Living History (50 page)

I wanted the speech to be simple, accessible and unambiguous in its message that women’s rights are not separate from, or a subsidiary of, human rights and to convey how important it is for women to make choices for themselves in their lives. I drew on my own experiences and described women and girls I had met all over the world who were working to promote education, health care, economic independence, legal rights and political participation, and to end the inequities and injustices that fall disproportionately on women in most countries.

Pushing the envelope in this speech meant being clear about the injustice of the Chinese government’s behavior. The Chinese leadership had blocked nongovernmental organizations from holding their NGO forum at the main conference in Beijing. They forced NGOs devoted to causes ranging from prenatal care to micro-lending to convene at a makeshift site in the small city of Huairou, forty miles north, where there were few accommodations or facilities. Although I didn’t mention China or any other country by name, there was little doubt about the egregious human rights violators to whom I was referring.

I believe that on the eve of a new millennium, it is time to break our silence. It is time for us to say here in Beijing, and the world to hear, that it is no longer acceptable to discuss women’s rights as separate from human rights…. For too long, the history of women has been a history of silence. Even today, there are those who are trying to silence our words.

The voices of this conference and of the women at Huairou must be heard loud and clear: It is a violation of human rights when babies are denied food, or drowned, or suffocated, or their spines broken, simply because they are born girls.

It is a violation of human rights when women and girls are sold into the slavery of prostitution.

It is a violation of human rights when women are doused with gasoline, set on fire and burned to death because their marriage dowries are deemed too small.

It is a violation of human rights when individual women are raped in their own communities and when thousands of women are subjected to rape as a tactic or prize of war.

It is a violation of human rights when a leading cause of death worldwide among women ages fourteen to forty-four is the violence they are subjected to in their own homes by their own relatives.

It is a violation of human rights when young girls are brutalized by the painful and degrading practice of genital mutilation.

It is a violation of human rights when women are denied the right to plan their own families, and that includes being forced to have abortions or being sterilized against their will.

If there is one message that echoes forth from this conference, let it be that human rights are women’s rights … and women’s rights are human rights, once and for all.

I ended the speech with a call to action to return to our countries and renew our efforts to improve educational, health, legal and political opportunities for women. When the last words left my lips―“Thank you very much. God’s blessings on you, your work and all who will benefit from it”―the serious and stony-faced delegates suddenly leaped from their seats to give me a standing ovation. Delegates rushed to touch me, shout words of appreciation and thank me for coming. Even the delegate from the Vatican commended me for the speech. Outside the hall, women hung over banisters and rushed down escalators to grab my hand. I was thrilled that my message had resonated, and it was a relief that the press reports, too, were good. The New York Times editorial page wrote that the speech “may have been her finest moment in public life.” What I didn’t know at the time was that my twenty-one-minute speech would become a manifesto for women all over the world. To this day, whenever I travel overseas, women come up to me quoting words from the Beijing speech or clutching copies they want me to autograph.

The reaction of the Chinese government was not so positive. I learned later that the government had blacked out my speech from closed-circuit TV in the conference hall, which had been broadcasting highlights of the conference.

While the Chinese officials would try to control what their citizens heard, they kept themselves surprisingly well-informed, as I learned when we retreated to the hotel to relax for a few hours after the speech. I hadn’t seen a newspaper since leaving Hawaii and casually mentioned to my aides that it would be nice to get a copy of the International Herald Tribune. Within minutes, we heard a thump against the door to my room. The Tribune had arrived, as if on cue. But we had no idea who had heard that I wanted it or who had delivered it.

Before leaving for China, I had received briefings from the State Department and Secret Service that included intelligence information as well as protocol and-diplomatic issues.

I had been cautioned to assume that everything I said or did would be taperecorded, particularly in the hotel room.

Whether the newspaper’s arrival was a coincidence or an example of the Chinese government’s internal security, it led to some good laughs, and we realized that we’d all been unusually tense about being watched and recorded. From that point on, my staff regularly winked at the television screen and spoke into lamps, making loud requests for pizza, steak and milkshakes and hoping that our security handlers would deliver again. But after three days, only the newspaper had arrived at the door.

The day after the Beijing speech, I went to Huairou to speak to the NGO representatives whose forum had been exiled from the main conference. Accompanying me was another member of the U.S. delegation, the Administration’s dedicated Secretary of Health and Human Services, Donna Shalala, who served in Bill’s cabinet for eight years.

She was known for her unwavering commitment to improving the health and welfare of Americans-and her mettle, which would be tested in Huairou. It was a gloomy day. Rain poured down; the air was raw. We drove north in a small caravan past flat fields and rows of rice paddies to the site of what was now billed as the NGO Forum. Though they had taken the precaution of moving the forum to a location an hour’s drive from the main UN

gathering, Chinese officials still worried about the thousands of activist women in Huairou.

My presence, in their view, only escalated the stakes. They were unhappy that I had criticized their government in my speech the day before and must have been even more concerned about what I would say to the women whom they had banished from Beijing.

Due to the rain, the forum had to be moved inside a converted movie house, and it was packed with three thousand people, double the capacity, by the time we arrived.

Hundreds more were trying to get in. Standing outside for hours in the driving rain, with muddy puddles underfoot, these activists were blocked by the Chinese police. As my car approached the hall, the police, bandying nightsticks, pushed the crowd back from the entrance. This was not a polite confrontation. As the police pushed harder and harder, many in the crowd struggled to stay on their feet. Some fell into a slippery sea of mud.

Melanne had arrived ahead of me with Neel Lattimore, my first-rate deputy press secretary, who was famous for his pithy one-liners and artful handling of my relations with the media. Neel brought professionalism and humor to one of the most delicate jobs in the White House. As Melanne was pushed back and forth by the surging crowd, a Secret Service agent recognized her and extended his long arm, which she held on to like a life preserver while he literally pulled her inside. The intrepid Kelly Craighead went into the crowd with Secret Service agents to find Donna and other missing members of my group and pulled them to safety. By the time they caught up with us, they were sopping wet but otherwise none the worse for wear. Neel was taking care of our press contingent, and he shepherded the press out of their bus, lagging behind to make sure everyone was accounted for. By the time he started through the rain-drenched crowd, he couldn’t make it.

When he asked for help from one of the Chinese officials monitoring the crowd, he was pushed and yelled at and forced to leave the area altogether. He couldn’t get inside to find us, and they wouldn’t let him wait near our cars. He eventually found his own way back to Beijing.

The Chinese police, through their harsh tactics outside the hall, had done an extraordinary job of energizing the NGO representatives, who sang, yelled, clapped and cheered as I walked on stage.

I loved the feeling of the crowd and told them how much I admired and championed the work these groups did, often in dangerous situations, to build and sustain civil society and democracy. NGOs are mitigating forces that help keep the private sector and the government in check. I talked about NGOs I had seen in action around the world, and then I read “Silence,” the poem written for me by the student in New Delhi. It seemed to be the perfect antidote to the Chinese government’s suppression of the NGO forum and its attempts to silence the words and ideas of so many women. I was buoyed by the courage and passion of women who had traveled thousands of miles, at great personal expense, to break the silence and raise their voices on behalf of their causes. For years afterwards, the scenes I witnessed at Huairou remained etched in my mind. Seldom does one see so tangibly, in one setting, the differences between living in a free society and living under government control.

Once it became clear I would make the controversial trip to China, the Administration requested that I stop for an overnight visit in Mongolia, a former Soviet satellite that in 1990 had chosen the path of democracy rather than follow the Communist lead of neighboring China. The fledgling democracy was struggling because the spigot of Soviet aid had been turned off, and the country faced difficult economic times. It was important for the United States to show support for the Mongolian people and their elected leadership, and a visit from the First Lady to one of the most remote capitals of the world was one way to do it.

Ulan Bator is the world’s coldest capital, and even in early September, snow is not unusual. But we arrived on a crystal-clear day with bright sunshine. We drove about forty-five minutes into the high plains to visit one of Mongolia’s thousands of nomadic families. Three generations of this family lived in two large tents, known as gers, made out of heavy felt stretched over a wooden frame. I had brought a handmade saddle as a gift, and in presenting it to the grandfather patriarch, I explained that my husband came from a region with horses and cattle. Asking questions through an interpreter, I learned that this was the site of their summer home and that they were preparing to leave soon for their winter home near the Gobi desert, where the weather is milder. They traveled with their livestock by horse and cart and subsisted on meat, mare’s milk and other dairy products made from it, just as their ancestors had done hundreds of years before.

The backdrop of their life on the steppes was stunning in its vastness, serenity and natural beauty. The family’s young children raced on horseback, and their beautiful young mother showed me how to milk a horse. Inside the family’s ger, every square inch served a purpose. The only sign of modern technology was an old, rusty transistor radio. As is the custom of hospitality in Mongolia, I was offered a bowl of fermented mare’s milk.

I thought it tasted like warm, day-old plain yogurt, not something I’d seek out, but not so horrible that I couldn’t sip it politely. I generously offered some to the American press, all of whom declined. The next day, when one of the White House physicians who traveled with us on overseas trips―we called him Dr. Doom―found out about my culinary adventure, he ordered me to take a course of strong antibiotics to prevent a horrible livestock disease.

“Don’t you know you can get brucellosis from raw milk?” he scolded.

I was mesmerized by this place and these lives, but I was scheduled to have lunch with President Ochirbat, followed by tea with a group of women and then an address to students at the National University. We had to go.

In Ulan Bator there were no traces of indigenous Mongolian culture, as the Soviets had destroyed most of the buildings and monuments that were uniquely Mongolian and replaced them with sterile, Stalinist-era structures. The people had been forbidden even to speak the name of Genghis Khan, the leader who ruled the vast thirteenth-century Mongolian empire. As we drove into Ulan Bator, people stood ten deep on the sidewalk to watch with curiosity as our cars went by. They didn’t wave or call out, as crowds do in many countries; respect was offered quietly. I appreciated the extraordinary turnout generated for an American dignitary, although I later learned that our convoy of cars was as much an attraction as I was.

After every paragraph of my speech at the university, I had to pause while my words were translated into Mongolian. I spoke of the courage of the Mongolian people and their leadership, urging them to continue their struggle toward democracy. Winston Lord had come up with the idea that Mongolia should be held as an example for anyone doubting democracy’s ability to take root in unlikely places. And Lissa introduced a refrain: “Let them come to Mongolia!” From then on, whenever we visited a country that was struggling to become democratic, we would break into a chorus of. “Let them come to Mongolia!”

And so they should.

Flying home, I thought about how many of the women I had met seemed to identify with my challenges and with each other’s, giving me a deep sense of connection and solidarity with women the world over. I may have gotten the headlines on this trip, but it was the women I had met whose lives and achievements against great odds deserved the world’s respect. They sure had mine.

I returned from Asia in time to get Chelsea settled into school. Although she still indulged my maternal impulse to help her, she was a fifteen-year-old and eager to test her independence. I gave in when she pleaded to be allowed to ride with her friends, instead of always trailing behind in a car driven by the Secret Service. I wanted her to live like a typical teenager, though we both knew her situation was anything but typical. Despite the obvious differences that living in the White House presented, her life revolved around friends, school, church and ballet. Five days a week, after school, she took a couple of hours of lessons at the Washington School of Ballet, then returned to the White House to face the mountain of homework assigned to juniors as they ramped up for the college applications process ahead. Chelsea no longer needed nor always welcomed my hovering presence, so I had time to immerse myself in finishing my book It Takes a Village. I had to put in long hours writing and enlist help to make my deadline of Thanksgiving.