Illustrating Paths Toward Peace in Times of War
Accepting the Best Actor Academy Award for his role as Robert Oppenheimer, Cillian Murphy dedicated his Oscar to "the peacemakers" in our post-atomic bomb world.
That struck a chord close to home. My mother wrote the book on women peacemakers.
An Austrian aristocratic novelist. A Guatemalan indigenous peasant. A Pakistani girl. The Chicago founder of the settlement house movement. These are four heroines who won the Nobel Peace Prize.
In this winter of two cruel wars, waged by Russia in Ukraine, and Israel's bombardment of Gaza after a brutal Hamas attack, we may find timely wisdom in "Champions for Peace," the book by Judith Hicks Stiehm.
I'm not my mother, but the next best thing. She is an author and professor. Hailing from Madison, Wisconsin, she and my father live in Santa Monica.
For openers, more women have won the Peace Prize than any other Nobel Prize, about 20 over the years. Her book on 15 winners shows, by brief biographical stories, myriad ways to further peace in one's community and nation, such as planting trees in Kenya or marching for peace in Northern Ireland.
Common traits among all are vision, courage and gumption. They did not follow orders. They saw a flaw in their worlds they felt they could fix. Peace work does not require an advanced degree but the ability to inspire others.
Before touching on early winners such as Chicago great Jane Addams, founder of Hull House on Halsted Street, it's sad to note that in recent years, Nobel Peace laureates were subject to violence and prison.
Young Malala Yousafzai was shot on a bus by a Taliban gunman during her vocal campaign for girls' education in Pakistan. The teen won the Nobel Prize -- awarded in Oslo, Norway -- a decade ago and went on to study at Oxford University.
In 2018, Nadia Murad was honored as a crusader for survivors of genocide and sexual violence, which she suffered at the hands of ISIS. A member of a religious minority in Iraq, the Yazidi, she spent a nightmarish three months in Islamic State (ISIS) captivity.
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