1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

Eight years ago, an important figure told me very lightly, as he would have been discussing the evening menu at the restaurant or the weather: “Sudan will not be just North and South. There could be 5 or even 6 Sudans”.

I cannot begin to tell you how much I dislike this statement. I don’t like seeing it in writing, I don’t like thinking about it and I most certainly don’t enjoy talking about it. I don’t like it because I know what the consequences would be if the statement came true.

It seems people have forgotten how to listen. Very few people listen to reason; gunshot noises become the answer to problems. The language of guns is deadly. The language of reason is life saving.

I am asking you: Do we need to pull the trigger or do we need to pull our hands together? Do we need to bomb the ground or do we need to harvest the bounty of the ground? Do we need to keep “them” out or do we need to keep our doors open for “them”? Do we need to sit and look at what’s happening or do we need to make it happen ourselves?

The most important thing is our intentions. Do we need one Sudan/two Sudans or do we need fragmented, conflicting Sudans?  Is this our wish as Sudanese? Good intentions lead to many solutions on the table.

May God save Sudan and its people!

Halas.

Famine in Somalia is by no means a new concept. It does not take us by surprise the way an earthquake or a tsunami does.  We are not unprepared, yet we always seem to be bewildered by the situation.  My question is: why? Why are we so surprised, when the cause is plain for everybody to see?

In my view, we are witnessing the results of long-standing negligence. After all, Somalia has been having problems for the past 40 years. It seems to me we are just cosmetically treating the problems, as we would do with a blemish on the skin. Put some cosmetic product on and pouf!  The blemish is gone. Only you and I and the rest of the people know it’s not gone; the blemish is still there, covered skilfully.

During my last visit to Somalia, I was stunned to see that most INGOs were based in Nairobi, Kenya, not Mogadishu, Somalia. I was shocked and started thinking that maybe Nairobi was the new capital for Somalia and I was behind with the geo-political news.  Somebody assured me that indeed, that was not the case and I was in the right place, due to security.  Halas.

It is my turn to ask some uncomfortable questions: Who is creating this conflict? Who is alimenting this conflict? Who is creating the famine?

Remember: When you neglect your house, it becomes ruined. When you neglect your land, there will be no harvest and no food for you to eat. When you neglect your family, they will all become homeless. When you neglect your country and community, your neighbours become refugees and IDPs.

Do not cry for famine alone. Cry for stopping the conflict as well and cry for stopping the people of Somalia taking up arms.

7/7 and the TREE

Today is 7/7. Yesterday was 6/7 and tomorrow will be 8/7. In the same way, today could be 9/11, yesterday could have been 9/10 and tomorrow could be 9/12. Around the world, people celebrate their birthday today, take their children to school, go to work, meet friends, pray, and eat pasta and sleep. However, 7/7, just like 9/11, is a date which brings sorrow at the horrifying deaths of people in London and New York. Six years have passed from 7/7 and nearly 10 years have passed from 9/11 and yet, the pain in collective memory will not diminish.

My question is: what have we been doing in order to prevent such terrible events from happening again? Are security measures working, or are they creating a bigger hole of mistrust?

The answer to my question should be the planting of a TREE (Trust, Respect, Empower, Engage) within local communities and in the midst of ethnic minorities. Everyone must feel they have a say, in order to make a positive contribution to society.

From my medical experience when treating the sick, we should turn to major surgery and amputation only as a last resort. There are preventive methods to be taken before reaching the stage of crisis. Letting everyone participate in the discussion is the first step.

Let us pray for the souls of those who lost their lives on this day 6 years ago and work hard together to make the good TREE grow!

If you leave me now...

You’ll take the biggest part of me... The song continued on the radio and I started thinking about what happens when someone you trust and depend on leaves. More specifically, I was thinking about what happens when international NGOs and UN agencies leave a country.

My first question was: what were the INGOs actually doing when they were there?  If the philosophy of the NGOs belonged to the HOPE spectrum (Humanitarian Operational Engagement), as The Humanitarian Forum stated two years ago, they will not leave a gap upon their departure. That is because, ideally, during the period they would have been building partnerships for operational engagement. To you and me, that means to leave capable, trained staff from the local communities to work towards achieving a great civil society.  It is known as the hand in hand or “bottom-up” approach.

However, if INGOs do the opposite (most cases, some say), taking a heavy handed “top-down” approach, they will leave a bigger gap than the existing one! To you and me, that means nobody looking after the interests of the local communities.

I believe we need to learn that our resources do not belong to us but to the local community. Even our presence in the field doesn’t belong to our organisations, but to communities. All our fundraising activity is not for us, but for the local community.

We have to be accountable to local communities before we leave their country and ask them a few straightforward questions:” Are you satisfied with us or not? Do we need to stay behind or not? Who is our friend, if we have any?”

In my view, we can meet the standard of the people in need only by stretching out our hand to them and treating them as equals.

Libyan Diaries Part 2

We are trying our best to extend our hands with limited resources to the west of the country as suggested by Panos Moumtzis, UN OCHA   Humanitarian Coordinator for Libya.  Our message is the citizen of Libya is to look at their needs through building one nation. If they meet the needs of the nation, their own needs will be fulfilled.

I remember when we were distributing the course graduation certificate, it felt like a celebration. People came wearing the best clothes they had at home.

The graduates weren’t just celebrating getting the certificate; they were celebrating the birth of the civil society in Libya. People didn’t want to end the celebration and we had to delay our departure for more than 2 and half hours.

To tell you the truth, the trainers were even in better spirits than the actual trainees. The experts were rejoicing even more than the students.

Our team said to trainees:  “We have to come back to learn more from you. We gave you the tools; you gave us the meaning for life”.

This was the message for the visitors to the citizens of Libya.

Libyan Diaries Part 2

We are trying our best to extend our hands with limited resources to the west of the country as Panos Moumtzis, UN OCHA Humanitarian Coordinator for Libya, suggested to us. Our message to the citizens of Libya is to look at their needs through building one nation. If they meet the needs of the nation, their own needs will be fulfilled.

I remember when we were distributing the course graduation certificate, it felt like a celebration. People came wearing the best clothes they had at home. The graduates weren’t just celebrating getting the certificate; they were celebrating the birth of the civil society in Libya. People didn’t want to end the celebration and we had to delay our departure for more than 2 and half hours.

To tell you the truth, the trainers were even in better spirits than the actual trainees. The experts were rejoicing even more than the students. Our team said to trainees:  “We have to come back to learn more from you. We gave you the tools; you gave us the meaning for life”. This was the message for the visitors to the citizens of Libya.

To be continued...

Libyan Diaries Part 1

Quite often we visit other people to inspire them.  Even when we visit refugee camps, community centres for the homeless or training facilities for the unemployed, we try to inspire. 

Sometimes, it is us who are inspired.  This is what has happened to The Humanitarian Forum team who has been in Libya for the past 3 weeks. We felt that the level of enthusiasm rose sharply from Benghazi to Al Bayda to Darna and Tobruk. In Benghazi, we trained 110 people from civil society organisations. In Al Bayda, the number of participants rose to 220, but Darna had the highest number of people in the workshop:  266.

People joined the training workshops in different cities such as Tobruk, Al Marj and Ajdabyia. Some participants travelled hundreds of kilometres every day to start the workshop before 9 and to leave workshop after 5. The level of discussion varied but the level of enthusiasm was the common factor.

In Benghazi, we found youth groups consisting of Libyans brought up in Europe and America. We found a city culture which allows you to talk to youth, governments, local organisations, as well as international organisations. 
In Al Bayda, we found the local charity insisting on finding local donors to save costs of workshop.

In Darna, the local government and organisations did their best to offer us accommodation and the use of a conference hall to save more money.

We have been witnessing the birth of a new civil society sector, which will allow them to strengthen the nation.

To be continued...