were understandably physically and emotionally drained. I, however, have always been a night-owl and come alive at night. Wide awake and not wanting to waste my last night in this beautiful city, I decided to go out for a walk, leaving my friends behind to watch black and white Italian movies, and ignoring my mother’s wise advice about not going out alone at nighttime, especially in Rome.

I set out on foot from Piazza de la Republica down via Nazionale and towards the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. A number of times along the way, cars stopped and Italian men would try to communicate with me, to which I would shrug and simply say ‘Sorry, no Italiano.’ The area near the tomb was quite dark, and there were few people around, and after staring at this rather fascinating piece of architecture dubbed the Wedding Cake by my Classics professor, I began making my way back along a side street that would eventually rejoin Nazionale.

As I walked by a small bar, a man came out, and began speaking to me. Being quite naïve at the time and thinking that it would be very rude to just ignore the man, I replied hello back. The man then began a lengthy monologue describing his Nigerian origins and work that had brought him to Rome, while I tried to devise a polite way to excuse myself from the conversation. He eventually insisted that I give him my address so he could write to me, which I gave it to him reluctantly (with some ‘adjustments’) thinking that he would perhaps let me go on my way. Yet this act prompted another soliloquy during which he announced his intention to come and find me in Canada in order to bring me back to Nigeria as his 3^rd (or was it 4^th?) wife. Lucky me!

Somewhere around this point, another man walked by wearing a 3-piece brown suit and hat, heard our conversation, and stopped and waited a few meters away. I was now very uncomfortable with this situation, and finally insisted to the Nigerian that I had to return to my friends. He went on his way down the road, while I proceeded up the street, now pursued by the man in the brown suit.

It was at this point that I began to realize that a small blue car had circled the block several times, and the driver was clearly focused on me. I began to walk a little faster, and so did the man. I crossed the street, and so did the man. I then broke out into a full run, and the man followed suit. At this point, the blue car came around the corner again and the driver began yelling something to the man in the suit. He then drove his car up onto the sidewalk right in front of me, in attempt I suppose to cut off my escape. I somehow got around the car and broke into a full on sprint up the road, with both men now running after me.

I don’t recall all these years later how close they got, because at that point I ran into a group of my classmates, who, as my luck would have it, had gotten bored of watching movies they couldn’t understand and had decided to venture out for a walk. The man in the brown suit took off down a side street, while the driver returned to his car and took off down another road, and I never saw either of them again. Panting and quite shaken, I tried to explain what had happened. Even today, it doesn’t seem real, and I’ve often questioned if my memories are clear, but of course I know they are.

I’ll luckily never know what exactly they wanted, or even if they knew each other. But if I had to guess (as I did at the time), I would say that they were trying to kidnap me… for whatever reason. That remains my theory today.