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United Nations, Conference Room 6
October 15, 2007
Introductory remarks
by Rhianna Tyson
Senior Officer
Global Security Institute
On behalf of the Global Security Institute and the Parliamentary Network for Nuclear Disarmament, a GSI program and our co-sponsor today, I welcome all of you to this very special event entitled “Amplifying the Moral and Practical Missions of the United Nations: Parliamentarians, Diplomats and Engaged Citizens Working to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.” My name is Rhianna Tyson; I am a Senior Officer with the Global Security Institute. I am indubitably honored and privileged to be chairing this esteemed event. Just some very quick introductory remarks before I turn it over to the panelists.
The Global Security Institute is dedicated to strengthening international cooperation based on the rule of law, with a particular focus on nuclear arms control, non-proliferation and disarmament. For us, nuclear weapons themselves are the problem, not that there are “bad” countries that can’t have them or “good” ones that can. Like the plague, it is a weapon that must not be used by anybody. Possessing nuclear weapons presents one of the gravest threats to the people whose government possesses them. Because if you point nuclear weapons at somebody, you are ensuring that somebody will point them at you. Therefore, we at the Global Security Institute, like so many of our NGO and governmental colleagues, like so many experts both from the right and left (including Henry Kissinger and George Schultz), we are working for a world made safer by taking practical steps to make sure Americans, Russians and everyone will not be threatened by these horrible devices.
For those astute members of our audience, you will notice that, unlike probably most of the events surrounding the First Committee or international security in general, all of us up here are women. The rarity of a women-dominated panel, however, does not reflect either the reality of the movement to abolish nuclear weapons, nor should it be a habit to perpetuate.
One of the ideas behind this event was to draw delegates and observers from both the First as well as the Third Committee of the General Assembly, the latter being where issues relating to “women peace and security” are debated, and the former we deal with “hard security” issues. In a few weeks, we will be celebrating the SEVENTH anniversary of the historic Security Council resolution 1325—copies of which are in the back-- , by which all Member States of the United Nations vowed “to ensure increased representation of women at all decision-making levels in national, regional and international institutions and mechanisms for the prevention, management, and resolution of conflict.” It is nothing short of inspiring that each of the women on this panel is working at all levels to prevent the worst conflict of all-- one in which nuclear weapons are used. These women are, therefore, living embodiments of this principle enshrined in this legally-binding resolution of the Security Council. What an honor it is to introduce them.
Now every chair of every panel lauds the prestige and esteemed record of his or her (usually his) panelists. But as I introduce them—using just bits from their bios— and what a painstaking process it was to edit such remarkable backgrounds—you too will agree that these women are truly, uniquely esteemed.
I’d like first to turn to the woman on my left, one of America’s cultural leaders, Christie Brinkley. More than one of America’s most successful and recognizable models appearing on over 500 magazine covers worldwide, Ms. Brinkley is also a noted artist, writer, photographer, designer, actress, philanthropist, environmentalist and political activist. She is known for her commitment to health and fitness, and helped instill a culture and notion of beauty that comes from being healthy and fit, not gaunt and starved like too many other models today. She doesn’t just look healthy, either; she has raced in ski tournaments, twice placed in the National Cutting Horse Association Futurity Championship and in 1991 came in first place.
She has been actively involved in the movement to abolish nuclear weapons since she was a teenager. Her entrance into the realm of motherhood reinvigorated her commitment to disarmament, but I’ll let her talk about that herself, so I gladly and humbly turn the table over to you.
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I’d like next to introduce the Hon. Marian Hobbs of New Zealand, who is not only an expert in a wide variety of issues but, more importantly, she understands the connectedness between these issues of environmentalism, social justice, education, arms control and justice.
She has influenced the lives of thousands of New Zealanders, operating at every level of education from early childhood to university. Through her pedagogical career she was the Headmistress of an all girls school in Christchurch, which, I believe, prepared her adeptly for her later work as an MP and a diplomat. Having been a schoolgirl myself as well as having worked with diplomats these last 6 years, I can tell you the former was much more dangerous and difficult. So well done Marian, for having survived and lived to see another day.
After being elected MP on the Labour ticket, after which she managed to triple the Labour majority in Parliament, Ms. Hobbs was New Zealand’s Minister for the Environment, Urban Affairs, Disarmament and Arms Control and the National Library and Archives. Ms. Hobbs’ portfolio seems to validate the theory that women are much more apt multi-taskers, though I don’t think this quality made it into the text of 1325. Perhaps it should’ve.
Marian Hobbs, I am honored to turn the panel over to you.
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The third panelist is one of my own personal mentors and heroes—I don’t like the word heroine, for perhaps obvious reasons—Ms. Cora Weiss. Cora is the President of the Hague Appeal for Peace, has been well known as a peace activist since the early ‘60’s, when she was a co-founder of Women Strike for Peace which played a major role in bringing about the end of nuclear testing in the atmosphere. She was a leader in the anti-Vietnam war movement, organized demonstrations, including the largest one on November 15, 1969 in Washington, DC. As Co-Chair and Director of the Committee of Liaison with Families of Prisoners Detained in Vietnam, she organized the exchange of mail between families and POW’s in Vietnam which revealed and names of those alive and arranged for and accompanied some returning POW pilots. For ten years Ms Weiss was a volunteer teacher in the NY City public school system.
As a Trustee of Hampshire College, she started the campus campaign to divest stocks in companies doing business in South Africa. She has a long record of support for the United Nations, starting in the 1950’s when she hosted colonized Africans who were petitioning for the independence of their countries. She has devoted most of her life to the peace movement, the movement for the advancement of women, and the civil rights movement.
Among Ms. Weiss’ many awards are the Peace Studies Medal of Manhattan College and the George F. Kennan Award of the New Jersey Peace Action. In May of 1998 she and William Sloane Coffin were honored at The Riverside Church of New York on the 20th anniversary of their founding of the Riverside Disarmament Program which she directed for 10 years. In 1999 she was honored by the Phelps Stokes Fund for her work in the ‘50s and ‘60’s on Africa.
She is President of the International Peace Bureau, (Nobel Laureate 1910). Ms. Weiss participated in the Nobel Centennial Symposium held in Oslo, Norway in December 2001. She is also Joint-Principal of the Peace Boat’s Global University, an Advisory Board Member of Peace Child International’s Millennium Action Fund, and Honorary Patron of the Committee on Teaching About the United Nations. As President of the Hague Appeal for Peace, she is leading a campaign dedicated to the abolition of war. It seeks to re-focus our minds on the vision of a world in which violent conflict is publicly acknowledged as illegitimate, illegal, and fundamentally unjust. To implement that vision, the Hague Appeal for Peace has launched a Global Peace Education Campaign.
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And lastly, may I introduce Hon. Alexa McDonough, who is also a senior Member of Parliament, hailing from Canada. Like Marian, her background is as diverse and multi-faceted as the preceding MP on this panel, and she is equally inspiring. She has worked as a social worker, social policy researcher, and taught in all these fields as well as in community development.
Ms. McDonough has an impressive list of “firsts” that should be noted:
- In 1980, she became the Canada’s first woman an elected to lead a major party in a provincial legislature
- In 1997, she became the first New Democrat elected to Parliament from the mainland of Nova Scotia;
- the first NDP leader to win federal seats in New Brunswick
- the first NPD to win a majority of Nova Scotia seats
- In 2006 she was the first woman to win four consecutive federal terms in Nova Scotia
- the first woman and second MP to win four consecutive federal terms in Halifax and
- the ONLY woman elected in Atlantic Canada in the 39th federal election.
She has been active in promoting racial equality and social justice since she was fourteen, and, combined with such a laudable record in government, it is no wonder that she has received numerous awards for her peace advocacy work, including the 2003 Results Canada Political Leadership Award “in recognition of her outstanding leadership in the fight against global poverty and disease.”
It is from this solid background in social justice from which Ms. McDonough’s commitment to nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation has grown, leading her to become one of five co-Presidents (all women) of the Parliamentary Network for Nuclear Disarmament. It is an honor to pass the microphone to her.
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