>> part of the 2011 national book festival in washington d.c.. to find out more visit l loc.gov/bookfest. >> i started to sell my book every person i worked with i had a rejection letter from which was kind of cool to go to a meeting and we love your stuff. what about this? >> in his nonfiction ben questions the ethics and morality of brilliant people. his account of mark zuckerberg and creation of facebook was adapted into the movie is a social network. bringing down the house followed mit students who won million las vegas. sex on the tracks a possible astronaut candidate as he steals a nasa say filled with moonrock. now is your chance to ask the questions. call, e-mail or tweak on in depth on sunday, nov. 6 at noon eastern on booktv on c-span2.

>> up next leymah roberta gbowee discusses her memoir. she was awarded the nobel peace prize and founded the protest movement women of liberia mass action for peace and is credited being instrumental in ending second liberian civil war in 2003 and removing charles taylor from power. >> i want to encourage you to buy this book. she is not paying me to say this. this is quite an extraordinary journey. it is a memoir of liberia's decent into madness. endured a journey through it and out of it. for right now let us journeyed together across north america, across the atlantic to the continent of africa particularly liberia.

america and liberia have a particular relationship. speak to that briefly. >> thank you all for coming. a call this mike therapists. my terp this. the country that freed slaves from here in the u.s. in 1822 and everything about liberia is like america. so you have our flag like the u.s. flag but with one star. our constitution like the u.s. constitution. we have three branches of government right here. we call the house and

parliamentarian capital, we have the supreme court chief justice just like here. everything. some of the streets are named after famous people from here in famous cities. we have a virginia and maryland and different places. one after president james monroe. we do have a rich history. one historian put it, terrifies context -- america's stepchild. >> i am always interested when there is the kind of strife that has been so long lasting in liberia of the conditions that may have made that possible. would you speak to that? >> the indigenous people like

any other place where you have indigenous people. i am speaking about it in california with your own history. we are welcoming free slaves to give them their land and -- something that is typical -- they don't know how to show gratitude to. the only life they knew -- so what happened to them on the plantation against indigenous people when they got there is powerful. so we have everything people have. indigenous people -- the, quote, descent of the free slaves. if i could give a quick example. if you have a last name like my last name many of the people --

aspiring to go to university, free slave descendants who didn't have 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. a technical school for children of indigenous people because it was preparing them for life of service to children of free slaves. >> throughout the book, your wonderful book, you spoke time and again about fear. i want to read a short, one line assessment that is so wonderful. i quote. when you move so quickly from innocence to a world of fear,

pain and loss, it is as if the flesh of your heart and mind gets cut away. piece by piece, like slices taken off of ham. finally there is nothing left but bone. i would like you to speak to that through the lens of this issue of fear, through the lens of a woman and a mother in liberia. >> step back and speak to that true the lens of a child because i was a child when the war started. 17-year-old teenager who had been protected by her community and family. and you wake up one morning and it is all gone and the sound of the gun and the accent of parents and siblings.

maybe relatives come in. the fear is never ending. at that point, that piece starts to go away. as it progresses you pray this madness will end. you wake up the next morning worse than the day before. it has been taking off and by the time that goes from 17 like myself, i am 31 and beyond it, the fears of the war you have the hole issue of different things you have seen. so one issue after the other, that fear is something that pushes you back into a space that is difficult to describe so it takes hope and courage and

takes a lot away from you day-by-day and most of the time people bring terror on people. that is what they want. there stripping you of their strength and your will power and everything that would never bring you to fight back. >> as a mother there were times your children were hungry and exhausted. it is unimaginable what that must have been like for you. >> sometimes it is difficult to put it into context but by the time i started having children, the fear of the guns have gone away. the fear of what was happening to me was gradually going away. it was fear for their own lives or the lives of those children in the midst of all of these. you get to a place where you realize i don't have the power to protect these children but it

is not in my power to give them -- you just sit and can't function or do anything. in my case i lost faith. it was difficult. >> then we have charles taylor comes on the scene around 1989. he has his own private army and one of the most egregious things he does in my estimation is he has a small boy's army ages 9 to 15 who are given guns. they're on alcohol and drugs and they commit horrific atrocities. anyway, they were a victim. also, how have you had to work

with yourself to find peace and forgiveness and reconciliation with these kids who have perpetrated such horrific crimes against women and children? >> you never want to think -- last thing you want to think about when you see that -- reconciliation and peace and how to make life better for one another. i remember when i started working with those young boys in 1998 are withstanding reining in salts and saying no wonder you have one leg in my mind. it was just a anger and anger for me but i was at a place where we have -- it was like occupying intestines. it is too bitter to swallow and too greasy to throw away. i needed to go to school. this was the job for me.

that was the requirement for me to go back to school. it was bitter to swallow but i could not throw it away. but you know, as i engage with these children through all that facade or boys turn to men you gradually get to see who these people are. children. they are still trapped at 15 or 20 or 25, trapped in that moment they were first given that first drug. you see babies who still want their mothers. you see children even at the place where they -- you see

children in them. when you get to know them and get to see beyond all the macho things -- i am looking at my kid brother and my nephew and my own children and i am looking at myself and seeing they are at the same place that i am. i tracked the 17-year-old. they are trapped at 10, 12, 9 years and boys easy at 18. you can't help to reach out to them. you can't help because it tears down that wall of a anger. people in liberia cannot understand why i would stop my

car. i don't see killers. i see children that were exploited and abused. i see myself have are not come, state of dramatization. >> indeed. about that time, as i recall you started working as a volunteer for an organization, trauma in healing reconciliation program. the cycle of fear took on something else. i would love for you to read from your own book but you must give it back to me. mine has already been signed. this opening paragraph if you would. >> when you are depressed you get trapped inside yourself. and take the actions that might make you feel better. you hate yourself for that. you see the suffering of others.

that makes you hate yourself too but hand makes use at and that makes you more helpless. helplessness fills you with more self hate. working as a trauma heeler in reconciliation broke that circle for me. i wasn't thinking about failure. i was doing something that helped people. the more i did the more i could do. more i wanted to do the more i needed to be done. >> and this was your introduction to the peace builder. >> this was my introduction. yes. >> it was about this time that you and the woman who was then your mentor had become a beloved friend.

you began a training manual for women where you didn't teach women but you saw out to transform them and in this venue there are wonderful exercises of being a woman. one of my crown's legal one of my thorns and another wonderful exercise of shedding weight. .. >> until we went to sierra leone, and we formed a circle. i knew this among who have

worked with me for many years, and she is the last chance for her community, and this when we did this circle, she decided to tell her story, and her story went back to herself as a 7-year-old girl taken into the traditional family society, and 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, in 15 minutes, she got to the place of the mutilation, and then it took her almost ten hours to progress that place to the next part of the story. >> oh, my. >> because she tells that they tied me, and she she goes, huh,

and she was scream. where she sat, she dug her feet and toenails in the dirt. what she didn't know while she was doing all of those things. people fell asleep. people woke up. people fell back asleep and she struggle and struggle, and by morning, so we did that circle, we had one person start. she was the second, 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 -- she now started her own organization in that community fighting off the

harmful traditional practices and other issues related to women's rights, but until today, every time i see her i still remember that she scream and her digging her toenails in the earth and fighting back the cries and the pain, and she was in her 30s, but it was the pains, the weight from 7 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 currently in various places of the world? >> people use it in different places in ways we don't know

anything about. i still make reference to it. i use it when i was in koma last year with the women. it is, like you said, a very powerful tool when you get to do it and there's no cat -- category in which you use that with. one of the other parts of the mannerisms, sometimes we try to tilt it a bit, is reaffirming yourself being 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 female ministers in liberia and asked them to stand up and just reaffirm their beauty.

one of the female ministers said, wow, i've never felt so good in any company because i've never, ever taken the time to complement myself. it's not about what spectrum of society you find yourself, grass roots, middle, to top level, sometimes women are so busy taking care of the world, and sometimes the husbands are so busy looking for money, that they never stop and look at you and say, girl, you look good. [laughter] one of the things i do to mist you'll the aim -- to myself all the time is stand in front of the mirror and say, oh, you look good. [laughter] [applause] we try to teach our women to appreciate ourselves, but i quickly move on and just give a quick example.

one of the trainings we had, we asked rural women together and asked them to right down their dreams, what they always dream about when it comes and -- she had always wanted to wear a blue dress, a red hat, shoes, and makeup. some of the women from highly traditional background always want to wear a pear of genes. others wanted to go to a nightclub. by the time we finished that session, we were on the phone with everyone i knew. do you have a red hat? do you have a pair of genes? -- jeans? [laughter] do you have this or that? by the next day, we had a room full of clothes.

those women got dressed, and the first part was to take them to a nightclub, and we walk in, 50 women, is there a birthday party going? we just came to have a good time, and then the next day, we did the fashion show. this woman died a year ago. that was the photograph she carried. >> oh, my. >> of herself coming down the stairs in a blue dress, red hat, and nicely made makeup. >> oh, my. >> she said before i got married, i was named edith, and then she said she got the muslim name, and she said this photo is truly edith. as simple as it sounds, they leave that space, and they are never the same again when they

go back into their communities. yeah. >> it's interesting 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 in a crazy dream. talk about that. >> well, it was this night, i lived by myself, and i would sleep on the cold floor, under the window, this is something you peek up in the wartime because you are afraid to sleep on the bed for stray bullets, and i'm lying there, and i always hear this voice in my dream, but i never see the face, saying get up, gather the women, put them together to pray for peace. i wake up shivering because the window's open and light rain was falling on me. i go to work the next morning.

i go to a pastor, who is my boss, saying i have this dream and we should gather the women to pray for peace. they were not talking about me. i'm in a relationship that i am am -- it can't be me talking about, so you 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 women peace initiative, and then later on the muslim women were inspired to start that group. that was the beginning of the entire protests that was started in 2003. >> that's right. by now, the war's about 13 years in the making. >> yes, yes. >> and people were going in

droves to monrovia to be in the refugee camps, and the camps were hundreds of thousands of people, a lot of disease, a lot of malaria, people not eating adequately, but yet you have said that it was seeing them and hearing of their experience in the refugee camps that you were baptized into the women's movement because they gave you so much hope, they who had lost so much. >> you go into a community where people have been raped -- one of the women i met who was a refugee in liberia at the time was breast-feeding the baby. when they got to a check point, the soldier cut off that breast. they all had different forms of physical disability, but these women were all saying we are the

hope for our communities. we are go back and teach these children peace, and, yeah, and carry my anger from years ago, and make it even as i was angry, and they asked me, have you been raped? have you been abused? no, no. you know why you angry, and i asked myself that same question, why am i angry? i'm being a hypocrite. going back to the women and, you know, we are the hope of our communities. that was a moment for me, but sometimes you need water and sometimes you need fire. >> right. >> to really open your eyes, and i benefited from the work of those women. >> so that was the beginning of the women's peace initiative. >> that was the beginning of my awareness. >> okay. >> that, you know, they are

right. we are the answer. the women peace initiative started with thelma inviting us to ghana, taking the concept, bringing it back, and starting something, but the christian women was born before the women peace initiative. >> uh-huh, uh-huh. >> when we came back from ghana with that idea, we were already using our platform. still from 2002 to today, every tuesday at 12 noon, you find the christian women up in a room at the compound praying from 2002 to today, 12 noon, every tuesday, unfailingly, even if it's one person, people are praying for the peace of liberia. they declared a fast now, and the women peace network is back on the air praying for peace now as we speak.

>> and it was at this juncture that your work started becoming strategic. >> more strategic, yes. >> and what i found so compelling is as you're by now, christian and muslim women working to the, and you looked to the book of esther -- >> yes. >> and say something about that, if you will. >> well, we decided to protest -- you could not -- liberia, like any other place, even here, have been divided on social lines, status, ideological, everything, and you could not mobilize a group of people to work for peace because every family in one community was a hero to his people, so you had to really -- it was difficult to get anyone, so when we brought the women together,

the first thing we have to do is move beyond religion, ethnicity, ideological, or political ideologies, and bring us to a place where it was about womenhood. >> uh-huh, uh-huh. >> who cries the most when a baby dies? who does this the most? who does that the most? who are the ones being raped? then they understood. that part, and then before we could even move into, but then you needed this separate group's identity, so as christian women, the thing we were getting was, women had never been involved in these things, so we had to take the christian women back to the bible, see esther, these were revolutionary work that these women did. it wasn't sit down work.

they got out there, they put their faces in the forefront of the politics of their time. we went into the koran, the wife of the profit mahamed's wife, she was not docile. there was a research i performed that i exploited to the call. [laughter] bravo. [applause] but it was -- it was that kind of thing that we used, so by the time when we decided to do the fast, it had caught on, and then the women said, lik esther, clothes and ashes. this is the way women dress.

we continue to dress like this, no one would take us seriously. nicely dressed, so we have to go back to work. we will recognizing that we have a role to play in the violence that our communities are facing. sack clothes and ashes. the white was symbol for peace, the head tie for the beauty of the hair, no shoes, no jewelry, no makeup, and go have a sense of humor. at that time, we decided our fast and prayer, i had one of the funkyist haircuts in all of liberia, and i have to cover my haircut. now that we have peace, i have to redo my hair [laughter] but that's how they christian women approached it, and the muslim women just bought into it. >> so there you are, and your

strategy is to gather at the fish parget. -- market. >> yes. >> because -- >> that's where they worked every day, people went to work every day, no one passed this way without looking right. >> right. so you were out there -- now, imagine this in the liberia sun, then it rain, and it doesn't cool off from the rain. it gets hotter and humid, and women whose clothing hung on them in the white t-shirts, and you were out there for how many days? >> two years. >> two years. two years. but finally he agreed -- well, in the middle of that -- >> in the middle of that, six week, and then he agreed to meet with us. >> but somewhere in there there's a decision about no

sex. now, we have to talk about that. >> well, you know, the muslim women -- i got to sometimes we say, are you really a muslim because you have a devious mind. [laughter] she was the one coming to us saying, we have started this thing, and these men of ours are writing opinions in the newspaper, they -- i just silent. we have to move them to action. how do you suppose we do that? she said a sex strike. let's deny them sex. in the urban area, we failed miserably. [laughter] we with respect strategic, so we went strict with sex strikes, and in the morning would come in the morning, and we had a fight, and i had to give in.

in the rural areas, the women called their husbands into the church and said we are at a point where we need to seek god's face for peace. we are fasting, we are praying, and you know, the whole thing of fast is denying yourself the pleasures. we've come to you to tell you as we journey, take this journey, it means no sex. they agreed. so for months, nothing. and then the husbands would be sitting there and fasting along with them, but when we ended the protest after two years, in the rural community, we saw a thing

of men walk down with gifts and flowers -- these are rural men, they are courting, and they come to appreciate ware wives publicly, and then one of them lean over and said, all about the sex because today we end, and today we have sex, but they were more strategic, but it was a way, and it really -- like here, it caught the attention of the media, caught the attention of the men, and it was a boss in town for almost a week, people were talking about this sex track and this sex track and this sex track, but we have not -- >> i know, that's the amazing thing. somewhere in there, it's decided to have a position statement and take it to parliament, and timely, charles taylor agreed to meet with you, and there is this

extraordinary scene and they are praying for you to be steadfast in attention and also for satan not to interrupt this process, and with a steady hand and a steady voice, you present this position paper to president taylor, and it's after that that he agrees to go into peace talks in ghana. >> yes. >> and you continued that strategy at the peace talks where the war lords, presidents of other countries in africa, of course, taylor, and you kept getting the women there in their white, and you were very strategic about that. the peace talks, it's like the

guys were having a good time. they were at club med -- >> making a thousand dollars a day. do you want to end? >> no, i don't think so when many of them came from such deprivation, but they all continue to jockey for power. you, then, took the women into the hall, and create that scene for us. it's just extraordinary. >> well, we went to our hall with seven women and mobilized the refugee women. we talked in our minds that we would be there for a week. we stayed for three months. the talks were going nowhere. the violence had increased. i had lost faith in the power of it. i was constantly crying. at some point, i stopped joining the women to protest. this morning, i go to the offices of the west africa

network for peace building, and i'm watching the video, and they give a news flash of this missile that landed, and these two little boys were brushing their teeth. all of that left of those boys were their slippers. they were crush. a young girl had just given birth, and came outside to hang the baby's clothes. she was crushed. on that video, the mother is holding this one day old child, and saying what do i do? i'm sitting watching this video, and the anger is just welling up, and i think all of the anger from 17 years old came back, and the tears is running down. i go into one of the room, and they have some of the white t-shirts, i put it on, go to the peace talk, and i say, do we have money? she said, yes. i said send for more women. she said what is it?

i said, i'll tell you later. 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? i suggest, don't leave. we get word that the war lords and the media elsewhere are going into session at ten o'clock, so i separate myself from the group, sit at a table, and write my hostage letter, wrote the letter, fold it, and by the time i got through writing the letter, the women had arrived. the people were going into the rooms, into the room. i went to the room, and i said sit down and hook arms like this. at this time, no one had any clue of what they were doing. they were just taking instructions, and then i tap on the door of the peace hall, and one turned and then i said i want to see you. he said, me? i said, yes. i gave him the letter, and they took it and read it, and the

only thing he said on the speakers was oh, my good, they have seized the peace hall. [laughter] [applause] as we seized the hall, then the police come and they say you are obstructing justice. [laughter] >> and you went off. >> full throttle. >> totally. >> my life flashed before me. my socialization flashed before me. i had been brought up to believe the men of this world protect the women and the children, and if i'm being accused of ob obstructing justice and all i'm trying to do is deliver a semblance of justice to my people, i felt like there is no

hope. it was the depth of humiliation. rape, abuse, death, destruction, you've seen awful 14 years. i just said, you know what? i'll make it easy for you. i'll strip naked. someone asked so what, in a country where women have been raped, do you think stripping naked would have done? i was protesting the pain of i was protesting the pain of every woman when you are raped, your clothes are torn off of you. when you are protesting in pain, you are giving away the last sled of your integrity, and that is what i was doing in protest, take it, take my integrity, take what is left of womanhood, for every liberia woman, take it, if this brings peace, take it. >> when you took off the head

covering -- >> took off the head cover. every woman with this on has something under it because of the war. we are still traumatized. in america, i still carry it. took off the skirt, the wrap, and this man run. this lie beerian man, put it back on. i said, don't do this, but on my left, my mentor, had already started stripping also, and they are saying don't do this. the security men who came to arrest us understand the african culture. >> yes. >> they run. someone said we are running from our bodies or they run away. >> but that began to turn it around. >> it turn it around 100%. >> right. >> it turned it around for us because at that time when the

negotiate was for us to leave that space with that space with that space with that space with that space with that space with that space with that space with that space with that space with that space with that space with that space with that space with that space with that space with that space with we understood we, too, had power, so power,0 power,0 so power,0 so the message was vision and bold. we were referring to them as killers wraz in the pass we say, give us peace, and then who used to walk and they would walk, no more insults were thrown at us. in three weeks, the peace agreement was signed. >> right. [applause] a transitional government was put in place. you have said, and i agree with

now that ultimately goodness wins over evilness, but there's a price to pay, and i'd like to you from your book and the price that was paid right here. >> it was 14 years that just doesn't go away. in a moment we were calm enough to look around. we have to confront the magnitude of what would happen in liberia. 250,000 people were dead. a quarter of them children. one in three were displaced. 350,000 in the camps, and the rest anywhere they could find shelter, 1 million people, mostly women and children were suffering of malnutrition, diarrhea, and cholera because of con tam in addition in the --

contamination in the well. more than the infrastructure, our roads, schools, had been destroyed. the psychic damage was unimaginable. a whole generation of young men had no idea who they were without guns in their hands. several generation of women had inn raped, seen their daughters and mothers raped and their children killed. neighbors turns against neighbors, they lost hope, and everything they earned, as a person, we were traumatized. you survived the war, but now we had to remember how to live. peace isn't a moment. it is 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 --

>> of liberia. [applause] >> of liberia, sorry. you are going back to your country within a few days. she is up for election again? >> yes, next tuesday. >> next tuesday. what do you think her chances are? >> i'll open my big mouth and say she's going to have a win. [applause] >> we're going to turn it over for question, but i do want to ask you one more question if i may. you have done so much, and you have sacrificed greatly, and you have paid a price. wold you be willing to speak to that if a moment? >> well, i really don't think i've done anything. yesterday, i had a conversation with a friend, and i said to her it was not until i watched bring the devil back to hell, that i

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'm called to do what i do. i don't have any sense of wow, i'm doing a great work. every time i go to a space and do something, i leave that space thinking did i really do good? am i really making impact? and it's only with the young people that i engage with in a community of women sometimes, and i saw a documentary down in uganda with the rural women, and one of them said the first time i look at that little girl, i

said if she can do it, i, too, can do it. i was like what? i -- i'm at a place now where all i want is the opportunity to do my work, do what i know to do best, encourage people to maximize their potentials, and the sacrifices -- i don't think i made any sacrifice. i think i have just lived. i don't think -- and the peace that i've gone through, i see it as the only way i could have -- that was my empowerment phase to do what i do now. i don't think of myself as any one great, 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 that i'm a peace and women rights activist. so i -- i'm content. i am so content with where i find myself. i'm content with the work that i do. i -- if i don't become the secretary general of the u.n. or a president of liberia or any other thing, i'm just content working in my community. i'm just content being who god has called me to be. i will not -- i don't be grudge him for any trials i've gone through in life. i don't see any of the the achievements that i've gotten as a right. i see it as god's favor. [applause]

>> thank you so much for that beautiful conversation. before we open it up to you, we'll -- [inaudible] >> do we need to move? >> i think you're fine. >> okay. >> [inaudible] >> all right. ♪ [inaudible] >> women who survived to tell the truth. >> do not take our land away from us. ♪ ♪

♪ ♪ >> this saturday at the airfield . >> we went back to the bible. what is it for people? ♪ >> women that did their hair, and we are not allowed to do any of those things. we wear white clothes. we wore white to ask for peace.

♪ we are determined, and no one's going to detour us. ♪ we go to stray teemingic point -- strategic points. we got attention, and this is how we decided to sit at the fish market every day. ♪ thousands of women, including -- [inaudible] it was the first time in our history in liberia where muslim women and christian women were coming together. ♪ we had a big banner that said the women of liberia want peace

now. [inaudible conversations] >> they said those who think they can come out in the street to embarrass themselves, come out. i'm waiting for you. i said, nobody, n-o-b-o-d-y, i said, nobody is going in the streets to embarrass attrition. we were not afraid. for a moment it was like they will beat you and you will get killed. i said, well, just remember me that i was fighting for peace.

♪ you look at the front line institution, of course, and this is what the news reports on, the fighting tactics, the troops, the politics, the borders, the weapons, the armies, all of the things. that is a men story. the bag line discussion of the story is how you actually exist and live and continue on living in war. that's a woman's story. that story has never been told. warfare is a very different proposition in which civilians are not "collateral damage" as we once called them, but really very much in the center of the war zone.

♪ the ordinary citizens are the ones who feel the brunt. they watch their children die. the womens are the ones raped, and then after conflict when the wars or the end of the wars are negotiated, they are never considered. >> stop violence. >> it's way past time to redefine what we mean by war because there's no front lines in the wars of today's world. the fact is that in today's wars, the primary victims are women and children. ♪ ♪

>> thank you, again, and we'll conclude. thank you so much. [inaudible] we have some microphones here. >> thank you so much for everything. i'll be thanking you when i pray. thinking about literacy, i work in literacy in l.a. in at-risk communities. when you got the women together, you know, people traumatized because of what was going on, the danger, did you do any reading? if you did, 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 skills

around peace building, and i had read ghand, and i was meze -- meze -- mezorized. those are the things we read, but when we talk issues of nonviolence, we ask women to give us stories of acts of no violence in their communities, and there's different stories that came that really spoke to what we felt we were doing, so we didn't do a lot of theoretical things. it was not until after we did this work when i went to do my graduate studies that i would read -- we were doing a stray teemingic peace build -- strategic peace building, and i was like, we did that.

[laughter] that was strategic. is that a tactic or a strategy? you know, all of those jargons that i used in the actual peace building thing, but, yes, just read a little of king and gandhi, yeah. >> i thank you so much. i'm struck -- i was struck while you spoke about the sense of community and how you women could see what was happening in your community, and in our country, we're at war all the time, in other places, so right now in libya, there's a siege of serks that's been going on for weeks, and people barely know about it. people there don't have food or water and get bombed every day, but we don't internalize that because it's not part of our community or in iraq or afghanistan, and so i guess i'm wondering how does one create a

larger world community where we care and we can wear white, and we can object to these wars, and 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 us versus them, the world, your world, my world, and your question is a good question, but your question can be answered in two ways. you first said in your community you see the wars. open your eyes. in this community, you will see the wars also. it's here. it's happening. as a stranger, i see it, and i think the connections between

your world and my world and i will cross that out and see the connections in our world is our ability to move beyond. i want to help them and start with i want to help here. that's one. libya, egypt, tunisia, is not short of activists. what they are short of is resources. liberia, congo, the stories you heard from congo, i was in congo. congo is not short of activists. what they are short of is resources. this country has resources. what your short of is

activists. [laughter] [applause] >> if you put me in a tiny community in this country, i'll give myself a year, and i would have created a community. [applause] i went to emu, and i'm 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 could not

cry because i was looking for a place to put that body. i came back to school, and determined that i would not live an isolated life, so the first thing i did was identify every african, and there was not a single liberia in all the africans. those africans were always hungry. my apartment always had food. a community has started. the next thing the african-american men started coming. the arabs came, and before you knew it i was called big mama or mother of peace. i used the resources that i saw in america to create my sense of community. today, i can probably say if i lend that if afghanistan, i will go straight to the swedish

embassy because the political analysts there is a young man and he will give me a place to sleep. if i went to yemen, i'd go to the u.s. embassy because one of the strategies there is a man called -- oh, his name escaped me. he will give me a place to sleep. my world has shrunk. when they had the bombing in uganda during the world cup. i said, nelson, are you okay because i know you're a football lover? i have an african-american man working in dc now, had his first child, and said 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 an old leader said -- i said, man, do you see those

sassy girls passing up and down in your neighborhood as you sit on your porch? 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, and say i want you to be my friend. she'll go and come, and i give you the space of three months. the story that her mother will never hear, you will hear it. to come back to your question, let's start from here, and let's connect our world. how can we do that? how can we -- how can you use your platform of activism here to influence the need for resources in libya? there's 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 the send the devil back to hell, and he gave it to me saying you're going to really love this, and so i'm so honored to be in your presence, very honored to be in your presence. i'm a community activist, and i live in the war zone, in south central, and i'm a promoter of peace. i've been part of the world peace organization. i'm just really honored to be in your presence. what i'd like, you know, 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, okay? and the training manual, how can i get a hold of that, and, you

know, help, you know, the women to, you know, be -- help us, help us. >> i'll direct you my card and see if we can -- if we have an e-mail copy, a pdf copy that i can send to you. >> [inaudible] >> thank you. very nice to hear you speak, and i can't wait to read your book. it seems like you really tapped on something there or tapped into something there. do you think worldwide if a sex strike took place that maybe this could really improve the entire world? [laughter] >> no. [laughter] but if a change of mind set

about sex took place, it would change the entire world. my sister lived in new york, and every time i come, we find time to hang out, so this day was just flipping through the pages of a magazine, and they were advertising a watch, and there is a young man sitting in his underwear, and the watch is on his tie. i said, which part of his body will wear this watch? [laughter] i don't understand the connection. [laughter] a man in briefs and a watch on his tie. [laughter] unless there's a new way of wearing a watch in the u.s. i don't know about. [laughter] but the ob --

objectification of young boys and girls as sex objects is destroying the next generation of leaders. when young men see young women, they don't see brains anymore. they see from here to here, and young women believe that i don't need brains as long as i have from here to here. it is a state. i have a young white niece, and we had a conversation, a friend of mien, over the weekend about it, where on college campuses now in the u.s., kids are just hooking up. there's nothing about relationships. i keep asking my good friend, abbey, what is hooking up? do they just look at each other and say, let's hook up? is it just then sex, then sex?

because that's the feeling that comes across. young people are no more happy -- there's no more space for let's talk and progress to the next level. it's from here to here. 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 that were rolling back our lives to? the countries in the work we're doing. you know, i was talking at the university of california center yesterday, and we talked about the same issue, and the one question that comes to my mind every time i think about the whole issue of peace and security for women and think about the global media and how sex has taken over is a quote that comes from a research done

by elliot jones in the 30s, and in that book, women were in peace. they did a research project to see the impact of war or conflict on women's lives. it's a reflection of the interaction during peacetime, so if our young people are hooking up and hooking up and hooking up, imagine if war took place in this country, what would be the statistics? what would be the statistics of ripe? what would be the statistics of abuse? the other question is if we continue to object my women as sex octobers and encourage young men so the young women are the prey and the young men are the predator for sex, how do we talk

about participation and politics because the way the world is functioning now, the world is functioning on one side of his brain. you have all the men in power so that's one side of the brain. the women are not -- they are virtually not in the political space, so that other side of the brain is not functioning, so that's why we have a sick world. you want to know why the economy in this country is this way is because it's 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's all part of the discussion around peace. it's all part of the discussion around security. it's all part of the discussion around equality. if we don't start addressing it, thank god this is los angeles, california, the place where dreams are made, how do we

change that image of 12-year-old girls wanting to wear thongs? how? it's not a sex strike. it's a strike on the sex industry. [applause] i have got the high sign that we need to end our time together tonight. i want to thank the series and the los angeles public library for this extraordinary evening, and thank you to all of you who have come tonight, encourage you to, let's be together in community after the formal presentation of this, and to you, thank you so much. >> thank you, thank you for having me. thank you, all, for coming. [applause]

[applause] >> you're watching booktv on c-span2, 48 hours of nonfiction authors and books every weekend. >> coming up next is the 201 # 1 texas -- 2011 book festival. we are experiencing some technical difficulties, an as soon as possible, we'll begin the live coverage of the texas book festival. we'll will right back. >> can you tell me how your book reshapes the understanding of domestic politics and global governance? >> we live in an era where we need cooperation, and at the same time, we know politically, it's difficult to achieve that result because there's so many impulses in the world economy right now. the way my book approaches the

problem is by looking 59 one of the most political difficult institutions we appear to have in the democracy which is the congress and look at how it relates to the intergnarl monetary fund in the world bank over the course of their histories, so i describe this as a problem relationship, and the problem 1 that on one hand, you have the imf and world bank that just wants money from the congress. on the other hand, you have the congress with all of its complexity, and all of its contradictions that we see so much in our daily news, and congress approaches the imf and world bank, and it wants to see some policy results that maybe the imf and world bank are not as eager to accommodate, so the way i approach this particular problem is to look at the law course of american history from the end of the second world war into the financial crisis and i divide this period