The Bus Stop

Courtesy of Flickr

Counter-terrorism is, at long last, on the international agenda. Two years ago, The Humanitarian Forum organised a meeting to talk about this issue (which has been on the table for the past 10 years or so).  I must admit that it wasn’t the pleas of the Muslim or Arab charities suffering from War on Terror or Counter-Terrorism Policy which surprised me. The pleas of Western International NGOs surprised me more!

A colleague told me a wise story. He said that, once upon a time, a poor person was waiting at the bus stop. And they waited, and waited, and waited, for years. Then, a wealthy, influential person came to the same bus stop. The bus came then.

I believe financial counter-terrorist measures are not only affecting the humanitarian space of NGOs, but they are shrinking the humanitarian space of every individual Muslim or Arab donor. The donors from that part of the world are scared to wire their donation. They are scared to even talk about donations. They are scared even to support any fellow human being. 

I visited a few donor countries very recently. In one of them, the locally registered organisation was unable to publicise a fundraising leaflet. They weren’t able to advertise on any public media. Even worse, the organisation could not transfer money to regional offices to run their humanitarian programmes.

Let all the people waiting at the bus stop get on the bus and the driver to take us to our destination: the fulfilment of people’s needs!