Women, peace and conflicts in traditional African society

Jean-Jacques Purusi Sadiki

Description

Africa remains the region in the world where conflicts and massive violations of human rights, and in particular violence against women, have remained the highest world-wide, since the Second World War. This book analyses the strength and the importance of women in the corridors of power and their role in mechanisms for conflict resolution, prevention and transformation in the past, particularly in the Great Lakes region before the arrival of Europeans on the continent.

Sujets

• Sociologie, société et politique
• Développement
• Droit
• JUSTICE

Informations

• Publié par: L'Harmattan
• Date de parution: 01 juin 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 186
• EAN13: 9782296933880
• Langue: Français

Extrait

Women, Peace and Conflicts
in Traditional African Society
© L’Harmattan, 2010
5-7, rue de l’Ecole polytechnique ; 75005 Paris

http://www.librairieharmattan.com
[e-mail]
[e-mail]

ISBN : 978-2-296-11643-6
EAN : 9782296116436

Fabrication numérique : Socprest, 2012
Ouvrage numérisé avec le soutien du Centre National du Livre
Jean-Jacques Purusi Sadiki


Women, Peace and Conflicts
in Traditional African Society

Understanding the contradictions related to violence
against women in Central Africa
"Only the concrete is true. It is by pushing the specifics to the limit that we achieve generality, and through a maximum of subjectivity that we achieve objectivity" (Leiris, L’Afrique fantôme )
To
Luiz Carlos Da Costa
and all colleagues and friends and who died
in the Haiti’s January 12 earthquake
F OREWORD A FRICAN WOMAN: UNRECOGNISED, UNKNOWN
The different reactions that followed Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s election as President of the Republic of Liberia on 11 November 2005 demonstrated the lack of understanding that exists on the part of many commentators and observers of African socio-political dynamics. In reporting on this event – historic, it is true, but in no way exceptional in the general context of Africa or the particular context of Liberia – virtually all analysts, even the most well-informed, referred to "the continent’s first woman Head of State". Heads of State, international institutions, NGOs, even those that had been working in the West African region for many years, concurred with this account.
And yet the reality was quite different. In fact, although Ellen Johnson Sirleaf was the first woman to be democratically elected as Head of State in Liberia’s – and Africa’s – history, she was not the first woman Head of State in Africa. Another woman, Ruth Sando Perry held the presidency of the Republic of Liberia before her, having overseen the transition period from 3 September 1996 to 2 August 1997 following the assassination of President Samuel K. Doe and the end of President Amos Sawyer’s term of office.
Like Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Ruth Sando Perry played a key role in raising awareness among the women’s social movement, politicians and donors with regard to the concrete and significant involvement of women in peace processes, conflict management and decision-making mechanisms throughout the African continent. Such was the case of Liberia during the peace negotiations in Akosombo and in Accra (Ghana) during 2003, where the two women were involved side by side in mobilising women’s organisations and political decision-makers in favour of promoting and protecting women’s rights.
It was also the case in the Great Lakes region, particularly during the peace process in Burundi, where Ruth Sando Perry, then a member of the Nelson Mandela Committee at the peace negotiations in Arusha, was to play a crucial role in convincing the warring factions to hear the cries of the ravaged population, and to embark on a path of reason, with the support of the women of Burundi, the majority of the population. " The Burundian negotiators have categorically refused to include women in the negotiations. This issue must receive immediate support in order to strengthen the involvement of women throughout Burundi with regard to issues relating to their security, their inclusion and their rights, " she urged.
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the newly-elected President of Liberia, devoted a few moments to Ruth Sando Perry during the festivities marking the inauguration of her presidency at the Antoinette Tubmann national stadium in the capital, Monrovia, in January 2006. During a ceremony heavy with emotion and contemplation, Ruth Sando Perry was greeted with the applause of a crowd buoyed up by local, regional and international civil society and women’s organisations, in a stadium filled with thousands of people from all over Liberia and abroad. Speaking of her predecessor, the new President presented her as the precursor to the struggle for the promotion and protection of human rights, and women’s rights in particular, a model in the struggle for women’s emancipation. She said of her predecessor, " She has passed the torch on to me ".
As for the innumerable foreign delegations present at the ceremony who were all jostling for the attention of the newly-elected president, they barely gave her predecessor a second glance. One delegation was that of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). In fact, the DRC had dispatched a high-level delegation in order to set the seal on an old friendship between the two countries. Headed by Juliana Lumumba, daughter of former Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Emery Lumumba, and made up of 15 key figures from the political and voluntary sectors (13 women and 2 men), this was the only delegation that took the trouble to meet Ruth Sando Perry, to pay tribute to her at her home in Painesville in the Monrovia suburbs on 19 January 2006, thus testifying to their full respect and gratitude for her crucial role in peace processes in Africa generally, and in the Great Lakes region in particular.
As for the other delegations, like the media, the politicians and the international organisations, they simply ignored her. Even those who had previously heaped praise on her, come from all corners of the earth to pay tribute to her, have their photo taken with her, all these people no longer cared about her, pretending they no longer knew her. It was quite astounding to see. Neither her advanced years nor her failing health changed anything, she was simply ignored by the very people who, just a few years previously, had been vying – with sometimes crazy strategies, arguments and projects – just to appear at her side, if only for a few seconds, the time for a photo opportunity.

As for Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, she has contributed considerably to the peace processes in Africa, and particularly in the Great Lakes region, the DRC above all. Using her character and her national and international experience to the full, she successfully facilitated the Humanitarian, Social and Cultural Commission, one of the four commissions established by the Inter-Congolese Dialogue in Sun City (South Africa) in February 2002. In fact, this dialogue established the end of the war in the DRC and in the whole of the sub-region. It also established the start of the transition that confirmed the power-sharing arrangement between the armed factions responsible for wars that had caused at least 3,900,000 deaths between 1996 and 2002, a war the direct and indirect consequences of which are still – at this very moment – causing the deaths of 1,200 people per day, making the "Congo War" the bloodiest the world has known since the end of the Second World War, to the point of being described the "First African World War", the worst humanitarian disaster since the end of World War 2 {1} . More than 70% of its victims were women, children, the elderly, disabled and sick.
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s active involvement in the DRC’s peace process at such a crucial phase in the country’s history was clearly decisive in the peaceful resolution of the sub-region’s conflicts. Moreover, she formed a real source of inspiration for the region’s women, the prime victims of those conflicts, involved in struggles against gender-related violence, in the struggle for their involvement in decision-making mechanisms, in the management and transformation of conflict in this part of the continent.
The key role of women in political life is thus quickly forgotten, overlooked or simply ignored in societal construction. The political importance of women in pre-colonial times is even more obscured, however; almost non-existent in the analyses and innumerable publications that abound on Africa and the Great Lakes region in particular. Women’s situation is analysed and treated as if it were static, not a dynamic reality constantly changing in time and space. And yet it is our strong belief that, to better determine the importance of women in the post-conflict reconstruction and development process, so that it is possible to effectively struggle against the violence to which they are subjected, to achieve their integration into society, and to thus encourage the decision-makers and partners concerned to meaningfully involve women in decision-making mechanisms, so that we can best assess the progress made by the countries of Africa, like all other countries, in terms of applying local, regional and international legal instruments for the promotion and protection of human rights in general and women’s rights in particular (CEDAW, Security Council Resolution 1325, etc.), it is important – essential even – to take a look back over the history of African societies, in order to understand the social, political and cultural path that has led to the marginalisation of women, despite the fact that they are the major and most productive sector in most countries of Africa and the world.
By looking back at traditional African societies, this book focuses on the position and role of women in the design and management of the dynamics of power, particularly in the resolution, prevention and transformation of conflicts in Africa generally, and the Great Lakes region in particular. It covers a long period stretching from around 1,000 BC – the period when the process of population establishment following the different and successive migratio