Freedom Fighter turned Peacebuilder, Salwa Saad promotes Women in Peace Education and Peacebuilding
Salwa Saad, now a retired educator, started off fighting in the Lebanese civil war. Years later, Salwa Saad still fights. This time, for peace.
"I was born a female in a country where the male has double the share of the female; in fact, even more. I was not at peace with this reality and I have never accepted it."- Salwa Saad
*Excerpts are gotten from Saad's interview with Sawssan Abou-Zahr
Early Life
Salwa first experienced gender inequality at age ten, when her conservative father sent her to a public school, and her brother was enrolled in a private one even though she was a better pupil.
At 14 or 15, the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) started military training for young women. Salwa used to watch them and dreamt of being one of them due to the equality seen between male and female freedom fighters.
On Sunday, April 13th, 1975, the Kataeb (Phalanges) Christian militiamen opened fire on a bus carrying Palestinians passing in the suburb of Ain Al-Rummaneh, killing over 30 people. Retaliation happened shortly after at a nearby church. The war erupted.
Salwa was then enrolled at the public university, studying to be an educator. Shortly after, some communist colleagues invited her and other female students to visit their party, where she would later sleep by herself in the ammunition room.
Life as a Fighter
She volunteered with the Lebanese army, female volunteers were assigned "womanly missions" such as cooking, cleaning and communication. Within months, and due to the growing scale of hostilities, the women had no choice but to receive compulsory military training.
Salwa was sometimes sent to areas of active conflict as the only female fighter. Here, she defied objections to the presence of women or "skirts" in military fields. She fought against the exclusion of female fighters from political meetings. Eventually, Salwa was in charge of the girls because their parents trusted her.
Between 1975 and 1983, Salwa lived a double life as a civilian and a warrior; feeling firm, "equal to men and as competent as them", even though her parents were not proud of her military role but at some point, she was displaced by the conflict and struggled as a new mother in Beirut to find milk.
Salwa didn't kill anyone. Though she excelled in training, on the front line, she didn't shoot targets directly. When a close friend was murdered, a fellow combatant took her to shoot a Christian male hostage in revenge.
Although he was blindfolded, she said in an interview with Sawsaan Abou Zahr, Lebanese journalist and editor, she could see the horror in his eyes.
“I didn’t kill. Something inside me prevented me from taking lives although I was as good as any man in shooting… Some female fighters were notorious like their male counterparts. They still don’t show any remorse… As for me, I cried for years.”
Salwa gave birth to her daughter in 1985. Shortly after, their house was targeted by snipers. In an interview with the UNDP, she said she had to hide from the neighbours that neither she nor her husband was away during their honeymoon. She gave up her military duties for motherly affection and practical reasons and taught chemistry at one of Beirut's public schools, where some students had guns instead of books.
Salwa found death threats targeting "all communists" on the classroom chalkboard. The tires of her car were slashed. She survived fierce battles, got injured once, and didn't fear being killed by the youth she taught.
"If I could change the mind of only one, that would be enough. Keeping them in class was a challenge because they would become child soldiers had they dropped out."
Life after the war
Salwa and her family sought a fresh start in Canada when the war ended. It was the first time in 15 years Salwa had lived in a peaceful society.
She returned to Lebanon in 1994, where she struggled with depression and kept questioning the reasons for the war. Her daughter threw herself into meditation and spirituality and Salwa followed suit, denouncing political activism and now advocates for peace.
"I practice nonviolence and believe in the power of peacebuilding. I want to live in peace and help young men and women do so. I tell my story hoping to be a catalyst for change." - Salwa Saad.
She reached out to Syrian women. After lengthy discussions, she convinced a Syrian friend that violence ruined the just cause of the opposition. She conveyed that message in workshops to Syrian women from different ethnic backgrounds.
She went back to university to study sociology and works for peacebuilding through education and has started a book club for students.