Leadership, War and Reconstruction

Speech given by Dr. Berhan Ahmed to a gathering of the Somali Community on the 21st of February, 2009.
(This speech has been lightly edited to bring out topical points)

1) Introduction 2) Idealism and Realism 3) We live in an interconnected world 4) We cannot expect everyone to think the same way as us 5) Australian-Africans: We are Australians 5) Australian-Africans: Two worlds in one 6) Opening up with trust 7) What does it mean to be African in Australia? 8) In Australia we can bring up our children in freedom and safety 9) The modern world multiplies the power of the individual 10) Reconciliation: The necessity of forgiveness 11) Finding a way to forgive: The process 12) Summary: It starts with us.

1) Introduction

Hello everyone and thank you for coming.
Before starting, I wish to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which we stand, the indigenous people of this country who watched so carefully over the land for tens of thousands of years.  I’d also like to thank the Somali Community for asking me to speak.

2) Idealism and Realism
Today I’ve been asked to speak on leadership, war and reconstruction.   I’m not going to speak very specifically about the situation in Somalia.  We could get bogged down that way.  The situation in Somalia is very confused, everyone wants power, everyone says that they are in the right.  What we need to do to cut through all that is to take stock.  To consider basic principles.  To be aware of who we are and where we are and what we are.  Then it will be clear what we need to do.
Now there are some people who say that I am an idealist, that I have big dreams.  So I want to start by admitting to that.  I will put my hand up for that.  Guilty!  I am an idealist.  I admit I do believe in peace, in harmony, and co-operation.  And I do have big dreams.  I dream of what we can all be.  I dream of what we all can do together.
But I want to say as well, that I am also a realist.  Peace and harmony and co-operation are not dreams.  They are realism.  They are the only solution, the only way out.  So today I want to talk about who we are, and what we are, and where we are, in a completely realistic way.

3) We live in an interconnected world
So the first thing I want to point out is that it is 2009 and we are living in an interconnected world.  The whole world is connected now.  Everything that we do affects people in other parts of the world.  We can’t live in a shell or a box.  We can’t draw curtains around ourselves, or think we can do things in our own corner.  What is done in the rich, peaceful countries affects people in the poor countries or the countries at war and vice versa.  Let me give you a few examples of this.

Firstly, the whole world at the moment is in financial crisis.  The main reason for that is irresponsible financing and lack of oversight in the United States.  But if one company collapses in the United States, it means that other companies collapse.  And that means that credit is pulled back all over the world.  It means that when a company in Africa goes to their bank to get a loan, they are refused.

Here’s another example.  Mad cow disease.  This started in Britain, and the reason it started was just that farmers wanted their cows to be bigger and fatter.  That meant that the cows needed more protein.  And there was a lot of protein available – parts of dead sheep that otherwise would just be thrown away.  So they started mixing pieces of dead sheep with the feed for the cows, and that is how we got mad cow disease.  Nobody could have expected it.  It was something completely new.  But it happened and is now a danger all over the world.
And here’s another example.  Climate change.  How did this come about?  Just from people making machines to try to make their lives better.  And now the whole world is getting hotter, and that is causing catastrophe in Africa and all over the world too.

There are examples the other way, too. AIDS started in Africa.  It got a hold and spread because governments denied it existed.  And now there are new plant diseases, like Black Wheat Rust, in Africa.  Because of the instability in some areas, these plant diseases are becoming established and may now spread right around the world.  And AIDS has become an epidemic right across the world.  It’s now been completely proved that AIDS started in monkeys in Africa and crossed over to human beings, just as Mad Cow Disease started in sheep in Britain and then crossed over to cows then human beings.  And then also, when there are wars, as there are in Africa, this affects neighbouring countries.  The whole region becomes destabilised.

All of these things happened, some for bad reasons, some for good, and they all affected the whole world.  But the reason they affected the world was that people refused to admit they existed and refused to deal with them.  The United States was warned for decades that the financial system would collapse.  The United Kingdom was warned that mad cow disease existed, but the government denied it and refused to do anything until the people forced it to.  And climate change - scientists were warning about climate change thirty years ago.  Governments refused to recognize it.  Here in Australia, we had a government that denied climate change for a decade.  Until the people refused to accept that, that was one big reason why the people changed the government at the last election.  Recently we’ve seen the terrible results of climate change in Australia.  It has all become horrifyingly clear.   And in Africa, governments refused to recognize AIDS.  They preached at their people instead of listening to them, and they closed their ears to solutions.  And even now, with the summit of African leaders that has just finished, they are not listening to each other.  They are all shouting instead of listening.

4) We cannot expect everyone to think the same way as us

So we are all citizens of the world.  What we do eventually affects everybody.  We are citizens of the world first and Australians, or Africans, second.  And as a part of that, we have to realize that people all over the world will always believe different things.  Even in one family, the sister and the brother have different ideas and disagree about many things.  How much more so people from different countries in different climates and conditions.  We will never get everybody to think the same way.  It’s madness to think we can compel everyone to think the same way.  What we all have to learn is how to work with other people even though they think different things.  This is good sense, this is realism.  Anything else is fantasy.

I will give you an example here.  I am Eritrean.  I believe firmly that Eritrea must be an independent country.  As chairperson of the African Think tank, I work very closely with the deputy chairperson, Mr. Haileluel Gebre-Selassie.  He is Ethiopean.  He believes equally firmly that Eritrea should be part of Ethiopia.  But even though we believe opposite things, we have been working together and supporting each other for many years.  We have both been working to improve the situation of Africans in Australia and to improve the picture that Australians have of Africa.  And – if you will excuse me saying so – we have achieved some things.  Especially with this new government, the Rudd government, we are talking to the ministers of that government.  The Rudd government sees the potential of working with Africa and wants to work with African countries.  So even though me and Mr.Gebre-Selassie believe different things, we can work together in this way, and we can work with the government to achieve the same things.  So this is one example.

5) Australian-Africans: We are Australians
And the second thing we are, as well as being citizens of the world, is that we are Australians.  How can we deny this?  We have been accepted by this country.  We have been offered homes here.  New homes.  A chance to build new lives.  There is one very important thing we can learn from Australia.  Australia is the only country in the world where different states federated into a country without violence.  So almost of us here in Australia are migrants.  Modern Australia is a country made up out of migrants and the children of migrants.  Australia has always been a country made up of very different people with very different ideas.  And – with all due apologies to the indigenous people of this country and what they suffered – apart from that, these differences have been settled without violence.  They have been settled by discussion.  So what can we learn from this?  This is very important.  This is a vital thing to learn.  In a democracy nobody gets all of what they want.  That is what must be learnt.  It is very simple.  It is like children sharing a cake.  Nobody gets all of the cake.  Even a child of five learns that if we fight over the cake, the cake is destroyed.  We have to share the cake.  Then everybody gets a piece.  That’s simple.  Even a child of five knows that.  But adults forget it.

5) Australian-Africans: Two worlds in one

Then the third thing we are is, that we are African-Australians.  African-Australians.  Now, some people get very confused.  They say, am I African?  Or, am I Australian?  Well, we are both.  If you say “I am African” – then that’s only half a person.  If you say “Well, I’m Australian” – then that is half a person too.  But if you say – “I’m African – Australian” – then that is double the person.  You are worth twice as much.

What does being Australian mean?  It means that you are part of Australia, part of a country which is a mixture of many different things, and many different peoples, all working together for the common good.  Take the recent bushfires.  Many, many people died.  But it could have been much, much worse.  The reason it wasn’t worse is because people of all different races and cultures and classes worked together to fight the fires.  People volunteered.  Those firemen fighting the fires spent weeks risking their lives, suffering fear, exhaustion, burns. Lack of sleep.  Most of them weren’t paid.  Almost all of them were volunteers who took time off from their jobs.  And it’s because of them that Melbourne hasn’t burnt down and that we have power and water.  So being Australian means learning to work with others who believe different things.  Working for the common good.

And to be Australian also means to be open.  Australians are quite an open people, in fact, worldwide, Australians are known to be an open people.  Australians are interested in other people and other cultures.  They try different foods.  They go to different places.  They are quite curious about other cultures.  They like to share.  They like to invite other people into their homes and introduce their wives or husbands and their families.  This is their custom.  So, it doesn’t mean that we have to do exactly like this, but we should be aware that many people are holding out hands of friendship to us, and we should accept that hand of friendship, and we should hold out our hands too.

6) Opening up with trust

This is actually something that can be a fault with us.  We are overly cautious at times.  We are a little bit judgmental at times.  That comes because many of us have been through many hard times.  Often we have found our trust let down.  Often we have been abused, especially by outsiders.  Sometimes we don’t know who to trust.  We come to a new country and the people behave very differently.  For example, they may not believe.  Now I know my assistant, for example, he doesn’t believe in God.  He eats pork.  When he wants to relax, he goes to the pub and has a drink with his friends.  And yet, he works hard for the community.  If I have something urgent I can – and believe me, I do, I really do – call him at anytime, day or night, and ask him to help me with it.   And he does that because he believes in humanity, he believes in people, and he believes in justice.  So when the media gives a wrong picture of us, or people believe wrong things about us, we have to ask ourselves whether we have done all that we can do in being open and communicating.  Sometimes when people get a wrong idea, it is because they have never heard the right idea.  We have been hurt, and we have to be cautious, that is true.  But also, we have to become part of Australia.  If we refuse to become part of Australia, then we can’t complain if Australia rejects us.  If we refuse to talk, we can’t blame people for refusing to listen.  If we don’t trust, we can’t complain if people don’t trust us.  That’s a really important lesson to learn.

7) What does it mean to be African in Australia?

And then, to be African, what does that mean?  It doesn’t mean that we can take the solutions and practices that have been used in Africa for centuries and expect to have them work here.  That could never work.  What we must do is use the principles and the values of being African, and apply those to our modern lives.  Principles like respect for the land, respect for the community, respect for elders, willingness to share and to talk, and a belief in things like art and dance as an integral part of life.  We can’t preserve old culture and ideas intact, but we can preserve the principles, we can work from our roots, we can know our culture and what we came from, and we can make that work in the modern world.  Let’s make that clear.  We will never succeed in having an African culture in Australia.  That is really a crazy dream.  But what we can do is create an African-Australian culture, a modern culture using old principles and values.  That will work.  Actually, that is the only thing that will work. Can you see this?

We can’t tell our young people to do things the same way they were done in Africa.  That will never work.  We can’t tell Australians not to treat our children like Australians.  We can’t tell Centrelink not to give them money.  That will never work.  We need to think really deeply, seriously, and we need to think together, about how our values work in the modern world.  We can’t tell our children “Do things the old way.  The way they were done in Africa.”  How can this work?  It can never work.  But our values and principles, the culture we bring from our roots – that can work.  Working with our young people so that we both find out how those values and principles can be brought into the modern world – that is how we must work.  That is realism.  That is the only way forward.

So, in the modern world, how do we know what is right and what is wrong?  A child could tell you that.  It is wrong to try to grab the whole cake.  It is wrong to try to hurt other people.  It is wrong to steal from other people.  It is wrong to abuse and attack other people.  What do we do when we see two children arguing and screaming and hitting each other?  We pull them apart and tell them to listen to each other and work together.  What is hard about this?  As adults we need to apply every day what we teach our children.  That is not all, of course.  We need more and I will be talking about that in a minute.  But that is the start.

8) In Australia we can bring up our children in freedom and safety

There has recently been very terrible news from the United States.  Apparently, some children, as young as fourteen and sixteen, have been persuaded to leave their schools and families to go to Somalia and take up rifles and fight.  This is news that has deeply distressed me.  Traditionally, I know, in Africa, people were considered adults at fourteen.  But it isn’t so here.  There is so much to learn, that at fourteen a person is still a child, still at school, still supported by his or her parents.  To convince children like that to run away to fight in a war is utterly, utterly wrong.  If this ever happens in Australia it will mean disaster for us and our communities.  If you hear of anyone who is trying to convince young people to do that, know that this will mean the destruction of the lives of Somalians and Africans and Muslims in Australia.  It will have repercussions across the world.  Again, that is simple.  It’s not complicated.  If we saw someone trying to carry off our children and put them in danger, to put them in the middle of bullets and bombs, we would stop them, we would report them.  It’s not rocket science.  That our children go to fight in Africa – this must not happen.

Here in Australia, we have the chance to bring up our children in peace and freedom.  We have the chance to see that they are really educated to become the leaders of tomorrow, leaders who believe in peace, in harmony, and in co-operation. 

If you do know of someone who is misleading people like that, it is hard to know what to do about it.  So the first thing is that you have to discuss this with the leaders of your community.  In cases like that, we don’t really have the knowledge of what to do.  This is a case where we need to talk to people who have a much wider picture, who are aware of the political implications of things.  Something like this could really harm ourselves and our communities.  This is where we are really reliant on having a few people who know how to do things tactfully so that harm is minimised.

9) The modern world multiplies the power of the individual

One thing about the modern world is that it really multiplies that power of the individual.  In Africa, it is hard for one person to do much.  But here in Australia, one person can change the world.  Really!  We have  seen that again and again in the African Think Tank.  I will give you one example.  Last year, two of our workers went to the refugee camps in Ethiopia.  They brought back videos and interviews and photos and made them known throughout the whole world, using the internet, using modern methods.  The result of that was that the USA offered new homes to fifteen thousand people in those camps.  That is by the hard work and the volunteer work of just a few people.

10) Reconciliation: The necessity of forgiveness

Now, so far in this speech, I have been talking about the simple morality of children, the things we teach our children.  But now I have to move ahead a little.  Here tonight, we are thinking about reconciliation, we are talking about what is needed for reconstruction.  For reconciliation and reconstruction, simple morality is not enough.  Actually, even adult morality is not enough.  To heal wounds and division and create a new nation, one that works, one that can move ahead – that requires much more of each of us.  It requires that we be a little bit great.  We even have to be a little bit of a saint.  We are trying to overturn and to rise above, decades or even centuries of fighting and distrust.  To do that, we really have to ask a lot of ourselves.

Most of us here have seen very terrible things.  We have seen repressive governments and police states.  We have seen the breakdown in civil order.  We have seen bandits and torturers do what they want without anyone stopping them, or anyone being able to stop them.  We have seen wars.  Also, we know that whenever there is a war, the weak suffer the most, children suffer, women suffer, good and gentle people suffer.  With war there always comes crime and organised crime and bandits.  With war there always comes food shortages and famine.  With war there always comes disease.  All of these things come with war, and they also come with repressive governments, with police states, with revolution, with governments that can’t govern or that don’t care about the people. 

Children want justice.  They want the guilty punished.  They want the bad men to be punished.  But as adults, we have to accept that to do this may cause more harm than good.
That is really hard.  That is the really hard thing to accept.  Often we and our families have seen terrible things done.  Many of us have suffered terrible things.  We carry a deep sense of bitterness, and hurt and also anger.  A lot of us are very angry, deeply angry and hurt to the core of our beings.

But because we are adults, and not children, we can see the bigger picture.  We can be aware that if we seek justice, and even more so if we seek revenge, the cycle will never end.  Peace will never be found.  If we push for punishment and justice of the bad men, justice will never come to the whole society. 

So that is the answer.  That is the crisis.  In order to stop the whole cycle of pain, each of us must say: this stops here, now, with me. 

11) Finding a way to forgive: The process

But that leaves us with a problem.  The problem is that we do have this pain, this anger, these bad experiences.  And now we are being asked for something very hard.  We are being asked to build prosperity and to build the future, and the thieves and the murderers and the torturers are also going to be part of that future and their prosperity.  How can we accept that?  That is a really hard thing to ask.

There is a process that works.  We don’t actually have to punish the thieves and the murderers.  What countries and people have found is that it is enough to sit down with them, and look into their eyes, and say: You hurt me.  You killed.  You stole.  You tortured.  And to have them say: Yes. I accept this.  I did these things.  I admit that I hurt you.

So that is the process of truth and reconciliation as it is followed in South Africa and other places.  That is really the only process that has been found to work.  That is what is required of us, that we sit down with our enemies and that we make peace.  If we want to stop the whole process, we have to draw a line and say: this is the end.  We have to say: things start here.

So why should we do this?  I will tell you.  It is for the children, all the children.  The reason we have to forgive the bad men is so that their children will not also grow up to be bad men.  Their children, and our children, are innocent.  So that all these children can grow up free, and grow up prosperous, and in peace, we have to forgive, and to move on.

This is what has been asked of the people in South Africa, and also in Serbia, in Germany, in Rwanda, in Argentina, and in other places.  And you know the strange thing is that they have found that people can do that.  Even ordinary people can do that.  We can find it in ourselves to do that because we have seen the alternative and the alternative – more fighting, more horror – is so much, much worse.

So that is a lot to ask, but it is the only way.  There is only one way that a nation and a people can move ahead.  There is only one way that wounds can heal.  There is only one way that things can be made whole again, and that is if everybody agrees to work together.  You have to offer a future, a better future, a believable future, to everybody.  If you don’t offer it to everybody, and that really does mean everybody, then some will still break away and fight and create wars and with wars, crime and famine and disease that will spread like a cancer to other places.

12) Summary: It starts with us

So, if you want to know what is the way forward, what is the path to reconstruction and reconciliation and leadership, what I have to say is this.  It starts with us in this room.  It is we who must volunteer, who must listen to each other, who must work together.  And it continues with our children.  Listening to them, really listening, working with them, finding the way forward.  This is a new country and a new time.  Nothing is mapped out for us.  It’s all unclear, what to do, where we must go.  There isn’t any path that is laid out.  We must grope forward with one hand outstretched in front of us, and the other -holding the hand of the person next to us.  Do you want answers?  I can’t give them to you.  Nobody can.  Nobody knows the answers.  But we know very well what will not work.  Fighting and screaming and kicking each other will not work.  Saying “Everybody shut up and listen to me” won’t work.  Saying “It is all mine and you can’t have any” will not work.  If we all work together, in a spirit of peace, and of harmony, and of co-operation, we can find the answers.  That is what will work.  That is idealism.  But it is also complete realism.  Because that is the only thing that will work.  There is no other answer.

This process of working together, this process of reconciliation, starts here and now, with the people in this room.  You have to share what you have suffered.  Then you have to reach out.  We all have to find ways that we can learn to trust and learn to work together.  That is the process of reconciliation.  To work together for the answers, that is complete realism and idealism too.  Thank you so much for listening to my ideas here today.  Thank you.