Youth Action Montreal 2011
In my hometown of Mississauga, we have a high school named after him.
Not until yesterday did I know who he was.
I tried to write down what he said, but know that I failed to capture it completely.
I missed a lot of what he said and had to fill in some of the gaps myself.
But you’ll get the gist of it.
Here goes:
“I apologize for being an anglophonic and have enough respect and affection for the French language so as not to incur violence in your presence by butchering it.
I must say I am positively levitated with the state of socialism in this country.
It seems that most of my work as a politician was an exercise in transcendental futility.
I am here to embroider the discussion on local and global issues.
I remember it was a few years ago when I was in New Orleans, celebrating the 10th anniversary of V-day with Eve Ansler. The Global Movement to End Violence Against Women and Girls started by Eve Ansler who is best known as the playwright of the Vagina Monologues.
I remember during my work with the UN I came to learn of the ludacrisy, the predatory horror of lives that some lead.
I remember visiting this little hospital in Africa.
In this hospital doctors were working to repair the female reproductive system.
There were stories of bullets shot into vaginas, dull instruments and screw drivers.
It was here that I learned of the term, “vaginal destruction“.
The UN has 20,000 peacekeeping troops, 12 offices and we are united to protect the rights of women.
We have failed abysmally.
There’s something wrong with the world
When there is an earthquake in Haiti, we set up relief camps and women are raped.
When there is a war in Afghanistan and women are raped.
When there is a revolution in Libya and women are raped.
There is something profoundly wrong with the world.
From the depths of my being, and I’m 73 years old, I thought I knew how the world works.
I don’t.
We can unite together and work to overthrow Gaddhafi, to overthrow the Bahraini monarchy but not to protect women.
Rape is no longer a weapon of war, it’s a strategy of war.
During my relief efforts, we were once asked whether any of us would like to talk to three women and I volunteered along with one other:
-One was young, she had been raped, found to be HIV+ and said she had no reason to live. 2 years later she was dead.
-Another was middle-aged, she asked us how she could be asked to forgive and forget. She had been raped and was used to seeing the perpetrators walking on the streets with no remorse.
-The last one had a sense of grace, she had been tied to a bed and used as a rape machine for 3 months. She said to me something that I’ll never forget. ‘Whether I’m in the field, the market or home. I can never forget the smell of semen.’
I absolutely believe in gender equality, how is this allowed?
The single most important struggle of today is Gender Equality.
You cannot stigmatize, discriminate 50% of the world population!
There is a desperate need for a new generation that understands that deprivations of my generations.
One that responds.
During the election for Mugabe,
Women were slowly being raped solely because they supported the opposition.
There is a pattern: women are abducted, taken to rape camps.
And all the while these men are singing, “Tell this to Bush, tell this to Blair.”
I guess what I’m saying is that there is much to do.
If you’ve got no colonial ambitions, do it as a kind human, if you’ve got a good heart.
There is momentous work to be done.
In studies we’ve seen that there is a range from 14% (Japan) to 71% (Bangladesh) of the women who have been sexually abused.
We need to focus on the prevention and not the aftermath.
We never have focused on the prevention, and I will admit I’m obsessed with the subject because the raping leads to the spread of HIV.
It’s as if no one understood and the women were ransacked, they weren’t given a say.
Of the 21 million people currently diagnosed with HIV, 63% are women.
As if there is some kind of Darwinian selection and women are targeted.
Projections show that we’ll be left with 15 million orphans because of this.
What happen in the countries with 1 or 2 million orphans?
How in God’s name do you deal with that?
Thank God for the grandmothers of Africa.
An entire generation. Just gone.
I’ve met child-headed households. When I was with Grassa, she’s been called the mother of Africa, Nelson Mandela’s wife.
We went to such a house, where the girl in charge was 8 years old.
Grassa, ushered everyone out but the kids, a translator and me and asked the oldest girl,
“Have you begin to menstruate?”
They responded in their shy African voices, “Yes.”
“Have you talked to anyone? Asked for help?”
I didn’t realize this was the first moment anyone had talked to these girls about some of the most transformative events of their life.
When we were leaving Grassa asked,
“Who puts you to bed?”
… and I will never forget the response,
“I put myself to bed. I am the mother.”
Right at the moment when breakthrough anti-retroviral treatment is on the brink of being available.
Right at the moment when we’ve got 30 million projected HIV cases, which means 30 million will potentially die.
We’ve run out of money.
But when they need money for a stimulus, for 100′s of millions of dollars to bail out banks, to fight the war in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Libya …. money is found.
What prevents these people from improving global health?
What in God’s name possesses these people?
In Canadian politics, where are these issues?
I believe from the depths of my being that there needs to be a new generation with elemental sanity.
I’ve had an abysmal education, I never did get a degree. Which is why I collect honorary degrees instead.
Was there a moment in life which changed my life?
It was when I was the UN envoy to Africa.
My supervisor was a sweet man.
His heart was breaking every day, his soul was disintegrating every hour.
We were at a hospital filled with babies where every cot was struggling on the twin front:
Of malnutrition and HIV
There was this otherworldly shriek, from a mother whose baby had just been covered with a white cloth because it had passed away. An inconsolable cry.
“Has the world gone mad?”
Surely we have some humanity somewhere in ourselves.
I beg you, collectively and individually to put an end to this.”
