A SEAT AT THE TABLE

Episode 2: Choosing Peace and Security Over Authoritarianism

Join the Oslo Women’s Rights Initiative as they discuss how putting women and civil society first in dialogue tables is choosing peace and security over authoritarianism. 

Yasmin Al-Nadheri: 

Yemeni women are systematically excluded from peace talks. And recently we have also witnessed a new Yemeni cabinet with zero representation of women. When women come to meetings, dialogues or consultations, they come with a lot of knowledge. They come with very powerful stories to share and experience from the ground. So why are they systematically excluded? We have questions about the intentions about the parties, including the UN and the regional meditators. Are they really willing to end the war? Do they really want to come to a peace agreement? Do they really want to achieve peace? Or, are they trying to prolong the years of the suffering and the war of the Yemenis. 

We are sometimes asked when we are invited or when we ask or call for increasing the number of women or talking about the importance of women’s participation. They usually ask us a very offensive question: What would women bring to the table? 

It is our full right to be at the table. We have to be there. It is our right. Women usually lead a lot of peace initiatives on the ground. And we really don’t have an answer to that question about the exclusion of women. It’s very sad when we think about proposing a peace agreement that lacks the perspective of women. I don’t think that there is an opportunity for this to be implemented. All the peace agreements are not implemented because they lack our perspective. 

Maya James: 

You’re listening to “A Seat at the Table”, a podcast series by the Oslo Women’s Rights Initiative that discusses global peace and security with a special focus on the situations in Yemen, Libya, Iraq, Lebanon, Iran and Syria. My name is Maya James. 

“A Seat at the Table'' is also a continuation of the conversations that began back in March 2020 at the OWRI’s third annual event in Oslo. The main message was that the time is now to put civil society leaders, especially women, first in any type of talks about peace, security and stability. The event also marked the 20th anniversary of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325. Today we are going to talk about choosing peace and security over authoritarianism. This epsiode’s theme is both a call to action and a question. The call to action is that we must prioritize peace and security over authoritarians, because it is more sustainable and practical to do so. The question is: why then, does the international community prioritize authoritarians and militias over civil society in peace talks, when civil society is best prepared for nonviolent transitions of power? We discuss the necessity of women’s involvement in peace agreements and shortcomings of the international community in moving toward global stability   

Prioritizing women’s participation in peace and negotiation processes is not about meeting diversity or gender quotas. Women make up a large part of their country’s population, and they play significant leadership roles in their respective societies. Yet they are disproportionately impacted by the policies crafted in negotiation tables,  and often excluded from having a seat at these tables. Despite the fact that women are well-equipped to offer sustainable solutions because of their diverse, lived experiences. They understand the root causes of these issues.  

Asma Khalifa: 

They’re also stakeholders. They’re also experts in different fields. Many have worked on local mediation processes. They have worked on negotiating entry of food and negotiating release of prisoners. And all of that wealth of experiences and knowledge unfortunately doesn’t go into decision making processes. It does go into making recommendations. The UN system does recognize that it is important to have women, so they make tracks for women. On the side. Where we write recommendations. I am in some of these meetings on the side where I contribute with recommendations to the people who would have to negotiate. But they would not reach the negotiation table where they could make decisions because that’s where I think the perception is that these who are going to be at the table are those who are able to affect change...

That’s why the design itself needs to change so that there are more chairs on that table and there are more people contributing to make that decision. Which makes the process longer and maybe more complicated but we have to try. To say it might make it more complicated is perhaps an unreasonable response…I think that is just an issue of facilitation. And I think it is unreasonable to say it might get complicated if the result is improvement and more lasting peace processes. It is very much worth it to make it more complicated in the beginning in order to have better results, instead of them continuing to make the same mistakes for decades. 

Maryam Nayeb Yazdi: 

Those were short clips from recent conversations with Asma Khalifa about the situation in Libya. And Yasmin Al-Nadheri about the situation in Yemen. Asma is an activist and researcher who has worked on women’s rights, human rights and youth empowerment in Libya since 2011. She was in Libya last summer leading mediation and nonviolent training workshops. I asked her about her experience in our last conversation and you will hear about it in upcoming episodes. Yasmin is a regional development expert and co-founder of the Peace Track Initiative. She and her colleagues have paved the way for women’s participation in the Yemen peace process. They are fighting every day for the United Nations to meaningfully integrate them in the process. Asma and Yasmin were featured speakers at the Nobel Peace Center for the Oslo Women’s Rights Initiative’s annual event that takes place every March. You’ll hear more from Yasmin, Asma and the other incredible OWRI network members in upcoming episodes.

This is Maryam Nayeb Yazdi, founding member of the Oslo Women’s Rights Initiative.

To ignore women is to ignore civil society. And to ignore civil society is to sideline the pursuit of global stability There can be no sustainable peace without the voices of women and civil society leaders prioritized and meaningfully integrated into decision-making processes. They represent the best interests of their country. We want to see the international community and stakeholders invest in them rather than their oppressors. 

Maya James: 

You may be wondering  who the “international community” is. We’re using this term to refer to multilateral institutions like the United Nations, nation states, international nonprofits, human rights organizations, think tanks, lobbyists, and large corporations. They all shape and influence global policy. (brief pause) Media outlets, both traditional and social media, also make up the international community. They shape public opinion and perception. So when they prioritize discussions with authoritarians over civil society, they signal to the rest of the world that civil society’s opinion is less important. But that’s not an ideal approach, because… 

Maryam Nayeb Yazdi: 

Authoritarians are inherently unstable. So, appeasing them creates more instability. And, it requires compromising human rights values. It also requires sidelining civil societies and going against their best interests And peace processes require the support and participation of civil societies in order to stand a chance of succeeding. So, sidelining civil society and compromising human rights values decreases the chances for success. If the goal is truly global peace and security. 

The current status quo is that civil societies ruled by dictatorships are sidelined in dialogues. While the dictators and militia groups are prioritized over them. The international community operates as if authoritarians are actually representative of the people they rule over. And because authoritarians reject human rights, the international community acts like the society rejects them as well. But the mass uprisings of the past eleven years calling for human rights and dignity beg to differ. There are serious consequences to compromising human rights. Such as, the deterioration of the value of those rights. Also, authoritarians rely on instability to sustain their power. What incentives do they have to change when the international community is willing to legitimize them through compromising human rights values? It sends the message that human rights are not always a priority. And it creates the illusion that it is acceptable for some people in the world to live with them while others don’t. It adds a false value to people’s lives based on whose rights and freedoms are protected and whose are not. This imbalanced distribution of human rights and our acceptance of it contributes to sustaining global instability. 

Every time we legitimize or normalize authoritarian rule, we contribute to denying the people living under that rule their basic rights and freedoms. No matter how you look at the situation, engagement with authoritarians that compromises human rights is never for peace or any form of global stability. It appeases violence and excuses the behavior of tyrants. 

Empowering civil society voices is arguably the most nonviolent way to get the oppressors to change their behavior. Authoritarians are human beings who need an incentive to change. And dictators with a history of violence and abuse do not become less violent through appeasement. To assume that a dictator just needs someone to talk to them more nicely or be willing to cooperate with them assumes dictators or militia leaders want to do better if they knew how, or if they had more exposure to Western, liberal institutions. It excuses their daily abuse of the societies they rule over. It denies them agency in committing those crimes. It puts justice on the backburner when justice should always be front and center. It equates human rights with western ideals and values when they are universal. 

Global stability is only possible if the international community works toward creating a more just and equitable world for everyone. To move toward it, we need incentive structures that are rooted in human rights values rather than the hoarding of power of certain entities. We need to decentralize the movement for peace, security and stability and we can do that through becoming more thoughtful and purposeful in our actions, knowing which values our intentions are rooted in.

Maya James: 

Stay tuned for our next episode, where we focus on Yemen and Libya and unpack why peace processes fail. See you next time.