discusses her book, mighty our powers. she founded mass action for peace, credited for being instrumental for ending the second siberia war in 1973 and removing charles taylor from power. >> i want to encourage all of you to buy this book. i'm -- she's not paying me for saying that to you, but it really is quite an extraordinary journey. it is a memoir of liberia's dissent into madness, and of your journey in it, through it,

and out of 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 in liberia have a particular relationship, but particular history together. speak to that briefly, leymah. >> okay. thank you, thank you, all, for coming. i call my therapist because this book was a therapy. liberia is that country that free 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 modeled like the u.s. constitution. we have three branches of government like here. we call the house that our parliament meet in sit in capitol. we do, like i said, have the supreme court with the chief justice just like here. everything, some of the streets are named after famous people from here and famous cities. we have a virginia and a maryland and different places and monroe after president james monroe, so we do have a rich history and one lie -- liberia woman put it in a nice context, liberia, america's stepchild. yeah. >> i'm always interested when there is the kind of stories that has been so long lasting,

was so long lasting in liberia of the conditions that may have made that possible. would you speak to that, please? >> well, when the slaves came to liberia, the indigenous people like any other place where you have indigenous people, and it's ironically i'm speaking about it here in california with your own history, where welcoming of the free slaves. they give them their land. they make them comfortable, and something that is typical of abused people is they don't know how to show gratitude. the only life they knew was the life of abuse, so what happened to them on the plantation was what they had against the indigenous people when they got very powerful, so we have segregated schools. we had -- erveg -- everything that people had for

100-plus years, indigenous people were the slaves of the, quote-on-quote, "dissents of the free slaves. " a quick example. if you have a last name like me and are fair color like me and aspiring to go to university, some of the free slave disappointments acceptabilities who didn't have -- dissents who didn't have children told you to take my last name because that last name of yours is not a representation of, you know, people who should come to the universities, so it formed a technical school for children of the indigenous people because they were preparing them for the life the service to children of the free slaves. >> wow. wow. throughout the book, your wonderful, wonderful book, you spoke time and again about fear,

and i want to read a very short, one line instance that's just so wonderful, and i quote, "when you move so quickly from innocence to a world of fear, pain, and loss, it's as if the flesh of your heart and mind gets cut away, piece by piece, like slices taken off a ham. finally, there's nothing left but bone." leymah, 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 in liberia. >> well, first, i'll step back and speak to that through the lens of a child because i was a child when the war started, a 17-year-old teenager who had been protected by her community,

her family, and you wake up one morning, and it's all gone, and you hear the sound of the gun, the accents of your parents and siblings, and many relatives coming in and telling stories of horrors, the fear's never ending, and i think it's at that point that that peace starts to go away, and then as it progresses, you praying that this madness will end. i go to bed tomorrow, and it will be okay, and you wake up the next morning, and it's worse than the day before. a piece has been taken off, and by the time you look at yourself from 17 like myself, i'm 31, and beyond the scars of the war and the fears of the war, you have the whole issue of violence and all of the different things that you've seen, so it's just one issue after the other, but that

fear is something that pushes you back into a space that is difficult to describe. you are afraid, so it takes hope. it takes courage. it takes a lot away from you day by day, and most of the time, people will reign terror on people. that's what they want, gradually, they are stripping you of your strength, stripping you of your will power, stripping you of everything that would ever bring you to the place where you are able to fight back. >> and there's a mother, i mean, there were times when your children were hungry, exhausted. it's unimaginable what that must have been like for you. >> you know, sometimes it's difficult to really put it into context, but by the time i started having children, the fear of the guns had gone away,

the fear of what could happen to me was gradually going away. it was the fear for their own lives or the lives of their children. how do they survive in the midst of all of this? you get to a place where you realize i don't have the power to even protect these children because it's not in my power, and then you get numb. you just sit there, and you can't function or do anything. if you have faith, you pray, but in my case, i lost faith. 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, and one of the most egregious things that he does in my estimation is that he has the small boys army, ages 9 to around 15, who are given give ups, hopped up on alcohol and

drugs, and they commit horrific atrocities. how -- because, you know, in a way 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 in particular? >> you'd never really want to think about you -- the last thing you want to think about when you see child soldiers is to start thinking about reconciliation and peace and how do we make life better for one another. i remember when i started working with those group of young boys in 1998, i was standing, reigning insults on me, i'm cursing the day they were born saying no wonder you have one leg in my mind, and it's just anger and anger for

me, but i was at a place where we have a a porcupine intest tine. it's too bitter to swallow and too greasy to throw away. [laughter] i need to go to school, and that was the requirement for me to go back to school, so it was bitter to swallow, but in the school was the greasy part that i could not throw away, so i stay with them, listen to them, but, you know, god has his way. as i engage with these children even through that facade of men or boys turning to men and vicious killers, you gradually get to see who these people are, children, they are still trapped even at 15, 20, 25. they were still trapped in that moment when they were first

given the first drug or the first alcohol, so you see babies who still want their mothers. you see children who 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 all the macho thing, i feel sorry for them. >> yes. >> because i'm looking at my kid brother. i'm looking at my nephews. i'm looking at my own children, and then i'm looking at myself and seeing they are at the same place that i am. i'm trapped as a 17-year-old. even at 26, and they are trapped as 10, 12, 9-year-old boys even at 18. you can't help but to want to reach out to them.

you can't help because it tears down that wall of anger, and until today, people in liberia cannot understand why i would start my car when they hear me because i don't see killers. i see children that were exploited and abused. i see myself had i not come out of my own state of trama. >> yes, indeed. you, about that time, as i recall, you started working as a volunteer for an organization, trauma in healing reconciliation program, and the cycle of fear took on shotgun else, and -- took on something else, and if you would, leymah, i'd love for you to read for your own book, but you must give it back to

me. [laughter] mine was signed already, but this opening paragraph, if you would. >> when you're depressed, you are trapped inside yourself and lose energy to take actions that might make you feel better. you hate yourself for that. you see the suffering of others incapable of helping them, and that makes you hate yourself too. the hate makes you sadder. the sadness makes you more help less. the helplessness fills you with more self-hate. working at the trama reconciliation program broke that circle for me. i was not home thinking endlessly about what a failure i was. i was doing something that actually helped 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 peace builder.

>> this was my introduction to, yes. >> yes, okay. it was about this time that you and the woman who who was then your mentor and now is a beloved friend, selma -- >> thank you. >> you begin a training manual for women where you didn't teach women, but you sought out to transform them, and in this manual, there's wonderful exercises of being a woman dot, dot, dot, crowns, what are my crowns? what are my thorn, and then there's another wonderful exercise of shedding weight. >> yes. >> i'd like to ask you two questions about the manual. i know that sometimes you would be up much of the night hearing women's stories. is there one story in particular that you recall that you would be willing to share with us? >> there are many stories that made an impression on me, but i

am one person who have always thought that our traditional practices, genital manipulation, was not as bad as what the world made it out to be until we went to sierra leone, and we formed a circumstance. -- circle. i knew a woman who i worked for for years, and this day when we did this circle, she decided to tell her story, and her story went back to herself as a 7-year-old girl being 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 -- she started and in 15 minutes she got to the place

of the mutilation, and then it took her almost ten hours to progress from that place to the next part of the story. >> oh, my. >> because she tells that they tied me, and then she goes, and would scream, scream. those who sat, she dug her feet and toenails in the earth until she cut her feet, but she didn't know 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 in sierra leone, and we have one person start. she was the second, and in a circling of 20 people, she was the only story we heard the

entire night. >> my goodness. >> afterwards, she fell asleep, and it was like all day. she had now started her own organization in that community fighting of the harmful traditional practices and other issues related to women's rights, but until today, every time i see her, i still remember that scream and her digging 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 weight from 7 years old. >> huh. >> that she had been carrying all of her life. >> i have to tell you that story takes my breath away.

just 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 when they are in different places in ways that we don't know anything about. i still make reference to it. i use it when i was in cuomo last year. with the women, it is, like you said, a very powerful tool. >> right, rights. >> when you get to do it, and there is no category of women that you use that crown or thorns with, that doesn't really speak to them. one of the other parts of the mannerisms, sometimes we try to tilt it a bit, 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 there working with all of these women who had experienced war and asking them to stand up and just describe themselves. it was amazing. last year, we did it with female ministers inly beer ya, and we asked them to stand up and just reaffirm their beauty. one of the female ministers said, wow, i never felt so good in any company because i never ever taken the time to complement myself. it's not about what spectrum of society you find yourself from grass roots, middle, to top level, sometimes women are so busy taking care of the world that sometimes our husbands are so busy looking for money, that it never really stop to look at you and say, girl, you look good. [laughter] but one of the things that i do to myself all the time is once i dress, and this is a little bit

egotistic, but i still do it, is stand in front of the mirror and say, oh, you look good. [laughter] [applause] we try to teach our women to appreciate themselves, but i'll quickly move on and say -- just give a quick example. one of the trainees we had, we asked rural women, 50 rural women together, and we asked them to write down their dreams, what they had always dreamed about as a woman when it comes to beauty, and there was some of the women that one muslim woman in the room who forever wore -- and she said she it always wanted to wear a blue dress, a red hat, a red pair of shoes, and makeup. some of the women from highly traditional backgrounds said they've always wanted to wear a pair of genes.

some said they always wanted to go to a nightclub. by the time we finished that session, i was on the phone to every woman i knew, do you have a red hat? do you have a pear of jeans? [laughter] do you have this or that? by the next day, we had a room full of clothes. [laughter] those women got dressed, and the first part of the dream was to take them to a nightclub, and we walk in the nightclub, 50 women, everybody ask is there a birthday party going on? no e we just -- no, we just came for a good time. we did a fashion show the next year, and this woman died a year ago, and that was the photograph she carried of herself coming down the stairs in a blue dress, red hat, and nicely made. >> oh, lovely. >> she said before i got

married, i was called edith, and then she got the muslim name, and then she got the photo and said that is truly edith, but these women as simple as it sounds, leave that room or leaves that space, and they are never the same again when they go back into their communities. >> right, right. >> yeah. >> 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 in a crazy dream. >> yeah. >> would you talk about that? >> well, it was this night i lived by myself, and i was sleeping on the cold floor, under the window. this is something you pick up from the wartime because you're afraid to sleep on the bed for stray bullets.

i'm lying there, and i always hear this voice in my dream, and i never see this face saying get up, gather the women, and put them together to pray for peace. i wake up slivering because the window is open and light rain was falling on me. i go to work the next morning. i go to a pastor who is my boss, and say i have this dream. said we should gather the women to pray for peace. they were not talking about me. it was my life, no. i'm in a relationship that i am so foreign kateing, and it can't be me they're talking about, so you need to as a leader 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 the muslim women were inspired to start a group. that was the beginning of the entire protests that later started in 2003. >> that's right, and by now the war's about 13 years. >> yeah. >> in the making. >> yes,. >> people were going in droves to be in the refugee camps, and the camps were hundreds, 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 such hope. they who had lost so much. >> you go into a community where people have been raped, some -- one of the women i met from

sierra and she was breast-feeding her baby, and they got to the check point, and the soldier cut off her breast. they ail had forms of disability, but the women said we are the hope for our communities. we will go back and teach these children peace, and, yeah, and carry my anger from years ago, and make more mistakes, even as i was angry, and they asked me, have you been rapedded? no. have you been abused? no. why are you such a hypocrite? why are you angry? i went home and i asked myself that same question. why am i angry? i'm being a hypocrite. going back to the women and them saying to me, you know, we are the hope of our communities. that was a moment of baptism for me.

>> yes. >> but sometimes you need water, and sometimes you need fire. >> right. >> to really open your eyes, and i think i got a dose of both from the words 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 selma 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 today from 2002 to today, every tuesday at 12 noon, you find a christian woman up in the room at the lutheran compound. they call it the upper room, praying from 2002 until today 12

noon every tuesday unfailingly. even if it's one person, someone is there praying for the peace of liberia, and they declare a fast now, and the women peace network is back on the airfield praying for peace now as we speak. >> and it was at this juncture that your work started becoming strategic? >> more strategic, yes. >> yes. what i found so compelling is that as you're by now, muslim and christian women working together, and you looked to the book of esther -- >> yes. >> say something about that, if you will. >> well, we decided to protest -- you could not -- it -- liberia, like any other place, even here, had been divided on social lines, status, ideological, everything, and you could not mobilize a group of

people to work for peace because every woman in one community was a hero to his people. you had to really -- it was difficult to get anyone, so when we brought the women together, the first thing we have to do was move beyond religion, ethnicity, ideological, or political ideologies, and bring us to a place where it was about womanhood. >> 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 the separate groups 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 the world, see esther. these were revolutionary work that these women did. >> right. >> it was not sit down and pray, but they got out there, put their faces in the forefront of the politics of their time. we went into the koran, the wife of the profit mohamed, she had a voice. she was not silent or do sile, and everyone says muslim women are supposed to be, and there was a research that i formed on the islamist per speckive of non-violation and the christian perspective of non-violence that i exploited to the call. [laughter] [applause] it was that kind of thing that

we use, so by the time when we decided to do this fast, it had caught on, and then the women said like esther, sack clothes and ashes. look at me. on a normal day, this is the way lie -- liberia women dress. we dress like this, no one takes us seriously. nicely dressed, jewelry and everything, so we have to go back to god. we recognize we have a role to play in the violent communities are facing. let's go in sack clothes and ashes. the white was for peace, the hair tie to color the beauty of the hair, no shoes, no jewelry, no makeup, and go have a sense of humor. ..

so, imagine this in in the liberian it rain and it doesn't get cold off from the rain it gets hotter and humid, and women's whose clothing home on them and you were out there for

how many days? >> two years. >> two years. but finally she agreed in the middle of that -- >> we were there for six weeks and then he agreed to meet with us. >> but somewhere there is a decision about sex. now we have to talk about that. >> sometimes we say am i really am muslim because we have a devious mind. [laughter] she was the one coming to us and say you know what, we have started this thing and these men are hours in the right to opinion in the newspaper they are just violent so we have to move them. how we do that? a-6 strike.

denied them sex. we failed miserably. [laughter] we were not strategic. so some of the people would come in and we would say we had a fight and i had to give any. the women call their husbands into the church and say we are at a point where we need to seek god's faithful peace, we are fasting and praying and the the whole thing is denying yourself the pleasure. we've come to you to tell you that as the journey, take this journey it means no sex. they agreed. so for months, nothing.

[laughter] the husband would be sitting there alone with them but after the protest after two years we saw men walk down with flowers, these are men and they come to appreciate their wives publicly and then one of them leans over and says about the sex because today we end, today we have sex. [laughter] the sex strike was a way like here it cut the media of the attention, caught the attention of the men. almost a week when people were

talking about this sixth strike and this six sex strike. >> some where it is decided to have a position statement in the parliament, and finally charles taylor agreed to meet with you and there is this extraordinary scene of hundreds of women at your back literally coming year upon a stage and they are praying for you to be steadfast in intention and also for seton not to interrupt this process and with a steady hand and a steady voice, you present this position to the president, and its after that that he agrees to go into peace talks in ghana and

to continue that with the warlord and of course taylor and you kept getting the women there and had their white and you were the strategic about that. it's like they were having a good time. >> making a thousand dollars. >> i don't think so. >> not when you come from such but they all continued to jockey for power. you then took the women in to the hall to recreate that scene for us. it's just extraordinary. >> we went with seven women and mobilized the refugee women. we talked in our mind.

we stayed for three months. they have increased. i have lost faith. i was constantly crying. when i stopped the joining of the women's protest and this morning i go to the offices of the west african network for peacebuilding and i'm watching the yahoo! video and they gave a news flash of this missile that landed and these little boys were brushing their teeth. she was crushed. so and see what do i do. i'm sitting here watching this

video and it's willing up. i keep from 17-years-old came back and the tears are running down. i go into one of the rooms and they have some of the white t-shirts. i put it on and i say to we have money? she said yes. send for more. we need more. what does it for? i will tell you later. the press people were about to leave and i said you have a story today. they said what is it? i said just don't leave. we get word that the warlords and the media were going in at 10:00. so why separate myself from the group, said at a table, wrote the letter for that and by the time i got to write the letter the women had arrived. the people were going into their rooms. i went to the room and sat sit-down and link arms like

this. at that time nobody 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 nigerian general term and i said i want to see you. he set me? i said yes and i gave him the letter and a ticket to the media and he read it. the only thing he said on the overhead speaker is all my god troops have seized the peace hall. [laughter] but as we seized the hall, then the police come and say you are obstructing justice. >> and you went off. >> totally. [laughter] my life flashed before me. my socialization passed before me. i had been brought up to believe the men of this will protect the women and children coming and if

i am being accused of obstructing justice and all i'm trying to do is deliver justice to my people and i felt like there is no hope imagine myself in handcuffs with the death of humiliation rape, abuse, death, destruction. so i just said you know what? i will make it easier for you. i will strip naked. [inaudible] i was protesting the pain of every woman. when you are being raped your clothes are being torn off of you.

when you are protesting in pain, you are giving away the luxury 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 liberian woman, take it. if that is what brings peace, ticket. >> when you took off the head covering -- >> took off the head cover. every nigerian woman you see with this on we are still traumatized, even in america still have to carry it. took off the skirt, the rap and men run put it back on. said don't do this. but on my left was my mentor who already started stripping also and they are saying don't do

this. but the security men who came to arrest us understand the african culture. some say they are running from our bodies that they run away. >> that began to turn it around. >> it turned it around a hundred%. it turned it around for us because at that time when we negotiated to leave that state we owned up to that. we had power. so the message on our placard's became more vicious and a bold. we were referring to them as killers where as in the past we were saying now give us peace, and then when we used to walk through would look that way. no more insults were thrown at us.

in three weeks a peace agreement was signed. [applause] >> a transitional government was put in place you had said and i agree with you that ultimately will good miss wins out over evil but there's a price to pay and i would like from your book for you to read the price was paid. >> we were to look around we had to confront the magnitude of what would happen to liberia 250,000 people were dead one in

three were displaced with three and 50,000 living internally what and the rest anywhere they could find shelter 1 million people mostly women and children or of malnutrition were, diarrhea and cholera because of contamination in the world more infrastructure the roads, hospitals and schools had been destroyed. the damage was almost unimaginable a whole generation of young men had no idea who they were without a gun in their hands. several generations were raped and had seen their daughters and mothers reaped and their mothers were killed and would be killed. neighbors turned against neighbors coming young people have lost hope and everything the turned we were traumatized

we had survived the war but now we have to remember how to raise piece isn't a moment it is a very normal process -- long process. >> it is through what you did that you were largely responsible for the election of the first woman president of nigeria. [applause] -- liberia, i'm sorry. and you are going to be going back to your country within a few days if she is up for election again. what do you think her chances are? >> she's going to have a win. [applause] we are going to turn over for questions, 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.

would you be willing to speak to that for a moment? >> i really don't think i've done anything. just today i was having a conversation with a friend coming and i said to her until watched the devil back to hell i don't feel like we've 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. i feel like you said earlier, called to do what i do. i don't have any sense of i'm doing great work. every time i go to speak and do

something i believed that thinking and i really making impact and the people will engage with sometimes and i saw a documentary letter in ugonda and one of them said the first time i said if she can't do it on too can't do it. so i am at a place now where all i want is the opportunity to do my work, to do what i do best and encourage people to maximize the potential and the sacrifices i don't think i've made any sacrifice i think you've just lived. and the pain that i've gone

through, i see 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 agree to so when i go to places i try to ask people to kind of the just say i'm a mother of six because that is the only thing that gives me so much pleasure and honor and the peace and women's rights activist so i'm content, so content with where i find myself. i am content with the work i do. if i don't become the secretary-general of the u.n. or the president of liberia or any other thing i'm just content working in my community. i'm just content being whom god has called me to be.

i don't begrudge him for any of the trials that i've gone through in life. i don't see the achievements that i've gotten has a right. i see it as a favor. [applause] >> before we open it up [inaudible] >> do we need to move? >> if you are fine. ♪ [inaudible]

you cannot take our land away from us. ♪ ♪ we went back to the bible ♪

[inaudible] ♪ nobody is going to desert are some. ♪ we are going to fight a strategic fight and this is how we decided to sit at a fish market every day. thousands of women went.

it was the first time in our history in liberia where muslim and christian women were coming together and we had a big banner that said if women of liberia want peace now. those who think they can come out in the streets to embarrass themselves [inaudible]

we were not afraid. you look at the front line discussion of the war and this is what the news makers report on, the fighting tactics, the troops, the politics, the borders, the weapons, the army, all of these things. the back-line discussion of the story is how you actually exist and live and continue living in the war.

that is a women's story and that has never been told. warfare is a different which civilians are not, quote, collateral damage if we want to call them but really very much in the center of the war zone. [inaudible] the wives, the children, the women are the ones raped and then after conflict when the war have been negotiated they are never considered. >> i think it is past time that we redefine what we mean by war because there are no front lines in the war in today's world. the fact is that in today's war,

the primary victims are women and children. ♪ >> thank you so much for everything. thinking about literacy i work and literacy in l.a.. when you were getting the women

together traumatized because what was going on, the danger, do you do any reading or if you did what did you read the? thank you. >> when we start to the work i feel we would say women have different skills, and i was the only one who had a tiny bit of skills around peacebuilding. i had read ghandi and 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 was nothing more powerful. these were the things i read, but also when we talk about issues of nonviolence we asked women to give us stories of facts of nonviolence and their communities and there were different stories that came up

to what we felt we were doing so we didn't do a lot of things until after we did this work when i went to do my graduate studies that i would read. we were doing a strategic peacebuilding and then we did that. that was strategic. is that a tactical strategy all that does that i used in the actual peacebuilding finton yes just read a little king and ghandi. >> thank you. i instruct while you were talking about your sense of community and women could see what was happening in your community. in our country we are at war mackall the time and other places.

so right now in libya and there is a siege that's been going on for weeks. people barely know about it. they don't have food or water they are getting bombing every day but we don't internalize that because this is not part of our community in iraq or afghanistan. so i guess i'm wondering how does one create a larger world community where we care and we can wear white and we cannot object to the war and we care about other people in other parts of the world. >> i have come to a very cynical place when it comes to us versus them, the world, there will come in your world, and your question is a good question but your

question can be answered in two ways. if i sit in your community you receive a war, open your eyes in this community you will see the war also. it's here. it's happening. as a stranger on see it. and i think the connections between your world and my world and i would crossed that out and see the connection in our world is our ability to move beyond. i want to help and start with 51 to help here. that's one. libya, egypt, tunisia is not short of activists. what they are short of its

resources. liberia was, the stories you've heard from congo, i was in congo. isn't short of the activists. what they are short of its resources. this country has resources. what you are short of its activists. [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 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 the body. i came back to school and determined i wouldn't live an isolated life. the first thing i did is identify the free african and there wasn't a single liberia. the first thing i did with, they were always hungry. my apartment always had food. a community had started. the scheme and before you knew

that i was being called big mother, mother of peace. i used the resources that i saw in america to create my sense of community. today i can proudly say if i land that in afghanistan will go straight to the swedish embassy because the political analysts there is a young man who will give me a place to sleep. if i went to yemen plan would go to the u.s. embassy because one of the strategies there is a man -- his name has escapes me. he would give me a place to sleep. my world has shrunk. when the the bombing in ugonda, they would say are you okay because i know you are a

football lover. i had african-american young men who work in d.c. now had his first child and said this is the first grandchild because of that community. to create a community -- and went to a talk the other day and i said to you see those girls passing up and down your neighborhood as you sit on your porch? she said i see them. i said those goals 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 will go and come in and i give you a space of treatment. the stories 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 fact is some to influence the meat of resources in libya now? there is so much to do here, there is so much to do here. [applause] >> a friend of mine gave me shame the devil back to health 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 to refine a community activist, and i live in the war zone in south central and i'm a promoter of peace. i'm part of to world peace

organization. i'm just honored to be in your presence. what i would like to invite you to come to our community for a year. [laughter] and i really want to focus. my mother raised me the sisterhood conscience when i was very young, yet the training manual, how can i get ahold of that and help the women. >> i will direct you my card and see if we have an e-mail copy that i can send to 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 that worldwide if a-6 strike took place that we could improve the entire world? [laughter] >> no. but worldwide if a change of mindset about sex took place it would change the entire world. my sister lives in new york and every time i come we find time to hang out. so we're flipping through pages of a magazine and the red for housing 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 is going to where the swatch?

[laughter] it don't understand the connection of a man in briefs and a wrist watch on his tie unless there is a new way of wearing the watch in the u.s. that i don't know about. [laughter] but the object of vacation -- of 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 any more. they see from here to hear and women believe that i don't need brains as long as i have from here to hear. it is a sad state. i have a young white meese, and we had a conversation, a friend of mine, about it where on

college campuses now in the u.s. kids are just picking up. there's nothing of a relationship. so i keep asking my good friend what is looking up. do they just look at each other and say let's go hook up? is it just because that is the feeling that comes across. young people are no more happy if there is no more space for let's talk and progressed to the next level it's from here to hear. and until we can change that, we are in trouble. and this is a global disease. this is a global disease. or the young people that we are rolling back our lives to come of the work and the we are at

the university of california's center and we talked about the issue and the question i think about the whole issue thus in securities of women and think about the global media and how sex has taken over it is a point that comes from research, and in that book women were in peace and they did a research project. they say the impact of the war, the conflict on women's lives is a reflection of the interaction bring peace time. so if our young people are not hooking up imagine what would be the statistics of rape and the

statistics of abuse? if we continue to objectify young women as sex objects and gunmen so that the young women are the prey and the young men -- how do we talk about participation and politics because the way the world is functioning now it is functioning on one side of his reign. all the men in power so that is one side of the brain. the women are virtually not in the political space, so that other side is not functioning. you wonder why the economy in this country is this way it's because it is functioning on one side of the brain. if we think we have a problem now and we don't correct that

whole thing because it is all part of the discussion around peace, it's all part of the discussion around security. it's all part of the discussion if we don't start addressing california the place where dreams are made how do we change that image of 12 year old girls wanting to where from thongs? how? if not the sex strike the strike on the industry. [applause] i have gotten a 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 to night and i encourage you to let's be together in community after the formal presentation of this and to use leyhmah gbowee, thank you so much. >> thank you for having me and all of you for coming. [applause] >> i want to start by talking about why i wrote the book and what i hope to accomplish with this book. i wrote the book because our party is at a crossroads and there's a division and going for what i believe we have to unite as a matter of fact i extended on one of my interviews today in

anticipation for carlos and i had to kiss and make up. we can go forward a united party but i do talk a lot about the cronyism especially of the republican party in delaware which the leaders have been ousted but the reason i bring that up is not to perpetuate it or fan the flames but to put it to rest that if that crowd would increase the principal of the grassroots crowd that the party was founded on, not just our party with our country was founded on, we would be a powerhouse if we could unite coming in i.d. tell some of these things that my campaign has endured and what i went through as a candidate again, to illustrate the point of what happens when we divide instead of when we unite, and everybody

knows it is no secret that the 2010 election and the republican party was divided but i think that there are some examples to look at and i draw the contrast between kentucky and my own race where in kentucky we had the nrsc and senator mitch mcconnell campaigning against rand paul. he was the worst thing to happen to politics until he ran the primary. the day after he won the primary mitch mcconnell and rand paul for our men are missing that is the past. we've got to move forward to make sure this guy crosses the finish line and unfortunately that didn't happen in delaware, but it's got to happen in order for us to win in 2012. so that's the message of hope people can take away by reading this. i try to tell the story