A Lighthouse of Peace and Equality:
The project of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the Record, Nobel & Iron Lady
She has been the first black woman of the World becoming President of State and also the first women Chief of State in the African continent. And, most likely, she would have never believed that in 6 year she was also going to win a Nobel Peace Award.
We are talking about the “Iron Lady”, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, President of Liberia since January 2006, so called because of her strength of will.
Her prize ceremony took place in 2011 with 2 others big women, Leymah Gbowee and Tawakul Karman (check our article written by Letizia Gianfranceschi), winners in the same year and for the same reason:
“their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s right to full partecipation in pace-building work”.
The Johnson-Sirleaf’s prize-giving process was not so easy. Debates rised because at that moment she was running for President.
No step of her long way was, actually, very simple. She lived between Liberia and United States of America, where she was after the divorce from her husband that she married when she was only seventeen.
Each time she returned to her country of origin was forced to leave because of the civil war and, once slow to do so, she was captured by the regime and held for several long months.
The bloody civil war ended only in 2003 with the Accra agreements and the exile of Taylor, the dictator of the time, when the number of people who died was tragically increased up to two hundred thousand.
Two years later, there was the candidacy of Ellen Johson Sirleaf that some of his opponents asked the Supreme Court of Liberia to declare illegal (based on an article of the Constitution which stipulates that candidates must have been resident in Liberia for at least ten years) . The Request was rejected by the Court considering the tragic political conditions of Liberia at the time.
A few months after her victory (against George Weah, a former soccer player from Paris Saint Germain and AC Milan), when she went to the US Congress to ask the American support to help her Country, she expressed his goal to get it
“become a shining lighthouse, an example for Africa and for the World of what can get the love of freedom.”
Her pragmatism has granted to position herself in 2010 among the top ten best leaders in the World according to Newsweek and among the top ten leading woman according to the Times. The Economist defined her ‘arguably the best president the country ever had’.
Her optimism mixed to her passion continue even today to lead her activities, focused on two main points at the center of its political agenda from an early age: the economic reconstruction of the Country, devastated by years of civil war, and Women’s rights , totally absent in Liberia. “Now women can say «I can do it!»”- claimed in an interview — they are more present in politics and in the private sector and have freedom of expression and movement.”
Basic objectives but, in Liberia, they had not yet been achieved ever. The construction of this lighthouse is still very long but the first bricks were placed and everyone is expecting the moment when the light will turn on.
