PROJECTS • WOMEN, WAR AND EMPIRE

PROJECT PROPOSAL (Working Draft)

Programme on Women Confronting Globalisation and War

REVISED AS OF 2008 SEPTEMBER 4

I. RATIONALE

Introduction: women working for justice and peace in a time of empire

The World Council of Churches’ (WCC’s) 2004 Conference on Women’s Voices on Alternative Globalisation Addressing People and Earth in Manila declared (WCC 2005: 2):

“We are not afraid to say that we live in a time of empire. In using the term ‘empire,’ we mean the coherence of economic, cultural, political and military powers that constitutes a global system of domination directed by powerful nations and organisations to protect and defend their own interests.”

In recent years, the increasing convergence between the project of neoliberal economic globalisation and military agendas for geo-political control—in one word: empire—and their destructive impacts on people’s lives all over the world have become ever more apparent. Women in the Third World have born the brunt of the twin consequences of extreme poverty and wars because of their subordinate status in society, the sexual division of labour and gender-based disparities in the distribution of resources as propagated by patriarchal structures and norms. At the same time, they have been largely and systematically excluded, with a few exceptions, from official policymaking in international trade and finance, foreign affairs, security and defence matters. However, these have not stopped women from questioning, organising against, resisting and offering alternatives to the interlinked dynamics of globalisation, militarisation and patriarchy—all of which are ultimately under girded by the same logic of domination. As bearers and nurturers of life, women play a critical role in building a faith-based vision of alternative communities of life.

Economic globalisation and wars

While the concept of “empire” continues to spark debates in various circles, faith-based communities have, in analysing current realities, increasingly recognised that neoliberal economic globalisation and militarisation are two sides of the same coin.

There are at least two important characteristics of the current context of globalisation that make it a fertile breeding ground for conflict (de Gaay Fortman 2003). The first has to do with severe and widening economic disparities between and within countries; and the second with the weakening of sovereign states founded on the inclusion of all of its citizens (i.e. the loosening of the so-called “social contract”). The relationship runs in both directions: wars and conflicts not only exacerbate poverty, these provide opportunities for further entrenchment of neoliberal economic policies—or structural adjustment—associated with globalisation.

Historically, the roots of wars and armed conflicts can be directly traced to attempts by powerful groups to control economic resources (e.g. oil, minerals and contested territorial boundaries), even though such wars are often fought under the rhetoric of “development”, “progress”, “human rights” and “democracy” (WCW 2006). Meanwhile, globalisation processes characterised by liberalisation, privatisation and deregulation have further consolidated economic resources in the hands of a few. Indeed, there is mounting evidence that unrestrained global economic integration, through the imposition of structural adjustment policies in the South, has aggravated disparities in the distribution of political power, resources and income at the global level. Together with structural inequality along class, gender and ethnicity lines within countries, this has resulted in an unparalleled escalation of international, regional, national and intra-national conflicts in the 21st century.

Within countries, the enlargement of insecurity provoked by globalisation has had the effect of intensifying public clamour for social protection (Rodrik 1997). However, governments, especially in the South, are finding it increasingly difficult to provide such protection in an environment of fiscal retrenchment that has been engendered by the neoliberal paradigm. In numerous situations where governments fail to fulfil its responsibilities to protect livelihoods and ensure access to essential services under the “social contract”, citizens no longer feel bound to honour contracts with each other and with their governments, ensuing in social and political upheaval.

It has been argued that the concept of a “social contract” between governments and citizens has a counterpart at the global level (Murshed 2002). The seeds of international conflict are sown when the international community fails to respond to glaring global inequalities. International terrorism and massive immigration provide proof that this is already happening. Moreover, as people all over the world organise to reject the project of neoliberal economic globalisation, governments have increasingly resorted to military power to suppress civil dissatisfaction. Indeed, as markets have become more globally integrated, the mechanisms to protect these have by necessity become more global (WCC 2005).

On the flip side, Federici (2001: 2) contends that:

“…war, in turn, completes the work of structural adjustment, as it makes the countries affected dependent on international capital, and the powers that represent it…”

There are several pathways through which wars reinforce globalisation processes in Third World economies. First, wars push people off their lands, separating the producers from the means of production—a necessary condition for the expansion of the global labour market. Wars also reclaim lands for the production of cash crops and export-oriented agriculture. Finally, wars erode people’s opposition to market reforms by reshaping territories and disrupting social networks that serve as the basis for resistance.

Against this complex web of interlinkages between globalisation and wars, women are both primary victims and agents of transformation.

Economic globalisation and women

Numerous studies have already pointed out that economic policies, institutions and systems are not gender-neutral. The documented negative impacts of trade and financial liberalisation—namely: unemployment crises, declining real wages, deteriorating working conditions, and dwindling access to basic needs and essential services (e.g. food, water, shelter, health and education)—have disproportionately affected women in the Third World. Gender-based inequalities (e.g. the wage gap between women and men) have also driven global restructuring of production.

Over the last two decades, pro-market reforms implemented at the prodding of the Bretton Woods Institutions and the World Trade Organisation have intensified the devaluation of non-marketable unremunerated and invisible social reproductive or care work carried out mostly be women even as the burden of such work invariably increases with the dismantling and privatisation of social services that were traditionally provided by the state (Peralta 2005). At the same time, women in the South have entered the market economy in droves as factory workers in export processing zones, agricultural labourers in large commercial farms, holders of precarious jobs in the informal sector, and providers of care services outside of their countries. For women, participation in the market economy is a deliberate survival strategy. However, such participation has been defined by continuing gender-based inequalities in terms of wages and working conditions, among others. Floro (2002) summarises women’s experiences with neoliberal economic globalisation: it is the market economy that determines provisioning for human life, opening its doors to women when it has need for cheap labour for the expansion of export production and slamming the door on them in times of economic contraction.

Because women stand at the fulcrum of social reproductive and productive work, they are in a unique position to advocate for the reshaping of economic globalisation processes if not a complete overhaul of economic systems. Women have often been in the forefront of grassroots struggles for basic needs. At the global level, women’s organisations and networks have been advocating for the transformation of economic theory, policy and practice not least through the democratisation of key economic decision-making institutions and structures.

War and women

Wars create, perpetuate and exacerbate inequalities between social groups, including women and men, thereby sowing the seeds of future conflict and promoting a vicious cycle of violence.

The idea that men go to fight in “conflict zones” whereas women stay at home (“safe zones”) with the children and the elderly is a misconception, particularly as applied to Third World Countries. Women are sometimes combatants. But more generally, according to Amani El Jack (2003: 8-12):

“…war comes to women as they work on the land. War targets their homes—abducting, displacing or killing them along with their children…Women…are the main victims of war. This is either directly as fatalities or casualties or indirectly through the breakdown of family and community structures.”

Heightened militarisation directly impinges on the basic human rights of people, especially women. At the local level, wars have resulted in forced displacement and violence against women. These are not simply unavoidable outcomes of conflict, but constitute calculated military strategies. More than 80 percent of war refugees are women and girls, and many of them are made vulnerable to rape and sexual torture during their flight or are forced into prostitution (Turpin 1998).

Moreover, wars’ destructive impacts on the environment and the social fabric have made it exceedingly difficult for women to meet their socially prescribed responsibilities in caring for the family. Ever-growing government budget allocations for defence and preparation for war—estimated at the horrific amount of USD1.132 trillion in 2005 alone (with the United States accounting for 38 percent of the total figure) (SIPRI 2006)—strangle already limited resources intended for social welfare, adversely affecting women’s access to education and health services. Feminists have long highlighted the gross immorality of military spending, which has increased exponentially since September 11, 2001 at the expense of per capita expenditures on basic needs. More specifically, Feffer (2002) makes the following interesting observations. First, while governments in the South have been pressured to reduce social expenditures in order to balance budgets, defence budgets have generally remained off limits. Two, while some governments have privatised military production and (even) operations, they have continued to provide indirect subsidies to the latter. In short, while military activities have been exempted from neoliberal prescriptions because of “security reasons”, the same logic is not applied to basic social services that are essential to life.

At the international level, the objective of women’s empowerment has also been co-opted to legitimise military intervention in sovereign countries. Indeed, one of the ostensible reasons for the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 was to “emancipate” Afghan women from repressive Taliban rule.

Yet military solutions in and of their self can never be a source of genuine empowerment for people nor address inequalities between women and men. On the contrary, women’s lived experiences with conflict unequivocally reveal that wars and their socio-economic implications produce as well as deepen existing gender disparities, which are further complicated by social hierarchies based on race/ethnicity, class and religion.

Women and the feminist movement have actively critiqued wars and pursued peace in their communities. Not only have women been at the head of demonstrations against the U.S.-led war in Iraq and other wars, at the grassroots level, women have pioneered non-traditional peace-building efforts directed at ensuring food security and protecting communities’ access to land, forests and water that are crucial for survival (Chhabra 2005). However, much like women’s care and social reproductive work, women’s peace work has remained largely invisible and unrecognised.

Role of faith-based movements and communities and Peace for Life

What then is the role of faith-based movements and communities in the current context of economic globalisation, heightened militarisation and patriarchal disciplining?

Historically, dominant religions and cultures—not least, Christianity—have contributed to projects of empire-building and economic domination.

Yet at the same time, many faith-based communities, grounded in common spiritual and socio-ethical values, have a long history of pursuing justice and peace initiatives that address a wide range of critical and interlinked issues such as economic injustice, human rights violations and violence against women, among others, based on a critical interrogation and understanding of their faiths.

In particular, some women and men of faith have applied a feminist analytic in deconstructing and reconstructing theologies, and in harnessing resources in religious and spiritual traditions that will help us move forward in promoting just relationships between genders, classes, races/ethnicities, religions and between people and the Earth.

Peace for Life takes inspiration from and builds on this significant body of work on faith, peace and justice. As stated in its Covenant for Self-Understanding and Purpose (PFL 2005), Peace for Life is committed to a global vision of peace and justice based on the fullness of life for all people regardless of race/ethnicity, class, religion and sex. The network has the following specific aims: (1) to examine faith amid the threat of empire; (2) to build faith-based resistance to militarised globalisation; (3) to promote and live out alternative visions of peace for life; and (4) to equip members and partners for the task of peace movement building. Needless to say, in working towards these results, women’s organisations and networks have an essential contribution to make.

II. GENERAL OBJECTIVES

Based on the foregoing rationale, the objectives of Peace for Life’s 2007-2009 Programme on Women Confronting Globalisation and War are three-fold:

1. To promote a holistic and integrated analysis of economic globalisation and militarisation from a feminist perspective especially among Peace for Life’s members and partners;
2. To lift up, make visible and celebrate women’s strategies for resisting and building alternatives to globalisation and war; and
3. To build, refresh and strengthen linkages with women’s justice and peace networks.

III. OUTPUTS

The 2007-2009 programme will provide a variety of spaces for Peace for Life members in partnership with women’s groups to immerse in, analyse and engage with vital justice and peace issues, especially those impacting on the South. The programme will also produce activity reports and publications documenting and evaluating these activities.

IV. ACTIVITY COMPONENTS

The following activities will comprise the 2007-2009 programme:

1. Panel on “Women’s Struggles and Heroisms”, 7th World Social Forum (WSF), Nairobi, Kenya, January 2007

Description: In the task of movement building, Peace for Life recognises that the WSF is currently the foremost meeting place of civil society organisations and people’s movements opposed to neo-liberalism and imperialism. It is a forum for pursuing alternative thinking, debating ideas, formulating proposals, sharing experiences and networking for action. In 2007, the 7th WSF will be held for the first time in Africa, taking place in Nairobi, Kenya from 20 to 25 January 2007 with the theme of “People’s Struggles, People’s Alternatives”. In line with this thrust, Peace for Life will offer a panel on “Women’s Struggles and Heroisms” at the WSF that has the aim of analysing the nexus between globalisation, war and patriarchy as well as highlight concrete examples of women’s struggles against globalisation and war in various regions, but especially in Africa.

Partners: The panel will be co-convened with African women’s networks, particularly the Women for Change and the African Women’s Economic Policy Network.

Participants: It will be open to all WSF participants, attracting an estimated 200 or more persons.

Tentative budget: The approximate budget of USD 10,000 will cover the airfare, accommodation, living allowances and other related expenses for four to five women panellists (2 from Africa, 1 from Asia-Pacific, 1 from Latin America and 1 from North America or Europe).

2. Women’s Festival for Life, 7th WSF, Nairobi, Kenya, January 2007

Description: The 7th WSF provides an unprecedented opportunity for Peace for Life to be in solidarity and celebrate with women-led economic justice and peace movements in Africa through a Women’s Festival for Life. The proposed Women’s Festival will be a half-day event that will offer a space for women to share stories about their experiences with economic globalisation and global military hegemony as played out in their local contexts. It will also be a venue for women to exchange strategies of resistance and change. Cultural presentations, dance, theatre and art workshops—which will showcase women’s voices and visions for a just and peaceful world in a creative way—will be some of the key features of this activity.

Partners: The festival will be organised in cooperation with the Women for Change and the African Women’s Economic Policy Network.

Participants: It will be open to WSF participants and the public.

Tentative budget: The amount of USD 2,000 will be needed for the production of publicity materials and rental of audio-visual equipment for the event.

3. Women’s Solidarity and Fact-finding Mission to Mindanao, Philippines, October or November 2008

Description: The August 2008 collapse of the negotiations around the Memorandum of Agreement between the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) has spawned a fresh wave of intense fighting in the Philippines’ predominantly Muslim South, resurrecting Christian vigilante operations and displacing thousands of Christian and Muslim women and their communities. The existence of armed resistance movements such as the MILF in Mindanao has always been used to justify local military operations as well as US military presence and intelligence missions in the region. Moreover, religious differences have historically been touted and used as a flashpoint for confrontations, masking the core issue behind the continuing conflict in the region: control over Mindanao as a strategic geo-political foothold (given its proximity to China and its prominent trade routes) and its rich mineral and oil reserves.

To respond quickly to the recent developments in the region, a small yet international group of women will be immediately convened to form a Women’s Solidarity and Fact-finding Mission. The Women’s Mission has two main objectives, namely:

1. to meet with and listen to women victims and their communities in a concrete expression of Christian-Muslim women-to-women solidarity; and
2. to gather evidence and facts as bases for analysing current trends in the region and developing further courses of action.

The outputs from the fact-finding activity will feed into the ongoing Peace for Life co-sponsored project entitled “Sizing-up the Empire: A Research Project on US and Foreign Intervention in Mindanao”.

Partners: The Women’s Mission will be organised in cooperation with Philippine and Mindanao-based peoples’ organisations, particularly IBON Foundation, Initiatives for Peace in Mindanao, US Troops Out Now! Mindanao Coalition, Suara Bangsamoro, and Kawagib Moro Human Rights Organisation, among others.

Participants: It will be composed of at least three (3) international women and two (2) local women representing Peace for Life members and partners.

Tentative budget: The budget of USD 8,000 will cover airfare, as well as board and lodging for three (3) international women and two (2) women from the Philippines.

4. Tribunal on “Crimes of Empire Committed Against Women”, Bogota, Colombia, March 2009

Description: The Peace for Life’s 2nd Peoples’ Forum will take place in Bogota, Colombia between 20-23 March 2009. Parallel to the 2nd People’s Forum, a Tribunal on “Crimes of the Empire Committed Against Women” with a strong focus on Colombia will be organised in partnership with Latin American and Colombian women’s groups. Building on the World Court of Women methodology pioneered by feminist organisations such as the El Taller and the Asian Women’s Human Rights Commission, the Tribunal will seek to bring to fore and establish crimes against women and humanity committed by the US government especially in the context of the US-supported Plan Colombia and Plan Patriota.

The 40-year old conflict between US-funded Colombian military and para-military forces on the one hand and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) on the other has been used by the US government to expand its hegemonic control over the Latin American region especially in light of recent regional integration processes and the election of progressive governments in Bolivia, Ecuador and elsewhere that pose threats to the US political and economic agenda in the region. Women have often been caught in the crossfire of the Colombian civil war that has claimed thousands of lives. They are frequent victims of brutal rapes, abductions and murders, as well as form a majority of the millions of displaced within the country. At the same time, they are in the frontline of the resistance movement and peace-building initiatives.

The Women’s Tribunal is one approach to building transnational horizontal political links in order to exploit international law on behalf of the women and people of the Colombia. Although the verdict will have no legal force, it sends a powerful political message. The Tribunal aims to: (a) raise awareness on US military intervention in Colombia and its impacts on women and communities; (b) catalyse new transnational relationships betweens peace and women’s networks, and establish a basis for communication and cooperation in the future.

Partners: The Women’s Tribunal will be co-organised with the El Taller, Latin American Women’s Council, and the No Bases Network.

Participants: It will be open to all participants of the Peace for Life’s 2nd People’s Forum and the public.

Tentative budget: The amount of USD 10,000 is required for financing travel and board and lodging for four (4) jurists coming from various regions and the production of publicity materials, rental of the venue and audio-visual equipment for the event.

5. Conference on “US Militarism and Feminist Responses”, USA [exact venue to be decided], September 2009

Description: The Peace for Life co-sponsored conference on “US Militarism and Feminist Responses” has the objective of promoting a critical discourse on the way both masculinities and femininities are affected by imperial militarisation, and the way these groups resist the hegemonies of religious normativity, the patriarchal terrorist state, and capitalist exploitation of poor, marginalised communities.

The conference will be organised around several thematic roundtables or workshops, such as:

1. Military humanitarianism as ‘unconventional warfare’ and its effects on women;
2. US military installations versus sovereignty movements: cases from Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Colombia, Guam, Okinawa, and the Philippines;
3. The rise of security/military contractors including transnational contract labourers for the US military in Iraq;
4. Women and combat: women in the military and as resistance fighters; and
5. Hypermasculinity, torture, and Islamophobia.

The eventual publication of selected papers presented at the conference is expected to make a rich contribution to the literature on feminist responses to militarism.

Partners: The conference will be held in partnership with US-based and international feminist academic and peace networks.

Participants: It will be open to all Peace for Life members and partners as well as other interested groups and networks.

Tentative budget: Most of the conference participants (especially those coming from the North) will have to finance their own travel and accommodation expenses. Nonetheless, the amount of USD 25,000 will be needed to subsidise participants from the South as well as for the printing of publicity materials and rental of the venue and audio-visual equipment, among others.

 

Partial list of references

• Callaghan, M. H. (2003), “Global Militarism as a Feminist Issue,” Paper presented at the Women’s Education Research and Resource Centre Conference on Feminist Political Perspectives on Globalisation, 28 March 2003, Dublin, Ireland.
• Chhabra, S. (2005), Gender Perspectives in Peace Initiatives: Challenges and Opportunities, retrieved from www.eldis.org/fulltext/womenslinkjournal_gender_peaceinitiatives.pdf.
• De Gaay Fortman, B. (2003), “Power and Protection, Productivism and the Poor,” Valedictory Address as Professor of Political Economy at the Institute of Social Studies, The Hague, 20 November 2002
• El Jack, A. (2003), Gender and Armed Conflict: Overview Report, Sussex: Institute of Development Studies.
• Federici, S. (2001), “War, Globalization and Reproduction” in Alternatives (Turkish Journal of International Relations) Vol. 1: No. 4, retrieved from www.alternativesjournal.net/volume1/number4/federici.htm.
• Feffer (2002)
• Floro, M. (2002). Introduction to Feminist Economics, Manila: Freedom from Debt Coalition.
• Murshed, M. (2003), “Globalisation is not always good,” in Globalisation and its New Divides, The Netherlands: Dutch University Press.
• Peace for Life (2005), A Covenant of Self-Understanding and Purpose, brochure.
• Peralta, A. (2005), A Feminist Contribution to Alternatives to Globalisation Addressing People and Earth, Geneva: World Council of Churches.
• Rodrik, D. (1997)
• SIPRI (2006)
• Turpin, J. (1998), “Many Faces: Women Confronting War” in The Women and War Reader, L.A. Lorentzen and J. Turpin, Eds., New York: New York University Press.
• World Council of Churches or WCC (2005), Alternative Globalization Addressing People and Earth – A Background Document, Geneva: World Council of Churches.
• World Court of Women or WCW (2006), Resistance to Wars, Wars of Globalisation Wars of Women, brochure.