The Armenian Genocide and Humanity's Conciousness!

 

“Accordingly, I have placed my death-head formation in readiness – for the present only in the East – with orders to them to send to death mercilessly and without compassion, men, women, and children of Polish derivation and language. Only thus shall we gain the living space (Lebensraum) which we need. Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?” Hitler August, 1939

We flung the door wide open and ran outside into the hot and humid Ahvaz summer day. It was time for my sister, brother and I to meet up with the rest of the kids of our neighborhood, a neighborhood in what today would be termed as diverse. We spend the late afternoon to late evening playing our local games, one of the favorite kids were the Armenians, Albrik and Mari Hakoopian. Their uncle Alan, who was older would often teach us new games to play and coach the older kids on new bike tricks. These early play-dates with my Armenian neighbors, would, as I grew up, expose me to the fascinating and at times dark but ultimately triumphant history of Armenians as a people.    

As I left Iran and eventually made it to the US, I got to know more Armenians, who shared with me their family history. It seemed each family, though always successful in their adoptive country, had walked a painful path to get there. Today’s Armenians are scattered everywhere, the main reason for which is the genocide of 1915, carried out by the Ottoman Turks. The total killed was around 1.5 million.

What makes the Armenian Genocide, important historically, is that 100 years after it was carried out, the international community, continues to debate whether it was a genocide or not!! The Armenians have proven themselves, as survivors and strivers. This commemoration for the Armenians, though extremely painful, is also about their survival as a community.  Now all is needed, is for the rest of us and our collective consciousness as humanity to once and for all give the respect to those who made the ultimate sacrifice, and recognize this dark chapter as a Genocide.     

 

 

The Good Afghan: Race, Ethnicity and Diversity in Foreign Service!

Bill stood up and said, “we are now going to have a session on Pashtun cultural norms!” And now Bill, our trainer, started to tell us, a number of USAID field program officers working in western Afghanistan, how the Pashtuns behave! Bill, was a former military personnel who, after coming back to the US, had hung up his boots, came back to Afghanistan, and was hired as an Afghan expert! The problem with him speaking about the Pashtun culture was that, in our group of trainees, we had five Pashtuns, who were more than capable of presenting a view of their own culture. They worked for USAID, they were all educated and the cream of the crop in their respective field. But still it was Bill, who perhaps lacking a bit of "situational awareness", stood up and gave us a superficial understanding of a very diverse and complex culture. During his presentation, he never alluded or asked the opinion of the real, live, Pashtuns who sat with us. Can you imagine if Jumah Khan, from Farah, Afghanistan, flew to Mississippi and told Bill and his family about the American culture?!!! This example underlines one of the fundamental problems with foreign aid, development and diplomacy, where local expertise are often ignored. Race and ethnicity determines who is an expert and who is not, who should lead and who should not, who should be trusted and who should not.  

If there is a “local” expert hired, he/she can’t “act” too local! If your name is Mohammad, you better change in it to “Mo” because the Country Director who is from Iowa can’t pronounce the world’s most common name! The local expert is only considered an expert if he or she can push the goals and the agenda of the donor. If you show or care too much in finding solutions to the problem of the local communities then expect to be sidelined!! I know people, in this case Americans, who changed their “ethnic” names because they were afraid that there would bias against them. They worked for agencies, who go around the world and tell people about the importance of diversity, yet it has created a system that does not allow room for the “other”!  This is not 1492, when Christopher Columbus met the “Red Indians” this is happening in 2015, when Barak Hussein Obama is in the White House!

In 2009, before flying out to Afghanistan, we were given a series of training to prepare us for our work there. Our main trainer was a retired US Diplomat, another “expert” on Afghanistan. The last slide that he showed us before sending us to improve the lives of Afghans, was something that still shocks me!!! The slide had on it, the image of an old American family, riding a horse-pulled wagon, surrounded by the US army, and in the horizon were the Native Indian horsemen with their spears drawn out coming to attack the family!! Our diplomat and “Afghan expert”, ended by saying, “this is how you will feel when in Afghanistan!” We, the USAID, State Department folks were the good guys, whose lives were being protected by the US military against the savages, the Afghans. If he was trying to show his cultural “sensitivity” he did not do a good job. His last slide is an example of how the local population and the “other” is looked upon! To be feared, subdued and civilized, and shaped like us, whatever that is!

 

Hopefully those who are hired to work in the Foreign Service and foreign aid will be hired based on their skill sets, their mutual respect and understanding of their own culture and the local culture, and most importantly to truly work for a world that people's diversity is valued not feared! Until that day more resources will be wasted and the voices of the real “experts” silenced!    

 
 

Shindand District: Working with Women in Rural Afghanistan!

Rahimah stood up and started to speak about the needs of the women in her community. Her head looked straight up, her voice was loud and clear. This was my first time meeting with women in Afghanistan. Rahimah belonged to a women’s group located in Shindand Town, whose aim was to organize women and provide them with literacy classes and vocational training.

The gender issue is one of the most sensitive topic to address in Afghanistan, but it gets even more difficult when you are working in the rural area. Steeped in traditional, cultural and local interpretation of Islam, women are not to be seen or heard from, their roles are to be played out in their own space, behind the walls of their homes. They are to be seen by their husband, brothers, and only certain members of their male family members. A friend of mine from Shindand told me that a woman’s place is either in her house or in her grave! It was against this background that I attempted to engage women in my work.  

One thing I learned was that though all of the communities within the district were traditional in the view of gender equity, their level of conservatism differed. The other issue was that, because  of the violence in the district, many families had lost their male relatives. These families now depended on their extended family (usually their husband's family) to take care of them. Unfortunately the extended family in most cases were poor and could not support the extra burden.  Because of their economic burden, communities were looking for alternative ways to support the now women-headed families. They were open in participating in women-focused activities. The other factor in Shindand was that many during the past three decades had left Shindand and had lived in big cities of Iran and Pakistan and had been exposed to urban life where women played an active role outside the home and girls went to school. Finally, many Shindandis were part of the Afghan military (Shindand Airbase is the second biggest airfield in Afghanistan) and got their training during the Afghanistan Communist government’s aggressive effort to educate women in rural areas. These former military personnel had been exposed to the topic of women empowerment and some had interacted with women military personnel. Taking all these factors into consideration, and despite the conservative cultural and religious belief, there was a critical mass of people who would support women-centric programming. They needed some entity or someone to facilitate programming according to Afghan rural cultural realities. The most important condition the people of Shindand asked for was, no military nor any foreign men (especially soldiers) should be allowed around the women participating in the programs. They said the mere presence of this group would jeopardize the project.

Unfortunately, there were those in the Coalition Forces and civilian sector who believed that if, you were paying for a project or giving resources to it, you had the right to go and see it. They also thought it would make great photos for folks back home in the US, UK or Italy to see. And ultimately believed that through these photos, they would understand how much their military or their government was doing to advance the cause of the downtrodden women of Afghanistan!!! Basically, they were saying we will help you but I need you to shake my hand and take photos!

The Wrong Way and the Right Way

My phone rang and it was Farzana, who ran a small organization, focused on young women. She sounded a bit frantic, and I asked her what was going on? She said basically, one of the American military units had shown up, unannounced, and brought them sewing machines!! Though she was thankful for the sewing machines, Farzana said, she could no longer work in her office, because the presence of American military units being seen around her office with male soldiers coming into her organization’s compound (usually to escort the female American soldiers) made it impossible to continue her work and she had to close down at least for a few months. This military unit thought it was doing the women there a favor by providing them sewing machines, but in reality all they did was to undermine the efforts of Farzana and her group. What the unit needed to do was ask around and find out if their action was appropriate! This happened in 2011, almost ten years after operations in Afghanistan had begun, I am sure someone had trained these soldiers on the technique of working with women in Afghanistan.

 

A few months after that, one of my USAID colleagues, contacted me and told me that the US Special Forces wanted to conduct community health worker training for women in Zerkoh Valley. Zerkoh Valley was the most violent area in Shindand District and the most underdeveloped. The condition of women in Zerkoh Valley was abhorrent specially related to their health. This project could help them get access to health workers who could assist them and their families to resolve their health issues, specially related to postnatal and prenatal health. I told my colleague that it would be a very useful project, but if they wanted to ensure some level of success, they had to keep all military personnel away from the training site. The soldiers don’t need to come there and take any photos, and if they really want to know how the training is going, I will go myself, check on the training and talk to the beneficiaries. Once that condition was agreed upon, the training began. I monitored the project remotely through my trusted group of local contacts. After a while when the training was in full swing, I decided to visit the site and speak to the women directly. Dressed in my local Afghan clothes, I made my way to Zerkoh Valley, which was about 45 minutes from the Shindand Airbase. The training took place at the Parmakan Village Clinic. After talking to the men (there was 30 women and 30 men being trained). I went to visit the women. I remembered how amazed I was to hear from the women, and how good they were in answering the question about what they had learned.

 

Dealing with gender issue in rural Afghanistan is challenging. All it takes is knowing the cultural and the societal landscape related to women, listening a bit to both men and women and see how they want us to work with them. Then implement programming that makes sense and puts a dent on issues that ails them and their communities.

Maybe one day we'll learn!

International Development Needs to Return to the People!

My dad opened the door of our house and there stood a disheveled man in his 40s, “Salam, sir, I am unemployed and looking for a job, for the love of God, can you help me?” My father, looked at him, and then after a pause replied, “do you know gardening?” he is said “yes”. Then my dad took this total stranger to the corner of our yard, and told him if he could make a small garden for our house. And from that day onwards, this man, whose name was Mash Morad, a Lor from southwest Iran, became our gardener. The fact was that our family did not need a garden or a gardener, but my dad understanding the desperate situation of this Mash Morad, hired him and created employment for him, so he could support his family. As time went on Mash Morad’s economic situation changed and things got better for him.

 

My dad’s selfless act of kindness was a great template for me to follow as I took the path into the field of international development. The lesson of listening to and understanding peoples’ needs, relationship building, empowering people, mentoring and sharing resources were part of my childhood lessons. Being an aid professional is an exciting career that gives me an opportunity to make a difference in the lives of people around the globe. But for me the field of international development has lost its way, shifting away from its original goal of helping people. Instead it has shifted towards carrying out the goals of governments and the big donors of the world!

Today’s International development and humanitarian aid is full of great brochures, power point presentations, conferences, experts, and lots of money, but of little impact and substance to the beneficiaries scattered around diverse communities. Development has become a business for some to fill their pockets on the back of poverty, misery and violence. Part of the problem are the thousands of implementing partners, formed as Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) who exist, function and are at the mercy of the big International donors. These are implementing partners that know that the project they are carrying out will not have any impact but will do it just because the donor will pay them to do it. They know that that projects they are doing in community A will not help anyone and that it is just a great media ad for the donors and the implementing partner. How else can you explain distributing seeds to farmers when they have no water, or setting up fish farms where no water flows or building a woman’s center knowing that after that photo op no woman will ever enter that building.  Development needs to return back  to its original mandate of empowering people, and come up with programs that make sense on the ground. Programming that has the interest of the community in mind and not how we can use the community to gain more funding for new vehicles for our staff, bigger bonuses or a bigger and nicer office space!!

There are still a few committed NGOs who struggle to make a difference against all odds, who are led by individuals who still understand the fundamental goals of development, but they are few and far in between.

Hopefully international aid and the humanitarian field can reconnect back with its beneficiaries and fall in line with their needs and not just the needs of the donor! Until that change comes, more scarce resources will be wasted and more people like Mash Morad will live and suffer in silence!!  

Lessons Learned at Elmina Castle in Ghana!

Elmina is a small, picturesque, fishing town on the coast of Ghana. It is the home to a couple of European-build castles, the most famous being the Elmina Castle. This beautiful structure was build in 1482 by the Portuguese for the purpose of facilitating trade! Trade included mainly gold but eventually it was human-beings that would be the prominent commodity to be sold and sent to the New World as slaves!

My first visit to Elmina Castle was in 1998, our group was made up of mainly Americans of all shades, and most seemed emotional by what they saw and heard. Our tour guide described the conditions of the slaves who were kept in the castle, waiting their turn to journey to the unknown.  Emotions were high, when we got to the ‘Door of no Return” where slaves would be taken to their ships and never returned! Elmina is a historical testimony to the worst of humanity such as greed, hate, prejudice, and racism. Many within our group that day, wondered how could a people that believed in God, and build a church within the castle, commit such horrible acts against God’s creation, which in this case were their own fellow human-beings. Did Jesus teach his followers to enslave people? Take people away from their families and communities and barter them for cheap goods like rum? Take children from their mothers and throw the sick into the sea? We all agreed they were not true Christians!!! Because someone who believed in Jesus would show love and compassion not hate and cruelty. We also wondered why the Christians of the time did not stop such horrific crimes being committed in and justified by their fellow Christians. Was the Christianity that allowed for slavery and exploitation of millions of human beings, the real Christianity? Or was there another Christianity that rejected these evil actions?!

In 2015, we are asking the same questions of another religious community, this time its Islam and the Muslims who have to answer the tough questions about the horrible terrorist attacks committed in the name of their religion. Unfortunately, (in this case), unlike the seventeenth century, the world is connected through technology and Muslims unlike their Christian counterparts of three centuries ago have to deal with “guilt through association”!

Today’s terrorism like yesterday’s slavery is justified in the name of religion, the perpetrators of these actions are a minority, using their religion to destroy anything they don’t agree with. The same way the slavery of the past used religion to justify why it was OK to take people and enslave them, and in fact in most cases the owners thought they were saving the souls of their slaves!

History can be a great teacher, if we allow it to be. The most important lesson that action in Elmina Castle and Slavery, and action in Paris and Terrorism can teach us is that one cannot and should not judge a large group by the actions of a few!

Rwanda 1994: The George Washington University, an Old Radio and "Never Again!

I brought my hand out from under my blanket and turned on my radio as I struggled to wake up and start another day as a poor college student! My college campus was situated close to the White House, the World Bank and the IMF. During my time there, I ran into many famous people around campus, like PLO’s Hanan Ashrawi, former Foreign Minister of Israel Abba Eban, former tennis player Martina Navratilova, and CNN’s Wolfe Blitzer, he almost ran me over with his shiny black Lexus! I said hi to students who would become famous, such as Huma Abedin who became Hillary Clinton assistant and Kerry Washington who became an actress. I too wanted to become famous perhaps become the General Secretary of the United Nations, however the best I did at the time was to become the secretary at the George Washington University International Services Office making $8.00 an hour!  

One of my most prized possession was a broken down, radio/tape-player that I used to listen to music via the now almost obsolete cassettes and listen to the radio, usually set at 88.5FM WAMU, a National Public Radio (NPR) affiliate.  On April 7^th, 1994, I woke up like most mornings, my room was pitch dark and remember turning my radio on, as the news broadcast was read, remembering there was a mention of the President of Rwanda being killed in a plane crash! I did not think much about it, it was not the first time that I had heard of a leader of a country being killed! I went on doing my daily work. The next morning I heard that there was some fighting which included the killing of civilians, and then for the next how many days, and weeks that passed, more news of death in Rwanda. And eventually after it was all said and done, an estimated 800,000 men, women and children were murdered. The population of Washington, DC in 1994 was less than 600,000! Can you imagine if the population of Washington, DC had been wiped off!

After the killing was done, the international community came out to say, “Never Again”! The “Never Again” slogan has been going on for years, starting in 1915 with the Armenian Genocide, until today we continue to say, “Never Again”!  Whether its genocide done with machete in Kigali or chemical weapons in Idlib, the fact is we have never been able to enforce our ideal of "Never Again"  Many religions, cultures, groups and individuals believe in the “Golden-Rule” of “treat people the way you want others to treat you” and “the sacredness of life” but that hasn't worked as of yet as many preach what they cannot practice.  

Though today technology connects us, most of us are yet to understand that the “Golden Rules” applies to all lives in Paris, Baga, Idlib, Shindand, Mumbai, Kigali, New York, Accra, Aleppo, Ahvaz, Rio, Mosul, Kingston, Lima and billions of other lives around the world!

Since 1994 lots have changed in my life, Huma, Kerry, I graduated! I no longer work as a secretary, and no longer own the broken down radio!! The only thing that remains constant in my life is listening to the radio, reminding me that we still have a long way to go before our last, “Never Again”!       

A Polish Journey: From Exile, Enslavement Camps to Camp Polo in Ahvaz!

The taxi driver pulled away from the airport going towards our hotel. We had just landed at the airport in Warsaw, Poland. I looked behind and told one of my colleagues, “I love Poland!” She laughed out loud, wondering how I could express love for a place which I had barely spent an hour in!!! That was my first of two trips to Poland, where I served as a trainer with the United States Institute of Peace (USIP). I wondered why I showed such a level of enthusiasm for Poland!

After I came back from Warsaw I decided to revisit all I knew about Poland, which was limited to my knowledge of the great Polish football teams of the 70s and 80s, and the players Lato and Boniek and Hitler’s invasion of Poland in 1939 and its bitter aftermath. But as I read more, I learnt about a part of Polish history that I had been part of and never realized it. For that I had to go back to the city of my birth, Ahvaz, located in southwest Iran…

When I was a kid growing up in Ahvaz, we used to frequently visit my dad’s cousin, Sultan Khanum, whose son, Mehrdad was one of my best friends. I enjoyed visiting them, mainly because I could play with Mehrdad and eat Sultan Khanum’s tah-dig (it’s a crunchy/burnt part of rice, found at the bottom of the pot, loved by most Iranians), which was unhealthy, oily and absolutely delicious!!! The neighborhood they lived in was called Camp Polo. Polo in farsi means Rice, so I always thought that the area was called Polo because Sultan Khanum lived there and made her delicious rice. No one seemed to know why the area was called Camp Polo.

The mystery of why the area was called Camp Polo was solved when I decided to learn about Polish history. Camp Polo was the short form for Camp Polonia!! It had nothing to do with Sultan Khanum’s rice making skills, or anything related to tahdig! Camp Polo, was an area where hundreds of Polish women and children were brought in and given refuge during World War II. They were part of the Polish population that had escaped Hitler’s invasion and then enslaved by Stalin. After Hitler decided to attack the Soviet Union, these Polish prisoners were freed and made their way to Iran. They had escaped Hitler, lost their belongings and their nation, put in prison and enslaved by Stalin. Their condition was desperate, and miserable. Millions died, before and after being freed. They felt abandoned, lost and hopeless, and finally in the middle of this darkness, they found respite and hope in the most unlikely of places, Iran. The people of Iran, themselves, void of resources and caught in the upheaval of local and global conflict, embraced the Polish refugees, men, women and children and gave them something that they had not seen for years, Humanity!

In a time when camps were being set up all over Europe to exterminate humanity, in this ancient land of Iran, camps were set up to revive it. Camp Polonia in Ahvaz was one of them. Within months, those who survived the arduous journey, were once again allowed to be humans, their bodies and souls reborn.

To this day Camp Polo triggers within me wonderful memories of my hometown, great rice, tahdig and my childhood friend. But now, it also reminds me that, in one of the darkest time in human history, this simple neighborhood in Ahvaz became a place of hope for a people wronged by history.