The theme for this year’s 16 Days of Activism to end violence against women is, “From Peace in the Home to Peace in the World: Let’s Challenge Militarism and End Violence Against Women!”
For many women and families, there seems to be no difference between peacetime and war time experiences. Guns ( and in South Africa, knives, pangas and knobkerries) pervade our lives, threaten us in our bedrooms and living rooms, in schools and on our streets. When they are not physically present, such weapons threaten us through the programmes on TV, in newspaper articles, and computer war games.
In South Africa, tax payer’s hard earned money, which we would like to see utilised for development and reducing poverty, is spent in corrupt deals , illegal and unnecessary arms expenditure and providing security often for warlords in other countries.
The annual 16 Days of Activism to End Violence Against Women, allows all freedom loving people to collectively pause and give attention in our minds and hearts to what it is that causes violence against women and what we as a society must do in our own homes, streets, neighbourhoods and organisations to ensure that we never become apathetic to the gut wrenching cries of women in the dark of night or to their whimpering in pain while the sun shines and daily chores and activities continue!
Against this background, there will always be committed individuals and groups in society, who will not allow the violence of both the idea and implements of force and war, whether it is physical, emotional, psychological, cultural or structural, to weaken our resolve to end violence and the war industry that is created through an economic system based on militarism i.e. the idea that a standing army is necessary and “that a country should maintain a strong military capability and be prepared to use it aggressively to defend or promote national interests “.
ELRU counts itself among this hopeful movement and recommits itself to ensuring that children have the chance to imagine peace and to know that they have the right to “freedom from want, freedom from fear and freedom to choose”.
We can all start by committing to:
- Refraining from buying a child a gun as a “gift” to play with as if it is capable of giving children joy
- raising peacekeepers or “keepers of the peace”, rather than soldiers
- bringing an end to the use of children in war either as soldiers, human shields or collateral damage
- teaching respect for all human beings.
The work of ELRU supports deeply poor care givers, predominantly women, in their responsibility for children’s early development. Mindful of the trauma of poverty, the feminisation of under development and the physical, psycho-social and spiritual toll on poor women in South Africa, we call on the South Africa government to make real its promise to be a developmental state, to ensure that compulsory military conscription remains a thing of the past and the idea of a Peace Corps be actively and publicly discussed and established. Imagine what a Peace Corps could contribute to raising literacy and numeracy levels in this country!
Alison Lazarus
ELRU Director