BOOK REVIEW
MIGHTY BE OUR POWERS, A Memoir: How Sisterhood, Prayer, and Sex Changed a Nation at War by Leymah Gbowee (with Carol Mithers) (Beast Books, a co-publishing venture with Perseus Books Group, New York: New York: 2011)
by Rev. Dr...
MIGHTY BE OUR POWERS, A Memoir: How Sisterhood, Prayer, and Sex Changed a Nation at War by Leymah Gbowee (with Carol Mithers) (Beast Books, a co-publishing venture with Perseus Books Group, New York: New York: 2011)
by Rev. Dr...
. Larry Delano Coleman
09/02/12
This is one ugly, awful book, because it deals with one ugly, awful subject: murder, rape, bloodshed, corruption, children soldiers, devastation—civil war in Liberia—from the bottom's-up point of view.
The author, Leymah Gbowee, is one of two Liberian women who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011. The other is Liberia President, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the first elected (now re-elected ) woman President in the entire African continent, whose book is THIS CHILD WILL BE GREAT. Leymah pulled herself up from the lower tiers of Liberian society by her grit, determination, and just plain luck. Just as easily as she became an author, globetrotter, and world-resource on insurgent women's “peace” movements, she could have, just as easily, been killed, incapacitated or gang-raped into oblivion.
It is also an unforgettable book, and one that is imminently readable. Its “in your face” honesty is both alarming and disarming. The famous “sex-strikes” of the Liberian-women peace and reclamation organizations, with which she was affiliated, gained international notoriety. But they were of little practical effect. She writes: “The strike lasted, on and off, for a few months. It had little or no practical effect, but it was extremely valuable in getting us media attention. Until today, nearly ten years later, whenever I talk about Mass Action, “What about the sex strike?” is the first question everyone asks.”
Above all else, this book is about healing. The “least of these”--uneducated women from traditional African societies—organized, “tied their waists,” and stepped boldly into the political struggle epitomized by the Liberian civil war. “When an African woman tells you she will tie her waist, it means she will do anything for you, give you anything she has...Before you can take action, something must shift inside of you ...Soon I would have four children, but no husband, education, no income or skills. I was a damned baby machine...I was a twenty-six year-old woman with children who depended on me...I had to take action. I had to stop blaming my parents, Daniel, single motherhood, the war, for what I was. I had to stop hating myself, find my strength again and step forward. My children had suffered so much, and they deserved so much more than they had. I was the only one who could give it to them.” She wrote these cathartic words from the depths of human desperation. She tied her waist!
The “waist” metaphor is fitting. It is as easily tied, as untied, being elastic and plastic. After “Daniel,” for example, came “Tunde” tenderly tapping. Then, along came “James” with whom she also “connected physically.” Worst than her serial lovers, and diverse “baby-daddies,” though, was her alcoholic-binge drinking. That nearly killed her. But, in the end, she kicked it, too! All the while, she was counseling, organizing, speaking, traveling. She earned a living under horrid conditions, through Lutheran charities, doing a type of social work; perfecting the principle of “shedding the weight,” another Liberian metaphor with her sisters, whose symbol she became, even as she, herself, became!
Leymah's earthiness was mediated through and mollified by a stoic, Nigerian attorney, Thelma Ekiyor, who founded WIPNET (Women in Peace Building Network) which gave political focus to Leymah's Trauma Training workshops for abused and displaced Liberian women. Out of their combined efforts, and those of others, women “shedding the weight”—releasing their hidden fears and deprivations in communal sharing encounters, they coalesced into a firm force for regional peace, primarily in Liberia.
Beginning with demonstrations: placard carrying and letter-writing, they morphed into the fearless, “women-in-white” demonstrators who badgered so-called peace negotiators in Ghana. There, these women, in desperation, bared their breasts and joined hands to lock the dead-locked civil war negotiators indoors in the luxury hotel's conference rooms, in a powerful symbol of abject shame and humiliation to African men, whose mothers they embodied. Peace was thereafter attained. Dictator Charles Taylor was thereafter exiled. And, Africa's first woman President was elected in Liberia.
While the chain, and mechanism, of causation of all of these events remains unclear, what is clear is that Leymah Gbowee attributes them, along with her acquisition of an education, an income, fame, freedom, and her family's salvation to Almighty God! Her special Bible verse is: “Do not be afraid. You will not suffer shame. Do not fear disgrace, you will not be humiliated.” Isaiah 54:4.
A powerful video entitled “Mighty Be Our Powers” portrays the history of this movement. But, being a book lover, I believe the book is better. View both, if you can!
#30
See More09/02/12
This is one ugly, awful book, because it deals with one ugly, awful subject: murder, rape, bloodshed, corruption, children soldiers, devastation—civil war in Liberia—from the bottom's-up point of view.
The author, Leymah Gbowee, is one of two Liberian women who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011. The other is Liberia President, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the first elected (now re-elected ) woman President in the entire African continent, whose book is THIS CHILD WILL BE GREAT. Leymah pulled herself up from the lower tiers of Liberian society by her grit, determination, and just plain luck. Just as easily as she became an author, globetrotter, and world-resource on insurgent women's “peace” movements, she could have, just as easily, been killed, incapacitated or gang-raped into oblivion.
It is also an unforgettable book, and one that is imminently readable. Its “in your face” honesty is both alarming and disarming. The famous “sex-strikes” of the Liberian-women peace and reclamation organizations, with which she was affiliated, gained international notoriety. But they were of little practical effect. She writes: “The strike lasted, on and off, for a few months. It had little or no practical effect, but it was extremely valuable in getting us media attention. Until today, nearly ten years later, whenever I talk about Mass Action, “What about the sex strike?” is the first question everyone asks.”
Above all else, this book is about healing. The “least of these”--uneducated women from traditional African societies—organized, “tied their waists,” and stepped boldly into the political struggle epitomized by the Liberian civil war. “When an African woman tells you she will tie her waist, it means she will do anything for you, give you anything she has...Before you can take action, something must shift inside of you ...Soon I would have four children, but no husband, education, no income or skills. I was a damned baby machine...I was a twenty-six year-old woman with children who depended on me...I had to take action. I had to stop blaming my parents, Daniel, single motherhood, the war, for what I was. I had to stop hating myself, find my strength again and step forward. My children had suffered so much, and they deserved so much more than they had. I was the only one who could give it to them.” She wrote these cathartic words from the depths of human desperation. She tied her waist!
The “waist” metaphor is fitting. It is as easily tied, as untied, being elastic and plastic. After “Daniel,” for example, came “Tunde” tenderly tapping. Then, along came “James” with whom she also “connected physically.” Worst than her serial lovers, and diverse “baby-daddies,” though, was her alcoholic-binge drinking. That nearly killed her. But, in the end, she kicked it, too! All the while, she was counseling, organizing, speaking, traveling. She earned a living under horrid conditions, through Lutheran charities, doing a type of social work; perfecting the principle of “shedding the weight,” another Liberian metaphor with her sisters, whose symbol she became, even as she, herself, became!
Leymah's earthiness was mediated through and mollified by a stoic, Nigerian attorney, Thelma Ekiyor, who founded WIPNET (Women in Peace Building Network) which gave political focus to Leymah's Trauma Training workshops for abused and displaced Liberian women. Out of their combined efforts, and those of others, women “shedding the weight”—releasing their hidden fears and deprivations in communal sharing encounters, they coalesced into a firm force for regional peace, primarily in Liberia.
Beginning with demonstrations: placard carrying and letter-writing, they morphed into the fearless, “women-in-white” demonstrators who badgered so-called peace negotiators in Ghana. There, these women, in desperation, bared their breasts and joined hands to lock the dead-locked civil war negotiators indoors in the luxury hotel's conference rooms, in a powerful symbol of abject shame and humiliation to African men, whose mothers they embodied. Peace was thereafter attained. Dictator Charles Taylor was thereafter exiled. And, Africa's first woman President was elected in Liberia.
While the chain, and mechanism, of causation of all of these events remains unclear, what is clear is that Leymah Gbowee attributes them, along with her acquisition of an education, an income, fame, freedom, and her family's salvation to Almighty God! Her special Bible verse is: “Do not be afraid. You will not suffer shame. Do not fear disgrace, you will not be humiliated.” Isaiah 54:4.
A powerful video entitled “Mighty Be Our Powers” portrays the history of this movement. But, being a book lover, I believe the book is better. View both, if you can!
#30
