Leymah Gbowee gave a speech at the Mennonite Economic Development Associates (MEDA) conference, titled “Women Building Peace: The Liberian Experience,” about how her life experiences, before, during, and after the Liberian civil war, led her to determine how to fight for Peace successfully. In her childhood, she was raised in a community in Liberia, where people treated everyone as equals. They did not see ethnic, racial, religious, or social status differences and lived in harmony, but when a civil war broke that changed dramatically.
At first, she only thought that men could make a difference and ork for peace in her country. Later, she went north in her country to work and she saw the real victims of war; the women in this town her raped, were homeless and mistreated. So, she worked with a group of women for three things. They wanted a cease-fire, peace talks and deployment of international peacekeepers. They created a human barrier around the building they were having talks in. She was almost arrested for obstructing justice, but she preserved and this eventually led to success in gaining peace in Liberia.
She explained that to be able to fight for peace the women had to heal themselves before hey could be successful because, as Gbowee communicated, awareness and activism has increased, but little results have come of it, and that women’s involvement in everything is important. She said that women are greatly affected during the war because gender inequality during peace turns into rape and mistreatment during war times. Also, women are supposed to hold everything together for everyone.
After the women heal themselves, they must overcome the elements that divide people, and they had to humanize one another so they could view their relationship as “global citizens. ” Also, all the activists n different groups need to come together because they all have a common issue, human rights. Gbowee states that a huge problem is that not a single country that can be a “model for drawing people together,” not even the United States. She describes the United states as being in “shambles” because the country is full of factors that divide people.
She goes on to say that everyone should get mad about issues, so citizens can do more and do things, make people uncomfortable and successfully work for change. Audience Analysis The primary Audience of Leymah Gbowee’s speech is the udience of the Mennonite Economic Development Associates (MEDA) conference. Secondary audiences would include other civil rights activists, students and history enthusiasts. Gbowee’s purpose and goals are to educate the viewers on her personal life story, help others fight for peace successfully, and describe the reality of women’s roles in creating peace.
She also wanted to inspire the audiences to fight for peace. The interest of the primary audience, civil rights activists, and history enthusiasts will be very high because they all want to work for peace or are interest in the history behind the movement Gbowee started. The interest level of students will vary depending on their interests. Gbowee would like her audiences to be inspired to fight for justice and do so successfully. The primary audience are professionals in many different fields involved in economic development, so they have high education levels.
The audience will have diverse professional experiences and job responsibilities, but they will all have experience and responsibilities that involved with business and developing businesses. The audience will have a common personal characteristic of being caring individuals since MEDA is aimed at lleviating poverty and is faith-based. They will have various personal preferences and cultural characteristics. This audience will have a positive attitude toward Gbowee, considering the organization is an activist group, and Gbowee is a civil right activist and won the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize.
In addition, the primary audience will have a positive attitude toward the subject of peace because of their organizations ideals and goals. The reason the primary audience has for listening to this speech is to learn about her, how to create peace and be inspired to the work or the organization. They are viewing the speech in person in a large conference hall, so she uses a microphone to make sure she can be heard by everyone. The secondary audiences will have mixed education levels, but will most likely be at least in high school because Gbowee talks about sensitive subjects and hard concepts to understand.
The audiences will have varying professional experiences and job responsibilities. The civil rights activists will have a common personal characteristic of having a caring nature, while the other secondary audiences will have assorted personal characteristics. The secondary udiences will have diverse personal preferences and cultural characteristics. The civil rights activists will have a positive attitude toward Gbowee; the other audiences will have varying attitudes toward the speaker.
The civil rights activists and the history enthusiasts will have a positive attitude toward the topic considering their interests. Students will have differing attitudes toward the topic. Civil rights activists reason for watching the speech would be to be inspired by Gbowee’s life and learn from it. The History enthusiasts will watch the speech to learn new, intimate details about Gbowee and the Liberian civil war. The students will watch the film because it is a class requirement. The speech was filmed and posted on the MEDA Vimeo page, so secondary audiences will view it through that website.
The physical environment of the viewers would most likely be at home or in a classroom. Reaction Leymah Gbowee is a brilliant woman. She is a credible speaker because she speaks from her own life experiences and is very passionate about the topics she covered in her speech. Gbowee has authority on the subject because she spoke from the experiences from her own life, and she won various prizes for he work she has done including the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize, the 2009 Gruber Prize for Women’s Rights, and the 2009 John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award.
She also leads various peace initiatives and wrote a book about her experiences. The speaker addressed her secondary audiences well because she did not move from the view of the camera. I loved Gbowee because Gbowee’s passion for helping others and fighting for peace within our world is a passion I admire. I also enjoyed her speech because she is a very humble woman, even though she has accomplished so many wonderful things. From this speech, I earned about Leymah Gbowee’s life and accomplishments. I had never heard of Gbowee until I viewed this Speech, and her life is inspiring.
I learned how she was a young girl, who overcame her bitterness to save her country of Liberia. She also gave an interesting insight on our country; she stated that it was in “shambles” and gave a story about how people in distant countries know we are a very divided country. Additionally, she noted what the phrase “to tie your waist” means, which I found very interesting. I feel that the author should have included more background information on the Liberian civil war because I had little knowledge of the war.
Also, I would have liked to know more about how the women “healed” themselves because that was a very important aspect of how to fight for peace effectively. From this presentation, I have discovered that wishing for peace is not enough, and every person has to work for peace not only in waring nations, but also fight against the injustices in their own communities. I found one quote extremely inspiring was that the “time for being pretty has past. ” Gbowee was referring to how women have to be advocated for justice and peace; women cannot just sit idly by and want change to happen.