From DEBRA@oln.comlink.apc.orgTue Sep 12 08:14:23 1995 Date: Sat, 09 Sep 1995 08:26:00 +0100 From: Debra Guzman Reply to: beijing-conf@tristram.edc.org To: beijing95-l@netcom.com, beijing-conf@tristram.edc.org Subject: WCW: White Scarf.... [The following text is in the "ISO-8859-1" character set] [Your display is set for the "US-ASCII" character set] [Some characters may be displayed incorrectly] ## Original in: /HRNET/WOMEN ## author : hercilia@wcw.apc.org ## date : 03.09.95 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- White scarf to stop war By Veronika Sarkany In ancient Georgia, fighting men would stop the battle when women threw their traditional headdress, a white scarf, in their midst. Led by Georgian film director and actress, Keti Dolidze, this old peacemaking tradition was revived in 1993 when 2,000 brave and committed women traveled by train from Tbilisi to the front line of the battlefields to save their country and their men: fathers, husbands, brothers, sons, from a senseless war. Women of many nationalities like Russian, Ukranian, Jewish, German, Lithuanian, Azeri, and Armenian, joined the Georgian women. The women arrived at the front line after a tragic journey riddled with horror, despair but not without hope. Although fighting did not end completely, that first initiative of the White Scarf Movement did demonstrate the power and mobilizing force of the symbol of the White Scarf. Last year, the White Scarf Movement reached out to the Western hemisphere. On Sept. 23 last year, women met in several cities, including Tbilisi, Warsaw, Moscow, Salt Lake City, London and Paris. This year, the movement can become global if there is pos itive response to an appeal to women to meet with white scarves on, at the main squares of cities on the last Sunday of September every year to make it a day of peace throughout the world when those who fight would lay down their arms and think what war i s doing to mankind. The aime: at least one day without shooting! The president of Georgia, Eduard Shevardnadze, wholeheartedly welcomed the White Scarf initiative and appealed to fellow political leaders in other countries to support the movement. The first lady of Portugal, Madame Soares, was among the first to re spond. On the 24th of September this year, the White Scarf peacemaking initiative would go round the clock and globe from Wellington, Auckland, Honolulu to the Samoa Island. We ask every man, says Keti Golidze who owes life to us, the women who conceived, carried and gave birth to each of those men, to grant us one unconditional day of peace! At the NGO Forum, White Scarf day activity is scheduled today, Sept.3, 14.30 h. at the Peace Tent.