Leymah Gbowee: Pray The Devil Back To Hell

"Sooner than later is always best; but later than never saves what is left.  Which is a whole lot."

Lola La Fleur


I must say, I was absolutely thrilled this past week when I heard the announcement that the Honourable Empress Leymah Gbowee was honoured with the Nobel Peace Prize.  Maybe a bit late to the party, but I had first heard of the Empress back in 2009 when the organization I am part of, the EABIC, here in Miami put on a showing of Pray the Devil Back to Hell, through our church auxiliary and in conjunction with New Jerusalem University, also in South Florida.  Even then, I was little more than a lay videographer for the first showing and had very little to do with the reason behind the event.  So I must give thanks for all the efforts of all the individuals who put in the time and considerable energy to bring the message to the people.

The message: PEACE NOW.  Violence has never served the matter of peace and has never served to dull the violence that it claims to attempt to stop or disrupt.  That has been Leymah's message and today she has taken the campaign of non-violent active protest to many other countries beyond the borders of her native Liberia.

Yes, Liberia.  That is where the battle lines were drawn, so to speak, as an answer to the senseless and seemingly ceaseless violence that peppered the streets of Liberia back in 2002.  When I look back through catalogue of information on her, it trips me out to see just how young she is.  When I think back to what I was doing with my life 9 years ago, it certainly pales in comparison.  Raising children in America, even with the trivialities of the family court system, is nothing compared to caring for child soldiers who have been ravaged by war, or the countless families affected by its touch otherwise.  How does someone find the strength to say simply, "No More."?

What man would have thought that, with as often as it is said in the privacy of individual homes, that a sex strike could end war?  They say Helen of Troy did it with her beauty.  But really what is more beautiful than women of different backgrounds, many of different faiths, all with one aim, one purpose, coming together to cry and pray for justice?  What is more powerful?

Actually, it might sound strange to say this, but while American women might feel they have more freedom and power than peoples from the so-called "redeveloping world", because they are so marginalized through objectivism in media, and oft times seem to be overly consumed with material achievement and consumerism, in effect their strength has been made ill-effective.  To see what the strength of unity can do, has always been able to do, should give one a moment of true pause and reflection.

Lastly, I just started to think back to the phenomenon of "white tees" wearing amongst young Africans here in America a few years back.  Well, it started with my contemporaries but exploded outward to be an urban hip thing to do: wearing fresh brand new white tees.  I assume it was in part to show how much financial power one had, being able to wear a new shirt everyday.  It soon became affiliated with a thug element and I believe some gang culture also, because not too soon after it became trendy, nightclubs started to ban the "white tee" look. 

What I want to pose here is just how differently the meaning of a white shirt can take on in parts of the world.  Whereby in the States it took on a superiority complexion, in Liberia, for Leymah and the thousands of women who joined her cause, the cause of liberating Liberia from violence, it became a symbol of unity.  Of shared communion between people who had lost husbands and brothers, fathers and children because of idiocy.  Women who had been raped and left for dead by soldiers, who I wonder ever really understood what they were ultimately fighting for or against, in solidarity for justice and peace.

Leymah Gbowee will let you know she is not a victim of violence, but a fighter against it, a survivor.  She reminds us that when someone slaps you in the face, slapping them back does not remove the sting or the desire for them to slap you again.  Violence begets violence, not peace.  Let us continue to make peace at all costs, the only message that we produce in the world.  Love is the greatest tool, use it.

"GOD is love, let us all love."