LEYMAH GBOWEE

Leymah Gbowee is a Liberian peace activist, social worker, and women’s rights advocate. She is the founder and president of the Gbowee Peace Foundation Africa, based in . Gbowee is best known for leading a nonviolent movement that brought together Christian and Muslim women to play a pivotal role in ending ’s devastating, fourteen-year civil war in 2003. Her efforts to end the war, along with her collaborator, , helped usher in a period of peace and enabled a free election in 2005 that Sirleaf won. Gbowee received the in 2011 for her “non- violent struggle for the safety of women and for women's rights to full participation in peace-building work."

"Don't wait for a Gandhi, don't wait for a King, don't wait for a Mandela. You are your own Mandela, you are your own Gandhi, you are your own King."

Gbowee utilized the diverse religions and spiritualities of her female counterparts, singing religious songs, traditional songs, and other songs as part of her techniques to help end the civil war. It was after the second civil war broke out in 1999, increasing the already existing problem of rape and systematic brutality in Liberia, that Gbowee felt the need for an interreligious call for action. After she won the , she did multiple interviews specifying the importance of her inclusion of and determination in using religion as the steppingstone for achieving peace in Liberia.

“There is no way anyone can find true healing if there is no reference to a higher power…That is the way I have dealt with anger, by reaching back to God and not letting the anger eat me up. I was at the point where it took over my life, and nothing positive came out of that. Everything was just upside down. When I decided to let go of my anger, I could think creatively. You can decide to let go, or you can decide to hold on. You can decide to be happy, or you can decide to be sad. It’s all about waking up in the morning and deciding: This is the trend I’m going to take.”

Gbowee and many other activists formed multiple pray-ins, using it as a form of nonviolent protest. These pray-ins called for reconciliation and demanded concrete actions to end the war during peace talks around . Gbowee, along with many other women, such as Thelma Ekiyor, combined religion and traditional practices to define their approach to conflict transformation, peace building, and security.

“We have a saying: ‘A single straw of a broom can be broken easily, but the straws together are not easily broken.’ ”

For Gbowee, it was religion that helped her teach compassion and practice forgiveness and contributed to the success of her activism work. Working with people who had experienced severe trauma, forgiveness became a part of the healing process and education for her intended audiences. Gbowee marveled at the integral role that religious conviction played in bringing about restorative justice in Liberia. Though working primarily in Muslim-Christian relations, she notes how it was a broad coalition of people rooted in their particular faith traditions that contributed to bringing peace to Liberia.

“You can tell people of the need to struggle, but when the powerless start to see that they really can make a difference, nothing can quench the fire.”

Leymah Gbowee, Mighty Be Our Powers: How Sisterhood, Prayer, and Sex Changed a Nation at War (New York, NY: Beast Books, 2013).