A dream in Liberia

This year, Pray the Devil Back to Hell won the "Best Documentary" award at the Tribeca Film Festival in NYC. The film, recently released to the public, tells the amazing story of how one person's dream helped to bring about the peace accords in Liberia after years of war under the tyrant Charles Taylor. It demonstrates the impact that one person can have during a time of strife, and reveals the tactics that otherwise powerless women used to achieve unprecedented peace and democratic elections.

The film starts in 1989 when Charles Taylor first arrived in Liberia. A protégé of Libya's al-Gaddafi, trained in guerilla warfare, Taylor launched a political uprising, attempting to overthrow the government. Other groups also rose up, causing the country to factionalize. Civil war, ethnic conflict, power struggles, and fights over money ensued.

Primarily due to fear, Liberians voted Charles Taylor into the Presidency, and the warlords (LURDS) rebelled.

Charles Taylor became notorious for training child soldiers. He provided young boys with drugs and guns, and forced them to murder their parents. Under his leadership, Liberians endured hunger, child-rape and the pillaging of their country for fourteen years. No end was in sight.

Then one night in 2003, a young mother Leymah Gbowee, prayed before she went to bed, asking God to end the war. That night she had a "crazy dream," telling her that she should gather the women of Liberia together to protest and pray for peace.

Leymah brought her idea to her church, and then to other churches, appealing to women to join her quest for peace. A female Muslim police officer attended one of the meetings, and was so moved she decided to spread the women's peace message to the Muslim community.

Initially, some women wondered if working with those of a different religion meant that they were diluting their faith. Ultimately, they concluded that religion should not serve as a barrier to their mission of peace. For the first time in Liberian history, Christians and Muslims worked together for a common cause.

The women protested, insisting that the men, who had all power, end the war. A few women turned to hundreds and then thousands. They were ordinary women -- mothers, grandmothers, sisters, and aunts. They sat daily in the public square, with T-shirts, signs and banners demanding peace.

Every day the women rallied together, sang together, and prayed together. They did the unimaginable -- they spoke out. They even had the audacity to protest outside the Presidential Palace. But it wasn't enough. Then, the women decided to use sex as a weapon. They went on a country-wide sex-strike, withholding sex from all their husbands until the men worked towards peace.

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