Ordinary history books say that wars have been a constant in the history of succession and battles for power. Or, in other words, war and conflict have always been at the forefront of traditional historical interpretation. In every age, however, many women have developed practices of peace as a way of their own to resolve conflicts and in general the relationships between human beings beyond those that involve relationships of power. And furthermore, we can also question the falsely universal meaning of the statement “the Normans fought against the Saracens”, that forgets women: ¿What were the Norman and Saracen women doing when their partners were fighting? Who were creating and maintaining life?

From a perspective that recovers these practices of feminine mediation and endows them with political meaning and symbolic content, we re-find and reread the actions of a queen of the Aragon crown, María of Castile, who in her time worked to find a pacific solution to the continuous battles that faced her adopted kingdom, the Crown of Aragon, and her lineage of origin reigning in Castile.

The document that we present, a letter signed by the sovereign addressed to the Ciento Council of Barcelona informing them of the truce achieved between the kingdoms, is one of other more direct actions that she carried out, such as camping in the middle of the battlefield as a sign of peace, as a radical point of rupture and displacement, in the manner of the contemporary “human shields”, tragically personalised in Rachel Corrie, a volunteer killed by the tanks of the Israeli army.

María of Castile played a significant role as intermediary in the different conflicts that broke out in the Catalan crown, and especially, during the time that she acted as deputy of the kingdom, first between 1420 and 1423, and later in a continuous way from 1432, with the definitive departure of her husband to Italian lands.

Ferran Soldevila, in a classic approach to the figure of the Queen María, points to the constant interest of the sovereign in the politics of peace and concord between the kingdoms of Castile and Cataluña, united through links of kinship. A will to make peace between both kingdoms that, according to the same historian, would second the action that his mother-in-law, Queen Leonor de Alburquerque had already taken, and that was valued and taken on by the sovereign herself. Thus, in a letter dated 1434, in Tortosa, at the height of the war conflict, María writes that: [...] It was the thing that we most desired in this world after peace with Castile (Archive of the Aragon Crown, Registro de Cancillería 2975, page. 5 v.). In her will she alludes to the great desire that had led her to bring peace and friendship between the kingdoms of Aragon, Castile and Navarre. Soldevila even believes that these works and this “constant peace-making work”, “was a hard blow to her health”, already delicate.

This mediating role was also noted by her contemporaries. The chaplain of her husband wrote that it was a worthy thing to put such acts into a book and memory for those to come, how the said lady Queen reconciled the King of Castile and the King of Aragon (Daybook of the chaplain of Alfonso IV. Ms. de la Biblioteca del Patriarca de Valencia, pg. 66 v.). In the reconciliation of Valladolid (1453) between the King of Castile and the Prince of Viana, on the one hand, and the Kings of Aragon and Navarre, on the other, the Queen was recognised as having an important role.

From the beginning of the conflict between Castile and Catalonia in the year 1429, María carried out different actions of peace-making and mediation. In this same year she departed for Castile, where she achieved a five year truce in the war. In 1435, the Queen goes once again to Soria, where she arrives on the 10th November, and as the letter we are looking at shows, dated five days later, she achieves a new truce of six months. On the 19th she leaves Castile, with the intention of convening the Parliament in Monzón in order to manage and resolve the also critical situation of her husband, embarked on the Italian venture of Naples and taken prisoner the 5th August 1435, after the naval defeat of Ponça.

Conflict that opposed two branches of the lineage of the Trastámaras, one reigning in Castile and the other in the Catalan-Aragonese Crown. Concretely, the defence of the political and economic interests of his brothers, the Infants of Aragon, in Castile, obliged the king Alfonso IV the Magnanimous (1396-1458) to enter into conflict with the neighbouring state. The war was begun in 1429 with the invasion of the Castilian lands by Alfonso and his brothers, the Infant Enrique and the Infant Juan, King of Navarre. With marked interferences by the truces, the conflict lasted over years until the reconciliation of Valladolid (1453).

Current historiography, from the parameters of andro-centric history, has studied the role of the lady of the court of a queen like María, in terms of “informal power”, which extends to the boundaries of the private, contrasting it to the public and political sphere of masculine action. It was a role that would embrace basically the management of marriage alliances and the action of peace-making.

However, beyond a false dichotomy between the “public” and the “private”, it is necessary to place these practices of feminine mediation at the forefront of the historical stage, marking them with the key of sexual difference. This practice of mediation in conflict would be linked to women’s capacity for relationship, for the opening to that which is different, to make human living-together more human. In the words of Milagros Rivera, “a talent, a civilising art that is more (much more) of women than of men” and that would be inscribed in what some women historians have also called practices of the creation and re-creation of human life and living-together. That is, the role of women throughout history at the moment of making life more visible and that is translated into different spheres: from the socialisation of children, to the healing of the sick, the feeding of the group, etc. A measure that takes human life into account and that is one more “stitch” in the maternal work of civilisation, a fabric where the insertion/intermediary panel (a piece of cloth that joins two previously autonomous pieces of material) is often necessary; that is, the work of mediation, the practice of conflict.

This feminine capacity to make the world habitable, that Luisa Muraro calls “the capacity to make politics in the first person”, needs to be re-situated at the forefront, not undervalued “out of our fear of seeming ridiculous or of being despised”. Virginia Woolf, rightly, in her Thoughts of Peace during an Air Raid, in order to refute the often widespread opinion amongst women that they did not participate in politics, gave value to “other tables”, apart from the military or conference ones, such as for example the “tea table”. To give these practices meaning, of strength and authority, will also be to take them out of “the functional arbitrariness and the availability” in which we normally situate them.

In the case of María of Castile, the peace-making action is situated in the court, a court written in feminine, where the strength of the relationships and bonds between women make these practices of the creation and re-creation of human life and living-together, inside of which we have situated mediation and the practice of conflict, even more palpable.

From this perspective, these practices also form part of a “continuum”, of a feminine genealogy, and turn out to be a point of reference of meaning shared by all women, of different social classes and in different historical moments. Women contemporaries of the Queen María: Martha of Armagnac, duchess of Gerona between 1373 and 1378, who worked actively for peace in the conflict between the King of Aragon and the Infant of the kingdom of Majorca; Blanca of Navarre, married to Felipe VI of France, who devoted herself to achieving peace between this kingdom and that of her line of origin, the kingdom of Navarre. Or centuries later, Margarita of Austria, who, made governor of the Low Countries in name of her nephew, the Emperor Carlos V, made progress in the approach towards the French kingdom. Her intervention in the peace treaty of 1529 is significant, and has significantly gone down in history with the name “Peace of the Ladies”.

They are actions that are very often linked to the relationships of kinship or the more radical need not to destroy the maternal work, the culture of birth, called as such by the philosopher Adriana Cavarero, opposed to the philosophy of death, of the destruction of bodies, of war. In this sense, the gesture of two historical mothers who became mediators of life in the battles faced by their sons takes on value: Eleanor of Aquitaine in the conflict between Richard the Lion-Heart and his brother, John Lackland; Jogelun, mother of Genghis Khan, who fought against his own brother.

According to the Crónica de Juan II, shortly after the beginning of the conflict between the kingdom of Castile and that of Aragon, Queen María went to Castile “in stages, not as queen, rather as a traveller” (Crónica de Juan II, año XXIII, ch. XIV.) and asked for “a tent from Condestable, Álvaro de Luna; she had it set up in the middle of the field where the battle was going to take place” (Ferran Soldevila, vid. Sección Bibliografía. p. 228).

María, with this radical gesture, invented new methods that are far from the logic of power and of relations of force, very palpable in a war context. In this sense, we can trace parallels with Simone Weil’s project during the Second World War, when she thought of a body of nurses who would throw themselves in parachutes on the bloodiest combat zone, with the objective of healing the wounded (“Project for the training of nurses on the frontline”). The French philosopher was convinced that actions like this were necessary, the symbolic force of them going beyond and being more important than their specific efficacy.

The action of María, with the tent set up in middle of the battle, makes symbolic, and its importance lies in the fact that it shows a different way of acting in the world, another measure. In the words of Chiara Zamboni, “the efficacy of a symbolic deed is independent of the quantity of people and places where it is present [...]. A symbol has within itself a divine moment: a little yeast that rises inside the human soul”.

A reflection could be initiated in class on the central place of war and conflict in historical interpretation, which leaves to one side wide areas of life, of practices, of relationships between men and women, which are much more important.

Introduce into the discussion the movement of change that seems to have come about between many men and women, who have understood that the argument of force, which leads to war and to conflict, is not inevitable in politics. If we understand by politics, that “first person politics” that Luisa Muraro speaks of to us in the text, that manages and conserves human living-together. By these means, “flags are and become words, and words are mediation”, as the philosopher herself says to us in a press article written in response to the Iraq war and of all the peace movement and social response. A response where a strong presence of women is denoted, who bring to the market square, to the place of demonstration, the necessary link between freedom and life.

Find out about different experiences of feminine authority and mediation which spread peace practices in the present-day world: the “Città felice” of Catania, the movement of Women in Black of the ex-Yugoslavia, etc.

Luisa Muraro, “No son banderas, son palabras”

No son banderas, aunque lleven este nombre, las banderas de la paz que han cambiado el aspecto de las ciudades y también, en el fondo, nuestro modo de habitarlas. Son palabras de un lenguaje finalmente hallado para decir un sentimiento de cercanía o vecindad y comunicarlo, cercanía o vecindad de casa y de humanidad que supera todo tipo de barreras aunque quedándose cerca de sí, sin invadir ni agredir al otro. In extremis, no sé cómo, se ha encontrado un lenguaje para decir algo que parecía perdido: el valor de la convivencia que se abre al intercambio con los demás. Se ha encontrado, imprevisiblemente, sin la ayuda de intelectuales, de políticos, de medios de comunicación, de partidos. Se ha encontrado con ocasión de una guerra que pretendía ser la respuesta de Occidente al trauma del 11 de septiembre. Y que, en cambio, –lo sabemos- es una reacción tremenda y ciega de hombres en déficit de casi todo lo que hace falta en política, empezando por autoridad moral. Por lo que, entre los demás desastres, está también el hecho de que nadie haya estado en posición de ayudar al pueblo de los Estados Unidos a elaborar el sentido de una fragilidad descubierta de la manera más traumática, ayudarle a no vivirla como una humillación y a volver a encaminarse por la vía de la civilización.

¿Nadie? Me equivoco. Ahora están estas banderas del arco iris que han empezado a florecer por las paredes, poco a poco, primero escasas, luego muchas, en ciertas calles muchísimas, en otras todavía pocas y, por eso, más visibles, todas expuestas sin arrogancia, con frecuencia peleando con el viento, que las hace jirones. Y estas banderas mandan un mensaje a los Estados Unidos, aunque no sea mas que desde un país periférico como el nuestro. Dicen que las casas son el cobijo de los cuerpos vivos y de sus cosas, pero un cobijo frágil y expuesto a la violencia, con respecto a la cual ellas ofrecen –y esta es la invención, la novedad, la vía de la civilización- el cobijo simbólico de significar una voluntad de paz.

Está sucediendo algo grande. ¿Durará? se han preguntado algunos comentaristas. No lo sabemos. Pero yo pienso que no volverá a ser como antes, al menos para mí y tantas, tantos como yo. Antes, el campo lo ocupaba un dilema entre las posturas de los pacifistas y de los realistas, estos últimos repitiendo: en política, no se puede estar sin el argumento de la fuerza y, por tanto, sin la posibilidad de la guerra, y los otros replicando: la guerra es siempre un error, la guerra devora todas las razones, incluso las mejores. Como si no hubiera nada más que decir, y así ha sido para muchas y muchos, que no sabíamos qué decir. Ahora, en cambio, lo sabemos: para nosotras y ellos lo que hay no es la guerra/la paz, sino que está este momento histórico enredado de problemas y de amenazas, en el que podemos intentar practicar la paz, no en general sino la paz posible aquí y ahora. ¿Cómo? No sé toda la repuesta, pero sí el comienzo, lo hemos encontrado, es el salir del aislamiento y del mutismo de una convivencia cada vez más alienada, para significar, conjuntamente, nuestra recíproca cercanía y nuestra común vecindad con las mujeres y los hombres golpeados o amenazados por la violencia destructora. Los comentaristas ven la novedad de este movimiento, pero casi no ven que es política, en sentido naciente: es política primera y afecta al tejido del vivir en relación.

Esas banderas son palabras y las palabras son mediación. El comienzo de la respuesta es, pues, el trabajo de mediación. Trabajo que no se limita y ni siquiera consiste esencialmente en misiones diplomáticas especiales, porque la mediación, como la lengua que hablamos, es un continuum y, sin solución de continuidad, transita de la palabra que se intercambia con la vecina de casa a la posibilidad de un acuerdo resolutivo. Fare pace dove c’è guerra es el título de una reciente publicación de la Librería de mujeres de Milán. Y dice, hablando del 15 de febrero: este “basta para siempre con la guerra” expresado por millones de mujeres y hombres, no se da como un proyecto a colocar en un horizonte futuro, ni queda suspendido en un tiempo ideal, sino que ya está presente en las prácticas cotidianas, en las formas concretas de una política que está orientada a practicar la paz aquí y ahora.

Estoy de acuerdo; solo una cosa querría añadir. En el cambio que Fare pace describe en términos de contexto del actuar pacíficamente, lo que se trasluce como factor de cambio es una presencia libre de mujeres. Debería dar argumentos. Están los números: de la gran mayoría de personas que están en contra de esta guerra, la mayoría más grande son mujeres. Está, además, que los signos de la paz, prohibidos en los edificios públicos del Estado, se mutiplican en los alféizares de las casas, lugares gobernados en el pasado y todavía hoy, preferentemente, por las mujeres. Y está el estilo de las manifestaciones en la calle, que está cambiando. Se atenúa la necesidad reactiva de contraponerse, para hacer sitio al sentido del estar con otros, al compartir proyectos y sentimientos.

El primero que lo notó y lo relacionó con la presencia de mujeres, fue el director de este periódico. Comentando la grandísima manifestación de la CGIL [Confederación general del trabajo], en Roma, recuerdo que escribió: es un gentío enorme, lo cual, de por sí, daría miedo, pero no da miedo, gracias a la gran presencia de mujeres. Ocurre quizá porque a la calle una mujer lleva algo que permanece asociado a la vida doméstica, no lo sé, pero no lo considero degradante, más bien me parece un modo de rescatar la reclusión doméstica de tantas mujeres del pasado.

Como se recordará, el Ocho de marzo de este año ha estado dedicado a la lucha por la paz, y algunas feministas han expresado la preocupación de que esto reforzara el estereotipo de la “mujer igual a paz”. A mí me parece que está pasando justo lo contrario, que la asociación forzada entre las mujeres y la paz ya no salta, sustituida por palabras y gestos que hablan de un vínculo entre la libertad y la vida, con demasiada frecuencia ignorado y roto en la historia de los hombres. Vínculo confiado al trabajo de la mediación, como también al gesto de ruptura, nunca el uno sin el otro. Pienso en Moretti saltando al palco de Piazza Navona. Pienso, en este momento, en el Papa, que ha roto con una tradición diplomática de equidistancia, para hacer todo lo que le era posible, sin cálculos de poder. La diferencia de nuestro ser mujeres/hombres se convierte así en un recurso de creatividad política; los hombres son liberados del significado amenazador de su virilidad.

A quienes vivimos en Italia nos toca llevar el peso de ser contados entre quienes apoyan la guerra contra Irak. Sabemos que no es verdad, pero tendremos que demostrarlo y, antes de nada, seguir sabiendo que no es verdad: saberlo en nuestro interior y a nuestro alrededor, en las relaciones con quienes acabarán no queriendo saber ya nada de ello. Lo explica bien una mujer valiente de la ex-Yugoslavia: cuando hay guerra, el lenguaje se militariza por una especie de contaminación tanto más fuerte cuanto menos se quiere saber lo que sucede a nuestro alrededor (Fare pace dove c’è guerra).

A nuestro alrededor, junto con una guerra que no hemos querido, se ha dado un poco de paz, querida, concebida, traída al mundo por mujeres y hombres. Que permanezca entre nosotras y ellos, con su capacidad de ponernos en relación unos con otras, casi un pacto social de una especie nueva y feliz. (Traducción de María-Milagros Rivera Garretas)

3. Conocer diversas experiencias de autoridad y mediación femeninas que extienden en el mundo actual prácticas para la paz: la "Città felice" de Catania, el movimiento de Mujeres de Negro de la exYugoslavia, etc.