The Benghazi Diaries Part 1 – The Ketchup Mix

I am on my third visit to Benghazi, Libya in the past couple of months. This time, I was accompanied from Cairo by two expert consultants and a Social Media volunteer. Our aim was to assess the needs of the  local civil society in Benghazi and strengthen the capacity of its small organisations.

We organised a training workshop for the female members and leaders of Benghazi SCOUT and I was impressed by these women’s drive to deliver, save and rebuild their country.

The next workshop I facilitated was one dedicated to “Principles of Result based Management and Needs Identification”. We decided to add to the mix the saucy flavour of Social Media sauce. An Egyptian volunteer provided the Social Media sauce and showed everyone in attendance its importance for NGOs.

The level of discussions, the drive behind the words and the diversity of topics was complemented by the fact that out of the 54 participants, 60% were women.

To be continued….

What’s next? Part 2

We might decide to go together next. I am asking you: where is more difficult to go and what’s more difficult to do than what’s next? This is a very long term process, producing the next products. We could even become disorientated - too many “nexts”.

The leaders of one zone prioritize next with the leaders of other zone. Quite often it is not transparent enough for everybody or they don’t communicate enough with one another. That’s why their “next” could lead to a conflict of interest and create wars. The solution for this is called transparency of planning, recognition of the diversity of roles and the sharing of benefits.

Wouldn’t it be great if next global leaders were accountable to humanity, not to an election box?!  The election box doesn’t know what’s next.

Can our “nexts” meet somewhere in the middle to exceed the expectations of billions of people? This could only happen if we next think together to have commonly shared values.

Are you ready for what’s next?

What’s next? Part 1

What’s next is probably one of the biggest issues we face since we are born into this world. From the moment we are born, we start on our way towards advanced ways of thinking and a clear vision.

Then, when we can talk at length, we talk about the future holds in store for us, about disaster preparedness, prevention of conflict, economic solutions, fighting corruption, implementing democracy, changing governments, economic empowerment, building generations, securing humanity etc.

Next is a philosophy, a way of translating the feelings of people, dreams of nations, reality of truth and make inclusivity in communities happen. Next comes fighting poverty, treating illnesses, stopping deforestation and climate change.

Next I’ll need a loaf of bread, pair of shoes, a school place, a football ground, a park to play, access to transport, clean roads and a place to live. Each and every one of us has a next and there are over 6 billion of them.

What’s next? That is the challenge. We can move forward as global leaders, community workers, politicians, reformists, thinkers, professors, think-tanks and individuals.

What to do next? We must identify key priorities, locations and whom to take with us on this journey. Should we go down this road alone or together? The collective reading of our brains will help us understand the philosophy of our “nexts”.

To be continued...

Happy Easter!

Easter is a time of reflection and renewal. As Spring renews the ground, flowers come into bloom and animals awake from their hibernation, so must we ponder on what has been and what there is to come.

Jesus (Peace be upon Him) and Lady Mary (Peace be upon Her) have carried a message of community cohesion and compassion.  It is our turn to show the world we care, through our humanitarian actions.

I wish everyone a Happy Easter and a spring filled with peace and prosperity!

A goodbye to Tim and Chris...

I was shocked to hear the sad news of the departure of Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros, who were mercilessly taken from this world. I was deeply touched by the courage, spirit, vision and determination the two shared. They passed on struggling to reveal the truth about the atrocities committed.

For humanity, they were not just photojournalists. They were the messengers of the messengers sent by God. Their message will be everlasting and we must let our prayers for them soar up to God.

I don’t believe they have gone for good, as their work is still with us for eternity. Sometimes, revealing the truth leads to unnecessary losses of life.

God bless Tim and Chris! Let us remember them and their work for eternity.

Keep the fire burning?

I have been travelling for the past 30 years and visiting many war-torn areas, conflict zones and crossfire lines in Iraq, Gaza, Chechnya, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Darfur etc. My experiences have enabled me to learn a lot from the philharmonic music of bullets, missiles, bombing, screams, cries, destruction, tanks and jets.

Beethoven’s symphonies have entranced us for centuries, however our own musical war machines are a completely different kettle of fish altogether! Beethoven creates a peaceful atmosphere, while the war machine drags you out into the void.

Everybody aims towards peace however sometimes parties fail to reach ceasefire agreements. We need to take a step back and understand the motives behind that. Could the agreement be not comprehensive enough? Or not realistic? Or unjust? Does it address all current and future needs?

There are many more questions that could be asked, but the most important one, in my view, is what are we, the international community, doing about it? We need to stand as pendulum for the scale of humanity and use our moral value as weight and decide: keep the fire burning?

Restructuring the UN

Attending many UN meetings and conferences for the past 15 years has given me the skill of how to sift through the wealth of information that can be gained on such opportunities. I am also a member of an advisory group since last year, as well as a regular participant of new initiatives in faith-based discussions.

UNFPA identified the need to have faith-based groups and created a department for cross-cultural activities. Is it enough? To UNFPA’s credit, it is a new initiative for the UN family; however we need more for social change.

The role of faith and value based organisations highlights other needs and gaps which need to be covered by UN agencies. In my opinion, we need fully-fledged UN Under-Secretaries-General for:

1. Faith/ value based organisations
2. Youth
3. Civil Society 
4. Internal Communications (Interdepartmental and Intradepartmental)
5. Social Media

These new positions will enable UN agencies to act faster and have a more efficient role during crisis or peace.

If we believe in change, we have to use change-makers to make it. In my view, if we need to drive fast, we need cars with derestricted speed-limits. If we want to upgrade our knowledge, we have to change our capacity from Giga to Terra and beyond.

The Lion and the Ant

Imagine a lion trying to dig a tunnel and live inside it or store up insects to eat. It’s a funny image, isn’t it? Also, imagine an ant roaring with all its might, trying to frighten all the animals in the forest and fighting an elephant or chasing an antelope. Even funnier!

If we can’t imagine such a thing, you need only have a look at the development of foreign policies, global military interventions and the War on Terror (WOT). The giant lions want the lion’s share, forgetting how to be a guiding guardian figure to the small ants.

Changes in the Middle East/North Africa region mean that there needs to be space at the discussion table and shared ownership not just for giants and ants, but for all the animals: tigers, hyenas, birds and fish, because the decisions made affect all of them.

Let us review honestly and bravely our policies and spend our money wisely, in bringing back the decency of life for everyone in the forest.

A cost benefit analysis

A friend of mine was invited to attend a particular very important wedding. He phoned me up with his news and we started talking about it. I was startled when he asked me who I thought was paying for his invitation. We started reminiscing about another such big wedding, when Gamal Abdel Nasser’s daughter Mona married Ashraf Marwan in 1966. Nasser was a charismatic socialist leader who brought the concepts of socialism and communism to the Middle East.

I remembered there used to be heated debates in my parents’ house between my eldest sister and a socialist relation who used to visit regarding Nasser’s alleged daily expenditure. The relation believed wholeheartedly Nasser’s claim that he only spent 1 Egyptian Pound per day for his household. My sister used to get very annoyed and answer back that she spent 2 Egyptian Pounds a day, so how could the head of state spend so little?!

When Nasser’s daughter got married, it was a lavish affair, with no expense spared. At the time, it was all hushed up and pictures have only started emerging now, after 40 years.

My friend asked, “Who paid then?”

To make up our minds on this matter, my friend and I have created a list of costs and benefits, leaving it for you to analyse.

Costs: wedding costs, policing costs, reduced manufacturing, extra holiday, damage to environment, benefits only one part of the country

Benefits: extra holiday, increased revenue in services, increased spending, tourism, pride and excitement, interest from overseas, gifts are going to charity.

What next?

Iman

Iman’s story was covered extensively by global media. Iman could be anybody’s daughter, sister, colleague, niece or wife. Iman, as a female, represents 50% of any society. Her courage and determination to break the taboo in one of the most conservative Arab societies should be commended. This tortured helpless girl who fears nobody in her life and fights the whole world should send us all a powerful message.

There is nonstop violence against vulnerable women and girls in the world and it has been going on and on and on. What are we doing about it?

Who should be standing up for these women to protect them from individual incidents or collective governmental decisions to demoralise the opposition?

My answer to this question is: all of us should get involved, be it community leaders, global leaders, grass root workers.

A lesson...

Because I haven’t told you a story in quite a while, I thought it was time for one.

Once upon a time, a long time ago, there was a good man, a global leader, who was gifted by God to bring justice to humanity.  He had the power to travel from the East to the West and from the North to the South faster than the speed of supersonic jet.

One day, on his travels, he heard the cry of help from some primitive people living in Central Asia. They told him their story: every year, two tribes called Gog and Magog came every other month to steal, kill, destroy, rape and take girls and boys with them. This was an ongoing story, month after month, year after year, generation after generation.

The man, upon hearing this, came back with his mighty force, loyal army and superior technology. He did three things:
1.    Protected the area with its army to prevent more invasions;
2.    Transferred the superior technology to the local community;
3.    Empowered the community, so it could become more independent after he eventually left.

The three solutions went hand in hand.  While he was camped outside cities and villages with his army, he taught them how to build the greatest wall by making an alloy. His intervention at the border was short term but building the wall ensured long term protection. This huge wall was so effective because it was so strong, no technology at the time could be used to make a hole through it, and so smooth that it couldn’t be climbed.

The primitive people felt very grateful for being rescued. They asked the man: what do you want in return? Is it money, land, women, status?

He looked at big wall he built with them and said: “Just thank God that you are protected.  I am taking my army out now and we are going to look for other community in need of protection. I expect nothing in return.”

I hope you have all liked this story and it can be a lesson for all of us who help others.

Let me...

• question what we see and hear...
• ask what the cost is, as a surgeon, commander, consultant or advisor...
• read history and learn from it to build the future of my country that needs the help of mighty strong armies...
• let you stop allowing the fire of war...
• tell you to leave my land and my house...
• live in peace and safety.

Second Libyan Journey Part 2

A week before we arrived to Benghazi, 300,000 people had fled eastwards, looking for a safe heaven. Everybody was afraid of the invasion of governmental forces. The well-meaning Libyan citizens from Al Bayda did their best to accommodate and comfort them and give them all the moral, financial and social support they can.

On a more serious note, we found that most of the foreign workers, farmers, shop workers, nurses, doctors etc had already left, leaving a huge gap in the working force, from the grass root level to the intellectual level.

The estimated stock of food might last 2-3 months. Strategically, the presence of most INGOs cannot be felt in places such as Benghazi and Al Bayda, as they have pulled out for security reasons. Also strategically, there are still needs to be met:  nurses, doctors and food supplies.

I was very lucky to attend the first humanitarian coordination meeting organised by Libyan NGOs and INGOs. This felt like a positive step forward in Benghazi.

I felt even more fortunate to be invited to speak to community leaders in Al Bayda on topics such as:
1.    The role of civil society in building the social infrastructure of the country
2.    The role of women in civil society and the future of the nation
3.    The diverse role of international relief and development organisations.

During that day in Al Bayda, I met with the chairman of the local transitional government and I also delivered a speech to civil society organisations in the house of assembly about the need to build and strengthen civil society.

I discovered there is a huge gap, which could be filled by The Humanitarian Forum in building the capacity of CSOs and communities, as well as creating a good network between organisations, between organisations and the government and also internationally.

Second Libyan Journey Part 1

I started my second 3,500km journey after a very successful humanitarian coordination event organised by The Humanitarian Forum and the League of Arab States in Cairo.

We have already identified a huge gap to build the capacity of the local civil society organisations. We aim to create a stronger mechanism of networking, cooperation and coordination amongst the local organisations and governmental departments.

On my trip, I met up with many governmental organisations as well as INGOs and local community based organisations and emerging organisations from Western Libya.

I discussed with other humanitarian workers what comes next.  We all discovered that there is no A-Z solution; it needs to be a coordination approach between humanitarian organisations.

While we were there, I managed to visit 3 ghost towns: Ajdabiya, Al Brega and Ras Lanuf. I call them ghost-towns as there were hardly any citizens walking around, any shops open or civilian vehicles on the streets.  We could see the scale of destruction of the buildings, houses, mosques and the empty shells of burned military vehicles.

To be continued...