It's not everyday that two Nobel Peace Prize winners get together and offer their views on helping the world.
Shirin Ebadi, an Iranian lawyer and human rights activist and University of Houston Prof. Jody Williams led a discussion on topic ranging from human rights violations to nuclear weapons.
Brandeis University President Jehuda Reinharz welcomed the women, praising their humanitarian efforts. He said their mission coincides with the mission of the university.
"It's a specific commitment to social justice, it's a specific commitment to truth-seeking and it is a specific commitment to ethnic and religious pluralism," he said. "We often wonder what would Justice Louis Brandeis think of what we are doing ... I think he would be pleased."
Last night's discussion was the inaugural event for the Diane Markowicz Memorial Lecture series on Gender and Human Rights. Markowicz died in 1976.
Markowicz, a daughter of Holocaust survivors, was a Brandeis student who inspired people to pursue social justice, her sister Sylvia Neil said last night.
"My sister was an extraordinary teenager," she said. "The purpose of our program is to take academic human rights theories into the real world and make a difference. Our inaugural speakers Professor Jody Williams and Dr. Shirin Ebadi are paradigm speakers in this (initiative)."
Ebadi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003 for her international efforts to promote democracy and human rights for women, children and political prisoners. She is the first Iranian and first woman from a Muslim country to receive the award. Last night she spoke through a translator about women in the Middle East.
"Tonight I want to talk to you about the status of the Middle East and the role of women creating peace in this region," she said. "As you all know, people of the Middle East are burning in the fires of war," and wonder who is controlling their fate.
Ebadi said a lack of democracy in Middle Eastern countries is a reason for the turmoil.
"In these countries people distance themselves from the government, a government that does not accept criticism," she said. "Therefore people (resort) to violence and terrorism."
Ebadi said the U.S. is also perpetuating the problem.
"The only solution is for the USA (to) not to support these (regimes). Stop selling arms to them for a while," she said. "The explicit violation of human rights should be brought to the attention to the youth of the world."
In 1997 Williams became the 10th woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize for her work with the International Campaign to Ban Landmines.
"Just thinking about change doesn't make change," she said. "Getting off your butt and doing things makes change."
The campaign led to the creation of the international treaty banning antipersonnel land mines. Last night she said she hopes to work to ban nuclear weapons in the future.
"The issues I care about in the world are issues of human security," she said. "I want people to understand that women's issues are everybody's issues. I want women's issues to be recognized as human issues."
In 2006, working with other women Nobel Peace Prize recipients, Ebadi and Williams founded the Nobel Women's Initiative to use their experience to work for peace, justice and equality.
Jeff Gilbride can be reached at 781-398-8005 or at jgilbrid@cnc.com
