consensus turned into a political consensus so that is what i was trying to do. >> host: are you agnostic? you don't want to label yourself? >> guest: what i wanted to do was tell the story in hell and help people have a framework in all these issues with the climate, energy and everything comes along to see them in perspective. that is what i was trying to do and want to do it in a narrative way. >> host: thank you very much. >> guest: yeah. ..

which is credited with being instrumental in ending the second library to the war in 2003 in removing charles taylor from power. >> i want to encourage all of you to buy this look. she's not paying me for saying that to you, bet it really is quite an extraordinary journey. it is liberia's descent into madness end of your journey and it through it and not have it. but for right now, let us journey together across the

continent of north america, across the atlantic to the continent of africa and in particular to liberia. america and liberia have a particular relationship on a particular history together. we just speak to that briefly, leymah? >> thank you all for coming. ms. carol meadows, i call my therapist. liberia is the country that freed slaves from here in the u.s. in 1822. and everything about liberia is like america. say you have our flag like the u.s. flag, but with one start. our constitution models like the u.s. constitution. we have three branches of government. we called the house that are

parliamentarians setting capital . we do have the supreme court with the chief justice, just like here. some of the streets are named after people from here. we have virginia and maryland and different places after james president munro. so we do have the richest dirty and one liberian women put it in a very nice context. liberia, america's stepchild. >> i'm always interested when there is a kind of strife that has been so long-lasting -- was so long-lasting and liberia as the conditions that may have made that possible. would you speak to that, please

click >> well, when the slaves came to liberia committee indigenous people like any other when you have indigenous people and it's ironic that i speak in here in california with your own history were welcoming of the freed slaves. they gave them their land. they made them comfortable. something that is typical if they do know how to show gratitude. the life of abuse. so what has been against indigenous people in a god very powerful. so we have the schools. we have everything that people have so far 100 plus years, indigenous people with a virtual slaves of the quote, unquote sense of the freed slaves.

if i can give a. many of the people in the same code like me and saving to go to the university, some of the priestly descent to kidnap children would tell you, take my last name because that last name of yours is not a representation of people who should come to the university. so they funded a technical school for children of indigenous people because they were preparing them for the life of service to children at the freed slaves. >> throughout the book, you're wonderful, wonderful book, you spoke time and again about fear. and i want to read the very short one line sentence that is

just so wonderful. and i quote, when he moves so quickly from innocence to a world of fear, pain and loss, it says that the flesh of your heart and mind gets cut away piece by piece, like spices taken us a hand. finally, there is nothing left but on. i'd like you to speak to that through the lens about this issue of fear, through the lens of a woman and a mother and liberia. >> we will step back and speak to that through the want of a child because i was a child when the war of the community and you wake up one morning and it's all

gone and you're afraid the sound of the parent, the accents of their parents, the accents of their siblings. many relatives come in and tell the stories. it's never-ending. i think it's about point that that piece starts to go away. and then that's it progresses, you pray that this madness but when. i want to merit to be okay. and you wake up the next morning and it's worse than the day before. by the time you look at yourself from 17, like myself, i'm 31 and beyond the war, you have video issue of violence and all the different things that you've seen. so it's just one issue after the affair. but that fear is something that pushes you back into a space that is difficult to describe.

so it takes hope. it takes courage. it takes a lot away from you day by day. and most of the time people that's what they want. gradually they are stripping you of your strength. they are stripping you of your willpower. they are stripping you of everything that would never bring you to fight that. >> as a mother, there were times when your children are hungry. they were exhausted. it's unimaginable what that must've been like like for you. >> you know sometimes it difficult to really put it into context. but by the time they started having children, they fear had gone away. the fear of what could happen to me was gradually going away. it was the fear for their own life, the life of those

children, how to survive in its abilities. and then he gets a realize that i don't have the power to even protect these children because it's not in my power and then you can not manage a set hair. you can't function and you can't do anything. in my case, i lost faith, so it was difficult to even pray. >> and then we have charles taylor, who comes on the scene around 1989. and he has his own private army. in one of the most egregious things that he does in my estimation is that he has the small boys irony, ages nine to around 15 who are given guns. they are hopped up on alcohol and drugs and they commit horrific atrocities. how -- because in the way they

worry that i'm also. how have you had to work with yourself to find peace and forgiveness and reconciliation with these kids who have perpetrated horrific crimes against women and children in particular? >> you never really want to think about. the last thing you want to think about is to think about reconciliation and peace and how do we make life better for one another? i remember when i started working with this group of young boys in 1998, i was standing. they were saying no wonder you have one leg. and it's just anger for me, but i was at a place where we have a parable was like a porcupine and

test nine. it's too bitter to swallow and to crazy to throw away. i needed to go to school. this was the job for me. and that was the requirement for me to go back to school. so it was better to swallow. but in the school was the greasy part that i could not throw away. so i would sit with them, listen to them. but you know, i thank each of these children, even through all that façade of men or boys turn to none, you gradually get to see who these people are. children. they are still trapped even at 15, 20, 25. they were still trapped in a moment when they were first given that first stroke or alcohol. so you see bbc still want their mothers. you see children or even at the

place where they now have children, they are -- you see children in them. so when you get to know them -- when i get to know them and get to see beyond either not show things, i feel sorry for them because i'm looking at my kid brother. i'm looking at my nephews. i'm looking at my own children. and then i am looking for myself and seeing they are the same place than i am. i am trapped at his 13-year-old, even at 26. and they are trapped at 10, 12, 9-year-old boys, even at 18. you can't help but to want to reach out of them on track country and to ban because it tears down that wall of anger.

and until today, people of liberia cannot understand why i would stop my car would not heal me because i don't see killers. i see children that were exploited and abused. they see myself come out of my own state of own state accommodation. >> yes, indeed. >> about that time as i recall come you started working as a volunteer for organization, trauma and healing reconciliation program. and the cycle of fear took on something else. and if you were, leymah, with a two country new two week for me on both. the u.s. get it it back to me. minors are dated and signed the way, this opening paragraph if you would. >> when you are depressed can you get trapped inside yourself

and move to take the actions that might make you feel better. you hate yourself for that. you see the suffering of others, but few incapable of helping men and that makes you hate yourself, too. they hate makes you fatter. the sadness makes you more helpless. the hopelessness fills you with more safe hate. working at the trauma reconciliation program proved the circle for me. i wasn't sitting home thinking endlessly of what a failure i was. i wanted something that actually helps people. the more i did, the more i could do. the more i wanted to do, the more i saw needed to be done. >> and this was your introduction to being a piece daughter. >> this was my introduction, yes. >> and it was about this time

that you and the woman who was then your mentor, now she's become a beloved friend, selma. you begin the training manual for women where you didn't teach my men, but you sought out to transform them. and in this manual, there are wonderful exercises that he and a woman he and a woman he and a woman crowns, one of my thorns and others a wonderful exercise of shipping weight. i'd like to ask you to questions about the manual. i know that sometimes you would eat up much of the nigerian women's stories. is there one story in particular that you recall that he would be willing to share this? >> there are many stories that made an impression on me, but i am one person who has always thought that our traditional product is was not as bad as the

road made it out to be until we went to sierra leone and we formed a circle. i knew this woman who had worked with me for many years and she is the pillar of strength for our community. in this day when we did this circle, she decided to tell her story. and after we went back to herself as a 7-year-old girl being taken into the trap of family society, she tells the story about the day she was about to get mutilated. but what i remember about that story was that it took her -- she started in in 15 minutes she got to the place at the mutilation and then it took her almost 10 hours to progress from not place to the next part of

the story. because she tells that they tied me. and then she goes -- and she will scream. she dug her feet and her toenails and the earth until she cut her feet. but she didn't know she was doing all of those things. people fell asleep. people woke a. people fell back asleep and she struggled and struggled. and by morning, we did that circle in the sierra leone. we had one person start. she was defective. and in a circle of 20 people, she was the only story we heard the entire night. afterwards, she fell asleep and

it was like all day. she has now started her own organization in that community, fighting off the harmful traditional practices and other issues related to women's rights. but till today, every time i see her, i still remember that your piercing scream at her taking her toenails in the earth and fighting back the cries and the pains. and she was in her 30s, but it was the pains, the wait for a seven years old that she had been carrying all of her life. >> i have to tell you that story takes my breath away. thank you for telling us that. the second question i have about this manual for training is, is

it being used now in various places of the world? >> people use it in different places in ways that we don't know anything about. i still make reference and i used it last year with the women. it was as he said, very powerful tool when you get to do it. and there is no category of women that use the crown of thorns with to speak with them. one of the other parts of the matter sometimes we try to tilt is reaffirming yourself being a woman as a woman. and we do different things like the cat walk. we do different things like i remember when we were working with all of these women who had experienced war, asking them to stand up and just describe

themselves. it was amazing. last year we did it with ministers and liberia and we asked them to stand up and just reaffirmed the beauty. one of the female said wow, i've never felt so good because they've never ever taken that time to complement myself. so it's not about what spectrum of society you find yourself from grassroots to top level. sometimes women are so busy taking care of the world. and sometimes we are looking for money that's not realistic and they say girl, you look good here for other things i do to myself all the time and this is a little bit egotistic, but i still do it. just in just in front of the mirror and say you look good.

[laughter] so we try to teach our women to appreciate themselves. they'll quickly move on and just give a quick example. one of the training we had, we brought 50 real women together announce them to write down their trains, what they'd always dreamed when it comes to beauty. and there was one muslim women in the room, she said she had always wanted to wear a blue dress, a red hat, a red haired shoes that make a. some of the women said they've always wanted to wear. genes. some said they've always wanted to go to a nightclub. so by the time we finished the session, i was on the phone to every liberian woman i know. do you have a red hat?

do you have a pair of jeans? [laughter] do you have this, do you have that? and by the next day we had a room full of clothes. those women got dressed in the first part of their dream was to take them to a night of. and what in the nightclub. 50 women asking what was going on. we just came to have a good time. and then next we did our fashion show. this woman died a year ago. that was the photograph she carried of herself coming coming down the stairs and a blue dress, red hat and nicely made a period and she said before i got into, got married, she got the muslim name and she said this is truly eat it.

but these brave men, as simple as it may sound, beef fat days and they are never the same again when they go back into their communities. >> it's interesting that you would talk about a dream. those of us who are in ordained ministry talk about a call, our calling to ministry by god or jesus or however we want to define it. and you got a call and a crazy dream. would you talk about that? >> well, it was this night i lived by myself and i would sleep on the cold floor. in the winter this is something you pick up from the worst time because you are afraid to sleep on the bed. so i am lame air and i always hear this voice in my treatment may never see the face, saying

it up, gather the women and put them together to pray for peace. they wake up shivering because the window is a an light rain was falling on me. i go to work the next morning. i go to a pastor who's mad that i had this dream they said we should get that the women to pray for peace. they weren't talking about me. i'm in a relationship than i am so flaming keeping and it can be me talking about you as a pastor need to identify those women who are living right. and then he said, the dream bearer is the dream carrier. we prayed and that was the beginning of something called the christian initiative in the muslim women weren't battered to start their crew. so that was the beginning of the

entire that later started in 2003. >> that's right. and by now the worst about 13 years in the making. and people were going in droves to monrovia to be in the refugee camps. and the refugee camps were hundreds, thousands of people, and blood of disease, and a lot of malaria, people not eating adequately. but yet, you have said that it was seen them and hearing of their experience and monrovia and the refugee camp that you were baptized into the women's movement because they gave you such hope. they who have lost so much. >> you go into a community where people have embraced. some of the women we met from sierra leone who were a refugee and liberia at the time was breast-feeding her baby when they got to a check point and

the soldiers cut off the. they all have different forms of physical disability, but these women were still saying with a hope for communities. we will go back and teach these children peace. and carried my anger from years ago and making more mistakes, even as i was angry. and they asked me, have you been? had he been abused? now. why are such a hypocrite? you know, why are you angry? and i asked myself the same question. why am i angry? i am being a hypocrite. going back to those women they say to me, you know, we are the hope of her communities. that was a moment of baptism for me. but sometimes you need water and sometimes you need fire to really open your eyes.

>> said that was the beginning of the women's peace initiative. >> that was the beginning of my awareness that you know they are right. we are the answer. the women's peace initiative started with, inviting us to ghana, taking the concept, bringing it back in starting something. but the question women were born before the women's initiative. so when they came back from ghana within atf, we were already using their platform so today from two to until today, every tuesday at 12 to come you find the christian women up in a room at the compound. they call it the upper room from 2002 until today, 12 noon every tuesday. even if it's one person, someone is they are praying for the peace of liberia and declare a

fast now. in the women's peace network is back praying for peace now as we speak. >> in a set this juncture that your work started becoming strategic. >> no strategic coming yes. >> and what i found so compelling is that good muslim and christian women are working together and you took the book of mr. and say something about that if you will. >> low, liberia like any other place, even here have been divided unsocial line, ideological, every team. and you could not mobilize a group of people to work for peace because every villain in

one community was figured to dispute will. so it was difficult to get anyone. what about the summit together, the first thing we had to do was move beyond religion, ethnicity, ideological or political ideologies and bring us to a place where it was about womanhood. who cries the most when a baby dies? who does this the most, who does that the most? who are the ones being? and they understood. and before we could even move into you needed to separate groups identity. so is krishan women, the thing we were getting was women have never been involved in these things. so we have to take the krishan

women back to the bible. see mr., these were revolutionary work. that is women did. it was that good job, work fast and pray. they got a good and put their faces in the forefront of the politic of the time. we went into the koran. the wife of the prophet mohammed, she had a voice. she was not silent. she was not that file. everyone is saying that muslim women are supposed to be. and then there was high for the islamic of no violence that i exploited to the court. [laughter] >> bravo. >> that it was that kind of thing that we use. so by the time and we decided to do this fast, it had caught on. and then we said -- the women

set like mr. look at me. on a normal day, this is the way women dress. if we continue to dress like this, nicely dressed, jewelry and everything. so we have to go back to god. we are recognize that we have a role to play in the violence of our communities are facing. so the wave was symbolic for peace. a hair tie was to cover the beauty of the hair. no shoes, no jewelry, no makeup and god has a sense of humor. at that time, we decided and declared through prayer, i had one of the funkiest haircuts and all of liberia. and i have to cover my hair because now that we have peace i have to redo my hair.

[laughter] but that was how the krishan women approached it. and the muslim women just bought it to it. >> so there you are in your strategy is to gather at the dish market because that is where -- >> until i went to work every day, people went to work every day. no one passed without looking right, yes. >> so imagine that's. in the liberian son and then it would rain and it doesn't get cooled off in the rain. it gets hotter and humid in women's shoes clothing hung on them in the white t-shirt and you are out there for how many days? >> two years. >> two years, two years. but finally, he agreed -- in the middle of that --

>> in the middle of that we were there for six weeks and then he agreed to meet with us. >> is somewhere in there, there's a decision about no that. now we have to talk about that. >> well, you know, i thought the muslim women because sometimes we say are you really a muslim? because you have a devious mind. last night she was the one coming to us and saying you know what, these men of fires have their opinion in the newspaper urges senate. we have to move them. how do you suppose we do that? west tonight sex. and the urban area we failed miserably. [laughter] we weren't strategic.

and then some of the women would come out and we had a fight and i had to give in. and the rural areas, the women called to things into the church and said we are at a point where we need to seek our faith for peace. we are fasting, we are praying and you know the whole thing that fast is denying yourself the pleasures. we've come to tell you that as we journey, take this journey, it means no sex. they agreed. so for months, nothing. i'm than the husbands would be sitting there and fasting along with them.

but when the end of the protest after two years, and the rural community, central liberia, we saw men block down with gifts and flowers. they come to appreciate their wives publicly. and then one of them leaned over and says about the sex because today we had, today we have sex. but they were more strategic. but the sex track was away like here, caught the attention of the media and the attention of the men in america's people and talent even before. >> it's amazing thing you didn't know. somewhere in there at decided to

have a position, statement and take it to parliament. and finally, charles taylor agreed to meet with you. and there is this extraordinary scene of hundreds of women at your back letter really. you're up on a stage and they are praying for you to be steadfast and tension and then also not to interrupt this process. and with a steady hand and a deep voice, you present this position paper to president taylor. and if after that that he agrees to go into peace talks in ghana. and you continue that strategy at the peace talks with the warlords, presidents of other countries in africa, of course

taylor. and you kept getting the women there in their weight and you are very strategic about that. the peace talks -- it's like the guys were having a good time. they were at club med. >> you're making a thousand dollars a day. do you want to add? >> now, i i don't think so. not when you come from such deprivation. they continue to jockey for power. you then took the women into the wall and create a scene for us is just extraordinary. >> well, we went with seven women and mobilize the refugee women. we talked in our minds that we would for a week. we stayed for three months. the talks are going nowhere. the violence had increased. i had lost faith in the power of

nonviolence. i was constantly crying. at some point i sat joining the women to protest. and this morning i go to the offices of the west african network of peacebuilding. and i am watching the video and they give a news flash that lend it and these two little boys for brushing their teeth. on the would love to those boys for their slippers. they were crash. a young girl had just given birth and came outside to hang the baby's clothes. was crushed. so, on that video, the mother is holding this one -day-old child and saying, what do i do? i'm watching the video and anger is just well enough. you think all of the anger from 17 years old came back and the tears are just running down.

i go into one of the rooms and they have some of the way t-shirts. i put it on, go to the peace talks and say, do we have money? she said yes. and then she said, leymah, the press people were about to leave and i went to them and said, you have a story today. and they said, what is it suggestion? we get word that the warlords of the media were going into session at 10:00. so i separate myself from the group, said at a table and write my hostage letter. wrote the letter folded it and by the time i got to read in the letter, the women have the right. the people were going into their rooms. i went to the women sit down with arms like this. at that time i didn't have any clue of what they were doing. they were just taking instruction. and then i tapped on the door of the peace all.

in the nigerian general turned and i said i want to see you. he fed me? as he came i gave him the letter and he took it to the media and read it. the only thing he said on the overhead with my god, matrix has ceased a piece called. [laughter] [applause] but as vcs thought all, then the police com and say europe start injustice. >> and you went off. >> totally. my life flashed before me. my socialization pass before me. i had been brought up to believe that the men in this world protected the women and children. if i'm being accused of obstructing justice mln trained to do is deliver a sentence of justice to meet people, i felt

like there is no hope. because can you imagine the depths of humiliation, great abuse, death, destruction. you've seen all for 40 years or so i just said, you know what? on make it easy for you. postscript. and someone asked, somewhat in a country where women have been raped. when you were being raped, you're closer karnofsky. when you're protesting in pain, you are giving away the last strip of your integrity and that was what i was doing in protest.

take it. take the integrity. take what is left of women had. for every liberian women come to take it. if disobeying previous, take it. >> when he took off the head covering -- >> took off the head cover. every literature and women you see with the sun has something under it because of the word. so we are still traumatized in america as it is carried. take off the skirt, the rap and put it back on and say don't do this. but on my left, my mentor at already started stripping also. and they are saying, don't do this. but the security men who came to arrest understanding african culture overran. so someone said by the way.

>> attack began to to turn it around. >> has turned it around 100%. it turned it about for us because that that time when the negotiators were asked to leave that space, we found the two had power. so the message became more vicious than more bold. we were referring to them as killers. whereas in the past we were saying, give us peace. and those who are cocky and arrogant would walk by us. no more insults were thrown at us. and three weeks, the disagreement -- the agreement was signed. [applause]

>> a transitional government was put in place. you have said and i agree with you, that ultimately goodness wins out over evilness. but there's a price to pay. and i would like you, from your book, to be the price that was paid break here. >> award for two years doesn't just go away. in the moment we are, not to look around, we have to confront the mag is to overlap into liberia. 250,000 people were dead. wanted three were displaced with 350,000 cans and a rust anywhere they could find shelter.

a million people, mostly women and children at malnutrition,, cholera because of contamination in the world. more than 70% of the country's physical infrastructure, roads, hospitals and schools have been destroyed. the psychic damage is almost unimaginable. the whole generation of young men have no idea in their hands. several generation of women had been raped, seeing their mothers and daughters be raped. neighbors that turns against neighbors. young people have lost hope in old people, every day and they had painstakingly earned to a person we were traumatized, we have survived the war. now we have to err how to live. peace isn't a moment. it's a very long process.

>> it is through what you did that you were largely responsible for the election of the first woman president of nigeria, president of liberia. [applause] >> you are going to be going back to your country within a few days. she is up for election again? >> is coming next tuesday. >> and what you think your chances are? >> i'm going to open my big mouth and say she's going to have a wind. [applause] >> we are going to turn over for questions, but i do want to ask you i'm a question, leymah, if i may. you have done so much and you have sacrificed greatly. and you have paid a price. would you be willing to speak to that for a moment? >> well, i really don't think i've done anything.

just today as having a conversation with a friend. and i said to her, not until i bring the double back to how good it felt like we had done anything significant. in my mind until today, it was a survival tactic. fighting for the future of our children. and i would have been content if we didn't get on the big screen. you know, i feel like you said earlier, i am called to do what i do. i don't have anything of wow, i'm doing great work. every time i go to a space indecent teen, i leave that space thinking, did i really do. and i really make an impact?

and it's only with the young people that i engage within the community and a site documentary that was done in uganda with some women. i'm one of them sack him the first time i looked at that little girl from transport if she can do it, i can do it. so i am at a place now for all i want is the opportunity to do my work, do what i know to do that, encourage people to maximize their potential. and the sacrifices -- i don't think i've made any sacrifice. i think i have just lived. i don't think i've seen it as the only way that i could have -- that was my empowerment to do what i do now. i don't think of myself as

anyone grave. so when i go to places, i try to ask people to kindly just say i'm a mother of six because that's the only thing that gives me so much pleasure and dynamic peace and women's rights activists. and so, i am content. i am so content with where i find myself. i am content with the work that i do. if i don't become the secretary general of the u.n. or a president of liberia or any other thing, i am just content working in my community. i am just content being what god has called me to be. i don't begrudge fergie that charles has gone through the night. i don't see any of the achievement that has gotten as a

right. i see it as god's favor. [applause] >> thank you for that beautiful conversation. before would open in a -- [inaudible] do we need to move? [inaudible] >> okay. all right. ♪ ♪ ♪ >> you cannot take our land away from us.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> we went back to the bible. i said i mean it. ♪ >> the women that love to do their hair and put on makeup were not allowed to do any of those things.

we were clear what close. who would say to people. ♪ >> we are deserving and no one's going to desert us. ♪ we are going to find a strategic point. and this is how we decided to fish at the fish market every day. thousands of women, including conservatives when. it was the first time in our history and liberia, where muslim women in christian women are coming together.

>> and we had a big canada says the women of liberia want peace now. >> those who think they can, in the streets to embarrass themselves, up. i am waiting for you. i said nobody, nobody will get men to embarrass the administration. >> we were not afraid. my mother was like, we said well

if i should get killed, just remember i was working for peace. >> you look at the front line discussion of course. and this is what newspapers report on, the fighting type gates, the troops, the politics, the borders, dns, all of those things. the backline discussion of this story is how you actually exist and continue on living in water. that's a woman's story. that story has never been told.

>> warfare is a very different competition out if the civilians were not collateral damage as he once called them, but really very much in the center of the war zone. >> the ordinary dilemmas want to feel and watch the women died. the women are the ones raped. and after the conflict or at the end of the war is being negotiated, date never consider. >> i think it's way past time that we redefine what we mean by war because there are no front lines in the wars in today's world. the fact is that in today's wars, the primary but guns are women and children.

[inaudible] [inaudible] >> thank you so much for everything. i'll be thinking me when i pray. thinking about literacy, i work in literacy and l.a. and at risk immunities. when you're getting the women together, people are traumatized because of what is going on. did you do any reading? in a few days, what did you read?

thank you. >> when we started the work, i think we would say in terms of people, women had different skills. and i was the only one who had a tiny bit of skill around peacebuilding. and i had read condi i had read king and i was mesmerized by the power of nonviolence. for a long time, i felt like that was the most powerful way of life. there is nothing more powerful. those are the things that i read, but we also -- we talk issues of nonviolence, we asked women to give his stories of acts of nonviolence in their communities. and they are different stories that came out to what we felt we were doing. so we didn't do a lot of theoretical things. it was not until after we get

this work when i went to do my graduate studies that we were doing a course called strategic peacebuilding. and then we did that. that was strategic. is that a tactic or strategy? you know, all that i used in the actual peacebuilding. yes, we just read a little of gandhi here. >> thank you so much. i am struck -- i was struck while you are talking about your sense of community and how you women could see what was happening in your community. in our country, we are aware of the time and other places. so right now and libya, the association said that's been going on for weeks. people barely know about it. people there don't have food,

jonah potter. but we don't internalize that because this is not part of our community. on iraq or afghanistan. so i guess i'm wondering, how does one create a larger world community, where we cared. and we can wear white and we can object to these wars. that we care about other people in other parts of the world. >> you know, i have come to a very cynical place when it comes to asp versus them. your world, my world. and your question is a good question. but your question can be answered in two ways. your friend says in your community you see the wars. open your eyes.

in this community you will see the wars here, it's happening. as a stranger, i see it. and i think the connections between your world in my world and i'll cross that out and see the connection in our world is our ability to move beyond. ..

this country has resources. what you are sure to visit activism. [applause] if you put me in a tiny community in this country, i will give myself a year and i will have created a community. i went to the eemu and i am not kidding you, when you learn to exist in a community, you cannot exist without a community. my sister died in june of 2006. i came back to school in the u.s. in august of 2006.

she died when i was driving her to the hospital and i drove around with her body in the car for three hours and would not cry. because i was looking for a place to put that body. i came back to school and determined i would not leave. so the first thing i did was identify every african and there was not a single liberian african. the next thing i did, those africans were always hungry. my apartment always had food. a community had started. african-american men started coming. the arabs came and before you knew it, i was being called big momma, mama, mother of peace. i use the resources that i saw in america to create my sense of

community. today, i can probably say a young man would give me a place to sleep. if i went to yemen, went to the u.s. embassy because one of the strategies there is a man called, his name has escaped me. he would give me a place to sleep. my world has shrunk. when they had the bombing in uganda, the first thing i said was are you okay because i know you are foot a lover. i have an african-american young men who works in d.c., had his first child. this is your first grandchild. because of that community.

to create a community is not difficult. i went to a talk the other day and a the lady said to me, do you see those girls passing up and down in her neighborhood as you sit on your porch? i said yes, i see them. i said those girls are going up and down because they are looking for you to recognize them. i said just try it. call one of them and say i want you to be my friend. she will go and calm, and i will give you a space of three months. a story that her mother will never hear, you will hear it. so to come back to your question, let's start from here and let's connect our world. how can we do that? how can you use your platform of activism here to influence the need for resources in libya?

there is so much to do here. there is so much to do here. there is so much to do here. [applause] a friend of mine gave me -- and he gave it to me and he said you are going to really love this. i am so honored to be in your presence, very honored to be in your presence. i am a community activist and i live in a war zone in south-central, and i am a promoter of peace. i have been part of a world peace organization. i am just really honored to be in your presence. i would like to invite you to come to our community for a year. [laughter] okay? and i really want to focus -- my

mother raised me in the sisterhood consciousness when i was very young. and a training manual, how can i get ahold of that and you know, help the women to be all that they can be? >> i will direct you to my card. if we have any e-mail i can send it to you. >> thank you. very nice to hear you speak and i can't wait to read your book. it seems like he really tapped on something there or tapped into something there. do you think worldwide if a sex drive took place that this could improve the entire world?

>> no. [laughter] but worldwide, if it changes the mindset about sex to please come it will change the entire world. every time i'd come we find time to hand out. they were sifting through the pages of the magazine and they were advertising a watch. there is a young man sitting in his underwear and the watches on his tie. then i said foxtrot, which part of his body is going to wear this watch? [laughter] i don't understand the connection. between a man in briefs and a wristwatch on his tie. this is a new way of wearing

watches in the u.s. but i don't know about. [laughter] but the objective vacation of young boys and girls as sex objects is destroying the next generation of leaders. where young men see young women. they see from here to here, and young women believe, i don't need -- as long as i have from here to here. it is a sad state. i have a young white niece, and we had a conversation with a friend of mine over the weekend about this. on college campuses now in the u.s., kids are just hooking up.

so i keep asking my good friend, abby, what is hooking up? do they just look at each other and say let's go hook up? then sex, then sex? young people are no more happy. is there no more space for let's talk and progress to the next level? it is from here to here. and until we can change that, we are in trouble. and this is a global disease. this is a global disease. who are the young people we are rolling back our lives to? you know i was talking at the university of california in santa barbara yesterday and we talked about this same issue, and the one question that came to my mind every time i think

about the whole issue of decent security for women and think about the global media and how sex has taken over is a quote that comes from the research by elizabeth rand. and that book war and peace they did a research project. they say the impact of war or conflict on women's lives is a reflection of the interaction during peacetime. so with our young people are looking up and hooking up and hooking up, imagine if war took place in this country, what would the -- book would be the statistics of abuse? the other question is, if we continue to objectify young women as sex objects and

impoverish our young men so the young women are the prey and the young men are the predator, for sex, how do we talk about participation in politics, because the man is functioning on one side of the spring. you have all the men in power so that is one side of the brain. the women are virtually not in the political space so the other side of that brain is not functioning. that is why we have a set world. you wonder why the economy in this of this country is this way? it is because it is functioning on one side of the brain. so if we think we have a problem now, and we don't correct that whole thing of sex, because it is all part of the discussion around piece. it is all part of the discussion around security. it is all part of the discussion around the quality.

and if we don't start addressing it, thank god this is los angeles, california, a place where dreams are made. how do we change that image of 12-year-old girls wanting to wear long? how? it is not a sex strike. it is a strike on the sex industry. [applause] >> i have gotten a high sign that we need to end our time together tonight. i want to thank the los angeles public library for this extraordinary evening and thank you to all of you who have come tonight. i encourage you to, let's be together in community after the formal presentation of this, and to you, leyman gbowee thank you

so much. >> thank you are having me. [applause] >> are watching 48 hours of nonfiction authors and books on c-span2's booktv. >> ms. donohue, what made you write this book, "slave of allah" and why was it important for you to write it as an anthropologist? >> before 9/11, in fact in the '90s often on for about 10 years, i did fieldwork in an area nearby where zacharias moussaoui grew up over and east of france and in october of 2001, i read an article about somebody you had been picked up before 911. he was at a flight school in minnesota and i realize that he had grown up in this area, which i was quite familiar with and he had a background that knew something about.

he is the son of moroccans who had moved to france before he was born, and so i had difficulty growing up in an area of france, which was not always totally reset it to north africans. >> and what was your relationship, you know, with the people who were involved in this trial? how did you go about covering the trial? what was that process? >> curiously i was the only academic to think of going to this trial. i have a friend from graduate school who had told me she had a connection to the trial, and i learned quickly that anyone was able to go. any person could go to the trial as long as there was space are you in the courtroom so i thought okay. i think i need to go there in the trial was in alexandria virginia in the eastern district court. that site was chosen actually because the pentagon was in that district, and they were trying to have the trial somewhere in

the same area where one of the attacks that happened. i got to be at the trial. i was actually the initial jury drawn, and then at two different phases of the trial. so i got to know the members of the press. there were no other people who were there as academics attending the trial. i really got good eyesight into the inside actually into the way in which the press was writing about this person. >> and what role did the media play during the trial? did their coverage affect the outcome or affects the way people were thinking about a? >> you know i've been thinking about that and of course the jurors were told not to read any coverage. when i got home, they did go home at night and they were sequester. they were told however, read nothing, talk about nothing, don't talk to your family. if you goes on friday so they could go back to their jobs,

don't talk to anybody there. but there were a few people who are on the jury who said when they were being interviewed, i don't do news or i don't read the news. so i think there was a big attempt to keep the jury separate from the press. on the other hand, the nation was reading the coverage, and actually it was being covered live out to oh, al are via in the arab speaking world so people were following this trial. especially as it came closer to the time to decide whether she would get the death penalty or life in prison. >> you right about the unexpected things that happen. there a lot of unexpected events in this trial. it took longer to go to trial than people thought. there were some witness tampering. what was the lasting effect and did the public perception of the trial change because of that? >> it was deemed a circus for a while, because there were so many attempts to start the trial and then they decided to put it

off. there was an attempt to get witnesses, such as khalid sheikh mohammed, the mastermind of 9/11, to either come to the trial to give testimony, or to interview him through some other means. and that was prevented by the u.s. government. there was no way that those people could be interviewed. and so there was a legal fight in which the judge threatened to throw the whole case out. it went up to the supreme court, came back down in the there was a decision actually to have the interviews with people like khalid sheikh mohammed be rewritten into a format and with the defense and the prosecution of out to be presented in the trial. >> and you are writing from the point of view of an an anthropologist and he raised a question of representation. so there is national and personal identity. what can we learn about representation from this case? >> well at our guinness book that has three different -- was

attempting to represent himself in three different ways. one was legally and actually were 17 months he represented himself. he and a sense fired his defense attorneys. so there was the issue of legal representation. did he have the right to do so? while the judge decided yes. he actually did quite a job -- the job for while and for a while he stalled out the proceedings. he would actually write his own pleadings. he would do it in his own handwriting because he was not allowed any other means of doing so and he would write these remarkable things which you can read on line, which were full of jokes and play on words and finally, the judge had had enough. said that was his legal representation and then there was his social representation. who is this guy in terms of his nationality and religion? at this time he was beginning to say i'm not french. i'm a member of al qaeda. try to make that clear to the public. he knew the public was reading his pleadings.

and then there was his own personal representation. he was feeling so afforded them being able to explain who he is and how he thought. so, the way in which he managed to get around that was to, as the judge left the courtroom, he would wait until she was halfway out and then he would stand up and he would say something like, you know, god bless allah, or long live osama and say whatever he could before he was then taken out of the courtroom. the media and the press would all try to figure out what it was he was saying and duly write it all down and publish it in the newspapers. >> 9/11 was a day that affected most people in america in some way so how we able to separate yourself from the coverage in the news media and whatever feelings you had to put together this book? >> well one thing is there was

the trial in 2006 so it was five years after 9/11. i mean i had not immediate family members but new people who i died horribly. you get into the courtroom setting and somehow there is a way of removing yourself from those personal feelings. i think courts are designed to try to do that. on the other hand the prosecution would try to bring back all of those memories, especially when mayor giuliani came to testify. he was determined to personalize the impact of 9/11. i wasn't in the courtroom at that time, but certainly the web site has the coverage and footage of horrifying images, and you just figure out how to find the person behind this excruciating experience of who was this man? that is really what i try to focus on. >> it has been 10 years since

september 11, so have we learned anything from this trial is a country? what can we still learn from this case? >> sadly we haven't learned that we can actually have a trial in the civilian court. instead, you know there is going to be this move to try people like khalid sheikh mohammed in guantánamo. yes, this trial was extremely expensive than the government as far as i know has not released the amount but it is in the millions of dollars so it is very expensive. on the other hand, some of the reporters covering this case, particularly for the arabic tv press through the bbc said to me that he was amazed at the fairness of this trial. he have the right to speak. he have the right to express himself. he had the right to make weightings. he was not taken out or hang to and executed. he could speak and the judge i think, to her credit, bend over

backwards to make sure that he did have those rights. there are certain rights in the west court system and we hope people realize in the military commissions that similar rights need to be afforded to those people. >> thank you for your time. >> thank you. over the next few sundays we will be airing these interviews beginning at 1:00 p.m. eastern. this weekend we talk with merit of player author of armed an abundance consumerism and soldiering in the vietnam war. rosemarie sigir the author of the politics of science representation of the united states 1776 to 1850 and the fallacy of net neutrality author thomas hazel and.

>> you have written several books on topics of the civil war. what interested you in this topic? >> my interest in the civil bore is somewhat mysterious to me. if you had told me many years ago when i was a girl that this is what i was going to study i would have said i hate you. i grew up in the vietnam war era. i don't don't like any of the topics in all but one i was a graduate student in american history, i happen to take a class on the civil war and something about it just clicked with me. in that class i particularly decided that the complete essence of women in the class. women didn't have anything to do with the civil war that class. i would read about women in the civil war. that is where i started. >> who is joseph holt? >> joseph holt was lincoln's judge advocate general and if people remember him today, they

particularly remember him as the judge advocate general who was after lincoln's assassination responsible for prosecuting the conspirators who had worked with john wilkes-booth. however, he is a much larger figure than that. he had a very -- he was 50 some years old by the time he got to washington and by the time he became lincoln's judge advocate general. he had a very long life and he lived on 21894 so he is a much bigger figure than that but the way we know him best is as judge advocate general. >> you titled this, "lincoln's forgotten ally." why did you choose this as a tidal? >> because it was important to lincoln. because of his deep devotion to lincoln and his policies and therefore he is lincoln's ally. but he is someone who we simply don't remember in historical records except in terms of a tiny slice of what role he played over the course of his

life. as a professional. so, he was to me one of the most important members of the lincoln administration and yet he had dropped off the historical map, except for certain tiny parts of his life and that is what i liked. >> why do you feel hold was so overlooked in history? >> one of the reasons i think he was overlooked is because we like our historical figures to be very simple, and easy to understand. he is an immensely complicated person to understand, so he takes a lot of work to inc. about. i think that is one reason. he also was involved in waves at the end of the civil war with complicated issues and took stances that a lot of people feel were vindictive, and hateful towards the south when really the nation should be peaceably reconciled.

another thing i say is that he was a southern slaveholder who spent the first half of his life in kentucky and because kentucky remained a union state throughout the war, but after the war, it was sort of a post-war confederate state. because of his strong union stance, kentucky itself had no reason to remember him and one of the most fascinating experiences was to go to kentucky a couple of years ago and asked people if they had ever heard of him. the number was -- couldn't be counted on maybe one hand, maybe two. there are many reasons why. >> just touch on it read fully and you say in your book that hold is misrepresented by americans collective historical memory so explain what you mean by this and how does it differ from that in your book? >> i think that he is, the way he is remembered is

misrepresented because when he is remembered, first of all he is mostly not remembered and he is a very important figure through the civil war area 31894. he has forgotten. also when he is remembered he is remembered at this truly vindictive figure who simply wanted to punish the south and in particular as the reason comes theodore suggest the whole character there is obviously out to get the one woman involved in the lincoln assassination experience, he is out to get her, to hang her. he had no scruples. he is completely amoral and so on, so this is also a misrepresentation. he treats them as if he were simply a corrupt judge and he wasn't. what i tried to do in this book is first of all bring him out of the darkness, so it is a different representation because it is a representation and it is a representation. is a long full biography of his entire life. it also tries to put the things that people do remember about

him in the ways they see him in a larger context, the work he did and what he believed, why he believed what he believed in why he made the choices that he made as a professional and as lincoln's judge advocate general. >> what. >> he was basically the overseer of all the military justice is so he had to supervise all of the other judge advocate across the field. he was in charge of overseeing capital cases. he had to make sure that your of military justice was running properly. he was the head of the addition division of the war department and was close to the secretary of war with whom he was very good friends. so he was a major figure. he dealt with thousands and thousands of court marshals and other cases every single year. >> you. >> write a lot about lincoln and what he thought about holt and hold's actions. how did you go about doing the research on that?

>> well, one of the things that is so fascinating about holt's been forgotten is that he didn't have to be forgotten. there is a tremendous amount of our material on joseph holt in the library of congress and also at the huntington library in pasadena and actually there are descendents of his siblings still alive who have many family records that they can offer. so, you think it is interesting that he had not been studied in this way but as you begin to dip into these materials you can see what his relationship to lincoln was. you could see how loyal he was. you can find the documents were lincoln is thanking him for giving him policy advice and so once all of the evidence is right there. it is not that hard to find. it is right in the library of congress and available to anyone. >> dr. leonard thank you for your time today. >> one i got into public and started to sell my book every person i worked with i had a re