Jody Williams: A realistic vision for world peace

I'm actually here

to make a challenge to people.

I know there have been many challenges made to people.

The one I'm going to make

is that it is time for us to reclaim

what peace really means.

Peace is not "Kumbaya, my Lord."

Peace is not the dove and the rainbow --

as lovely as they are.

When I see the symbols

of the rainbow and the dove,

I think of personal serenity.

I think of meditation.

I do not think

about what I consider to be peace,

which is sustainable peace

with justice and equality.

It is a sustainable peace

in which the majority of people

on this planet

have access to enough resources

to live dignified lives,

where these people have enough access

to education

and health care,

so that they can live in freedom from want

and freedom from fear.

This is called human security.

And I am not a complete pacifist

like some of my really, really heavy-duty,

non-violent friends,

like Mairead McGuire.

I understand that humans

are so "messed up" --

to use a nice word,

because I promised my mom

I'd stop using the F-bomb in public.

And I'm trying harder and harder.

Mom, I'm really trying.

We need a little bit of police;

we need a little bit of military,

but for defense.

We need to redefine

what makes us secure

in this world.

It is not arming our country

to the teeth.

It is not getting other countries

to arm themselves to the teeth

with the weapons that we produce

and we sell them.

It is using that money more rationally

to make the countries of the world secure,

to make the people of the world secure.

I was thinking about

the recent ongoings

in Congress,

where the president is offering

8.4 billion dollars

to try to get the START vote.

I certainly support the START vote.

But he's offering 84 billion dollars

for the modernizing

of nuclear weapons.

Do you know the figure that the U.N. talks about

for fulfilling the Millennium Development Goals

is 80 billion dollars?

Just that little bit of money,

which to me, I wish it was in my bank account --

it's not, but ...

In global terms, it's a little bit of money.

But it's going to modernize weapons

we do not need

and will not be gotten rid of in our lifetime,

unless we get up off our ...

and take action to make it happen,

unless we begin to believe

that all of the things that we've been hearing about

in these last two days

are elements of what come together

to make human security.

It is saving the tigers.

It is stopping the tar sands.

It is having access

to medical equipment

that can actually tell who does have cancer.

It is all of those things.

It is using our money for all of those things.

It is about action.

I was in Hiroshima

a couple of weeks ago,

and His Holiness --

we're sitting there in front of thousands of people in the city,

and there were about eight of us Nobel laureates.

And he's a bad guy. He's like a bad kid in church.

We're staring at everybody, waiting our turn to speak,

and he leans over to me, and he says,

"Jody, I'm a Buddhist monk."

I said, "Yes, Your Holiness.

Your robe gives it away."

(Laughter)

He said, "You know

that I kind of like meditation, and I pray."

I said, "That's good. That's good.

We need that in the world.

I don't follow that, but that's cool."

And he says, "But I have become skeptical.

I do not believe

that meditation and prayer

will change this world.

I think what we need

is action."

His Holiness, in his robes,

is my new action hero.

I spoke with Aung Sun Suu Kyi

a couple of days ago.

As most of you know,

she's a hero for democracy in her country, Burma.

You probably also know

that she has spent 15 of the last 20 years

imprisoned for her efforts

to bring about democracy.

She was just released a couple of weeks ago,

and we're very concerned to see how long she will be free,

because she is already out in the streets in Rangoon,

agitating for change.

She is already out in the streets, working with the party

to try to rebuild it.

But I talked to her for a range of issues.

But one thing that I want to say,

because it's similar to what His Holiness said.

She said, "You know, we have a long road to go

to finally get democracy in my country.

But I don't believe in hope

without endeavor.

I don't believe in the hope of change,

unless we take action

to make it so."

Here's another woman hero of mine.

She's my friend, Dr. Shirin Ebadi,

the first Muslim woman

to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.

She has been in exile

for the last year and a half.

You ask her where she lives -- where does she live in exile?

She says the airports of the world.

She is traveling because she was out of the country

at the time of the elections.

And instead of going home,

she conferred with all the other women that she works with,

who said to her, "Stay out. We need you out.

We need to be able to talk to you out there,

so that you can give the message

of what's happening here."

A year and a half --

she's out speaking

on behalf of the other women in her country.

Wangari Maathai --

2004 Peace laureate.

They call her the "Tree Lady,"

but she's more than the Tree Lady.

Working for peace

is very creative.

It's hard work every day.

When she was planting those trees,

I don't think most people understand

that, at the same time,

she was using the action

of getting people together to plant those trees

to talk about how to overcome

the authoritarian government in her country.

People could not gather

without getting busted and taken to jail.

But if they were together planting trees for the environment,

it was okay --

creativity.

But it's not just iconic women

like Shirin,

like Aung Sun Suu Kyi, like Wangari Maathai --

it is other women in the world

who are also struggling together

to change this world.

The Women's League of Burma,

11 individual organizations of Burmese women

came together because there's strength in numbers.

Working together is what changes our world.

The Million Signatures Campaign

of women inside Burma

working together to change human rights,

to bring democracy to that country.

When one is arrested and taken to prison,

another one comes out and joins the movement,

recognizing that if they work together,

they will ultimately bring change

in their own country.

Mairead McGuire in the middle,

Betty Williams on the right-hand side --

bringing peace to Northern Ireland.

I'll tell you the quick story.

An IRA driver was shot,

and his car plowed into people

on the side of the street.

There was a mother and three children.

The children were killed on the spot.

It was Mairead's sister.

Instead of giving in

to grief, depression, defeat

in the face of that violence,

Mairead hooked up with Betty --

a staunch Protestant and a staunch Catholic --

and they took to the streets

to say, "No more violence."

And they were able to get

tens of thousands of, primarily, women, some men,

in the streets to bring about change.

And they have been

part of what brought peace to Northern Ireland,

and they're still working on it,

because there's still a lot more to do.

This is Rigoberta Menchu Tum.

She also received the Peace Prize.

She is now running for president.

She is educating the indigenous people of her country

about what it means to be a democracy,

about how you bring democracy to the country,

about educating, about how to vote --

but that democracy is not just about voting;

it's about being an active citizen.

That's what I got stuck doing --

the landmine campaign.

One of the things that made this campaign work

is because we grew from two NGOs

to thousands

in 90 countries around the world,

working together in common cause to ban landmines.

Some of the people who worked in our campaign

could only work maybe an hour a month.

They could maybe volunteer that much.

There were others, like myself,

who were full-time.

But it was the actions, together, of all of us

that brought about that change.

In my view, what we need today

is people getting up

and taking action

to reclaim the meaning of peace.

It's not a dirty word.

It's hard work every single day.

And if each of us

who cares about the different things we care about

got up off our butts

and volunteered

as much time as we could,

we would change this world,

we would save this world.

And we can't wait for the other guy. We have to do it ourselves.

Thank you.

(Applause)