Woman PeaceMaker speaks on Pakistan

"If Pakistan is at peace, the rest of the world will feel their peace," said Woman PeaceMaker Rubina Feroze Bhatti, of Pakistan, during an informal interview in the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice.
On Oct. 6, Rubina, a soft-spoken, jasmine-scented activist, educated audience members at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice about Pakistan's current economic instability, violence and discrimination.
Hungry, impoverished and underdeveloped, Pakistan is at the mercy of foreign investors. According to The World Factbook, published by the CIA, inflation rates in Pakistan rose from 7.7 percent in 2007 to 20.8 percent in 2008.
"More than 40 percent of people are living on the poverty line," Rubina said.
According to Rubina, as the war against terror intensifies, any sort of financial promise is weakened. Poverty-stricken Pakistani citizens grow desperate and fuel Islamic extremism. To encourage civilian involvement, extremist leaders offer free meals and money to citizens suffering from poverty.
Desperate citizens bomb, hijack, kidnap and claim lives. The money earned from acts of extremism is left behind for family members. To regulate extremist insurgency, the U.S. sends military forces to Pakistan.
"If you are representing United State[s], if you are coming to my country to kill someone," Rubina said during a one-on-one interview, "then extremist [leaders] can easily exploit [and] can easily trap, innocent Pakistani[s] that look at you as our enemy."
In attempts to stop terrorist activity, public buildings, including mosques and schools, are demolished. Mothers, children and other innocent civilians are killed.
"We are trying to kill the terrorist, we are trying to clean the terrorist, but we are not going to [be able to] shut up the channels [that] stop the terrorist [leaders] which breed the terrorist," Rubina said.
In an effort to create global understanding, Rubina came to USD to share with Americans "how we are suffering with this war against terrorism, economic crisis, political instability, movement issues, minority issues, extremism."
Rubina broke her silence as a Christian woman living in both a male and Muslim dominated culture. She became the voice of TWO, Taangh Wasaib Organization, a group which addresses issues of violence and discriminatory laws against women, and religious intolerance, in hopes of creating harmony and equality.
"Rubina is certainly not your everyday Pakistani woman," peace writer Kaitlin Barker said. "She bucks the social norms around her and challenges other women to think past their cultural fabric."
In a population that is 70 percent illiterate, Rubina reached out to women and minorities through theater arts performances. She trained 200 performance groups to report on violence throughout the Punjab and West Frontier Provinces. She offered her support, counsel and legal aid to victims of violence.
Rubina's stories of both religious and gender-based oppression of women "hit home" for Parminder Randhawa, a USD student and Punjab native.
"I cannot tell you how incredibly unusual and challenging it is for an individual woman to stand up to the grave injustices minorities face in the feudal village system," she said.
During a one-on-one interview, Rubina offered insight to a Pakistan-U.S. conflict resolution. She suggested an approach of starting at the grass-roots level with a college exchange program.
The college exchange program would assert core issues including the distrust between Pakistan and America. Students would work together to build relationships and send messages of peace through newspaper articles in Pakistan.
"If America [stopped] spending money on weapons, military and intelligence, [and instead] if they spend the money on development projects so [then the] terrorist could not brainwash our students but by saying America is our enemy," Rubina said.
With a focus on insurgency in Pakistan, there is no energy left to tend to the basic needs of citizens. Economic instability will continue to increase along with lack of foreign investment. Rubina believes there needs to be a better global understanding of the war against terror, from both inside and outside the communities under attack.
"So the end will only be through the peace efforts at grass-root level, at national level, at international level," Rubina said.