- 'If you can do something to change our world, do it,' said Nobel laureate Leymah Roberta Gbowee at a meeting at WNS. The Liberian activist came to Gdańsk to visit her students, who were studying in Kyiv and fled from there due to the war. The students were offered help by the University of Gdańsk.
The 1990s were one of the most difficult times for Liberia, a small country in West Africa. A year after the seven-year civil war, which claimed 300,000 lives (10% of the entire population), another internal armed conflict broke out.
An important role in ending this second civil war was played by a group of women who, in 2002, started a protest along a road frequented daily by Charles Taylor, the then president of Liberia. After seven months of continuous strike, one of the activists obtained an audience with the head of state. Leymah Roberta Gbowee forced the President to start truce talks, which were the first step towards peace and reconstruction in Liberia.
Nine years later the activist, together with the Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, received the Nobel Prize for her part in the peaceful end of the civil war and for her work for women's rights (now Liberia is one of the few African countries where rape is a crime).
On March 15, this year, Leymah Roberta Gbowee came to the University of Gdańsk to visit female students who had studied in Ukraine and who had fled from there after the outbreak of war and found refuge at our university. After visiting the Rector of the UG, prof. dr hab. Piotr Stepnowski, the Nobel Prize winner gave a lecture and spoke to students at the Faculty of Social Sciences. - 'When I was 18, the world I knew so well changed dramatically. Suddenly people were telling me that I couldn't talk to someone because this person belonged to a different ethnic group,' - began Leymah Roberta Gbowee. - 'Today, similarly, the world of the Ukrainians is completely different from the one they lived in a fortnight ago. So is the world of Poles, Roma, Hungarians and even Liberians.'
The activist talked about how she set out to change her world and how nowadays people forget about humanity, and then revealed to the audience the source of her motivation to act. - 'Hope is like the keys to a car. It allows you to go where you want, but you can't do it with an empty tank. You need fuel. For me, rage is the fuel. It is thanks to rage that I can go out on the street to protest and oppose the authorities,' said Leymah Roberta Gbowee.
The last part of the meeting consisted of a Q&A with the audience. Students asked the Liberian activist about her opinions on Russian women activists, Vladimir Putin and non-violent ways of protest. - 'Nowadays people put an equal sign between Russians and Putin. I experienced similar behaviour about Liberia, people immediately identified it with Charles Taylor. But, instead, we should think of Russia as a place where people are taking to the streets every day to stop this war,' - she said.
- 'Ms Leymah Gbowee is an incredibly charismatic person. No wonder she has done so much for her country. I was most interested in the fact that she is motivated by anger because hope alone is not enough for her,' - said Asia, a student of economic and social geography.
- 'I think it is worth inviting more such people because such speeches are important for students. I like the fact that Ms Gbowee acts. She doesn't just talk, she does something all the time,' added Janka, a student of the same faculty.
- 'If you can do something to change our world, then do it. Let history judge you. Be remembered like Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela, not like Vladimir Putin,' - concluded the Liberian Nobelist.
