The Armenian NGO Democracy Today convened (again, for the 14th time) women (and men) from civil society from far (Canada, USA) and near (Europe, the Caucasus, Lebanon) as well as other people via video link, from 4 to 6 October 2024, in the capital of Armenia, Yerevan. Representatives from the Armenian government and diplomats completed the panel. ‘From Global Insecurity to Common Security – Women’s Role in Peaceing Peace’ was the theme of the event, which focussed on global insecurity to common security and the role women can play in peacefully creating peace.
The current wars in Ukraine, Gaza, and Lebanon as well as the ‘blitz’ war on 19/20 September 2023 in Artsakh (the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan) with over 100,000 Armenian displaced persons dominated the image of global insecurity, which was countered by the concept of ‘common security’. The idea of ‘common security’ was developed in 1982, during the Cold War, by Olof Palme’s Independent Commission on Disarmament and Security Issues. It means that nations and populations can only feel secure if their counterparts feel secure. This requires dialogue and diplomacy to find out under which conditions compromises must be made in order to give each other a sense of security.
What is meant by global uncertainty became clear to me during my stopover at Istanbul airport: flights to Iran were cancelled. – Ten days later, they no longer appear at all; instead, flights to Riyadh and Medina have been cancelled. At the beginning of October, Iran was expecting retaliation from Israel. When I flew back, Israel was no longer discussing with the USA whether it would retaliate, but which targets would be targeted (nuclear facilities, oil production, or other). Iran warned Arab countries not to support the USA in a joint strike with Israel, otherwise, they would be hit hard themselves. The USA maintains military bases in Saudi Arabia.
But the international air traffic was only the first indication of the meaning of the word ‘insecurity’. I arrived in Yerevan early in the morning and had breakfast with Shirine Jurdi, whom I had only met in the virtual space of our joint organisation WILPF (Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom). In front of her were a cup of hot tea (which was getting cold) and a plate of fruit, cheese, and bread (which was getting hot in the blazing morning sun), because Shirine was constantly holding her mobile phone in her hand, writing chats, speaking messages, making phone calls, acting and reacting. She apologised after an initial warm hug and told me, between a sip of tea and a bite to eat, that she had arrived the day before.
She had to buy toothpaste. She had left home in a hurry. At first, she was worried that the intense bombing during the night might have led to the closing the airport or that the airport road might have been blocked. Then not again. Then Israeli warnings came that the neighbourhoods surrounding the suburbs of the capital, close to the airport should be evacuated or they would be hit by bombs. Bombs fell, but the road to the airport was not hit, so Shirine ordered a taxi, drove to the airport and flew out. She also had to change money. Yes, she was glad to be out, but she would have to continue her work from Armenia. Humanitarian aid had never been her area of expertise, but now it was the most important thing.
‘Can you imagine what’s getting more expensive by the hour?’ she asks me. I think of food. ‘Mattresses – they’ve gone from 8 dollars to 18 dollars. I have no idea where we’re even going to get them from. Do you know an aid organisation that can deliver them to us right away?’ Shirine is looking after displaced people who have been housed in schools; they have been warned by the Israeli army that if they didn’t leave immediately, they would be hit by a hail of bombs. The queue of cars from the south was long and slow. Bombs struck next to them. Some were sleeping in their cars, many on the street. Over a million people are said to have had to leave their homes behind from one minute to the next, barely able to take the bare essentials with them and glad to have saved themselves.
Even in their refuge south of Beirut, their lives are not safe, many experience a bomb hitting next to them and a block of flats collapsing. I hear from a mother whose children witness the death of a family next to them – she tells the children that these are phantoms, not reality.
‘I’m only looking after one woman at the moment,’ Shirine tells me. ‘She’s heavily pregnant, the baby could come at any moment. I’m on the phone to the mayor, who is a great support. There’s a little new human being coming into the world, it should be in a safe and beautiful room, the child should be welcomed with dignity.’
I meet Shirine again in the early evening – in addition to organising humanitarian aid, she had also completed a professional course online, picked up a yoghurt for lunch from the nearby supermarket and was annoyed that she hadn’t had a proper conversation with me yet, she had been looking forward (like me) to meeting me in person. We found a nice place for dinner, she asked me about my life and I ended up apologising for asking her so little. ‘No, no, it was really good for me, I got some distance and recharged my batteries,’ she replies. ‘Now I’ll go to my room and get back to work. The bombers come at night. What advice should I give my family? We don’t want to just give up our home; it could be hard to get back if we leave. And it is our home. Besides, it’s no longer safe in the mountains or even in the north. Some families have already fled a few times. But if my parents stay and the warning comes at such short notice, they might not be able to get away in time. My father is old .’ I don’t know what to do.
The next day, we are sitting with another woman drinking wine. Messages keep arriving on her mobile phone. I see a photo of a document in Arabic. Shirene freezes, tears well up in her eyes, but she doesn’t cry. She is speechless, almost apathetic. I hold her for a while. Then she breaks free from her torpor. ‘They’re bombing my neighbourhood. That can’t be right.’ She hastily types a message, speaks a voice message, calls. A few minutes later she has a result. ‘That was a fake message. They’re trying to panic everyone.’ As if it wasn’t enough that the messages arrive a few minutes before the bombing, that the vibrations from the so-called bunker busters (250 – 1000 kg bombs) can be felt for miles around, that the black clouds of smoke make breathing difficult and darken the neighbourhood.
Shirine plays a strong role during the conference. She speaks herself, she spontaneously organises the connection of a woman directly from the Lebanese war and on the last day she presents a peace prize to a Palestinian woman who was unable to travel from Ramallah in Palestine. She smiles and laughs, she listens, she argues, she is completely present in all debates and promptly intervenes when she deems it appropriate to bring in the example of Lebanon.
However, two occasions upset her and made her angry: whenever a speaker talks about conflict, she immediately speaks up whenever possible: ‘It’s not about conflict, whether in Yemen, Sudan, Ukraine, Gaza, the occupied Palestinian territories or Lebanon. It’s about life and death, it’s about armed conflict, it’s war.
She receives a lot of praise for her resilience. Shirine refuses to accept this label. No, she doesn’t adapt to this situation, she doesn’t want to get used to it. She resists it. She wants to be a woman who does not have to align herself with the conditions of war. She wants to be a woman who is free to decide what her living conditions are and what kind of life she wants to live. A life that is away from fear with a dream that she builds and is not destroyed the next day.
I promise to send her photos of my life at home from time to time to keep her hope alive that such a life exists, that such a life is not a dream but a possibility.
Helga Merkelbach is a retired teacher and an activist for peace, gender equality, climate/environment/nature and human rights. She has traveled to many countries, also living in the UK, Ethiopia and Brazil, getting to know local people in their everyday lives, so that her commitment has become a matter close to her heart that is personally underpinned.