Monday, March 21, 2022

Dear fellow traveller

 Dear fellow traveller on this journey of being human,


As we travel together enjoying this journey of life, bickering about the destination, worrying about its purpose, it can feel incredibly emotional and overwhelming.  When external circumstances divert our path or put in obstacles, it can feel uncertain.  The last few days have reminded me of the globalisation of fragility and the democratisation of inequality and inequity.  Just as we thought we were seeing the light at the end of the COVID tunnel, it seemed to have been blown up with an unsettling  prospect of another global war (on our doorsteps).  The journey will require great mental resolve and strength to get through these uncertain times.



So I wanted to share with you that it is ok not to be ok all the time.  It is ok to feel disoriented, overwhelmed, stress, sadness, loneliness and languishing, anxiety.  Believe me that I have had those moments of feeling overwhelmed and disconnected – from other people, from our own values or from hope about the future.  The last few days have been no different.


These emotions affect us in our jobs and our lives and pretending they don’t exist will not help us.  So I firstly wanted to say, that if you have experienced or are experiencing these roller coaster of emotions and doubts, please know that you are not alone!! I hear you, there is nothing to be worried or ashamed about and you do not need to turn it off when you get to work.  It is not a sign of weakness to show that you are vulnerable.  In fact as Rumi says :


This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes

As an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,

who violently sweep your house

empty of its furniture,

still treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out

for some new delight.


This brings me to my second point, in that.  Please do take care of yourself.  There is no shame in feeling overwhelmed and disconnected, admitting that or even reaching out to talk to someone.   I want you to know that if you want support or someone to talk to or someone to listen, I am on the other side of a call.  But if it is not me there will always be someone to do that.


My third point, is that while it is ok not to feel ok, please know that in the long run, things will be OK.  Tomorrow is a new day and it has the potential to be great!!  You have to back yourself up and trust that all of your hard work, your delivering of value to the world, your visualizing and visioning, your personal growth practices, your journaling, your prayers and so on, will prepare you and allow you to stand steadfast in the trouble.  For those of you who have read The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho we are reminded to : ‘Go; travel the world, look for the truth and the secret of life — every road will lead you to this sense of initiation: the secret is hidden in the place from which you set out’.  The path and destination starts with ourselves.   So in essence the radical self care that comes out of  personal peace practices whereby the constant effort that we make to purify, to control and liberate our hearts is in the end, reconciliation with the deepest level of our being and the all spark that the Creator breathed into our heart of humility, of compassion,  the awareness of fragility, the consciousness of limitation, the shoulder of responsibility. The responsibility is to live justly and fairly.  It is a responsibility that connects to the ‘other’, the responsibility to be that change for a  world which makes sense, a world in which we connect with other people, beyond our immediate communities and experience, and show them compassion and love.  It is now more than ever that we need to show that responsibility to connect to that other and the humility that we are not the rulers of the world but merely guardians of earth as we borrow from our grandchildren.    


Have faith that I and countless others have your back.  But more importantly, have conviction that  the higher force that works to keep the world in balance know what it’s doing.  Have faith that we as a species will eventually figure it all out and make things better through our native instinct for invention and progress.  But have faith that your little endeavors to change the world one person at a time is saving humanity.



So, take a long, great inhale.  Let it all go (while you keep doing your best).


Then go sit outside in the sunshine and bask in the love that the sun has for the earth, every day rising and never saying “you owe me”.  Let life do the rest.


May you shine so brightly that at the end of your days, all will pause and say ‘ah there was one who lived life fully and completely and gave back ’


Stay great. Stand Strong. Together we rise.


-Amjad



this originally appeared here on Euphrates Institute

Friday, February 25, 2022

Trust building Part 2: the need for dialogue

This is the second part of a 2 part series exploring the role of trust and dialogue. the first part looked at what trust means. Building on the first part of this blog, dialogue is a means and a goal of bridging the trust deficit.

In his Christmas sermon, Pope Francis called for dialogue on the world stage to resolve conflict. This is an important recognition of the role of dialogue as a foundation for resolving conflict as it builds trust.


Dialogue can transform individuals in societies in a way that increases true social cohesion, because it strengthens trust and understanding, and enables real relationships to be built across differences. Dialogue is a two way process of mutual accommodation that can only take place if both “sides” have a deeper understanding of the needs, perspectives, desires, fears, and priorities of the other. It is not just about understanding what the other is saying, but what they really mean.

As the international centre for dialogue (KAICIID) interfaith dialogue manual states, dialogue is more than just a conversation. The goal is not to find a resolution to a problem or settling on a specific action, but the point is to explore and find common ground, leading to solutions or cooperation. This is a particular important tool in diverse societies seeking to incorporate, celebrate and use that diversity. Dialogue becomes an effective approach to strengthening social cohesion within culturally and religiously diverse societies because it allows for people to maintain their various identities while still finding common ground.


common ground

Dialogue helps people who are different sides of an argument; those that are marginalised and excluded, to understand that they are not alone in their hopes and fears; nor do people need to be afraid or ashamed to ask difficult questions to seek to understand, to respect and ultimately to accept differences without compromising one’s beliefs or identities.

Dialogue is a powerful tool that can be undertaken in both formal and informal settings. Diaological approaches provides a certain code to undertake informal dialogue. This determines a set of principles to be followed in the interaction with the other. It provides for a quality of interaction that allows for a way of getting involved in different creative processes where the participants can feel included and empowered, safe to be transparent, take risks, open to what others have to say and able to take long term view of the issues.


These are important ways to strengthen cohesion as it maintains identities whilst finding common grounds

Thus the aim of dialogue is to overcome misunderstandings and dispel stereotypes in order to gain better mutual understanding. Rather than necessarily agreeing on a point of view, dialogue is about recognising and developing mutual respect so as to build sustainable relationships. By focusing on common needs, dialogue builds bridges and transforms human relations. It fosters deeper understanding, so that even though disagreements may persist, an appreciation for the perspectives of the other can emerge .


identity formation

In taking a dialogical approach, misperceptions and fears can be dispelled, understanding built which lays the ground work for practical approaches to peaceful coexistence. This is extremely important when we are faced with the politics of identity as we are increasingly faced with now. As social beings, we have a unique collection of thoughts, habits and beliefs that define who we are, as they have been imprinted on our lives through a series of events and contextsThis shapes our identity and our expressions and representations of it. As Amartya Sen (2007) writes “Identity incorporates the ideas, beliefs, qualities and expressions that make a person who he/she is. This self-perception is modelled by relation with others and with an individual’s own context in time”.


Identities are important because they form the basis of who we believe ourselves to be and how we fit in with the world. Identity formation gives the sense of worth and value to people. It constructs their common views and meanings, shaping their experiences, perception and behaviour. Identity is represented through cultural attributes. While cultures may differ from one another, one aspect they all share in common is that they provide a framework to fulfil the primary human need to belong. Thus, humans strive to fulfil this basic need to belong through one or more of the broader collective identities, in addition to the recognition of their own personal identity. Their cultural identity often overlaps with language and ethnicity, and sometimes also religion.


Worldviews are also important in dialogue as they define how a person views the world, including all the conscious and unconscious elements that form and influence the person’s perception of reality. A worldview can be seen as dynamic, as these elements, as well as the individual’s perception of reality, may change over time. Therefore, inter worldview dialogue aims to improve mutual understanding of different worldviews, including the numerous identities and sub-identities, and it opens pathways for more inclusive language.


When we feel unacknowledged or receive negative feedback or experience negative reactions to our personal identities, we tend to suppress our identity and develop coping narratives. Sometimes these narratives are used to justify violence against others, and foster further exclusion or inclusion of only those with whom we share that particular identity. The good news is that the same is true in the reverse: when identities are recognised and affirmed, we also develop narratives about them. Ultimately these stories act as a protective mechanism and directly affect how we interact with others as well as influence who we choose to engage with and who we choose to avoid. Thus, when we have a single story that has been built upon negative stereotypes and false perceptions of those who are different from us, we can easily become prone towards prejudice and discrimination against others.


Dialogue allows us to become more aware of these power dynamics of identities and hierarchy of identities. Dialogue requires clarity of purpose. We need to be aware of What do we want to achieve and what questions do we need to answer in order to get there?


Building blocks

As someone who has been working in the space of dialogue and trust building over the last decade, here are some some of the building blocks that I have learnt that enable us to have a conversation and keep a focus on the end goal

1) Approach as a golden rule — We need to be aware of the golden rule of treating others as we wish to be treated. Bx expanding this premise, we respect others just as we expect others to respect us. We need to respect the differences that make each and everyone unique. Dialogue can take then place only between equals, which means that partners learn from each others

2) Honesty and sincerity — It is imperative that each participant comes to the dialogue process with complete honesty and sincerity. This means not only describing the major and minor thrusts, as well as potential future shifts of one’s tradition, but also possible difficulties that s/he has with it. Everyone must be honest and sincere, even if that means revealing discomforts with your own tradition or that of the other. Everyone must assume that everyone else is being equally honest and sincere

3) Openness to learn and to understanding and embracing other identities- The essential purpose of dialogue is to learn, which entails change. At the very least, to learn that one’s dialogue partner views the world differently is to effect a change in oneself. Reciprocally, change happens for one’s partner as s/he learns about her/himself. One needs to enter into dialogue so that you can learn and grow, not to change the other. This means we need to relearn the art of listening and be willing to experience it from within, which requires a “passing over,” even if only momentarily, into another’s religious or ideological experience All should strive to experience the other’s faith “from within” and be prepared to view themselves differently as a result of an “outside” perspective. People must not come to the dialogue with any preconceptions as to where the points of disagreement lie. A process of agreeing with one’s partner as much as possible, without violating the integrity of one’s own tradition, will reveal where the real boundaries between the traditions lie: the point where s/he cannot agree without going against the principles of one’s own tradition

4) Don’t be insecure about your own identity (self reflection) — Each participant needs to describe her/himself from their perspective and postion. For example, only a Muslim can describe what it really means to be an authentic member of the Muslim community. At the same time, when one’s partner in dialogue attempts to describe back to them what they have understood of their partner’s self-description, then such a description must be recognizable to the described party Participants in dialogue should have a healthy level of criticism toward their own traditions. A lack of such criticism implies that one’s tradition has all the answers, thus making dialogue not only unnecessary but unfeasible. The primary purpose of dialogue is to learn, which is impossible if one’s tradition is seen as having all the answers. Sometimes you can explore and understand yourself better when engaging with others. Interfaith dialogue to foster understanding among religions

5) Accept boundaries you are in a Journey- Don’t feel that you are the spokesperson for your entire community or faith tradition or that you ought somehow to know everything there is to know about it. Admit any confusion or uncertainty you might have if a puzzling question arises

6) Dialogue must be a two-sided project: both between religious/ideological groups, and within religious/ideological groups (inter- and intra-). Intra-religious/ideological dialogue is vital for moving one’s community toward an increasingly perceptive insight into reality. Understand similarities and differences between theological and philosophical discussions on an intellectual level. Don’t assume in advance where points of agreement or disagreement will exist. Everyone should be willing to be self-critical

7) Lived Experience is vital — One must compare only her/his ideals with their partner’s ideals and her/his practice with the partner’s practice, not one’s ideals with one’s partner’s practice. Value other peoples position and experience and spirituality by learning about different religions through sacred writings, stories and narratives. Everyone must be permitted to define their own religious experience and identity, and others must respect this

8) Trust is a means and a goal — Trust is a must. Confidences must be kept within the group. Everyone should feel “safe “ to express their ideas and feelings without fear. Dialogue can only take place on the basis of mutual trust. Because it is persons, and not entire communities, that enter into dialogue, it is essential for personal trust to be established. To encourage this it is important that less controversial matters are discussed before dealing with more controversial ones

9) Work together on joint projects to actualize your shared ideals and understandings. — You need to work together on specific projects to actualize that trust. Nothing works better than joint projects on the ground helping to actualize the commonality and differences between people.


trust building

Trust building through dialogue involving shared endeavour and mutual vulnerability requires a willingness to be open to understanding the lifeworld of another. This most certainly does not mean that one needs to agree with its every detail, nor to, in some way, concede something essential in oneself. It does however need to understand where other ideas are coming from — historically and intellectually. In other words, the doors need to be kept open, not slammed shut.

So how do we build the trust that creates the ideas and institutions that will allow us to live together as the global tribe? Using the Trust Quotient buttressed by the 4 R’s of Trustbuilding outlined in part 1 one can create a safe space for critical self-reflection but more importantly to reach out to dialogue with the other. This is extremely important to achieve what the pope calls as the search for “reconciliation and fraternity”



This originally appeared here

Monday, January 31, 2022

Diversity is a fact

 Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives are currently occupying everyone’s attention since the murder of George Floyd in 2020, and the concept of anti-racism and decolonization became more prominent. However, to start with that, it is important to note that the co-option of racism, diversity and inclusion, social justice and social good does not equate with a conversation on decolonisation. We need to understand the narrative of decolonisation, colonial, localization and the intersection with diversity, equality, and inclusion. Yet they are not the same!

Decolonisation debates did not start in 2020 but started when people in the global south began organizing to counter the ideologies of the oppressors who sought to enforce power and seize land. It is about coming up with a new ‘paradigm’ of thinking and approach that interrogates the post-colonial agenda provides agency to the ‘local’ that has a pedagogy of liberation and freedom that works in partnership with the affected community. It is about disrupting the system and upending the structure according to and with local voices, cultures and traditions. It is about taking the risk and having the right actors at the table to hear their voices.  

The conversations around DEI focus on the need to provide for inclusive participation. Inclusive participation is about understanding that power imbalances in all societies mean that some people experience more privilege. Those same power imbalances mean that many other people experience more violence, discrimination and exclusion than others. Some of the most prominent examples of power imbalances have been expressed through racism, xenophobia, colonialism, sexism, homophobia and other forms of entrenched oppression that remain rampant globally. 

This means getting a better understanding of the intersectionality of identities. Individuals have several layers to their identities. Gender, ethnic origin, nationality or citizenship, age, disability, language, political opinions, religious beliefs, social background, sexual orientation, physical appearance and colour that “intersect” – or are “woven” together.

People suffer discrimination against a combination of these factors. An intersectional perspective emphasizes the importance of looking at these forms of discrimination together and at the same time in order to understand their compound effects on the individual.

At the heart of the inclusive, participative approach is an analysis of not only how pre-existing inequalities and differences lead to vulnerabilities, capacities, risks and levels of exposure to harm; for different people but how the intersectionalities of identities (such as people’s gender, disability, age, ethnic origin, nationality or citizenship, language, religious beliefs, political opinion, social background, sexual orientation, physical appearance and colour) impact the level of barriers they face in their efforts to meet basic needs, to be recognized and included, and to be safe from harm. Considering these factors and how they interrelate is central to looking at immediate risks and consequences of exclusion and violations and the causes of those risks.

Thus the central concept of inclusive participation is the emphasis on the equality and dignity of each human being and the humanitarian imperative to not discriminate against any single one – including acknowledging that if we do not adapt our work and approach to the different needs of different people, and we do not model the diversity of the community we serve, we are in fact discriminatory!!

 

1

 

This paradigm shift in thinking and approach relies on equity which is different to the concept of equality. The latter is based on the assumption that everyone benefits from the same support. This is represented by diagram 1.

However, equity speaks more to the intersectional approach, which speaks to how individuals may need different types of support and approaches based on their varying vulnerabilities in varying degrees in order to benefit from equal outcomes.

Thus, equity leads to equality!! For example, working on equal gender rights means that equitable measures need to be taken to ensure those equal rights are met.

This is represented by diagram 2. 

2

 

 

Ideally, the scenario from the diagrams is to get rid of the fence altogether, as shown below in diagram 3.

3

This is justice and ultimately the end result of inclusive participation and social inclusion.

Inclusive participation improves the ability, opportunity and dignity of individuals and groups excluded on the basis of their identity to take part in society. Working on social inclusion matters reduces in reducing inequalities based on social backgrounds, identities, roles and power relations. Providing inclusive services means giving equitable access to resources for all. This means that everyone has a role to play. It is not only important that we get people from the ‘minority’ groups to shout louder about getting equitable rights and representation. It is not until their narrative is understood and mainstreamed by the majority that we can actually move the conversation forward. DEI should not be a simple ‘tick box’ exercise but an integral and embedded process that takes into account power dynamics, identities, possibilities and vulnerabilities across societies.

We need to do better; we need to be better, not because it is the good thing to do, but the right thing to do, to treat people with dignity, respect and humanity. This is our moral responsibility. Put simply, diversity is a fact, and inclusion is an act!!!


This originally appeared here

Tuesday, November 30, 2021

Trust Building — Part 1: The 4R’s of Building Trust

 This is the first part of a two part series looking at Trust and Dialogue.

Trust is in short supply

This blog is prompted by the feeling that currently global trust is in short supply. With many people across the world increasingly being anti vaccine and being susceptible to the misinformation that is being spread, a reluctance to take the covid vaccine and adhere to safety protocols signals a lack of trust in the system and those enforcing the system. This lack of trust is symptomatic of a wider global malaise where there is a massive trust deficit in society, with old institutions and positions such as bankers, journalists and politicians facing the brunt of this.

The 2021Edelman Trust Barometer has revealed that there is a trust paradox that despite an era of strong economic performance and nearly full employment (over the past two decades, more than a billion people around the world have lifted themselves out of poverty), the 4 major societal institutions — government, business, NGOs and media — are not trusted at all. This has been further exacerbated by a year of unprecedented disaster and turbulence brought on by the triple crisis of the Covid-19 pandemic , the economic crisis and the resulting social crisis that has been made worse by the global outcry over systemic racism and political instability. The infodemic around covid 19 has also contributed to this failing trust ecosystem.

the role of globalisation

The trust paradox is also worsened and defined by the process of globalisation which has disrupted the social fabric that helps individuals define themselves and assess their social roles. The shifts of the 21st century as a result of globalisation have upended traditional structures of authority, relocated centres of power and allowed a flood of perspectives on how life should be lived. These shifts have unanchored lives, challenging the traditional structures and networks that guided peoples’ behaviour in society, such as learning from the teachings of our forefathers, by trial and error and following the models of others. In times of rapid social change these networks are erased or shifted to a degree that they become unrecognisable. This frantic pace has unsettled people to such an extent that they yearn for agents of constancy to provide an oasis in the shifting sands of today. This unsettling has also led to a decrease in trust in the institutions that have traditionally played that role of an agent of constancy, mainly because they have failed to keep up the pace to address (Jurgensmeyer, Griego and Soboslai 2015).:

A Search for Social Identity — the increasing mobility of people and the ease of global communications seems almost to make it possible for everyone to live everywhere. As a result, huge new multicultural populations are emerging around the world that have mixed identities- grounded in their new homelands but in touch with countries of heritage. Thus today one’s social identity is fluid and often determined by changing global circumstances and remains a paradox.

Accountability — there is a global issue of authority. As the concept of the nation-state becomes diluted with globalisation, it is no longer clear who is in charge. This phenomenon is further exacerbated by disaffected nationalist regimes and movements that claim — but have seemingly lost — moral bearings.

Security — we see mass disillusionment with the system of sovereign, secular states. National unities have been challenged by division based on religious and tribal identities and new ideologies of nationalism have emerged based on the sectarian interests of religion.

This loss of trust means that we can also lose hope in imagined realities with public belief in many core aspects of “the system” disappearing around the world. The current COVID-19 pandemic is showing a new form of this loss of trust. As people reject official sources of information, they are increasingly turning to search engines and social media to inform themselves. This rising tide of misinformation and mistrust is threatening Covid-19 recovery, as people are deeply suspicious and hesitant about the Covid-19 vaccine. In fact, among those who practice poor information hygiene — in that they do not check their sources and/or ensure credible and factual information is shared — there is substantially less willingness to get the vaccine within the year of its first availability (59 percent versus 70 percent for people with good information hygiene)

four horsemen

In the absence of accepted referees of truth, new imagined realities can easily form in the algorithmic echo chambers, that fly in the face of facts rather than building on them, sometimes based on who is shouting loudest (Mahmood 2020). The UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called this global wave of mistrust one of the “four horsemen” that “endanger 21st-century progress and imperil 21st-century possibilities.” (Guterres 2020)

This trust deficit also caused by a deficit in leadership has led to a wider trust within society, with a large portion of the rhetoric of distrust being deflected to immigrants or people who appear to be the ‘Other’. In America a large portion of the distrust against the ‘other’ has led to the #BlackLivesMatter movement which has exposed the fear against the Afro Caribbean community (Kendi 2020) and the distrust that the community has in the public institutions to be fair and just. It is this distrust of the public institutions like law enforcement that reinforces a vicious cycle whereby both sides are not confident in each other.

There is an irony here as trust is often seen as something warm and fuzzy and not quantifiable. Yet trust also makes us feel safe and comfortable. So whilst trust is dismissed from the professional sphere as being something not tangible, from a leadership perspective it is still seen as a much valued trait and value. Leaders who cannot inspire trust cannot lead; there will be no followership.

The reason for there to be some much reluctance to professionally consider this whilst acknowledging its personal trait is that trust can be seen to be a leap of faith. It is based on one’s own worldview and experience that involves taking some risks, because whilst trust takes a long time to build, it can be broken very quickly. When times call for fundamental change, trust is often hard to come by. Yet it is clear that trust is essential to developing relationships with individuals. So the message is clear: To be trusted, one has to be trustworthy!!

Building trust is the essential foundation for building healthy communities. It inspires changes in individual lives and interpersonal relationships which in turn can catalyse social action and legislative changes (Corcoran 2010). Building trust has to start from the individual perspective as the most needed reforms in our communities require levels of political courage and trust based collaboration that can only be achieved by individuals who have the vision, integrity and persistence to call out the best in others and sustain deep and long term effects. Without trust, true collaboration is unattainable. From history, the likes of Mandela, Ghandi and King worked off social capital based on trust.

The Trust Quotient

In this light, it is worth exploring the ‘Trust Quotient’ which has been developed as an online self-assessment tool to measure an individual’s ability to garner ‘Trust’ (Maister, Galford and Green 2000). Whilst the tool is itself useful, what is more useful to consider are the attributes behind the ‘Trust Quotient’: credibility, reliability, intimacy and self-orientation. The equation identified below is thought provoking as it makes the concept of trust more practical and also posits the notion that the idea of trust is very much linked to the individual and dependent on the level of one’s own self-orientation.


The Trust Quotient (Maister, Galford and Green 2000) thus has one variable in the denominator and three in the numerator. The three numerator variables improve trustworthiness, whilst the denominator can reduce trustworthiness. Increasing the value of the factors in the numerator increases the value of trust. Increasing the value of the denominator — self-orientation — decreases the value of trust. The Trust Quotient provides a scientific, analytical and actionable framework for how we help organizations and individuals improve their businesses and lives. Thus, Trust is a consequence of good behaviour, not an ingredient, and while it takes decades to build it can vanish overnight based on the ego and self-orientation

Exploring the attributes in more detail, one sees that:

Credibility is about rating “what you say and how believable you are to others.” In other words, you must be and sound credible if you are asking others to follow your lead. Credibility also comes from integrating spirituality and a language of faith into what you say and do.

Reliability measures “actions, and how dependable you appear.” The actions need to follow up words. Do you ‘say what you do and do what you say’? So people need to know that you will come through for them.

Intimacy considers “how safe people feel in sharing with and being with you.” So often we are emotionally distant from others but we need to create opportunities to ensure that leaders do keep their emotional distance from their followers, but when you are presented with confidential information, you need to keep it so. It is also about keeping trust that God’s Plan for you is the best plan. That no matter if you are facing something positive or negative, it was chosen for you and you can handle it;

The fourth characteristic, self-orientation, refers to personal focus, e.g. yourself or others. What the equation shows is that too much self-focus will lower your degree of trustworthiness. It is important to demonstrate a strong ego but if your power is all about you, then few will follow. Self-Orientation refers to the focus of yourself. Self-orientation, which sits alone in the denominator, thus is the most important variable in the Trust Equation. A person with low self-orientation is free to completely and honestly focus on the other person — not for his own sake, but for the sake of the other person. Thus “Lowering self-orientation” can improve trustworthiness. When all you focus on is helping prospects, they trust you more. Ego is a common enemy that is a main impediment to learning and the cultivation of talent. With success, it can blind us to our faults and sow future problems. In failure it magnifies each blow and makes recovery more difficult. At every stage, ego holds us back (Holliday 2016).

Thus the Quotient and understanding its whole attributes may serve as a check on those of us who may think we are trustworthy, but perhaps may not be credible or reliable. Or we may be too self-absorbed to notice our deficiency. Building trust is ultimately about people.

The 4R’s

Living the four Trust Values is the best way to increase your trustworthiness. So how would one work to build those 4 trust values? How can we develop trust through building credibility, intimacy and reliability and reducing self orientation?

In my opinion, this can be done with building the 4 R’s of Trust building:

Take Responsibility

The first concept on ensuring trust and developing credibility is about taking personal responsibility and recognising that we individually need to work on, contributing towards the 4 trust attributes. The individual step will be to begin with ourselves with a values integration to model the change and be the catalyst for change we want to see. Change comes from taking courage to challenge the status quo and those that perpetuate fear and distrust. Taking responsibility is not just for the select few but for everyone (men and women) to step forward to take the lead in overcoming division.

Taking personal responsibility also means moving beyond victimhood to overcome burdens that can destroy them in order to give them a new lease of life. The concept of victimhood is extremely important for many who due to historical / colonial perspectives as well as the experiences of migrants to the west is one of being under siege (Hussain 2014).

The historian Yuval Harari has explained that the shift of human beings’ from small family social units, to nations and ideologies gathering millions owes a great deal to our ability to invent and then believe in stories (Harari 2020). In other words, having common “imagined realities” — that allow us to believe in invisible constructs as a way of organising ourselves. Hence there is a need to reconstruct the narrative of the community that is one that moves away from victimhood and takes responsibility for addressing social change to address concrete cause-and-effect relations (Harari 2018)

Build Relationships

How can we expect the people we serve to trust us, if we are not willing to trust them? How can we trust them if there is no engagement with them? The second pillar is about engagement and outreach. Studies conducted in Sri Lanka after the end of the conflict by the Asian Foundation, found that there was a lot of mistrust between the various faiths largely because there was no day to day engagement between the various members of the communities (The Asia Foundation 2011).

Thus it all starts with getting to know the other. In some cases it is about breaking bread or having a cup of tea with the other. It is about getting to know the ‘other’, lean their culture and traditions and share a meal with them. This requires the practice of humility, because it involves listening to what they have to say.

Building trust has to be about reaching out to ‘the other’ to include everyone and listen to everyone, to dispel the misinformation now infinitely magnified and exaggerated by the Internet. So we all need to do more to build those bridges and relationships with people. There is no magic formula to build those bridges rather just to be humble, with an ability to listen, build relationships with diverse communities, learn and understand from the others. Building relationships is hence about dialogue. Dialogue to understand, respect and accept has to be the intention.

Dialogue is a responsibility. Dialogue is a process of exploration and coming to know the other, as much as it is an example of clarifying one’s own positions. Therefore, when one dialogues with others, what is desired is to explore their ways of thinking, so as to correct misconceptions in our own minds and arrive at common ground. This common ground is the desideratum of all dialogue, and lays the groundwork for mutual cooperation based on the principles of faith in God and good relations with neighbours.

Ensure Respect

Building relationships is about ensuring respect for others. One of the key components of this is to ensure a space for dialogue that is safe is built where what is discussed is not only kept confidential, but more importantly that the spaces are kept welcoming. For example, if there is a need to build trust with religious leaders or representatives from other faiths, one should not shy away from integrating an intentional space for prayer or other rituals.

It means that there should be a clarity about the agenda. Respect is earned by standing firmly to our principles and not compromising.

Respect is also about doing what you say and following through. We need to be true and honest about what can be done and not done which also means following through on promises.

Always Reflect

Self-reflection and self-assessment are very important to understand where you go wrong and as well to acknowledge the past to learn from it. An Arab emperor once said ‘Take account of yourself before you are taken account of’. Acknowledging the past can only be done if a safe space is created, an outreach is done and people are treated with respect.

So where does this leave us with trust?

Living the Trust Values

Trust should not be second-best to accountability. It’s not good enough to say, “Trust us”. It’s not about corruption, political influence, paternalism and hypocrisy but there is a need to put in place the checks and balances that are visibly functioning and that give people a reason to trust you. If you want to reduce your self-interest, you need to put a check on those human and organisational tendencies. This requires self-reflection and humble correction.

It requires dialogue which can transform individuals in societies in a way that increases true social cohesion. Dialogue is important because it strengthens trust and understanding, and enables real relationships to be built across differences.

the importance of dialogue

Dialogue is an important tool in the context of outreach and gaining respect and understanding. migrant integration efforts. The two way process of mutual accommodation can only take place if both “sides” have a deeper understanding of the needs, perspectives, desires, fears, and priorities of the other. It is not just about understanding what the other is saying, but what they really mean. Hence dialogue is an effective approach to strengthen social cohesion within culturally and religiously diverse societies because it allows people to maintain their various identities while still finding common ground .

The aim of dialogue is to overcome misunderstandings and dispel stereotypes in order to gain better mutual understanding, to build trust. Rather than necessarily agreeing on a point of view, dialogue is about recognising and developing mutual respect so as to build sustainable relationships. By focusing on common needs, dialogue builds bridges and transforms human relations. It fosters deeper understanding, so that even though disagreements may persist, an appreciation for the perspectives of the other can emerge. I intend to go more deeper on dialogue in the second part of this blog

not a hotline

Trust is not a hotline. Trust is not an auxiliary, There is much to reflect on and also to take responsibility for in terms of creating safe spaces for dialogue and engagement. Whilst there is much that is outside the control of individuals to affect and that remains within a circle of concern, there is still much within the circle of influence where there can be direct impact. Thus individual responsibility is an obligation to respond proactively to the tensions of our world by working actively and methodically to ameliorate them, so as to replace instability with stability, hostility with friendship, and animosity with alliances.

These alliances are about bridging social capital between communities that are a strong enough consensual basis for trust that takes into account cultural difference (Putnam 2000). We need to develop that so-called ‘thin trust’ that binds us to those we do not know and with whom we have limited first hand dealings, to go along with the ‘thick trust’ that develops from personal familiarity. Thus there needs to be more of an opening up of physical and virtual spaces where individuals and communities can come together, free from the restraints imposed by pre-determined (and biased) agendas (Yaqin and Morey 2016). This comes from understanding that multicultural environments are key to celebrating difference in the practices of everyday life.

Trust building through shared endeavour and mutual vulnerability requires a willingness to be open to understanding the lifeworld of another. This most certainly does not mean that one needs to agree with its every detail, nor to, in some way, concede something essential in oneself. It does however need to understand where other ideas are coming from — historically and intellectually. In other words, the doors need to be kept open, not slammed shut. The history of Islamic civilisations is a testimony to this celebration of multiculturalism.

So how do we build the trust that creates the ideas and institutions that will allow us to live together as the global tribe? Using the Trust Quotient buttressed by the 4 R’s of Trustbuilding, one can create a safe space for critical self-reflection that allows one to reach out to treat the other with respect and to understand trust enables communities to move towards a common good of peaceful existence with each other.

rebuilding the shattered mirror

The famous Victorian explorer Sir Richard Burton (Among other exploits, Burton managed in 1853 to gain entry to Mecca and Median as a pilgrim, helping to communicate the complexity and richness of Islamic culture to Victorian Britain.) once wrote that ‘All Faith is false, all Faith is true: Truth is the shattered mirror strown In myriad bits; while each believes his little bit the whole to own’ (The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi). In his mind, he meant that you will find parts of the truth everywhere and the whole truth nowhere. This concept of the ‘shattered mirror concept’ enables us to see that ‘each shard reflects one part of a complex truth from its own particular angle’ (Appiah 2006).

Distrust comes from the fact that we consider that ‘our little shard can reflect the whole’ and that our little truth is the whole truth. Building trust is about understanding that for the common good, each of us (with our faith and spiritual teachings) have a bit of that shard of broken glass. These small shards of glass which, require careful positioning to create a compelling mosaic that will allow us to live together as the global tribe we have become.

Trust building starts with all of us individuals and then grows with the communities in which we live and work. This snowball effect can only come through daily practice of the Trust Quotient and being mindful of the 4 R’s of Trust Building.

A second part of this blog on dialogue will be printed soon


this originally appeared here

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Saturday, September 11, 2021

20 years: A journey of searching

 So we are 20 years from that infamous day 9/11 when lives were turned upside down all over the world. The reverberations across the world over the last two decades are simply too enormous to recount, and the tragic pictures coming out of Afghanistan in the last few weeks a testimony that 20 years on, not much has changed. The world is not any more safer than it was 20 years ago, in fact it is perhaps more unsafe. Identities are more polarised as the “us vs them” has become more institutionalised. Much is to be discussed there on how the world was reshaped that day and perhaps continues to be reshaped that day. But what about on the personal scale, what has been the personal effect of that.

what are the personal stories of 9/11?

As someone who experienced the fear of being a young Muslim in rural south England in the aftermath, delivering pizzas as a side hustle in between university and getting proper work, dealing with the public, 9/11 was a rude wake up call. A rude wake up call because on the one hand, it caused me to be more aware of my own faith, to dig deep into the traditions to see whether there was any justifications for the tragedy that had just happened. On the other hand it made me more aware of the deep cleavages within society where your colour and name automatically reflects a power imbalance and a hierarchy.

These were the cleavages that basically made you out to a suspect and the ‘other’ who was not to be trusted or worse a security risk. So when people talk of ‘those Muslims’ you know they refer to you because you can see it in their faces. When they troll you on social media, you know there is no chance of a civil conversation, because to them you are not welcome, because you look different, your name is different and you worship differently.

the “good” ones

The past 20 years has been a journey that has no destination. You quickly realise that the journey is fraught with obstacles as well as different external expectations of what the destination is. Day in and day out, you are confronted with that expectation to justify that you are one of the ‘good’ ones. You are expected to be that representative of the religion and apologise if a lone mad person attacks some innocent people some where on the other side of the world in the name of Islam and even then you know it doesn’t really make a difference. This is because everyone who has read anything they can get on the internet, has made up their mind about you and the religion you follow, even without meeting a single Muslim. Even if no one around you says anything, you quickly develop that paranoia that ‘they must be thinking it’, so you proactively act to disarm those notions, so much so that depending on the

It is a journey which doesn’t give you any favours much like those journeys in the sixties in America, that many black people used to take with only selected pitstops where you were welcome. You realise that there is a double standard where someone of another faith or community can carry out an attack on civilians but the rest of the adherents of that faith or from that community aren’t expected to apologise.

It is a journey that you know will take extra time, because you are always randomly searched in airports or you have the famous ‘SSS” on your boarding card which means you get invited to the ‘special’ room after immigration at airports. So travel always adds an additional couple of hours.


Somehow you find yourself in a car hurtling down a highway at 100mph towards a destination that you do not know, with everyone except you seeming to know the destination. Either you are with us or against us starts to resonate highly. You need to be with us, show us that you ‘adhere to our values’, that you are not them. Otherwise you are against us and with them because you don’t share those values. The problem with this black and white argument is that both sides have the same expectation on you.

Finding the moderate optimum speed on this journey becomes very hard. It is hard to offer a third way to the ‘either with us or against us’ narrative that says ‘I am not against you, I am totally against what happened to you at 9/11 but I am against the action being undertaken in response’. In offering that third way which at the heart of it defines that ‘violence does not beget violence’, you offer the chance to reflect and ponder and think about justice. Yet it is not a popular stance and it was not a popular in 2001 when we joined 1000s of others against the invasion of Afghanistan. There was another way where justice could have been obtained and perhaps thousands of innocent lives would have been spared. The incidents over the past few weeks just get me frustrated as to whether the last 20 years was worth it?

So this is a journey of searching over the last 20 years to who you are, what you stand for, how do you articulate what you stand for without it becoming a threat to the other?

hope

it has been a journey of fear, frustration but also one of hope and friendship. Because just as there are those who sought to move away from you, there have been those who have chosen to come to you in solidarity and friendship, determined to see you for you. Like the friend who I hadn’t spoken to in about 5 years suddenly calling me out of the blue on 9/11 and offering me a safe place to stay because in his words “things will get bad for you”; or the chaplain at the local hospital who reached out in compassionate offering words of comfort when he knew you were facing tough times; or those who marched in solidarity in anti war marches in London, against the invasions of Afghanistan because they knew it would result in more deaths. That hope was apparent in the 10 year anniversary of 9/11 which coincidentally I was in the US for, where I saw many communities come together in reflection of a possibility of what could be and choosing to build bridges and break walls. Yet in the last 5 years exacerbated in the last 2 with the pandemic, that hope has become thin as racist and exclusionary ideologies dominate the narrative. This has to change and be countered.

Undoubtedly the 3000 + innocent lives that were lost 20 years ago should not be forgotten, but we can not reflect adequately if we also do not reflect on the ethics and morality of

Guantanamo, the profits of military-industrial complex, surveillance and reconnaissance, white nationalism, drones, hundreds of thousands of murdered Iraqi and Afghan civilians, and corrupt alliances. If we cannot ask these questions, then we can not and should not commemorate because these are all linked.

This is the spirit of resilience and hope that needs to be part of the reflections of 9/11 20 years on, and this is part of the continual journey of searching for belonging, respect and understanding. So the question is not “where were you on 9/11?” but more “where have you been over the last 20 years since 9/11?” What has been your journey?


this originally appeared here

Sunday, August 15, 2021

When privilege trumps compassion and decency

 xx has been feeling a little frustrated. Normally every year, she and her family head out to Europe from Sri Lanka for the summer vacation. However due to covid 19 lockdowns she was unable to travel in 2020. 2021 was also looking like a washout until things seemed to open up with the vaccinations in Sri Lanka and In Europe. It seems vaccinated people will be let into some parts of Europe with minial quarantine needed. When the vaccination process started in Sri Lanka in about May, xxx was able to use her family contacts with government ministers and be one of the first to be vaccinated even before it was rolled out to front line workers. Now it seems that xxx and her family can get that summer holiday in the uk after all, by heading to Serbia for 10 days before making it to their final destination of the uk. Flights are expensive and the whole trip is triple what has been spent before but in xxx’s mind its worth it as they haven’t been abroad since 2019.

Yyy’s son is getting married. The wedding was delayed from 2020 with the covid lockdowns so he is determined do it this year. Coming from a large family and with this wedding being the first in the family, he is determined to make sure it works. Given the Sri Lankan authorities have put a 150 person limit on weddings, he decides to have three events scattered in three different hotels to ensure he is able to have the guests. As inter provincial travel is prohibited he decides to have a bigger function at his village as he is able to travel because he has a pass based on his work. Because it is a rural area, the requirements for physical distancing and event numbers are not strictly followed and so he is able to have a 1000 people attend the wedding.

Now these stories might seem far from reality, but the sad fact is that they happened in Sri Lanka and I personally know these people. And I am shocked. Not because life should cease because of the pandemic. But somehow there is a tone deaf disconnect from a reality; a reality where daily wage earners are suffering from a drop in work and income; a reality where people with no connections or influence have been queueing for hours to get vaccinated; where people are struggling to make ends meet; where they are not able to get access to private medical care or oxygen.


What shocks and saddens me is that somehow these two anecdotes (which was normal in times before covid) seems to be continuing during times of covid as if things hadn’t changed. The sadness comes from the fact that there seems to be an oblivious (in the case of xxx) and a callous (in the sense of yyy) disregard of people and their lived experience. In the sense of the former, it is just a disregard that not everyone is able to afford holidays or even think about the money to be spent. For the latter there is a callousness of irresponsibility: an irresponsibility of putting people in the rural areas who are not vaccinated at risk from the disease; an irresponsibility of putting people who attended the weddings at risk, the waiters and everyone. The irresponsibility is made worse by the utter selfishness that somehow, doing weddings is more important than saving people’s lives or keeping people safe. This selfishness that despite people suffering economically, we are able to go on ‘as normal’, has been there but somehow become more magnified during covid.


This selfishness comes from a position of privilege and power that hitertho had existed but seems to have been made worse by COVID 10 which has exacerbated inequalities and vulnerabilities. What we are seeing through these anecdotes is that whilst people have been all affected by the lockdowns, the effect of these lockdowns have varied and some have been more affected than others. Yet in that, there is still a lesson that has not been learnt and that is of compassion and the wish to treat others as you wish to be treated. Power and privilege seems to trump compassion and we have seen that. Compassion has not been there when people have looked for vaccinations and tried to compete for that. Compassion is not there when large weddings are conducted putting unvaccinated and vaccinated people at risk; compassion is not there when people choose to continue their holidays and lives oblivious of the others suffering.


Sadly this is the reality we live in and as the anecdotes I have shared have shown, privilege trumps compassion and decency. If we need to learn from what covid has taught us about the fragility of life and the interconnectedness of us all, we will have to trump privilege.



This was originally posted here

Saturday, August 14, 2021

Locally Driven Youth Action is the Need of the Hour

 This year’s International Youth Day feels a bit subdued and overwhelming because the scale of the problems to overcome have some how become even greater. It is well documented that COVID 19 has exacerbated existing inequalities across the world with respect to access to resources, information and power dynamics, and, disproportionately affected millions of children and young people worldwide, with public health restrictions and socio-economic disruptions having a devastating impact on their education, mental health, career prospects, safety and personal development. The uncertainty and fear for what the future holds is very real and is the new norm.

Due to the lockdowns, children and young people (with girls and young women in particular) have been affected, missing out on education with those without digital access and a suitable home learning environment being particularly disadvantaged. Many young people who have been in temporary or informal jobs, and in sectors worst affected by the pandemic are now suffering high levels of unemployment and future job insecurity. Lockdowns have seen an increase in gender-based and interpersonal violence and more children are living in unsafe homes with reduced access to support. This has caused even more stress on young people as research carried out by World Vision has shown that school disruption, emotional distress due to social distancing and increasing poverty have had tremendous impacts on the lives of children and young people on a massive scale. These have long term repercussions not only for young people but for communities and governments who have the responsibility to look after the interests of youth.

Despite all these challenges, young people all over the world are and have been providing support to one another and their communities in need. For those working with young people,they are considered a resource with scope and scale, and their meaningful engagement is key to building not only more resilient, adaptive, and non-violent communities, but resilient institutions too. From work done by youth organisations on the ground, we know that the untold story of Covid is of young people as the solution, not the problem. At the end of last year, a Global Youth Mobilization initiative was launched by the global Big 6 youth organisations to highlight and promote young people, their ideas, and their innovative solutions to the impact of Covid and the many community challenges that have come with it. Projects being supported by the initiative have included youth-run programmes across countries and communities addressing mental and physical health, mitigating the impact of disruption to education, training in digital skills, improving employability through support to livelihoods and financial literacy, vocational training and skills provision, vaccine awareness and other forms of Covid-19 prevention. So, what these projects show is that given a platform, agency and inter-generational accompaniment, young people can become partners in providing solutions.

On International Youth Day questions are asked as to how youth engagement can be strengthened to make use of the opportunity to overcome the covid 19 challenges. A new discussion paper released by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) for international youth day aims to situate this debate around young people and COVID-19. It aims to contribute to a more holistic and intersectional understanding of the impact the COVID-19 pandemic has had and will have on the constituency of children,adolescents, and young adults. By placing the constituency of children, adolescents, and young adults at the centre, this discussion paper chooses to challenge thematic and programmatic silos that usually govern humanitarian and development aid. By focusing on the challenges faced by young people because of COVID-19, the discussion paper calls for transformative recommendations to scale up the engagement of young people not only as members of affected communities but to engage them within the institutions as well. Thus,there is a need to strengthen institutional capabilities to address obstacles to elevate well-being and protection. By meaningfully engaging with a youth constituency, institutions can address fractures in today’s fragmented and divided world where fear and xenophobia can flare up.

It is now, more than ever that we can see the power and agency young people have despite the challenges they face. The current pandemic will have a lasting impact on the youth of the world, which is why this is the time to take action to ensure young people are driving change rather than being impacted by it negatively. Policy makers must listen to children and young people and put them, their views, needs and experiences at the heart of the solutions. A healthy, vibrant, and further strengthened youth sector is vital to ensure that young people thrive and overcome the challenges of the future with the support of those around them. This starts at the local level with young people from local communities being given agency and taking responsibility for solving problems at their community.


Young people will help us bring humanity together, build bridges over the deep valleys of division and help us to start living in a world, where saving just one life matter. Recognition of their unique role, trust and power sharing, commitment and accountability, and action with impact are the critical ingredients of collective success and continuity.
This originally appeared here