Twelve hour fast in Galway to end all wars !.

galway | anti-war / imperialism | news report

Wednesday August 16, 2006 13:23

by Margaretta D'Arcy - Women in Media & Entertainment with Consultative Status at the UN (ESOC)

margaretta at iol dot ie

Women of the world confront the nations of the world

"Let the Women of the World confront the Nations of the World," -- petition sent to Kofi Annan.

All photos were shot during the last hour of the fast

On Tuesday August 15th, from midday to midnight, in the midst of intermittent deluges of rain, a group of women, including writers, poets, & artists, took part in a vigil/fast beside the statue-group of Oscar Wilde and his Estonian namesake, at the top of Galway's Shop Street. We surrounded ourselves with placards saying, "Stop Bush! Women, use your power to take the power and End All Wars -- sign the Petition!" Also -- "Men sign! to show solidarity with women." The petition itself read --

PETITION to Kofi Annan, Secretary-General of the United Nations: we demand, as an immediate priority, that you call an emergency meeting of all NGO Women’s Groups that are committed to ending war and the tools of war, and to the relief of the victims of war, in order to implement the UN resolutions already passed which state that women must be accorded their rightful share in all combat-solving negotiations and post-war compensation – bearing in mind that women and children make up the greatest number of victims of war, and grassroots women carry the greatest burden of rebuilding war-torn society. You yourself have said that the UN has never been so weak: the way to strengthen it is to implement what has already been agreed, and to let the NGO Women’s Groups deal directly with the Security Council.
LET THE WOMEN OF THE WORLD CONFRONT THE NATIONS OF THE WORLD.

The response was amazing, and perhaps for the first time ever, Oscar Wilde was upstaged. It truly was a UN list of signatures -- holiday visitors from Japan, Korea, Belgium, France, Poland, Slovakia -- and (predominantly) the US. Some of the Americans were extremely emotional and said, "This is what we should be doing back home." There was much debate about the "silence of women" and the current cop-out whereby women seem so often to be inhibited from even using the word "woman" because everything nowadays has to be genderless. We were surprised by the number of young men who said, "yes it is time women took over." The only hostility we met came from a Northern Irish man who shouted "Up Israel! Smash Hizbollah!" On previous similar occasions we had found a vocally hostile reaction from Israeli tourists, and we were warned this week that there were a lot of Israelis in town. One such group of (religious orthodox) came and read the info -- which included a Lara Marlowe article from the IT about Israeli atrocities -- they made no comment and gave us no hassle -- it could have been because we had no men in our group ... The whole experience opened our eyes to greater possibilities -- while marches and rallies are very good for mobilizing support, a small informal group of women with home-made placards, no political affiliation and no shouting, can reap a positive response from what may seem to be a stereotypical conservative public. We just wish that more groups of women, relaxed and friendly and conversational, would try the same thing as ourselves, and do it on different days (not just Saturday afternoon) in many different places.

Eilis de Burca