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Diskuse o roli žen v mírotvorném procesu - Export of Respect and Trust – Women and Gender in the Peacemaking?
[ 3.10.2007, Forum 50%
Multikulturně > Ženy ve světě
]
Export of Respect and Trust – Women and Gender in the Peacemaking?
Time: 4:30 pm
Venue: Goethe Institute
Working language: English
Nowadays, civilian women - and children - represent the majority of victims in armed conflicts, while they are largely underrepresented at almost all levels of political representation worldwide. Consequently, they do not have a proper say in the international peace building and peacemaking efforts either. In October 2003 came the breakthrough: UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on women, peace and security.
The prime question is: how did/does the stark absence of women in both domestic and international affairs impact making war and/or peacemaking, and the very concepts of freedom and responsibility, if at all?
In 2004, the Kenyan Wangari Maathai won the Peace Nobel Price for planting trees. Immediately, a wave of criticism arose claiming that her work had nothing to do with peacemaking. This invites another question: Is peace really best defined as a freedom from disturbances, from conflict?
In a historical precedence in 1948, Costa Rica became the first country in the world to abolish its standing army. The peace dividend seems to have been yielding increasing gender equality in Costa Rican society. Today, as a counterbalance to the concept of “export of democracy” which relies on massive use of military force, the current president Oscar Arias proposes the “Consenso de Costa Rica,” or the condition under which the international monetary bodies would grant more favourable loans (or, alternatively, cancel or reduce debts) to those countries that choose to invest more into education and health care and ever less into the military and arms.
Hence the question: What role do/can the so-called soft skills, emotions and not-so-strong muscles play in politics, if any?
The roundtable should contribute to the debate on how to rethink security and peacemaking, responsibility and freedom with a gender or more balanced perspective in mind.
Chair and opening remarks:
Miluš Kotišová, translator, publicist, lecturer, Czech Republic
Participants:
H.E. Nomsa Dube, Ambassadress of South Africa in the Czech Republic
Jayantha Dhanapala, Diplomat, Former Candidate for UN Secretary General, Sri Lanka
Blanka Knotková-Čapková, gender specialist in post-colonial studies, Charles University Prague
Lottie Gertrude Stevenson, MP of the Zimbabwe Parliament and co-founder of the Movement for Democratic Change of Zimbabwe
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