Leymah Roberta Gbowee brings a lot of energy with her. Highly infectious, every word of hers inspires and ignites a fire somewhere in the heart. At the inaugural address of Nobel Laureate Kailash Satyarthi’s book launch at the Jaipur Literature Festival, the Liberian activist and recipient of the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize, ignited the fire of compassion, which was the sole subject of Satyarthi’s new book, Karuna. Her address, which acted as a prelude to Karuna’s journey, brought a flashback of her winning speech in Oslo when she had called out for peace and compassion in the world, and had dedicated the prize to women across the globe and called it “a tribute to your (every women’s) cry for justice, freedom, and equality”.

Gbowee, “54-years-young” as she puts it, is known for leading the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace campaign, and is instrumental in ending the Second Liberian War in 2003. Working closely with Satyarthi, who won the prize in 2014, she stood by him, multiplying the need and significance of compassion in today’s world.

Being Compassionate

Gbowee’s trajectory, her spirit and her persona cannot be understood without compassion. It’s her compassion for fellow Liberian women, suffering at the altar of war, and women across the world, that made her a powerful changemaker. “I tell people that the entire, the total sum of my existence is compassion. I grew up in the city in Liberia, but it was peri-urban. It was a very poor neighbourhood. My parents owned the only TV in that neighbourhood. However, growing up, we never knew which family didn’t have food and which family didn’t have school fees because we shared everything. The community was one,” shared the activist, explaining the essence and importance of the word compassion in her life, as we decided to talk while the book launch and discussion took place at the Front Lawn of the literary festival.

We decided to continue our chat amidst the collective energy of bibliophiles in attendance filling up the venue. Continuing, the peace maker talked about the forces that derail compassion in us. “Unfortunately for us, in our quest for wealth, in our quest for power, in our quest for notoriety, we threw out the sense of our collective humanity, we threw out the sense of compassion, and selfishness and greed has taken over our world. So, today we really do need to bring it back into the world that we live in.”

Peace Please

It is the power of compassion, coupled with her non-violent protests, that led to peace in her country. Also, a discussion on compassion invariably leads to peace and given the turmoil that the world is experiencing at the moment, the word peace gained more attention as we spoke. She shared her definition of peace as the voices in our heads grew louder. “Peace is not just the absence of war, but peace is the presence of conditions that give dignity to all. And if you have those conditions that give dignity to all, you can’t give those conditions without an understanding of compassion.”

Working with Satyarthi

She calls Satyarthi her junior as she received the Nobel three years before him. After her speech, she stood by Satyarthi, whose latest campaign, Satyarthi Movement for Global Compassion (SMGC), speaks explicitly of his reliance on the word as a force. Sharing her camaraderie with him, she said: “I know when people are sincere, I have learned that. And I know that Kailash is sincere about his concern for people, his concern for human beings. So, there is this strong connection between us. I’m a Christian, and my faith is very important to me. He doesn’t practise my faith, but we have one faith in common, and that’s our collective understanding of people, our understanding of compassion and our understanding of the collective humanity.” She also pointed out how their friendship is compared to that of Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama.

Against the Tide

Known for organising grassroots-level movement in Liberia in 2002, with women across faiths, that ultimately led to the end of a 14-year civil war, the feisty leader reflected on her journey and talked about what kept her buoyant in the face of challenges. “When you are pushed against the wall, you have two options — you either go in or you fight back. And we had been pushed to the wall, so we had to fight back. And in our fighting back, we recognised that violence had not solved the problem. So, using some of Gandhi’s tactics, using some of the tactics of Dr King (Martin Luther King Jr), the Aba women in Nigeria, we decided that we’re going to start a movement, a non-violent movement in response to all of the things that were happening. And the beauty of our work was that it wasn’t about us. It was about the future of the children. And so, we endured. We endured a lot. We changed the dynamics of the politics of the war. We changed the dynamics of the way the media was reporting the war, because the media was reporting children with guns. And we stepped into a space where we were putting our bodies in front of the guns,” recalled the co-founder of the Women Peace and Security Network Africa (WIPSEN-A).

Drawing up a similarity between her protests and Gandhi’s, she added: “We were standing up against a very powerful military regime. And Gandhi was standing up against a very powerful British regime. That’s the similarity. Every morning, we got up, we walked, and we challenged the structures. When we didn’t have anything, we were out there using our voice and using our bodies. And that’s what we embodied, just like Gandhi and Dr King.”

Feminine Voice

Gbowee’s strength lay in women and their innate ability to be compassionate. She spoke of having an edge as a woman in leading movements that led to desirable results, and the reason this gender’s heart is in the right place. “People often ask, what is the difference between men and women? Are women more peaceful? And my response is that we’re not more peaceful, we’re more considerate, we’re more compassionate,” she said with a broad smile. Picking up, she added, “When you’re having conversations about war and peace, men are talking about power. Women are talking about how we can build the schools, how we can have the hospitals functioning, and how we can ensure that everyone is taken care of. That is the difference.”

Life after Nobel

It’s been more than a decade since Gbowee won the Nobel. She is aware of the expectations of society but refuses to bow down to pressure. Emphasising the fact that she is just human and not superhuman, she said, “I am busier than before. I’m more stressed. But I can tell you one thing — I have purposed that in the midst of everything that is happening around the world, I’m going to have fun. I refuse to let anyone turn me into an idea of a superhuman, because that’s the potential that people have. I’m just human. So, I can cry, I can laugh, I can dance, I can be a jokester. I like fashion. I decide to colour my hair when I want to. I can be anything that I want to be.”

Literary Notes

Gbowee has recorded her life in her memoir Mighty Be of Our Powers: How Sisterhood, Prayer, and Sex Changed a Nation at War, co-authored with Los Angeles-based author Carol Mithers. Her latest book is for children, titled Rise Girl, Rise: Our Sister-Friend Journey, Together for All. It is co-authored with American socio-political activist Gloria Marie Steinem. With it, the duo come together to tell an uplifting story of girls and women strengthening one another and changing the world.