The Other Side of War: A Lecture by Zainab Salbi

By Tausif Noor
Courtesy of The Economist


To summarize British journalist Anthony Loyd, the event of war can be regarded as the final frontier of mankind. That is to say, once man has established civilizations and settlements and a system of order to control these civilizations, he seeks to acquire more territory and resources through conquest. This realist notion of the mechanisms by which war is undertaken has been propagated and contested, but its pragmatism neglects the more human dimensions of violence. Zainab Salbi, founder of Women for Women International, has made it her duty to face the rippling effects of violence that touch the lives of ordinary citizens, in particular women and children. The nonprofit humanitarian organization, founded in 1993, works with women in eight war-ravaged nations in Europe, Asia, and Africa. Through a one-year training program, the organization give women access to knowledge about their rights and resources to establish their own agency and independence from domestic violence and economic disadvantages. Thus, the organization centers on sustainable development. Its goal is to facilitate a process whereby women can stand on their own feet and establish businesses.


Salbi’s Filene Hall discussion stressed the importance of approaching humanitarian aid and development through a system of mutual respect and empathy. Inspired by her meeting with the Dalai Lama, Salbi stresses that in order to help others, you must respect them. In the words of the Dalai Lama himself, “If you can’t respect those you are serving, better not to serve at all.” In her experiences working with rape victims in Bosnia and Iraq, Zalbi has learned that approaching situations with the intent of being a savior or a completely knowledgeable human being is inherently flawed. In order to serve, one must accept that privilege does not create the full picture of knowledge and ability. She stresses that most of the time, the people whom humanitarians are serving know the solutions to their problems and simply need help realizing these solutions. She relates an anecdote of how a woman from Bosnia wanted a microcredit loan in order to start a chicken farm. While Salbi was able to calculate the costs of maintaining the farm and benefits, she did not know how many eggs a chicken laid in a day. When she asked the Bosnian woman this question, she was met with a look of incredulity. How could this woman expect to help in a meaningful way when she didn’t have even basic knowledge that everyone in the community would? Salbi states that what she has learned from such humanitarian missions is that you must approach situations with an open mind and seriously take into considerations the knowledge that the people in the community already possess.


In order to take the advice that Salbi so urgently stresses, one must embrace the importance of personal development and personal commitment. Having an outlook of openness, and having the conviction that one can learn from others increases the likelihood that those whom one is serving will tell their stories. This is at the heart of Zainab Salbi’s discussion. For Salbi, who is a refugee and survivor of rape, personal narratives are the key to understanding development. She has documented the narratives of women from Southern Sudan, Congo, Iraq and a host of other spaces and collected them in the hopes that other women can live free from fear and believe in their own ability to better their lives. She urges that we cannot conflate the material benefits, like food and money and jobs, with sympathy. When she asked a Rwandan woman who had suffered from hunger and rape during the years of genocide what women truly want, what the agent of change truly could be, the answer was both simple and powerful: all women want is inspiration.


What can we take away from this simple story is that humanitarian efforts are much more complex than we often realize. Though structural adjustment programs from multilateral corporations and microfinance endeavors are implemented to assuage the flawed top-down approaches of development, there is much more to be said about the ethical and philosophical implications of aid. From the perspective of a feminist, war is brutal in a gendered manner: though the front lines are led by men who enact the actual violence, women play an equally significant role in maintaining the home and ensuring that there is relative stability for children. When women are excluded from the negotiations of a war’s aftermath, it becomes impossible to achieve peace in the midst of the destroyed, chaotic zone. And if Salbi stresses the importance of personal commitment and openness in addressing humanitarian aid, she calls us also to consider the human aspect of women and their agency and significance in international crises. 

Gender Inequality and the Arab Uprisings

By Nick Donlan

When discussing and analyzing the events of the last eighteen months in the Middle East and North Africa, many commentators have framed their narratives and explanations around the “heroic martyrdom” of Mohamed Bouazizi, the Tunisian street vendor who famously set himself on fire after having his wares confiscated by a local police officer. Although his act and story became a catalyst for the Tunisian Revolution (and, some argue, the ongoing uprisings throughout the region), the conventional media account of the incident tends to omit how Bouazizi’s self-immolation may have been the product of more than simply the economic injustices he experienced. While Bouazizi’s difficulties finding a suitable job have been well-documented, pundits frequently overlook (or disregard) his own family’s suggestion that his suicide may have been a response to the shame and humiliation he felt after being slapped in public by a female government official. The world will never know exactly what motivated Bouazizi to strike that fateful match, but his family’s speculation should serve as a reminder to those attempting to comprehend the Arab uprisings that issues of gender inequality are inextricably linked to concerns about economic opportunity and political participation.

In the wake of Bouazizi’s death, specific circumstances and motivations aside, public dissatisfaction with the actions and policies of authoritarian dictators gave way to the rise of widespread protests throughout Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, Syria, Yemen, and beyond. Over a year after these protests began, the region’s governments continue to scramble to consolidate power and regain — or establish — legitimacy with their citizens as they face increasingly uncertain futures. However, the plights of these regimes pale in comparison to those of women throughout the region, many of whom played unprecedented and often vital roles organizing and participating in demonstrations. Although nascent democracies have emerged in Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia, early evidence seems to suggest there are no guarantees that more citizen representation will translate into more beneficial outcomes for the women of these countries.

In the most recent issue of Foreign Policy, Mona Eltahawy argues convincingly that the political changes have done little for women across the Middle East and North Africa because of deeply rooted patriarchal attitudes that hamper the prospects for sweeping social changes. In Egypt, for example, women turned out to the streets after the fall of Hosni Mubarak to celebrate International Women’s Day only to be harassed by a rival protest of men spouting insults like, “Go home, wash clothes,” and, “You are not married, go and find a husband.” With just eight women in Egypt’s new 500-seat parliament dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists, practices like forced marriage and female genital mutilation may remain part of the status quo for the foreseeable future. Perhaps even more troubling are the signs of backsliding in traditionally tolerant Tunisia; several female university professors and students have voiced concerns over Islamists’ open hostility towards them for not wearing hijabs.

The awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Yemeni activist Tawakel Karman marked an important moment of international recognition of the bravery of an Arab woman. However, despite this recognition, Karman still endures criticism from fellow Yemenis who have labeled her leadership style as “dictatorial” and accuse her of ruining the morality of women. Until men and women present a united front against repressive governments, these revolutions will fall well short of their potential to remedy not only gender discrimination, but also other social and economic ills. Indeed, as Eltahawy eloquently put it in her piece: “The Arab uprisings may have been sparked by an Arab man … but they will be finished by Arab women.”