6th edition of the Artivist Sailing. Women and activism from the core of the conflict

At the next edition of Circle of Dialogue and Laboratory the Artivist Sailing will count with the participation of three referential pacifist movements: Zene u Crnom (Women in Black) from Serbia; the Pacific Route of Women from Colombia; and Combatants For Peace from Israel-Palestina. In particular, those movements will be represented by activist women: Stasa Zajovic (Belgrade), Marina Gallego (Medellín), and Taqwa Attallah (Nablus, West Bank).

When: Friday, the 8th of April in the afternoon and, Saturday, the 9th of April all day long.

MOVEMENTS/GROUPS INVITED:

Žene u Crnom (Women in Black): Every Wednesday since the 9th of October 1991, the Women in Black go out onto the streets of Belgrade to express their solid protest against militarism which is explicit in politics and implicit in patriarchal culture. The black color expresses the “fight against murders, and the destruction of human relationships, cities and nature.” For the Women in Black the war will disappear when the violence, direct and latent, against women disappears as well.

The Pacific Route of Women: Feminist movement that arose in 1996. The movement works for the negotiated processing of the armed conflict in Colombia, for the visibility of the effects of war in the lives of women, and for the enforceability of Truth, Justice and Reparation, such as for the reconstruction of the historic memory of the individual and the collective for the No Repetition. The Pacific Route is made up by more than 300 organizations and groups of women from nine popular sectors of the country. Through Social Mobilization they express “their disagreement with war” and they show “that peace is not only the result of the negotiated armed conflict, but the moral, ethic and cultural reconstruction of each town, city or region.”

Combatants For Peace: Bi-national movement set up in 2005 by Palestinian ex militiamen and Israeli ex soldiers who had an important role in the course of violence. They decided to leave the arms and work together in order to promote a pacific solution through dialogue and non-violent actions. Nowadays, CFP involves activists that have not participated in the armed struggle. Inside this movement stand out the groups Direct Action and Theatre of the Oppressed. The Palestinian section of CFP was invited to the previous Board, but the authorities restricted their visas and, therefore, as we were not able to bring the section to us, we have invited it again to this edition.

ACTIVISTS REPRESENTED:

Stasa Zajovic (Belgrade, Serbia): Co-founder and coordinator since 1991 of the Movement Women in Black (Zene u Crnom). She is a member of Objectors Net for Conscience and Anti-militarists of Serbia, and co-editor of the newspaper Prigovor (Objection). Previously, she was an activist of the Centre of Action Against War, and co-founder of the assistance number for Women and Kids who have been victims of Violence, of the Lobby of Women from Belgrade and of the Women Parliament and the Movement of Civic Resistance. In her beginnings, she was also an activist from the feminist group Zena I drustvo (Woman and Society). Between 1993 and 1996 she worked voluntarily at the assistance and enrollment of the refugees at the camps of Mala Krsna, Mikulja, Kovilovo and Nova Pazova. In 1997, with the aim to combine activism with the theoretical knowledge, she started up the Pacific Net of Women. From this Net on, she organized 10 international conferences that brought together 1800 activists, both local from old Yugoslavia and global from all five continents. Moreover, she formed feminist, pacifist and anti-militarist activists. In 2006, she participated in the formation of the Pacifist Coalition of Women formed by the Women Net of Kosovo and the Women in Black Net of Serbia. That coalition stands up for fair and long-lasting peace, and therefore, demands the inclusion of women in the processes of negotiation and construction of Peace as well as the application of UN Security Council Resolution 1325.

Marina Gallego Zapata (Medellín, Colombia): Founder and National Coordinator of the Movement Pacific Route of Women. She is a lawyer with more than 20 years of experience at the Social Movement of Women and at the Movement for Peace in Colombia. She is recognized for her ability of national and international political incidence regarding human rights and construction of peace from women´s perspective. For eight years she was the general coordinator of Corporation for Life – Women who Create in Medellín. From the Pacific Route of Women she has organized and leaded 10 national mobilizations in which around 40,000 women got involved. What is more, she has coordinated the project of Commission of the Truth and the Memory of Colombian Women who have been victims, and she took part in its research team. That research gathers up 1000 individual testimonies and nine collective cases of violence against women within the framework of armed conflict. The contributions of Marina to the construction of Peace and to the negotiated processing for the end of armed conflict in Colombia, have been published in Colombian and international media.

Taqwa Attallah (Nablus, Palestine): Member of the Palestinian section Combatants For Peace Movement and representative of a young generation of activists. She has recurred to theatre as a way to reveal a non-violent expression against Israeli occupation in West Bank: “Theatre is a universal language that can be decoded by everyone and that allows me to share with the world my voice and my message.”