While in LA I caught up with a friend I’d made in Portugal, a native Californian who feels most at home in Silver Lake and who made my heart smile as she shared her life since we last met over 2 years ago at her farewell in Lisbon. Maureen had just been with Laymah Roberta Gbowee, one of the 3 nobel peace prize winners of 2011, she encouraged me to read her blog post on the experience and sent me a video interview to watch. Boy were you right on Maureen. This interview, Leymah’s life, courage and awareness can’t help but inspire us.
I had no idea that Liberia is the “step child” of the USA, it is where the free slaves from the US fled to, even their flags is similar.
Leymah goes on to describe that the indigenous people of Liberia were welcoming of the free slaves. But like abused people everywhere they did not know how to show gratitude, the only life they knew was the life of abuse. So as they developed and got more powerful they developed their own ways which resulted in segregated schools and so for over 100 years the indigenous people became the slaves to the original free slaves from the US.
She speaks of Fear, of getting numb, loosing faith and being trapped as kids in adult bodies. Her own state of traumatisation and cycles of fear. “When you are depressed you get trapped inside yourself and loose the strength to take the actions that might make you feel better. You hate yourself for that, you see the suffering of others but feel incapable of helping them and that makes you hate yourself too. The hate makes you sadder, the sadness makes you more helpless, the helplessness fills you with more self hate. Working at the trauma and reconciliation program broke that cycle for me. I wasn’t sitting home thinking about what a failure I was, I was doing something, something that actually helped people. The more I did the more I could do, the more I could do the more I wanted to do and the more I saw needed to be done”.
Leymah created a manual to help women be women. About 21 minutes into the interview she talks about different women’s desires to share who they truly are. “sometimes you need water and sometimes you need fire.”
Most famous for their sex strike the story around 34 minutes in makes you smile from the inside. Around 43 minutes in the story of women taking their clothes off instigated a peace agreement is beautiful to hear. As Laymah says ultimately goodness wins out over evilness but there is a price to pay. Through focusing on survival tactics Leymah and many others Thrive and maximise their potential. Wow…. a women that is memorized by the power of non violence.
The most profound statement had to be after being asked a question about what a person could do in California Leymah answers “Libia, Egypt, Tunisia is not short of activits, what they are short of is resources. Liberia, Congo, the stories you’ve heard of Congo, I was in Congo. Congo is not short of activists what they are short of is resources. This country has resources what you’re short of is activists.”
Leymah Roberta Gbowee: Mighty Be Our Powers from ALOUDla on Vimeo.
