Betty Williams

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Betty Williams, 1978

Betty Williams (born Elisabeth Smyth ; born May 22, 1943 in Belfast , Northern Ireland ; † March 17, 2020 there ) was an international peace activist. For founding the Northern Irish organization Community of Peace People , which works for peace in Northern Ireland, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1976 together with Mairead Corrigan .

Life

Childhood, youth, family

Betty Williams grew up in Belfast as the daughter of a Protestant father and a Catholic mother (whose father was Jewish) in simple circumstances; her father worked in a butcher's shop, her mother was a housewife. She herself was raised Catholic and attended St. Theresa's Catholic Primary School and St. Dominic's High School in Belfast and then completed courses at a business school. When she was 14, her mother suffered a stroke and became a long-term care provider; Since then, Betty has been partly responsible for the upbringing of her sister, who is five years her junior.

After her apprenticeship, Betty Williams worked in various jobs, according to her own statements, it never lasted long in one job, but she was also laid off regularly. Before her political engagement, she worked as a waitress on weekends and as a secretary (“girl for everything”) in a consulting firm on weekdays.

In 1961, at the age of 18, she married the Protestant marine engineer Ralph Williams, who came from Bermuda . Their son Paul was born in 1963 and daughter Deborah in 1970. Williams was always employed during their marriage "to stay clear in the head".

The interdenominational marriage of her parents made Betty Williams aware of the political processes in her country at an early age. Her Protestant grandfather was assaulted and persistently bullied at work in the 1940s when it became known that his son was married to a Catholic. Two of her cousins ​​were killed rather accidentally on the street in the 1970s - one by Protestants, the other by the Catholic IRA . Nevertheless, she led an apolitical life until 1976.

Betty Williams, 1976

Foundation of the Community of Peace People

The trigger for their political engagement were events on August 10, 1976: two IRA activists tried to escape British soldiers in their car; the driver was shot at the wheel and his companion was seriously injured. The car caught a woman and her three young children, including a baby. The mother survived seriously injured and all three children died.

Betty Williams, who lived on this street in the Andersonstown suburb, heard the car crash and witnessed the events. Shocked and overwhelmed, she made the immediate decision to do something about the everyday, senseless violence: She started in front of her own door and tried to shake up the neighbors. When the media reported on their engagement and their appeal against violence and for reconciliation was televised two days after the event, support grew within a very short time and there were peace demonstrations with an estimated half a million people across Great Britain and Northern Ireland . Their first and closest companions were Mairead Corrigan , the aunt of the three killed children, and the journalist Ciaran McKeown , who offered to help them - the three met at the funeral of the three children. The next day, at a call by Betty Williams and the Women for Peace group she founded , 10,000 people gathered for demonstrations in Andersonstown.

At this point the Northern Ireland conflict was in its seventh year; around 1,600 people had already lost their lives, there were a few smaller peace movements, but they were rarely able to activate more than a few thousand people.

A few days after the funeral, the two women and Ciaran McKeown met and wrote the Declaration of Peace People , which consisted of a few memorable formulas:

  • We want to live and love and build a just and peaceful society.
  • We want for our children, as well as for ourselves, at home, at work and in the playground, a life full of peace and joy.
  • We recognize that building such a life requires hard work and courage.
  • We recognize that there are many problems in our society that are sources of conflict and violence.
  • We recognize that every single bullet that is fired and every bomb that explodes makes this work more difficult.
  • We reject the bomb and the bullet and all techniques of violence.
  • We pledge to work with our neighbors near and far, day and night, to build this peaceful society in which tragedies as we know them will be a nasty reminder and a constant warning.

This was followed by the so-called Peace Rally , in which peace demonstrations took place week after week all over Northern Ireland. The main activists of the Community of Peace People , to which the Woman for Peace had become, traveled in buses from city to city. As a highlight, Betty Williams and her colleagues organized an action in Trafalgar Square in London in October 1976 , in which the American singer and peace activist Joan Baez also took part. Due to the international interest, an amount of almost 300,000 British pounds could be collected, with which the construction of a headquarters, the association newspaper Peace by Peace and some community projects were financed. Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan traveled through Europe, Australia and the US to demonstrate their goals.

In October 1977 the two women were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for the year 1976 for their commitment to the Peace People retrospectively (1976 the prize was initially not awarded), they received it in December 1977. Betty Williams, who is often the driving force of the movement at that time, held the acceptance speech on behalf of both of them. In her she said:

Compassion is more important than intellect to evoke the love that peace work needs, and intuition can often be a far more powerful guide than cold reason. We have to think, think hard, but if we don't have compassion before we even start thinking, we will very likely only fight the theories.

After the Nobel Prize

The use of the prize money, the equivalent of almost 80,000 British pounds, caused some resentment within the Peace People : Instead of supporting projects in developing countries as announced or using it for projects of the organization, the women, on the initiative of Betty Williams, each kept half of the sum for yourself. Williams stated in an interview in 1986 that she was completely penniless at the time and, given her failed marriage and time-consuming political commitment, the money was urgently needed for a living.

For the Peace People this was only one aspect of emerging conflicts: financial and personal differences, differences of opinion about the direction of the organization, but also the emotionality of the commitment led to an escalation in early 1980. In February, Betty Williams left the Peace People in an argument.

In October 1982 she emigrated to Florida / USA with her second husband James Perkins, a mineral oil manager, and their daughter Deborah. There she began to campaign for international peace projects. In 1992 she met with the newly elected US President Bill Clinton and his Vice Al Gore to describe the situation in Burma and East Timor and to call for American engagement. In Texas, she was appointed to the Children and Youth Commission by the governor. In 1997 Williams founded the children's rights organization World Centers of Compassion for Children International , which she chaired (as of 2005).

Betty Williams was a member of the Honorary Council of the UN Peace University ( UPEACE ) in Costa Rica and was a member of the Presidium of the Institute for Democracy in Asia, based in Washington , from where she coordinated her work for Burma. She was also an honorary member of the Club of Budapest .

Betty Williams has received numerous awards for her activities as a "peace fighter", such as the Eleanor Roosevelt Award for human rights created by Clinton in 1999 or the Martin Luther King, Jr. Award . In 2002 she taught at Nova Southeastern University in Tampa , Florida.

After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 , she gave a lecture at the University of Miami in which she described her deep horror at the events, admitted her completely non-pacifistic spontaneous personal reaction ("Nuke them!") - and then explained in detail why the reaction should by no means be violent and that a lasting fight against terrorism should only be carried out by peaceful means.

In 2004 Betty Williams returned to Northern Ireland, where she lived until her death in March 2020.

honors and awards

Betty Williams, Women's World Awards 2009

literature

  • Richard Deutsch: Mairead Corrigan, Betty Williams. Two Women Who Ignored Danger in Campaigning for Peace in Northern Ireland. Barron's, Woodbury NY 1977, ISBN 0-8120-5268-4 .
  • Sarah Buscher, Bettina Ling: Máiread Corrigan and Betty Williams. Making Peace in Northern Ireland. Feminist Press at the City University of New York, New York NY 1999, ISBN 1-55861-200-9 (For children 9-12).
  • Christiane Grefe : "We are there to persevere, not to be successful". Mayread Corrigan (* 1944), Betty Williams (* 1943), Nobel Peace Prize 1976. In: Charlotte Kerner (Ed.): Not only Madame Curie ... women who received the Nobel Prize. Reissue. Beltz & Gelberg, Weinheim et al. 1999, ISBN 3-407-80741-4 , pp. 233-249.
  • Ciaran McKeown : The Passion of Peace. Blackstaff Press, Belfast 1984, ISBN 0-85640-325-3 .

Web links

Commons : Betty Williams (Northern Ireland)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Death of peace campaigner and Nobel Laureate Betty Williams on irishtimes.com from March 18, 2020 (English)
personal data
SURNAME Williams, Betty
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Smyth, Elisabeth (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Northern Irish peace activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner
BIRTH DATE May 22, 1943
PLACE OF BIRTH Belfast , Northern Ireland
DATE OF DEATH 17th March 2020
PLACE OF DEATH Belfast , Northern Ireland