Living with each other's differences

The story of the ‘The Imam and The Pastor’, is one that needs to be revisited to fully comprehend the concept of the need to move beyond the concept of a clash between each other to reaching out and developing an alliance with ‘the other’.

Emerging from the 1990s in Northern Nigeria after being in the frontlines of confrontations between Christians and Muslims which saw the killings of thousands in inter-religious warfare, Imam Muhammad Ashafa and Pastor James Wuye are two of the most unlikeliest of allies, forging new grounds with their Interfaith Mediation Center, responsible for mediating peace between Christians and Muslims in Nigeria's Kaduna state.

They both came out of the heart of the religious teachings of their communities (Imam Ashafa was once committed to the total Islamization of Nigeria and Pastor James to its total evangelization) and were sucked into the religious conflict, becoming bitter enemies, determined to kill each other. Pastor James recounts that ‘My hate for Muslims had no limits’ whilst Imam Ashafa says that ‘We had a zeal to protect and revive the glory of Islam’.

Joining rival militias and fighting against each other, the Pastor had his hand hacked off while defending his church against Muslims and the Imam had his spiritual adviser and two of his brothers killed by Christian extremists. Imam Ashafa recalled that time ‘ For 48 hours, we were killing and maiming each other. Each of us were fighting believing that we had to defend our faith’.

In 1995, a chance meeting between the two at a mediation conference held under the auspices of the Kaduna State Women’s Commission, saw them discovering a lot of commonalities between themselves. This started their journey towards healing and forgiveness. They each began to question the cost of violence, reverting back to their scriptures for guidance on common approaches. The culmination of this was the Interfaith Mediation Centre which has been described as a prototype of global conflict resolution. The journey has been a tough one. They were labeled as betrayers by their own people and when they visited each other’s religious institutions, they were met with suspicion. Their personal journey was equally tough. Moving away from hating each other was a hard one. The turning point for Imam Ashafa came when he heard a jummah khutbah about forgiveness and the example of the Prophet (PBUH) who forgave the Quraish upon the conquest of Makkah. For Pastor James, it took him three years to really overcome his hatred. He says that sometimes when they would be travelling together, even sharing a room, he was sometimes tempted to try and suffocate Ashafa in retaliation for the loss of his hand. However it was with the sickness of his mother and the support shown by Imam Ashafa that Pastor James began to really embrace the concept of reconciliation. He was further helped by the words of a fellow evangelist: ‘You can not preach to someone you hate. You must begin to forgive them for every hurt against you.’ The two men are now working together and more importantly helping to empower others to understand and rejoice in the commonality in the faith of others and to speak of those faiths with the respect they deserve whilst remaining faithful to their own religions.

The story of Imam Ashafa and Pastor James is one about the power of the responsibility placed upon the shoulder of the individual to take the lead in becoming a true citizen of the country and of the world, where he / she can rise above their narrow confines of individualistic concerns to face the broader concerns of all humanity and to redress the contradiction of society. This is not just something that should be left to the politicians or the institutions but really no one can be ruled out having a part in contributing. Ultimately the contradiction of society will be redressed when people come together confident in their universal principles; strengthened by their common values; defenders of pluralism in their society and respectful of identities of others, which means that they will take up the challenge of joining forces in a revolution of trust and confidence against the tide of discrimination and intolerance and poverty.
Their journey of forgiveness and reconciliation is about taking an individual responsibility to create a safe space for people to talk and share ideas. This safe space entails not only moving beyond victimhood but also being cognizant of the past (accepting and facing up to the past honestly)

The story of the Imam and the Pastor shows that strong ethical commitment in religious traditions can sharpen identity politics but more importantly can form the basis of inter and intra faith collaboration. Thus religious pluralism can not only lead to an absence of violence mainly due to better understandings and interaction but it opens a space for discussion, dialogue and engagement. In short, we must learn to listen closely to one another, not simply because it is polite, but because it is just possible that we might learn something important about ourselves, and build a better global village in the process. This is perhaps the greatest lesson we can get from the story of the Imam and the Pastor.

Understanding the Need to Talk

The moment was poignant. A Buddhist Monk in Sri Lanka addressing a group of religious leaders in Tamil. The meeting was held by the North East Interfaith Forum at the Mahatma Ghandi Centre in Colombo in January 2011 to discuss practical actions that religious leaders could take towards post conflict reconciliation in the country.

For a country that has been ill at ease with the close relationship between Sinhala nationalism and Buddhism, the feat of a Buddhist Monk being able to converse in Tamil should not be underestimated. Sri Lanka is emerging from a conflict that has been rooted in a difference of culture, language, ethnicities and ultimately religion. Ultimately it has been rooted in miscommunication and misperceptions.
Hence any steps towards reconciliation would have ultimately started with the need to address miscommunication and misperceptions. The acknowledgement of the need to speak in a common language (either one that is neutral or the language of the ‘other’) is a first step.

Though the conflict was not directly related to faith, because of the inter relationships between culture, ethnicity and religious belief, faith has ultimately become a theatre in which the conflict has played out (your faith intertwined with your ethnicity has often highlighted your support for or against the conflict). Thus the coming together of the religious leaders was symbolic in attempting to arrest the misperceptions surrounding the role of faith in causing the conflict. The role of the religious leaders should also not be underestimated because for millions of Sri Lankans, religious leaders hold an influential role in their lives. By gathering together to express solidarity, the religious leaders were conscious of the influence they could hold on others.

In their deliberations, the religious leaders touched on many issues of concern for them which they felt they needed to address. What was also significant was the realization to move away from just rhetoric and to address burning issues of concern between them.

The deliberations touched on 6 aspects that was felt to be important to the group:

1) The realization of the need to move from an atmosphere of clash to an atmosphere of alliance. In other words, the first step towards understanding and reconciliation is the need to take a conscious decision that the moment for conflict is over. If anything the transcendental moment of lucidity has meant that there needs to be an alliance to move forward.

2) The realisation of the need to acknowledge the 'other'. This in effect means that importance is placed on someone who is 'different' to you. The Buddhist Monk speaking in Tamil provided an opportunity to recognise Tamils as a significant player in this process.

3) The need to move beyond victimhood. Very often it is easy to play the victim and to say that everyone is against us. However this does not get us very far and we become isolated and distrustful

4) The need to take responsibility. Playing the victim means abrogating responsibility for one's actions and blaming everyone else apart from yourself in what has happened to you.

5) The need to create a space. This can not be underestimated, as a space opens opportunities for dialogue and starting the process of understanding each other. The space for discussions is what has somewhat been constrained in the past

6) The need to acknowledge the past. This is an important step as it gives credence and importance to every stakeholder. The past should not become a ball and chain for the future, but it should be understood in order for us to move forward but not allowing the negative feelings associated with the past to weigh us down.

These 6 steps are somewhat a progression in terms of ideas as they represent certain milestones in people's journey's towards reconciliation. The mere fact that religious leaders are now taking the initiative to get involved highlights how important reconciliation is for the country away from the political nuances of the corridors of power. The religious leaders had assembled to share a declaration of solidarity in calling for a new environment to establish village level action committees in order to address grass roots issues. As they deliberated over key action points, it was clear that they were united in one thing: the need to develop a new vision for the country.

This in itself needs support.

The Commercialisation of Eid

Eid has come and gone and as the dust settles, I am trying to reflect on the day gone by and find out exactly what has happened to Eid? I think we are suffering from an intellectual inferiority complex. How did it go from being one of spiritual upliftment to one of commercial value? Have we forgotten the spirit and the principle of what Eid stands for?

The reason why I say this is that over the last 3 weeks or so, I have been bombarded with emails about Qurbani from organisations that I have not even heard of, each offering me better deals than the other. It seems that they have taken the concept of ‘competing with each other for good things’ literally as they competed to out do each other in offering the best price to slaughter a cow / sheep / goat around the world.

Forget even the Islamic magazines, flyers, TV stations etc who have carried out live appeals for people’s Qurbani. It seems that the powers that be have been intent on ensuring that we are left with no doubt as to who is the best service provider. The last straw for me was receiving a text message from one organisation whom I have not heard about saying they were the most competitive. I don’t even know how they got my phone number and don’t get me started on the legality of unsolicited contacting. As if these organisations would understand that!!!

The issue is this: it has come down to a competition on price. Pure capitalism at its raw and most original!! ‘I am offering a better price for a cow or goat or sheep so that you can get a better reward in the hereafter’. Each price is competitive and if you were to examine, you could actually shop around for the best deal in town, sort of like buying a car.

The numbers of players have increased as everyone wants to get into the business of doing charity and offering people redemption. This trust or that foundation or that relief agency seem to be doing the same thing but at a lesser price. Unfortunately with the proliferation of these organisations, it doesn’t necessarily mean things are getting better or that poverty (as these organisations are seeking to do) is being alleviated.

The problem is that they all work in pretty much the same areas of the world and considering the time of the month, most of these areas will be Muslim. With the addition of the organisations, it doesn’t mean that a space is being created for discussion on vital issues of dealing with the non Muslims, so all these organisations concentrate on Muslims. The problem comes when they undercut each other to provide the best prices on cows and goats in Pakistan, or Bosnia etc. However what people do not realise is that there are couple of issues inherent with this:
• Most of the organisations based in the UK, do this type of work through their local contacts and partners in whichever country that they operate in. The point is that these organisations do not want to incur additional administration costs or staff costs, which is understandable, so they rely on ‘reliable’ local people to do their work for them in choosing the animals, slaughtering and distributing.
• Yet how is it possible that in one country alone, different agencies offer different prices for effectively the same commodity, so for example in Sri Lanka, there are different costs for the cattle but this is not the reality on the ground. Come on Sri Lanka is a small country and the variations in price is minimal.
• Most of the local organisations that work in these countries are quite sophisticated in operation. They know that most of the UK based organisations will rely on them totally for the selection and distribution of meat as well as the reporting, and hence this is where the gap in transparency comes through. The UK based organisation takes at face value what is reported from the ground.
• Often in countries where there are fewer reliable local Muslim partners, you find that they have access to some of the main UK based Muslim agencies, and so they end up taking all the ‘contracts’ for Qurban from them. It also helps if you have people from your country as well living in the UK so they can effectively ‘lobby’ the UK charities for their business. So for example after working in Sri Lanka, I know one organisation that does Qurban for at least 5 different Muslim organisations based in the UK. I have no doubts about the integrity and honesty of this said organisation, but after working in Muslim Aid in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, I have come across instances where organisations have taken a photograph of a distribution of meat taking place at one area and using photo shop have inserted the different logos of the different organisations that they were supposed to be working for. Quite sophisticated I would say.
• Often the same cow has been ‘sold’ to different organisations who think it belongs solely to them.
• With very little coordination on the ground, you will find people being duplicated in terms of receiving meat, so the same person will receive meat from three different organisations (who believe they are solely giving it to the individual) whilst others go free.
• Often there is some internal corruption as meat prices are inflated to the donor, or the families of the people working in the organisation also receive the donations. I came across one instance where the butcher was the brother of the person in charge of receiving the donation from the UK based organisation, the person who distributed (and got paid for this was the son) and so on. Hence there is a nice internal family flow of money.
• The most serious problem though is that for the amount of money that flows into a country for the cattle, there are not enough animals to sustain that. I had someone tell me that their organisation alone receives 10 crore rupees (roughly 10 million rupees) which means that, that itself should satisfy all the needs for cattle without taking into account the local consumption as well as the other organisations., But this brings into question how can all this money be flowing into a country just for the slaughter of animals on one day and how can there be some much animals for that to happen?

This is just for the uk? How about the rest? How about Saudi? How about the locals who also choose to slaughter cattle? We need to be more systematic and transparent in our way of working. The amount of money that is given and spent on this alone can alleviate poverty ten times over, yet are being ‘wasted’ on this.

These local organisations are not entirely to blame. They are responding to a market demand. The fault is also partly ours, because of our commercial approach to eid. We want instant satisfaction. We want to go on the website or call the phone and pledge to help the poor people, without actually appreciating or understanding the realities on the ground. Honestly should the poor need meat for a day or do they need something for the year to help them live a better life, like better health care, education and so on?

So as we remember the sacrifice of Abraham, perhaps it is better that we actually revisit our concepts of charity otherwise, we will just be deluding ourselves.

The Nuances of Cricket

The sorry saga of the match fixing story of Pakistan continues into the 7th day with a strange twist. A counter claim has been put across that they were set up. Needless to say that the tactic of a best defence is a good offence!! No matter how this will play out in the future, the incident has served to unearth a sinister aspect to cricket in the Indian sub continent.

Cricket is big business in the Indian sub continent. Players are paid relatively well; there are sponsorships and the glamour. A telling interview in today’s Cricinfo with a former Indian player highlights the burdens of playing cricket in the Indian subcontinent: money, fame and narcissism. At the young ages that cricketers go into, they become vulnerable to temptation and unaware of how to handle fame and fortune.

In recent years, the appearance of Twenty 20 cricket and in particular the Indian Premier League has logarithmically evolved the amount of burden and temptation that players have to face. Cricket has become transformed from the quiet quintessential Sunday afternoon Englishman’s game to one of high stakes, fast women and fast money.

With the money that is flowing around the Indian subcontinent often from illicit deals, drugs, weapons smuggling and all other vices, cricket proves a very easy market for disposable income to be flushed around. The appearance of bookies (often from India) with millions of rupees (and dollars) to spend using all sorts of ways to tempt the players shows that the sport has now become much more than competition between nations. It is about money, corporate sponsorship and power.

Caught in the middle are the (often very young) players who come from very poor backgrounds, and in the transition between teenage years and adulthood, are thrust into the limelight with enormous pressure.

Whilst these players are being chastised, this is but the tip of the iceberg. The problem lies much deeper and the solutions will need to go to the heart of the problem.

Justifying a Lie

Someone said, we should be writing daily (or as much as possible) blogs reflecting thoughts for the day and seeing how this contributes to our mandate in terms of bringing people together.

So today let us reflect on what has been the main achievement for the day. Today marked the official release of Tony Blair’s memoirs. It was always guaranteed to ignite a storm what with the announcement weeks ago that the man would donate his proceeds to charity. ‘Blood money’ some remarked wryly. The storm did come in the form of many revelations about various parts of his premiership. The lack of regret and remorse especially with regards the Iraq war shows him to be a calculating strategist who has no qualms about sacrificing the greater good for his own glory.

Despite being ‘sorry for all the deaths caused’, he still justified the attacks despite knowing all that has taken place since then. This seemed to me akin to a robber saying ‘I am sorry for the sorrow caused in robbing your house, but I was still justified in robbing it’. Such an aspect does not bode well for the future generations.

In an age where individualism is triumphing over all others, what is the message that is being sent to the next generation about how to act and take decisions? It is that one can act with impunity and without facing the consequence of your actions. It is about your welfare and not the greater good. This has been sufficiently been displayed recently with the match fixing allegations of the Pakistani cricketers.

This can not be the future that we want to leave to our children. This needs to change.

Politics of Aid

The ramifications of the BBC world service report on the distribution of aid during the Ethiopian famine in the early eighties, shows no sign of abating. With the very public clash between Rageh Omar and Bob Geldof taking place last week in the Guardian, Sunday newspapers carried articles of how Bob Geldof has demanded the heads of the BBC personnel involved with the report.

Understandably Bob Geldof is upset. For millions of us, he epitomised the efforts to save millions of starving women and children and probably put the whole concept of aid and international charity giving into a public arena. I know for me, it was one of the first instances which motivated me to get involved in humanitarian work and is one of the reasons I hold Bob Geldof in the highest of regards.

However, I feel that in this instance, he should not feel too bad. Of course the inference of the numbers actually making it to the recipients hands is something that does need to be investigated particularly as people gave in good faith, but the fact of the matter is that you cannot divorce aid from politics and that in some ways there is some element of truth to the reports. Having lived in Ethiopia, it was an open secret that some of ‘Live Aid’ was used by all sides in the conflict to sustain and prolong the war. And unfortunately, this is not and will not be first time this has happened. As many current and former aid workers will tell you, you have to deal and engage with this reality on the ground and sometimes, the engagement is about tacit support whether you like it or not.

The fact that aid agencies are ‘apolitical’ has been made even more difficult by the war against Saddam Hussain's Iraq in spring 2003 which was a striking example of the mixing of military and humanitarian action. As the United States administration made clear, the military campaign aimed at bringing down the regime was to be accompanied by the delivery of humanitarian aid to win the hearts and minds of Iraqi people and make them accept the occupying force thereby changing the whole rhetoric on humanitarian relief.

Thus the sad aspect is that despite the best intentions, undoubtedly aid will become involved in politics and if you are working in regions affected by war, the politics will be dirty. This is something that everyone (particularly donors) has to realise and come to terms with. The quicker that people understand that, the less pressure will be on humanitarian organisations and individuals to deal with the consequences.

So the question should be ‘when is it alright for this to happen and when is it not?’ This is where the confusion creeps in. There seems to be a mixed response to this internationally.

Agencies who used to work in the former ‘uncleared areas’ in Sri Lanka controlled by the Tamil Tigers will tell you that they had to deal with a separate administration, pay separate taxes and in effect had to prop up the LTTE administration despite the banning of the LTTE as a terrorist organisation internationally, if they wanted to get aid into the areas of need. Yet very few of them have been castigated internationally for doing so.

The story is very different for those organisations working in Palestine in particular Gaza. In this context organisations doing the same thing and working and dealing with different aspects of the Hamas administration such as hospitals or schools have been sidelined for supporting ‘terrorism’.

So there needs to be a change in the attitude and a consistency in approach. This is not about casting aspersions on the majority of humanitarian agencies who work without any agenda just trying to accomplish their mission of getting aid to the most neediest of people. They have to work under the most difficult and trying of circumstances and need to be supported. In recent times, despite the best efforts of ensuring transparency and accountability, aid organisations will inevitably face the challenge of working in politically complex situations. It is important for governments to ensure that these systems and regulations are in place to allow these organisations to work freely and fairly.

Ultimately aid doesn’t recognise borders and institutions and as such should be allowed to be as apolitical as possible not withstanding the political realities and complexities on the ground. Whilst the BBC report was disturbing and does need to be clarified, it does highlight the challenges faced by many people and organisations and highlights the need for the naiveté that exists in charity giving to be shed. Ultimately, Bob Geldof should take heart from this incident, that once again he has highlighted to the public the immense challenge in not only ensuring that money is raised and spent but that it is also intertwined with the political realities of the day. This education is invaluable and serves as a good reminder to all of us of the problems and challenges faced on a daily basis on the ground by those courageous aid workers forced to take difficult decisions. As such our support does not waver but in fact it grows.

Lesson in Compassion

Robin Sharma once said that 'every person that you meet every day is a teacher of sorts'. I never truly appreciated what he meant by that, until the other night, coming back on the tube, a young man in his early twenties threw up in front of me, just narrowly avoiding my shoe but making a mess on the floor around him. The people around him quickly got up and moved to the other side of the carriage or even into another carriage. Somehow, without thinking I followed them but felt uneasy. I looked back and saw this poor guy who was clearly feeling unwell and slightly embarrassed with his head down, vomit around him and on his clothes. For about 5 minutes he was like this as people entering the tube saw him and moved away.

That is until a lady walked in with her grocery shopping, saw the mess and young man and without a moment's hesitation, went down and sat next to him. She offered him a tissue to wipe himself off, spread her newspaper that she was carrying on the floor to cover the vomit and gave him a drink and a shopping bag in case the guy would throw up again. She then proceeded to talk to the young man and you could see his mood lift.

In that split second, I realised with humility that this lady and young man had taught me a valuable lesson. The lesson of compassion and love for a fellow human being. I became and still remain ashamed that I did not do what that lady did. To rise above the pettiness and arrogance of the material world and go to the aid of someone in need. This for me was the greatest test of spirituality than anything else.

You see most of us who are from one faith or another, boast about how great our faith is. We look down on others because they are somehow less religious than us. However what this lady did is a great lesson for all of those who profess to have faith and to be practitioners of that faith. We remain intellectually arrogant when we talk about the virtues of charity and caring that our particular faith preaches. However when push comes to shove, how much do we actually put it into practice? Of course, it is one thing to give in charity or volunteer for a good cause. Yet the true nature of realising our spirituality and closeness to the Creator is when unexpected circumstances arise and we are forced to react without any premeditation. This is the ultimate test of our closeness with the Creator and our strength in our faith. How do we react? Do we remember God? Do we act in a way that is pleasing to Him? In a saying of the Prophet Mohammed (peace be upon him) it is said that 'God will tell man on the day of Judgement, that I was ill and you did not look after me. Man will respond, how can you be ill oh God? to which God will reply, such and such of my servants was ill and you did not look after him' and so on.

This brings me to the second lesson that I learned that night. That is I finally understood the concept of compassion. I have been struggling with the concept of compassion ever since I heard about Karen Armstrong's Charter for Compassion. I could never truly reconcile the theoretical aspects of compassion as outlined in religious scriptures and daily practice. She says that 'Compassion impels us to work tirelessly to alleviate the suffering of our fellow creatures, to dethrone ourselves from the centre of our world and put another there, and to honour the inviolable sanctity of every single human being, treating everybody, without exception, with absolute justice, equity and respect'. What does this mean?

That night, that lady taught me the true meaning of compassion 'do unto others as you would like them to do unto you'. In that split second I recognised that compassion is about the ability to put ourselves in other people’s shoes and to “experience with” the other.

If we reconcile ourselves with religious scriptures like the bible for example, where we are reminded in Isiah 58 6-7 to loosen the bonds of wickedness and to undo the heavy burdens, to let the oppressed go free, to share your bread with the hungry, and that you bring to your house the poor who are cast out; when you see the naked, that you cover him or what the Prophet Mohammed (peace be upon him) said “You shall not enter Paradise until you have faith, and you cannot have faith until you love one another. Have compassion on those you can see, and He Whom you cannot see will have compassion on you”.

Then we see that a world which makes sense, is a world in which we connect with other people, often beyond our immediate communities and experience, and show them compassion and love with our neighbours.

The Prophet (peace be upon him) said that ‘no one is a believer if you go to bed whilst your neighbor is hungry’ “Feeding the empty stomachs 40 doors to the right and left' The parable of the Good Samaritan also addresses this tricky issue of “who is my neighbour”, concluding that it has nothing to do with belonging to the same community or ethnic group or class but everything to do with compassion and mercy.

So where does this leave me with the lesson that I learnt that night? Compassion is about the grander things. it is about respecting and accepting the humanity of people. it is about doing something with no expectation of a return. I suddenly recalled a verse from the Qur'an (92:18-21) where God says 'Those who spend their wealth for increase in self-purification and have in their minds no favour from anyone for which a reward is expecting in return, but only the desire to seek for the Countenance of their Lord Most High, and soon will they attain complete satisfaction'. In an era of secularism, consumption and materialism, this is quite a difficult concept to fathom.

The third lesson I learnt? Every day, life will send you windows of opportunity. Your destiny will be defined by whether you choose to open the windows. Compassion is not about the big things. It is about the little things. It is about responding to whoever is in need, without a moment's thought, because they are in trouble and as a brother / sister in humanity, you have to help them. This ultimately is the teaching of all great scriptures.