|
International Peace Award Honors
Darfur Survivor and Activist
Halima Bashir remembers sitting around the campfire with her
mother, grandmother, and siblings, enjoying stories by her father, who she
adored.
He named her Halima after the village’s medicine woman, and he
nicknamed her Rathebe after a famous singer from South Africa who protested the
persecution of blacks. It was his first step in preparing his firstborn for life
as a healer and activist. His inspiration, guidance, and belief in her set
Halima on a course to serve others and speak out.
Halima Bashir, a 29-year-old MD, will receive the 16th Community
of Christ International Peace Award. It will honor her for work as a doctor and
activist for women and children in Darfur. The award will be presented at 7:30
p.m. CDT, Friday, October 23, at the Community of Christ Temple in Independence,
Missouri. The event will be webcast at
www.CofChrist.org.
Childhood to Medicine Woman
Halima’s childhood had happy beginnings in her rural Darfur
village. There was an atmosphere of respect, and she internalized the Muslim
value for humanitarian rights.
She was the only child from her village sent to town, where
there was a “big school” with actual classrooms and lesson plans. Later it was
on to university to pursue medical studies. “If my father didn’t think these
things up,” Halima explained to Apostle Andrew Bolton, the Peace Colloquy
co-director, “I would never be in this position now…. This confidence I think I
inherited from my father.”
Violence in Darfur flared in 2003 between Sudanese rebels and
the government-endorsed Janjaweed (“the devil horsemen”) militia. Janjaweed
tactics included looting and burning villages, killing men, and raping women and
girls. News of these atrocities spread to Halima’s home, where she returned
after medical school. She noted that “fear, and horror, and evil” stalked the
village.
Halima sought placement at a hospital, where she treated
soldiers from both sides. She also treated a flood of injured women and children
from villages.
Following a brief—and what she had thought was careful—interview
with a reporter, police took her by force from the hospital and harassed her.
They made it clear that speaking out was not permitted. Shortly afterward, as a
junior doctor who had not completed training, she was punished when the Health
Ministry transferred her—against her wishes and without support of her
supervisors—to run a clinic in a remote village in northern Darfur.
She treated villagers and rebel soldiers. Soon she was sending
medical supplies with the soldiers so they could treat them-selves and others in
the field. This earned more intimidation from police. But the worst was yet to
come.
 In Tears of the Desert, Halima wrote, “Never, not even in
my darkest, blackest nightmare, had I imagined that I would ever witness such
horror.”
One day dozens of parents came running to the clinic. They
carried crying daughters who were bloodied. Earlier, the girls—as young as
seven—had been raped by Janjaweed men while the horrified parents were held at
bay outside a school by government soldiers wielding machine guns.
With all the gentleness she owns, and no available anesthetic,
Halima did her best to treat and console the children and their families. She
fought to stay strong for her young patients and told them to rely on God. “God
is stronger than they are,” she proclaimed.
Knowing it was a risk, Halima shared all she had witnessed with
United Nations workers. Barely a week after the attack, soldiers abducted her.
Halima was held hostage and gang-raped for three days.
Her abusers told her, “We’re going to let you live because we
know you’d prefer to die.” Halima made it home to her village. Months later it
was her father who found a way for Halima to live—an arranged marriage to a man
he promised would accept her. Halima remembered Sharif from when they were
children. He now worked “for the cause, the struggle.”
She had been home five months when war revisited, destroying her
village. She fled to the forest with her mother and siblings. Most of the men,
including her father, were killed.
Advocacy Continues
With no home and a government that sought to kill her, Halima
dug up her family’s savings and fled to the United Kingdom. She eventually was
united with Sharif, and they now have children of their own.
Halima has continued to speak courageously for women and
children in Darfur. She is the second Muslim and eighth woman to receive the
Community of Christ International Peace Award since its inception in 1993.
“I’m still speaking out and [campaigning] for people in Darfur,”
Halima said, “because suddenly I find myself in a safe place talking to people
who listen. And they are ready to help us. And it is the only way I can help my
people…campaign for justice for Darfur.”
Her ultimate wish is to rebuild life as she once knew it. Halima
said, “I wish for the future just for peace to come…for all that’s happening in
Darfur to stop soon, and to go back home.”
16th Annual Peace Colloquy
Halima Bashir will give her keynote address, “Tears of the
Desert,” at the opening of the Peace Colloquy. She then will be available to
sign her book of the same title. It shares her life story.
The theme for the October 23–25
Peace Colloquy is Justice for
Women, Dignity for All. This colloquy is for women and men to explore ongoing
women’s justice issues and act as allies in the cause of dignity for all.
Workshops and keynote speakers will explore the theme from many perspectives.
Watch future Heralds and
www.CofChrist.org/peacecolloquy/ for more details. Register online now or
call 1-800-825-2806, ext. 3077.
—Kendra Friend reporting
May 2009 Herald
| 
