At the end of January/February 2009 we launched SAVE - Sisters Against Violent Extremism, the first female anti-terror platform in India: New Delhi, Lucknow and Mumbai. Please click here to read a selection of the Indian media reports.
Kurier-Thursday, December 18, 2008
Series: Career Paths
Edit Schlaffer, “Woman without Borders,” on Ice Cold Feelings and Trained Men
Career Paths: Edit Schlaffer, Founder of “Women without Borders,” on Ice Cold Feelings and Thoroughly Trained Men in the Household
When Laura Bush visited Vienna in 2006, the only political meeting she noticed was with Edit Schlaffer. “The phone rang, and the White House was on the other end,” the founder of Women without Borders says, and laughs. At first she thought it was a joke, but it wasn’t. “Earlier I gave a speech at Columbia University. Someone from the First Lady’s staff must have been there.”
Against Terror The meeting between the two women turned out to be extraordinarily fruitful. “This is how we got in touch with the State Department”—which today partially finances SAVE. SAVE, these are “Sisters Against Violent Extremism,” the first women’s anti-terror platform, which Schlaffer presented to the public at the beginning of this month.
When terms such as “women” and “violence” are in the same sentence, this activist cannot be stopped. “Are you sure, that you wanted to ask that,” the 58-year old jokes. “Because I can talk about that for days.” It does not stop with talk. Actions follow the words. Not infrequently coordinated from Schlaffer’s kitchen table. Knitting circles? These women’s circles are far from it. Here, the mother of a terrorist is sitting next to the mother of a victim; both are working on strategies for how to save the sons of the future generation from extremism. Schlaffer: “We just have to be a little rebellious, then we will push through a lot.”
Just like after the genocide in Rwanda, where Schlaffer’s organization brought together enemy Hutu and Tutsi girls in a soccer club. She also instituted voting training for Afghani women and was the first Western group to research living conditions for young men and women in Saudi Arabia. “Passion drives everything for me,” Schlaffer says. “I like being a part of world history. That is exciting, it pushes me. If we do nothing, we are also guilty.”
Even at the beginning of her career, the internationally renowned social scientist did not only make friends—for example when she declared her area of study “Violence in Marriage,” then a taboo theme.
Kurier: Do you deal easily with criticism?
Edit Schlaffer: I’m not exactly thin-skinned. If people have problems with me or with my competencies, that is their problem. I do not have to turn that into my problem. That is my life philosophy.
But women do have the tendency, to take things personally.
Yes, but one has to train one’s self to get rid of this habit. Feelings belong in the refrigerator, when you move outside in the world. And when women do not want to decide between career and family, they also have to train their men.
Have you done this?
Luckily my husband was already well established, because strong women raised him. He felt responsible for making breakfast and for taking the children to kindergarten and to school. We had a good time with each other.
Would you like to be Minister for Women’s Affairs?
Ministers for Women’s Affairs have thus far been toothless tigers. Recently I read that Ms. Bures was just promoted from Minister for Women’s Affairs to Minister for Infrastructure—that was fairly telltale. Women’s affairs are not taken seriously.
Where would you begin?
With Fair-Share Models. One has to act with consequences, so that men and women are equally challenged in both areas—career and family. Without this it does not work, and everything else is laughable. Not enough children are born, because the women are overworked. Women often work in positions that are wrong for them. Five generations of Ministers for Women’s Affairs have complained about unequal pay, and how the scissors are opening. This is slowly becoming a joke.
Schlaffer questioned:
“The Answers can be found in Simone de Beauvoir”
As I child I wanted…to take the world by force.
My leadership style…egalitarian-empathetic.
Success for me is…happiness.
I have been supported by…women all over the world.
I am scared…of lack of time.
A book that inspires…The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir. All answers are in it – for example the analysis of power relations: inequality is not personal failure.
I am proud of…the introduction of SAVE, the first global platform for female diplomacy.
The biggest challenge…remaining positive in times of crisis—using the tactic of small steps.
My greatest shortcoming…my impatience.
The most overrated virtue…striving for harmony.
Edit Schlaffer’s Life:
Childhood: Edit Schlaffer was born in 1950 in Südburgenland. She was raised on a farm—“with long summers and cow-herding.” Entrepreneurial women surrounded her. “My grandmother, a young widow, built up the farmyard herself, and my mother was a teacher when it was termed “unfair” to take the position away from a man. The message was clear to me: women can do everything, and they want a lot.”
University: Schlaffer went to Vienna to study journalism and sociology. She remains at university and begins researching women. She understands herself to be a feminist.
Two Careers: In 1980, she took over leadership at the Ludwig Boltzmann Research Institute for Politics and Interpersonal Relations. She stays there until 2004. In 2002 she founded the globally active NGO “Women without Borders.”
Private: Schlaffer has been with her husband, a psychology professor, for 33 years. “We married late and today are survivors in the divorce jungle.” The couple has two children: Laura (22) and Rafael (20). The feminist’s hobbies: hiking—and cooking.
Medium: Kurier
Medium: BBC Worldservice
Diplomacy – The Members Turn the Fight into a Women’s Affair
Kurier, 30. December 2008
This weekend, Vienna is setting for the first worldwide women’s anti-terror platform. With their “soft skills,” i.e. dialogue and networks, the sisters of SAVE (“Sisters Against Violent Extremism”) want to fight against extremism. The US State Department is sharing the costs. The headquarters are in Vienna; the participant’s list is impressive.
The Kurier spoke with some of the women, each of whom, in her own way, saw terror in the eye.
***
Rachel North (37) was surprised by a bomb in the London Underground on her way to work on July 7, 2005. She was in the same carriage as the attacker. The train was overcrowded. The tightly packed bodies in front of her took the brunt of the explosion; Rachel survived.
“When the bomb exploded, the lights went out, thick, black smoke filled the carriage, it was impossible to see or to breathe, it was as if we were sinking to the bottom of the ocean.
Suddenly someone screamed: ‘Whoever isn’t hurt, stand up and hold the person next to you by the hand. Take care of the injured.’ And the people did what the voices told them to do.
In the darkness, however, we couldn’t tell if the hand belonged to a Jew, a Hindu, and Muslim, if it was black or white, female or male. The only thing you knew was: this hand in your hand is your rescue, and you are theirs.
I would like to tell this story to a future terrorist, because it was the most important lesson in my life: when it came to the worst, we did not trample all over each other. We held hands – that saved our lives.
***
Hadiyah Masieh (31) from London was recruited as a young university student by the radical Hizb ut-Tahrir (The Liberation Party), with the goal or replacing the government with a Kalifat. After ten years, she left.
“In the female hierarchy, I was the third from the top. For a teenager this is very enticing. A ‘secret committee’ votes you in. Then you belong. You fight for equality. Underground. That is romantic.
As the leaders held their speeches, I cried. They said: ‘these people rape our women and slit open their bellies. Then they steal our resources. You must do something about this.’ One of the listeners was so enraged that he later wrapped a belt with explosives around himself. The Jihad Movement helped him. That movement is something like the second-degree cousin to the Liberation Party. This path has many perfidies. I know this, I have seen them. I wasted my youth with the party.”
***
Robi Damelin (65) from Israel is a representative from the Parents Circle, which brings together Palestinian and Jewish parents who have lost their children in attacks. Robi’s son, a student and peace activist, was killed during military service that he took part in against his beliefs.
“I spoke with a Palestinian school class, and a child said: ‘Your child deserved to die.’ I was stunned. What should I answer? And then the girl told me how she had lost her family members. She only knew Israel as settlers or as soldiers who kept her at the Checkpoint for three hours and did not let her go to school. Then I knew what to say: ‘What color were your tears?’ and she understood. I felt what she felt. During the break, she came to me and hugged me.
The man that killed David did not know who he was. I want us to know each other. Then we can also speak with each other.
Tip: Presentation of SAVE on Monday, December 1, at 10 am in Palais Schönburg, 4., Rainergasse 11 (Vienna)
Interview
“We also want to invite the radicals”
Edith Schlaffer, sociologist and founder of “Women without Borders,” about SAVE.
Kurier: What qualifies women in the fight against violence and terror?
Edith Schlaffer: Women are very good listeners, and one must listen in order to be able to negotiate. In Liberia, for example, women took reconstruction in their hands after a catastrophic civil war. Today the president is a woman; the UN acknowledges rape as a weapon of war. Without their engagement this never would have happened.
But how can women penetrate the closed male cliques that storm hotels with hand grenades?
The cliques are not immediately closed, it is a slow process. We want mothers to take action when they sense their sons’ helplessness. This does not yet work, because they have no status in the community, no one listens to them. We have to empower them.
And how?
For example with self-confidence trainings. Women must understand that they are no toys of male dominance, but that they may assert themselves for the wellbeing of their families. Had we started ten years ago, we would have a different generation today. But we also want to invite members of radical groups. This has not been done enough. When you seek dialogue with them, they are very surprised, but ready to speak - as long as you lay your cards on the table.
Medium: Kurier
Women without Borders. The first female anti-terror platform was founded in Vienna.
Die Presse, 2. December 2008
Vienna. Robi Damelin’s son was killed as he completed his military service in the occupied Palestinian areas. Najwa Saadeh, from Palestine, lost her 12-year old daughter in an Israeli attack. Beatriz Abril’s brother was on his way to university when the Madrid train in which he was sitting was torn to shreds by a bomb.
The women that came together this weekend in Vienna to found the first women’s anti-terror platform came from all over: from Lebanon and from the Netherlands, from the US, from Iraq and Afghanistan. And from India: When Archana Kapoor left Delhi just a few days ago to fly to Vienna, she felt “so safe.” But then young men in Mumbai caused a bloodbath.
“That was a reminder, that we are not safe. That there is no place out there in which we are safe,” says “Women without Borders” founder Edit Schlaffer. Her new initiative is appropriately called “Save” – “Sisters against Violent Extremism” – and it should make the world safer by bringing together women: survivors of terrorist attacks, family members, and activists. They will meet each other and together develop strategies to mobilize against terror and violence.
The female anti-terror platform already took their first action yesterday: two young women from London who want to work together visited a group of young Muslims in Vienna. These are extraordinary women: Rachel North, a young advertising specialist. On July 7, 2005, she was in the London underground when a bomb exploded in her train. She survived and since advocates for the victims. And Hadiyah Masieh, a former member of the radical Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir.
“They seduced me”
At age 18, the intelligent economics student converted to Islam. “Before I had been very critical of Islam, but that seemed unfair to me, so I started learning about it,” Hadiyah tells the “Presse.” At 19, the Islamist group recruited her at the London campus. “We made friends, they became my family. I was looking for answers, and they had some. They seduced me with their answers.”
She became the team leader of the Islamist group for West London, organized events and discussions. The overarching goal of the antidemocratic organization: a unified Islamist state, a “caliphate,” in which Sharia, the Islamic law, ruled.
The Islamists had painted a “beautiful picture” of the world: “They wanted a peaceful world, but they approached it with anger and hate.” They had never openly supported violent. “But feelings develop which make it very possible, that young people would want to take another step.” One of the attackers in the Glasgow Airport attack attended Hizb ut-Tahrir events.
After seven years with Hizb ut-Tahrir Hadiyah left the organization, because she realized that their political ideas has little in common with Islam. In the future, she wants to work with Rachel North to show young Muslims that religiosity and the desire for justice do not have to lead to extremism. “A bomb victim and an ex-Islamist: They will remember us!”
“We both lost our sons”
Two women have known each other for quite some time: Phyllis Rodriguez and Aicha el Wafi. Rodriguez’s son worked as an Internet expert on the 104th floor of the World Trade Center—he did not survive.
El Wafi’s son, on the other hand, is Zacarias Moussaoui: He was convicted as the “20th hijacker” for participation in the attacks on September 11, 2001. The two terror-tested mothers are close friends: “We have a lot in common, we both lost our sons.”
Medium: Die Presse
Women without Borders Founded International Women’s Network Against Terrorism: “We want to stand up and raise our voices”
Vienna – The organization “Women without Borders” founded an international network against terrorism, SAVE (Sisters Against Violent Extremism), in Vienna. “Terror is a part of our lives, even in Europe. We want to stand up and raise our voices,” says Edit Schlaffer, Chair of “Women without Borders,” at a press conference Monday morning. At the first global anti-terror platform for women this weekend, 35 female activists composed a declaration against violence and terror.
The goal of “Save” is to build political bridges for a culture of peace and against a climate of fear, according to Schlaffer. For this reason, survivors of terrorist attacks, victims’ family members, ex-members of radical organizations, and activists came together this weekend for the first Save conference to develop strategies against terrorism.
Everyone shares “the same pain”
“We all share the same pain,” said the Israeli Robi Damelin, whose son was killed by a Palestinian sniper at a checkpoint during his military service. “There is no difference between an Israeli and a Palestinian mother who has lost her child.” Damelin is a member of the organization “Bereaved Families Forum,” to which some 500 families now belong. Through talks in classrooms, Damelin seeks to show Israeli and Palestinian school children “the people behind the stigma.”
Najma Ahmed Abdi, of the Somali organization “Save Somali Women and Children” said: “Together we have one voice. We must not let them [terrorists] frighten us.” Women are the first and last victims of wars, even if they are innocent, because they do not carry the weapons,” so the activist. That violence such as female genital mutilation is still practiced in her country humiliates her.
“What am I even doing here?”
“The first meeting of Save was very productive. We are sharing experiences and can learn from each other,” explains Hadiya Masieh from London. She is an ex-member of a radical organization. As a young student, Hizb ut-Tahrir (The Liberation Party) recruited her; ten years later she left the group. The organization introduced “bad ideas” to the youth, and at some point she asked herself: “What am I even doing here?” Since leaving the organization, Masieh has been involved in charitable societies working to promote increased tolerance.
The participants in the Save-Network now want to share the experiences they gained with their respective countries. “The activists work in their immediate surroundings to achieve our goals,” says Schlaffer. “Save, headquartered in Vienna, plays the role of a PR organization, to increase awareness for our work.” (APA)
Medium: dieStandard
“Terror in Mumbai part of ‘a political agenda’”
Der Standard, 29. November 2008
Mumbai/Vienna – The Minister of the Interior may speak of a Pakistani who belonged to a terror commando and who was arrested; the chief of government in the state of Maharashtra, Vilasrao Desmukh, of two Brits of Pakistani origin: Indian NGO activists who specialize in questions of terror and violence do not necessarily want to believe the thesis of Islamist attackers in Mumbai. “Every month there are attacks in India, and every time they get the label of an Islamist group. It is so easy,” says Hasina Kharbhih. She runs an NGO in Meghalaya, in Northeast India, and today is in Vienna for the founding of an international women’s network against violence.
Astha Kapoor, a young civil activist from Delhi, also does not accept the quick finger pointing by the media and the ministers. She suspects there is a “larger political agenda” behind the terror in Mumbai, a carefully planned attack only months before the Indian parliamentary elections. The army moved so slowly that the opposition, the Hindu Party BJP, had enough time to accuse the government of failure in the face of terror.
Muslims Intimidated
Kapoor and Kharbhih report frustration and intimidation of Muslims in India. “It is easy for the police to single out Muslim youth at will,” says Kapoor, referencing the security forces’ raids after the attacks in her hometown Delhi last September. Over 30 female NGO activists from Asia, Africa, the Near East, and South America are in Vienna this weekend to found the network “Save” (“Sisters Against Violent Extremism”), and initiative by Edit Schlaffer’s “Women without Borders.”
Medium: Der Standard
An article on our recent conference "Muslims and the West: Living together - but how?" written by WwB Team member Mehru Jaffer and published in the Kasmir Times.
Medium: Kashmir Times
www.southasianmedia.net/index_opinion.cfm?category=women&country=india#Faith%20in%20harmony
An interview with Ed Husain
Medium: Die Presse
www.diepresse.com/home/politik/aussenpolitik/339135/index.do
A round table with Edit Schlaffer, Anita Pratap, Phyllis Rodriguez and Aicha el Wafi
Medium: Kurier
Phyllis Rodriguez and Aicha el Wafi
Medium: Die Presse
www.diepresse.com/home/spectrum/zeichenderzeit/298863/index.do
Saudi Arabien - Rania al Baz
Medium: Kurier
Medium: Salzbruger Nachrichten
Medium: Dir Presse
Medium: Wiener Zeitung
www.wienerzeitung.at/DesktopDefault.aspx?TabID=3940&Alias=wzo&cob=236887
Medium: The Whitehouse
www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/06/images/20060621-6_p062106sc-0090-515h.html
Medium: Women´s Feature Service
Medium: newKerala.com
Medium: DNA Daily News&Analysis
An article on "Women swimming into the Future!", a WwB pilot project in the South Indian Tsunami-hit region.
Medium: The Hindu
Medium: Profil
Medium: Die Presse
Edit Schlaffer, chair of Women without Borders speak in Die Presse, an Austrian Newspaper (german version).
