Edith Ballantyne

Last updated
Edith Ballantyne
Van links naar rechts Edith Ballantyne, Dorothee Solle (Duitsland), Annemarie Gr, Bestanddeelnr 931-8309.jpg
Edith Ballantyne (2nd from left) in 1981
Born
Edith Müller

(1922-12-10) 10 December 1922 (age 101)
Krnov, Czech Silesia, Czechoslovakia
NationalityCanadian
OccupationPeace activist
Years active1968–1998

Edith Ballantyne (born 10 December 1922) is a Czech-born Canadian citizen, who has been a prominent member of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) since 1969. At that time, she became the executive secretary of the international organisation, based in Geneva, Switzerland, serving in that capacity for twenty-three years. Between 1992 and 1998, she served as the International President of the organisation. In 1995, she was honored as the recipient of the Gandhi Peace Award.

Contents

Early life

Edith Müller was born on 10 December 1922 in Krnov in Czech Silesia to Rosa and Alois Müller. She was raised in Czechoslovakia until the Sudeten Crisis of 1938. The family fled first to England, and by 1939 made their way to Canada, where they were placed by the Canadian Pacific Railway Company to farm in British Columbia. Unable to sustain their family, they moved to Toronto in 1941, where Müller found work as a domestic labourer. Unable to speak English, she was taught the language by Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) volunteers, who kept track of the Bohemian refugees and tried to assist them in making adjustments to life in Canada. Joining the WILPF, Müller found their message of pacifism and human rights inspiring but lost touch with the group when she moved to Montreal in 1945. In July 1948, Müller married Campbell Ballantyne, an official of the International Labour Office and moved with him to Geneva later that same year. [1] [2] [3]

Career

Upon her arrival in Switzerland, Ballantyne began work for the World Health Organization, in the publications section, as the deputy director. After five years, she left the post to care for the couple's four children. After twenty years of living in Geneva, she discovered that the headquarters of WILPF were located there and volunteered to serve in 1968. The following year, she became the Secretary General of the organisation, [1] [2] and accepted a full-time position to work on improving WILPF's interaction with NGOs and the United Nations (UN). [4] In 1970, she attended the WILPF's Eighteenth Congress, held in New Delhi, which had a profound effect on her view of balancing freedom and peace. She recognized that if peaceful means of solving a conflict had been exhausted, there had to be a means to recognize that the oppressed were likely to resort to violence and members could support non-violence without condemning exploited persons who felt that other options did not exist. [5] The debates that followed the meeting, resulted in a resolution that idealistic pursuit of pacifism could not replace the recognition that the ultimate goal of peace was to allow people to attain their liberation and live freely. [6] In 1972, she became the coordinator of WILPF's work with the UN. [7] Her Indian trip was followed in 1975 with an observer group which toured the Middle East, which spurred Ballantyne to recommend that WILPF press for continued dialogue between the sides of conflict but remain neutral on issues such as violence and human rights abuses which resulted from, rather than caused conflict. [8] She believed that the role of WILPF was to encourage both sides to find peaceful means to coexist without focusing on who was to blame for the situation or favoritism. [9] [10]

In 1976, Ballantyne was elected to direct the Conference of Non-governmental Organisations (CONGO) of the UN [11] and served as its president for the next six years. [12] As the first representative to hold the post from a peace activist group, she opened the door to the pursuit of disarmament goals. [11] [13] When the World Conference on Women, 1980 was held in Copenhagen, Ballantyne served as chair of program development for NGO Forum, ensuring that there was strong emphasis on peace and disarmament in the discussions of the various workshops. [14] [15] She hosted two organising committees, one in Geneva and the other in New York City, to ensure that broad input from diverse groups formed the foundation of the conference. [16] The following year, she helped develop a conference "Women of Europe in Action for Peace" with the goal of bringing together activists and feminists to study the fears propelling the arms race and develop programs for monitoring developments in peace talks. [17] In 1983, Ballantyne was among 10,000 women who met with generals at NATO headquarters to protest new missile deployments in Europe. [18] The missiles were deployed despite protests and soon thereafter, the United States invaded Grenada. Coupled with US military involvement in the Contra War, Ballantyne chaired the "International Conference on Nicaragua and Peace in Central America" with Adolfo Pérez Esquivel in Lisbon in 1984 to discuss the escalating arms race. [19] Her focus on following both mainstream strategies to achieve peace and supporting organisations which refused to adopt traditional strategies became the basis of WILPF policy to adopt a two-pronged approach in support of peace activism. [16]

Ballantyne again served as chair for the planning committee of the NGO forum for the World Conference on Women, 1985 to be held in Nairobi. The Peace Tent, an idea pressed by Ballantyne, was set up on the lawn of the University of Nairobi and became a focal point of the conference. At the tent, daily sessions were held where women discussed the impacts of war on women and children. [20] [21] [22] In 1992, Ballantyne became the International President of the WILPF and served in that capacity for the next six years. [1] [23] In 1995, she was honored as the recipient of the Gandhi Peace Award. [24]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Emily Greene Balch</span> American economist, academic, and Nobel Laureate

Emily Greene Balch was an American economist, sociologist and pacifist. Balch combined an academic career at Wellesley College with a long-standing interest in social issues such as poverty, child labor, and immigration, as well as settlement work to uplift poor immigrants and reduce juvenile delinquency.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Women's International League for Peace and Freedom</span> Civil society organization

The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) is a non-profit non-governmental organization working "to bring together women of different political views and philosophical and religious backgrounds determined to study and make known the causes of war and work for a permanent peace" and to unite women worldwide who oppose oppression and exploitation. WILPF has national sections in 37 countries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marii Hasegawa</span>

Marii Hasegawa, born Kyogoku Marii, was a peace activist, known for her fifty years of work with the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, including serving as its president during the Vietnam War.

Margaret Joan Holmes was an Australian peace activist, particularly during the Vietnam War and as part of the Anglican Pacifist Fellowship. She founded the New South Wales branch of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom in 1960, and in 2001 was made a Member of the Order of Australia for her services to the community.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lola Maverick Lloyd</span>

Lola Maverick Lloyd was an American pacifist, suffragist, world federalist and feminist. Born in Texas to the wealthy Maverick family, Lola Maverick married William Bross Lloyd, the son of muckraking journalist Henry Demarest Lloyd. Together, they leveraged their family's influence and wealth to support Progressive Era causes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gabrielle Duchêne</span> French feminist and pacifist

Gabrielle Duchêne was a French feminist and pacifist who was active in the French section of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF).

Heloise Brainerd was an American activist and a proponent of Latin American women's participation in the peace movement. Brainerd worked at the Pan American Union from 1909 to 1935 and then Women's International League for Peace and Freedom's US section. She received several international awards, including the Medal of Public Instruction from Venezuela and the Order of Merit from Ecuador.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eugénia Miskolczy Meller</span> Hungarian feminist

Eugénia Miskolczy Meller was one of the most active feminists and women's rights activists in Hungary from the turn of the century to the interwar period. One of the founding members of the Feminist Association, she served as a leader for many of the organizations committees and events, arguing for gender equality, as well as women's suffrage. A pacifist, Meller worked with the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) arguing for disarmament and urging the passage of international laws codifying citizenship regulations to protect women. Though she had converted to Lutheranism, she was arrested when the Nazis invaded Hungary in 1944 and disappeared. In 1946, she was posthumously honored for her humanitarian works.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gertrud Baer</span> German Jewish womens rights and peace activist

Gertrud Baer (1890–1981) was a German Jewish women's rights and peace activist. One of the founding members of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, she served as the executive secretary of the German branch of WILPF beginning in 1921 and co-chair of the international organization from 1929 to 1947. Throughout World War II, though leadership was shared, Baer was the primary leader of the organization. At the end of the war, she became the first WILPF consultant to the United Nations and held that post until 1972.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clara Ragaz</span> Swiss feminist pacifist

Clara Ragaz was one of the most noted Swiss feminist pacifists of the first half of the twentieth century. She was a founder of the Swiss Federation of Abstinent Women, an organization that supported the temperance movement in Switzerland. She served as the co-International chair of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) from 1929 to 1946.

Kathleen Innes was a British Quaker, educator, writer and pacifist, who served as the joint chair of the international headquarters for the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) from 1937 to 1946.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gertrude C. Bussey</span> American philosopher and activist

Gertrude Carman Bussey was an American academic philosopher and activist for women's rights, civil liberties, and peace.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Louise Keilhau</span> Norwegian teacher and peace activist

Louise Keilhau (1860–1927) was a Norwegian teacher and peace activist. She founded the Norwegian Committee for Permanent Peace and she was a founding member of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF).

Krishna Ahooja-Patel was an Indian trade unionist, women's rights activist, journalist, and pacifist who worked in various organizations such as the United Nations (UN).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Feminist peace research</span>

Feminist peace research uses a feminist framework to expand on conventional peace research practices, examining the roles of gender and other power structures to conceptualize and actively build peace with justice. Feminist peace research understands peace and violence to be interwoven and ongoing processes that occur at many scales, and points to how these scales are interconnected. While gender is the dominant lens through which processes of peace and violence are analyzed, this research seeks to address the ways in which other intersecting systems of power, such as race, class, sexuality, and disability, among many others, further complicate these dynamics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yella Hertzka</span> Austrian womens rights and peace activist (1873–1948)

Yella Hertzka was an Austrian women's rights and peace activist, school director, and music business executive. She began working in women's humanitarian and social improvement projects in 1900. Co-founding the Neuer Wiener Frauenklub in 1903, she served as its president from 1909 to 1933. From 1904 she participated in the international women's rights movements, supporting women's suffrage and pacifism. In 1919, she attended the Zürich congress of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF). She was a co-founder of the Austrian section of the WILPF, organized its 1921 Vienna Congress, and attended every international WILPF congress held between 1919 and 1948. She worked to free prisoners of war after World War I and during World War II helped those wanting to emigrate or oppose the draft.

Camille Drevet née Bonnat was a French anti-colonialist, feminist activist and pacifist. She was an important figure in the French section of the League against Imperialism. She served as international secretary of Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (LIFPL).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Olga Bianchi</span> Latin American pacifist and human rights activist

Olga Bianchi Droguett (1924–2015) was an Argentine-born Chilean filmmaker, feminist, pacifist and women's rights activist. As a result of her resistance to Augusto Pinochet, she fled Chile in 1975 and settled with her children in Costa Rica. A convinced pacifist, in the early 1980s she joined Liga Internacional de las Mujeres Pro Paz y Libertad (LIMPAL), the Latin American branch of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), becoming LIMPAL vice-president in 1986 and 1989. In addition, she served as LIMPAL's permanent representative to the United Nations in Geneva. Bianchi was also a board member of Amnesty International in Costa Rica and a founding member of the human rights organization CODEHU, the Costa Rican representation with the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Erna P. Harris</span> American writer and activist (1908–1995)

Erna Prather Harris was an American journalist, businesswoman, and activist, known for her pacifism. Born in Oklahoma, she grew up in the segregated South and attended Black schools. After graduating from Douglass High School in Kingfisher, Oklahoma, she worked as a maid to earn enough money to attend an integrated university. Graduating from Wichita State University in 1936, and unable to find work, she opened her own newspaper, The Kansas Journal.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Virginia Tango Piatti</span> Italian writer and activist (1869–1958)

Virginia Tango Piatti was an Italian writer, pacifist, anti-fascist, and women's rights activist. Born in Florence, the family settled in Rome in 1897, where she was briefly schooled by nuns. She moved to Milan in 1904 to help with the education of her sister's children and met the painter Antonio Piatti, whom she married in 1905. Although she had begun writing around the time of her marriage, it became her livelihood in 1911, when she separated from her husband. She adopted the pen name Agar at that time, publishing poems, children's stories and articles about pacifism in various journals. Her outspokenness against fascism led to her registration as a subversive and her self-exile to Paris.

References

Citations

  1. 1 2 3 Cassigneul 2014.
  2. 1 2 Ruby 2012.
  3. ↑ Foster 1989, pp. 155–156.
  4. ↑ Foster 1989, p. 156.
  5. ↑ Foster 1989, pp. 61–63.
  6. ↑ Foster 1989, p. 64.
  7. ↑ Foster 1989, p. 104.
  8. ↑ Foster 1989, pp. 79–80.
  9. ↑ Foster 1989, p. 82.
  10. ↑ Confortini 2012, p. 106.
  11. 1 2 Foster 1989, pp. 77–78.
  12. ↑ Foster 1989, p. 159.
  13. ↑ Winslow 1995, p. 145.
  14. ↑ Foster 1989, p. 79.
  15. ↑ Winslow 1995, pp. 144–145.
  16. 1 2 Confortini 2012, p. 124.
  17. ↑ Foster 1989, pp. 84–85.
  18. ↑ Foster 1989, p. 92.
  19. ↑ Foster 1989, p. 93.
  20. ↑ Foster 1989, pp. 95–97.
  21. ↑ Winslow 1995, p. 147.
  22. ↑ Confortini 2012, pp. 126–128.
  23. ↑ Ford 2015.
  24. ↑ Mathai, John & Joseph 2002, p. 83.

Bibliography

  • Cassigneul, B., ed. (27 March 2014). "Edith Ballantyne". WILPF France (in French). Paris, France: International Women's League for Peace and Freedom. Archived from the original on 6 August 2017. Retrieved 6 August 2017.
  • Confortini, Catia Cecilia (2012). Intelligent Compassion: Feminist Critical Methodology in the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. New York City, New York: Oxford University Press USA. ISBN   978-0-19-984523-1.
  • Foster, Catherine (1989). Women for all Seasons: The Story of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press. ISBN   0-8203-1147-2.
  • Ford, Liz (27 April 2015). "Centenary stand: female activists head for The Hague to set a new peace agenda". The Guardian . London, England. Archived from the original on 10 May 2017. Retrieved 7 August 2017.
  • Mathai, Mundackal Paulose; John, M. S.; Joseph, Siby K. (2002). Meditations on Gandhi: A Ravindra Varma Festschrift. New Delhi, India: Concept Publishing Company. ISBN   978-81-7022-961-2.
  • Ruby, Felicity (11 December 2012). "Happy Birthday Edith Ballantyne". WILPF. Geneva, Switzerland: Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. Archived from the original on 3 December 2015. Retrieved 6 August 2017.
  • Winslow, Anne (1995). Women, politics, and the United Nations (1st ed.). Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. ISBN   0-313-29522-0.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.