Background: This July 2010 exchange with Katherine Marshall took place outlines the origins of Amina Rasul-Bernardo’s work to bring Filipino Muslim women more visibly and centrally into peace work. She emphasizes that Southeast regional dimensions of this work have grown, highlighting the ways in which often invisible potential for social action can be transmitted into new domains. She explores why women, when given the opportunity and sound tools, can be the most effective peacebuilders.
How did you begin to focus on issues of women, peace, and religion?
My interest began several decades ago, and my initial inspiration was my mother. She focused for many years on women’s illiteracy in the Muslim south of the Philippines. Muslim communities were lagging behind other communities, both in Mindanao and in the rest of the Philippines, in many different ways. My mother had for many years worked to address these problems through painstaking literacy training. But she came to realize that an illiterate person who becomes literate and goes back to their community cannot make a material difference if they cannot practice in new ways. She came to the conclusion that the lack of opportunities was the critical constraint. Further, through her observation and experience, she came to focus on the fact that women really were not included in decision making, and thus were not able to help their communities, even when they were willing and capable. She began to look to working models that would bring a better community and found many ideas among women, for peace advocacy, resolution of conflicts, and other areas. Her work helped women to move forward with their ideas.
After September 11, I personally became more involved with Muslim religious leaders in the southern part of the Philippines, as I realized that these leaders were extremely influential in the communities, and were not really involved by the national government in peace processes. The Muslim leaders can play much larger roles then they have to date and that needs some proactive effort.
Rather to my surprise, I found that Muslim women religious leaders were active there. The aleemat (women equivalent of imams) had at least the potential to play roles that were very similar to those of the male religious leaders who formed the ulama. The women had very similar training, including at Al Ahzar and other respected schools. Their roles in the community, however, had previously been primarily simply to support the male ulama. So as we began to work with Muslim religious leaders, we made conscious efforts to work with the women.
As we have worked to empower the Muslim networks, we have continued this focus on women and the aleemat have been invited to events. For the last three years the National Network of Muslim Leaders has included women, and there are now in the Philippines over 150 religious women who are part of this network.
What is interesting is that the aleemat are very much part of the NUCP in their work. And they have now designated two seats among the total of the 15-member governing board for the aleemat. This is a unique setup in ASEAN countries and probably in the Muslim world. I do not know of anything like it. There are not many Muslim settings that would formally allocate seats on their governing bodies to women. But there is still the challenge of working to give these women religious leaders more meaningful roles, as the traditional roles that aleemat were allocated were support functions, helping in organizing and doing administrative work. Obviously, what we are looking for is something more.
One result of our work is a new organization, Nur es Salaam, which means “Light of Peace.” It has as a mission to help in organizing women Muslim religious leaders and communities. This will allow them to become more active and effective.
What does this group do?
It is quite a new thing. We have just begun to work with these specific religious groups and the first needs are quite basic training in skills for organizing. It means building up the women’s ability to do more than the administrative functions that were the tradition. The first priority is communications, and the tools that are needed for organizing communities. We are responding to their priorities, which include peace advocacy and resolution of conflicts in communities. It is interesting that health is a major priority for them, as is education. Electoral reform is an issue, as are human rights. It is all about empowerment and, of course, capacity building in a broad sense.
What kinds of interventions are you finding work best?
In many ways this is the very first time the women have been involved in civil society. Thus there is a lot of focus on implementation and the “how-to.” We also focus a lot on education about human rights and the rights of citizens. We are providing support so that they can become financially independent. Project management skills are important. We help to bring them together with potential development partners, which is part of helping them to become self-standing and self-sustaining.
And what do you find is the agenda of these women peacemakers?
The women’s agendas are clear and basic. They want a more peaceful community so that their families can survive, and not just survive but have a peaceful, decent existence. In the south of the Philippines life is oppressive and dangerous. They see it and have lived it. And they want to change it.
Can we step back a bit. Can you describe a bit more how you became involved in this work? You grew up in Mindanao?
Yes, I was born in Sulu, which is the birthplace of the Moro Liberation front! So from the earliest days, I was aware of the issues, and, from the Marcos years, war was a part of our lives. I went to grade school and high school in that area, graduating from Notre Dame High School in Jolo. Then I went to university in Manila and studied economics. Why? Not really because it was my passion, but because it seemed like a very useful tool.
My passion was always to see good governance and the peaceful resolution of the conflicts I had lived. I had always been part of the struggle. My parents were civil servants and they were much part of advocating for the democratization process and for peaceful resolution of conflicts. I focused a lot on journalism and on strengthening civil society.
But 2001 and September 11 was an important marker and turning point. It was not so much the issue of terrorism but my awareness that the national government was not fully sincere about dealing with the conflict in the south and finding a peaceful solution. We needed to do a lot of work.
How are the Philippine Council for Islam and Democracy and the South East Asian Forum for Islam and Democracy linked and how are women involved?
The council is a network of Muslim advocates for democracy and peace and more and more we are working with a regional platform that allows us to exchange information across countries.
I have also led the development of an Islamic peace education model for use in our schools and communities. We hosted an international workshop on Islamic peace education (June 27 to 30), supported by USIP.
I have also spearheaded the discussions on A Common Word with our ulama and aleemat. This year, we will expand the conversations and go down to the grassroots as well as go national with an interfaith conference.
You argue forcefully that women are better peacemakers than men. What is the grounding for that assertion?
Men have always taken the role of leaders, heading all affairs in the society, including peace and development. In a Muslim society, Muslim religious leaders are considered as effective agents in leading communities towards peace. There are thousands of ulama in the Philippines who provide spiritual assistance to communities and wield great influence. The evidence for this influence is substantial, and includes several surveys as well as what I have personally observed. The respected Social Weather Stations (SWS) reported in 2006 that over 80 percent of the Muslim respondents said that they had “much trust” in their religious leaders; eighty-nine percent had trust in the imam and 85 percent in the ulama as compared to only 79 percent who trusted the elected barangay (village) captain and 69 percent trusting the traditional (non-religious) leaders.
In Mindanao, though, Muslim women in particular face challenges. They are constrained not only as women in a male-dominated culture but also as Muslims in a largely Christian population subject to age-old prejudices and ruthless discrimination. With the armed conflict and volatile peace and order situation in ARMM, many women and children suffer economically, socially, and psychologically. Most of those displaced by the conflict are Muslim women and children. Even so, women, given their skills and capacity for conflict prevention and peace-building, are perceived as better peacemakers than men, by both Filipino men and women (again an assertion that is backed by Social Weather Station surveys). Three out of five (62 percent) of Filipinos agree that "women must be represented in the peace panel of the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front or MILF." Over half (58 percent) nationwide agree that "a woman has more talent than a man to find a way to settle a conflict without resorting to violence."
What are the tangible steps you have taken to translate this insight about women’s potential into action?
The Magbassa Kita Foundation, Inc. (MKFI) and the Philippine Council for Islam and Democracy (PCID) have been working for several years on a concerted effort to empower Muslim women. We started with the Muslim Women Peace Advocates Project in 2001. It unfolded in three phases. The first, in 2001, involved focus group discussions, the second regional training workshops, and the third provincial training workshops.
The focus group discussion brought together a group of women from the conflict-affected provinces of Sulu, Basilan, Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur and Cotabato City. They represented the different ends of the conflict spectrum, including the MNLF, MILF, widows of soldiers, and protagonists including social workers. The discussions focused on the development of women as peace advocates and change agents; this produced very useful documentation with available resources for resolving conflicts, as well as a strategy map and an initial action plan to promote peace and development in Mindanao. A book on conflict resolution was one product, as was a training manual.
Then, later in 2001, we organized a regional training workshop in Zamboanga City, with women from the grassroots and communities of Muslim Mindanao. These women reaffirmed the results of the earlier focus group discussions, resolving to lead peace initiatives in Mindanao by organizing groups, and by mobilizing communities as peace catalysts. A Muslim Women's Peace Advocates Workshop-Conference followed in December, 2003. That resulted in a “Declaration of Muslim Women in Waging Peace” that was presented to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo through her daughter Ms. Lourdes “Luli” Macapagal-Arroyo, to the National Commission on the Role of Filipino (NCRFW) women through Commissioner Dr. Amelou Benitez-Reyes, and to the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) through Speaker Ismael Abubakar. This Declaration asserts the right of Muslim women to participate actively in peace building, while outlining the different ways through which this can be realized.
We have focused since then on capacity building for the women in the conflict-affected areas. Today, the Muslim Women Peace Advocates- Sulu Council is organized up to the barangay level in Jolo, as well as in the conflict affected municipalities of Indanan and Patikul (where operations are on-going against the Abu Sayyaf Group). In addition, the Sulu Council launched a weekly radio program “Women Talk Peace” in 2004 which is heard all over the province. Training has been enlarged to focus more sharply on advocacy and work to protect human rights. Women report human rights abuses in their communities.
Then in 2007, we organized a series of focus group discussions and workshops in five provinces in the Mindanao that involved both training in conflict resolution and interfaith dialogue. More and more groups grew interested in our work, and the Office of the Presidential Advisor on the Peace Process (OPAPP) funded MWPA consultations with women’s organizations in Sulu to discuss ways to support the peace process.
What roles were the aleemat playing?
In the past, the aleemat were not organized as a group. As individuals, they provided support to the ulama-headed organizations and taught at the madaris. But during a first National Ulama Summit in January 2008, the women requested a separate meeting. They were led by Aleema Khadija Mutilan, the widow of the renowned Filipino ulama , Dr. Mahid Mutilan. The aleemat pointed out that they had much to offer, though they had been largely overlooked by institutions providing capacity building for civil society organizations, including other women’s organizations. So they asked that a parallel program be organized to allow them to focus on peace and development as a unified group.
This opening was furthered at a Second Ulama Summit, when a formal workshop was conducted for 31 aleemat and Muslim women leaders, to determine their agenda and to elect their two representatives to the NUCP board. Elected to the board were Aleemah Khadijia Mutilan, widow of Aleem Dr. Mahid Mutilan (the most prominent ulama of Mindanao) and Aleema Albaya Badruddin, DECS-ARMM.
What has happened since?
These initiatives encouraged us to launch a project, called the “Empowering Women as Peace Advocates” project. Its focus is on encouraging Muslim women religious scholars to collaborate with Muslim civil society organizations towards peace efforts. It also aims to help the aleemat to strengthen networks between themselves and other women’s groups, sharing their experiences and gaining knowledge, new methods and up-to-date technology.
The project has specific aims that include providing baseline data for the aleemat, training, and providing a forum for the sharing of experiences between and among women peace advocates of various faiths.
The year 2009 was a pivotal year, as they fast-tracked the formation of the aleemat network, which took the name Noor-us Salam. Five local capacity building workshops were held. They focused on finding better ways to participate in transforming their communities. One focal issue was the more than 500 Muslim women detained in jails in Metro Manila, who suffer sexual harassment and other human rights violations. Muslim women in evacuation centers also face hardships. Their priorities emerged as peace, electoral reform, access to financial and economic resources, health, and education and Islamic values.
A major conference in Davao City in January 2010 reinforced the emerging strength of the women’s network and their priorities for action.
What is distinctively Muslim in the women’s approach to peace?
The women see their approach to peace as derived from both authentic Islamic values and Bangsamoro cultural traditions, and this has developed into a distinctive approach to training in conflict management. The training benefited from a peace education model and madaris curriculum developed for Aceh. This paved the way for the development of the Islamic-based peace education manual.
What are the women’s priorities, and how do they understand peace?
Peace and human rights are so tightly linked to law, elections, and development that they are not easy to disentangle. When asked about peace, the steps the women identified included a paralegal seminar on human rights awareness, community consultation, inter-tribal dialogue, and seminars about Islam. They also are working on voter education and awareness, and have developed materials on electoral reform.
But health and education are constant priorities. On health, they have focused on hygiene and sanitation and community mental health, as well as a halal certification project, and halal promotion activities. On education, their priorities include promotion of Islamic values through the arts, Hajj/Umra programs, scholarship programs, parenting seminars, trainers’ trainings, creation of a Muslim Mothers’ Club, and a Islamic media program. Throughout, coordination is a priority. They press for livelihood training programs, establishing cooperatives, and access to loans.
The creation of core groups is considered as a breakthrough for Muslim women in the country, and it is a first. The group is tapping the aleemat to lead in the advocacy of peace and development in the conflict-affected areas of Mindanao in coordination with women in CSOs. Regional steering committees were formed to coordinate activities. “Noor-us Salam” or “Light of Peace” is to serve as the core organization of aleemat and representatives of women civil society groups for the Philippines. The organization is built on important common aspirations: a space to be safe, a place to be free. These are the “women we have faith in and they are going to give the light of peace.” And that is the heart and soul of the project.
How did you come to see the role of religion in both the national and local processes of addressing the conflicts?
I began from a rather secular perspective, but the more I have learned about the way women see realities on the ground, the more I have come to see that building bridges between secular and religiously inspired groups and approaches is an essential path we must follow on the road to real peace.
The armed conflicts in Muslim Mindanao were never about religion but about sovereignty and oppression. Unfortunately, Islamophobia was unleashed in the early 1970s, when the late dictator Marcos used the Muslim secessionist movement as a justification for Martial Law. Later, religious leaders from Muslim and Christian communities, recognizing Marcos’ strategy, started working on interfaith dialogues and collaboration to heal our divided communities. They had successes. That was until Muslim communities worldwide started to become radicalized by the missionary zeal of extreme groups, the coming together of mujahideen or Muslim warriors in Afghanistan (a move encouraged by the United States) to fight the Russians, where they met Bin Laden. The events of 9/11 and terrorist activities in Bali, London, India and other places, the unresolved issue of Palestine, and the current situation in Iraq all have served to further radicalize our Muslim ummah as the non-Muslim world have been influenced by media to view Muslims as terrorists and Al-Qaeda supporters. In such an environment, the political conflict in Mindanao over sovereignty and oppression has, unfortunately, gained religious color. Therefore the role of religious leaders becomes even more crucial.
However, we need to hear the voices of both our ulama and our aleemat.
