What happens when you put an Islamist, a Socialist, a Christian, and a Liberal in an Egyptian garden?

Alfred DePew

Published in the Vancouver Observer news site | January 21, 2012

Circulation: 100,000 monthly readers

Imagine bringing together different factions of Egyptian society — Islamist, Socialist, Christian, and Liberal — to discuss their views in an Egyptian garden.

This is what Cairo management consultant Hesham El-Gamal wanted to find out when he invited people from a wide spectrum of opinion to participate in what he called a “communication experiment.”

He wanted to discover their common ground.

“In the early stages of the revolution,” El-Gamal said in a Skype interview earlier this month, “there was conflict about whether this was the right way to go about things. We thought about creating a one-day workshop to see things from a different light without judgment or attacking.”

In his work with corporations, El-Gamal uses relationship coaching techniques developed by the Center for Right Relationship to mediate conflict. Ultimately, he wants to train volunteers in these techniques, so they can work on a larger scale with different political parties and factions. He had to start somewhere, and he wanted to film his experiment to give people an idea of how some of the techniques actually work.

El-Gamal posted notes on various Facebook pages announcing his experiment, calling for anyone with a strong position about the revolution to respond. Even though the announcement assured that the workshop would be conducted in safety and respecting and accepting everyone present, there was a reluctance to participate. Some expressed an interest, but “didn’t want to be exposed,” says El-Gamal.

Venting on Facebook was one thing. Showing up in person and in front of a camera for an entire day of dialogue was another.

It took about a month for El-Gamal to find representatives of every major direction or faction, as well as someone who might represent the Silent Majority, the so-called “couch party,” or those who “watch and feel anxious but are not willing to do anything.”

In the end, he found two Islamists, two Christians, a Socialist, a Communist, a Liberal, a revolutionary from the April 6 Movement, and one who felt she could represent the feelings of those who remained largely silent. Nine people in all. Then, he found a secluded place for the workshop near a park in Old Cairo and a weekend when everyone was free.

“Egypt is at a crossroads,” says El-Gamal at the beginning of the film which came out of the workshop. One road leads to the dream of a prosperous, unified country, in which everyone is free to worship according to his or her faith. The other leads to sectarian fights between narrowly defined interests of emerging political parties.

In interviews and scenes from exercises he led during the workshop, we get some moving glimpses into the thoughts and feelings of the participants.

When asked to speak in the voice of Egypt herself, one said, “I am one of the oldest civilizations. I survived for 7,000 years. I have been through many difficult times. I have suffered occupation and enjoyed prosperity.”

Another said, again, speaking as Egypt, “Don’t be afraid of freedom; don’t be afraid of the infinite skies.”

In another exercise, participants are asked to step into one another’s “land,” leaving behind the their own perspectives and becoming curious about someone else’s.

“On the map,” explains El-Gamal in the film, “Egypt is one large area where all Egyptians live. But there is another map, one we have created. This map divides Egypt into groups and factions: Islamic Egypt, Christian Egypt, Liberal Egypt.”

As one participant notices when he visits the land of the ‘Silent Majority,’ it “has the benefit of the helicopter view. They can monitor all the action from outside.”

It is this ability to get out of one’s own perspective and step fully into another that is perhaps the most striking thing about this film.

El-Gamal is pleased with the results of his experiment. “It went quite smoothly,” he says, “and the filming itself was easy.” The hard part was “to capture nine hours in 15 minutes, to create something meaningful for people that sends a clear message about what can be done to get closer.”

The response to Voices of Egypt has been extraordinary. Shortly after it was posted to the “We are all Khaled Said” Facebook page, the video was viewed by 1,500 in one day. El-Gamal was interviewed for a morning show on national TV that gave a link to the video.

El-Gamal has been encouraged by people’s comments. And relieved.

“When I started this experiment,” he says, “I wanted to help people. The joy of the experiment was more than enough. When you put your heart into something and aren’t concerned about the outcome, that’s when you get the best outcome ever. One of my dreams was to create a video. I was willing to accept that it would fail, not produce a significant reaction. I enjoyed the process—then of course, it was crowned by fantastic feedback.

“Now I know there is hope, a way for us to go forward.”

Eggnog, sauerkraut and cookies: feeding the ghosts of Christmas past

Alfred DePew

Published in the Vancouver Observer | December 13, 2011 |

Circulation: 100,000 monthly readers

Children at Christmas dinner. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Sauerkraut

Every year, my mother would put a large dish of it on the sideboard along with the carved turkey and stuffing and cranberry sauce for Christmas dinner, and each of us would be obliged to have a small portion as a way of showing respect to my father’s mother, her sister, Florence, and their childhood friend Edwina, three ancient ladies of German descent.

My mother hated Germans, not so much because of the war, but because of her mother-in-law. At best, their relations were strained. At worst, they flared into open combat. At least as open as life in a 1950s St. Louis suburb would allow. Which looked a good bit more like the subterfuge that characterized the years of the Cold War.

The root of the conflict lay in the fact that they were a great deal alike in temperament. Both had strong opinions about how things ought to be, and neither was shy about expressing those opinions.

Christmas being what it is, one makes an effort to be of good will, and my mother’s goodwill gesture toward Grandmother each year was sauerkraut.

There was always a lot left over. Sauerkraut, that is.

Aunt Edwina survived my grandmother and Aunt Florence by a good many years, so each Christmas, my mother continued to serve sauerkraut.  One year, my mother passed around the sauerkraut dish for second helpings, though it was clear than no one had had a first.

“Aunt Edwina,” she said, leaning over.

“No thanks,” said Aunt Edwina, “I’ve never much cared for it myself.”

I could almost read my mother’s mind: if Edwina had never liked it, then what about Aunt Florence and Grandmother? All that goodwill sauerkraut for naught.

Eggnog

It’s got to be the nastiest liquid on earth. I never could abide it — a waste of perfectly good bourbon. Of course not everyone agrees, and since it’s a Christmas tradition, it filled the cut-crystal punch bowl on Christmas Eve and then again on Christmas morning. My mother loved serving it to her mother-in-law and our maiden aunts, all teetotalers. After three cups or so, the old ladies would start giggling, without any clear notion of what was funny.

And my mother would grin, triumphant.

The good bourbon (Jim Beam, Old Grand-Dad, or Jack Daniel’s) was prominently on display, and everyone’s first highball was poured from that, but as my mother went around to freshen everybody’s drink, she’d carry the glasses out to the kitchen and pour from the bottle of 905, a more generic brand produced by the local liquor store by the same name.

Fruitcake

Speaking of bourbon, another Christmas treat that turned my stomach was fruitcake, the second nastiest thing in the world after eggnog. To think of the two together is almost more than I can bear. But, once again, to many it is the very essence of Christmas — heavy, dense, full of candied fruit and highly alcoholic. It was always a gift. From Mrs. Weintraub next door, I think. And so it was also showcased, and after a few hearty souls had a thin slice or two, most of it went the route of the left over sauerkraut.

Candy canes and oranges

They appeared in my Christmas stocking, and both were disappointments simply because they weren’t chocolate. Even so, I remember how exotic oranges seemed. I’m not sure why, but we never had any sort of fresh fruit around, except bananas — orange juice came from frozen concentrate. Oranges on Christmas morning were intriguing because I had to peel them, they sprayed a fine mist that tickled my nose, and they didn’t come out of a can. In the 1950s, that was sort of unusual. At least in our house.

In fact I don’t think I actually encountered an orange on a tree until I was well into my 40s on a trip to California, and — I kid you not — my first thought was: Californians are so weird, they hang ornaments in their trees in summertime.

Santa’s milk and cookies

I can’t for the life of me remember actually putting them out for Santa. It may have been one of those traditions that my family dispensed with before I was born. I was the youngest of four. I do, however, remember, my distress one year that Santa couldn’t possibly come because St. Louis almost never had any snow at Christmas-time. My father took pains to explain to me that for the southern route, Santa used a helicopter.

I was skeptical.

“How does he land it on a sloping roof?” I asked.

“The same way he lands his sleigh up north,” said my father.

“What about the reindeer?” I asked.

“Oh they’re helping to pull. Remember there’s a load of presents. And they know the route better than Santa himself,” my father assured me.

Everybody got the sense that year that I had outgrown Santa, and the next year, Santa didn’t drop in on Christmas Eve to have a glass of Christmas cheer. (The fact that Santa drank eggnog was a mark against him in my book.) True, the two previous years, I’d had a pretty good idea who was behind the fake belly and white beard, especially the year it was my older brother, but I had played along like the good sport I was always trying to be.

I can’t remember how old I was that year, but I was bereft and was working my way into a fit of tears. Whereupon my father snuck upstairs, put on one of my sister’s red winter coats, managed to stick some cotton balls on his face, and came back down.

“Ho! Ho! Ho!” he roared.

“Boo! Hoo! Hoo!!” I roared louder, not to be consoled by cheap tricks.

All these years later, I think: if only I’d had the presence of mind to soften, just a little. I was, in fact, too old for Santa, but I wanted the grown-ups to keep up the illusion, so I could act like I was playing along.

If only I had appreciated the apology inherent in my father’s ridiculous get-up that night.

If only I’d been willing, even for a moment, to believe in make-believe.

The Wisdom of Self-Doubt

Maria V. Chatila

Guest blog by Maria V. Chatila, ILM, ACC, ORSCC

Maria V. Chatila is presently living in Dubai with her husband and three children. She works as an Education & Relationship Life Coach. She is dedicated to helping schools, families, couples and individuals to build personal and family awareness’ while creating empowering relationships. Maria has given talks to large groups of parents at schools as well as smaller groups of parents at their homes.

I dedicate this article to all parents and children in the hope that it may motivate and inspire you to achieve your full potential.

Anyone who knows me will agree that I am unable to wear the mask of pretender very well. Most often, I wear my emotions on my sleeve. Not only do I hang my emotions out for the world to see, I also assume that others will follow suit. Fortunately, I am mistaken. However, for the sake of this article, I will blast open one particular emotion that I tend to find very interesting and very wise. The emotion of the month is what I would like to call ‘Self-Doubt’.

According to the Collins dictionary, Self-Doubt is a lack of confidence in yourself and your abilities (Collins, 2003)

The Invasion of the Gremlins

As I sit here writing this article, I find myself reminiscing over my school years and the self-doubt that I experienced all of those years ago. The interesting thing about my memories is that my fears back then now seem so young and ridiculous. But, if I remember correctly, to the much younger Maria, those fears were very real and very scary. All these years later, the funny thing is that the essence of my younger self-doubt still exists.
My inquisitive nature leads me to use my curiosity and find the wisdom that lies behind the self-doubt that we may be feeling and use it to serve my audience of readers.
This is the time of the year when children and their parents may be feeling both very excited and very anxious about the upcoming end to the academic year. Most families have plans of enjoying a summer of carefree attitudes that means they could enjoy the freedom and flexibility that summer has to offer. The school schedule these days is about juggling the social and academic obligations and with this comes the knot in your stomach that for most people means SELF-DOUBT. Parents on the one hand are constantly wondering, ‘am I doing it right?’ Children, on the other hand, are wondering, ‘will my parents be proud of me?’

Last summer, I interviewed children of various age groups about how they felt about returning to school in September. The youngest of my interviewees Aya, was only 4 1/2 and she was ever so excited to begin school because this would be her first time attending the Big Girl school. She looked forward to a lovely new teacher who would surely love her and she especially was excited to play on the school playground. Apparently, says Aya, only clever big girls could play on the special playground so she was going to be a clever big girl this year! I was very impressed with Aya because it seemed that until this point, she really did not have any self-doubt. This made me really curious because, if most children were as confident as Aya commencing their careers as students then when did Self-Doubt begin to kick in?

Later on, I met Nicholas. He was 5 years old and he was preparing to attend Year 1 at his primary school. Overall, he had no real fears about recommencing school. However, he did say that he was a little bit nervous about meeting his new teacher. He claimed that until he could ‘see’ her face, he would be nervous. I asked him what he would be looking out for in her face and he said that he was nervous that she may not be nice and he would be able to tell this by looking at her eyes. He would be disappointed if she had ‘big circle eyes when she looked at him’ because this would be bad.

Michael, 7 years old, was getting ready to attend Year 3 and he was most definitely excited. However, he also claimed to feel really nervous too. Michael stated that his fears were mostly about the new teacher and his friends. He stated that meeting a new teacher makes him nervous because new teachers have new rules and new work that he will have to do. He was also nervous about his friends because he stated that if there were new people at school, he would have to make new friends.

Selena, also 7 years old, had a somewhat different stance to Michael’s. She was very nervous about not being able to make new friends which would lead her to be left by her lonesome during break-times to walk alone on the playground. Selena also claimed to be nervous about making mistakes with her class work that would then cause her to getting poor grades and this would eventually be the reason that she would be seen as a disappointment to her parents and they may even become angry with her. As she spoke, I could almost feel her fear.

Finally, I interviewed Dania who was 12 years old. As she spoke, I could feel the weight of the world on her shoulders. Dania discussed how she always has a feeling of self-doubt heavily on the first day of school. ‘Too much is unknown’, she said. She worries that this may be the year that everything goes wrong and she fails at tests and disappoints her parents, her teachers and herself. Dania worries that she may not have a bright future if this academic year is not successful and that she may not be able to accomplish the great things that she dreams of. Mostly, she says, ‘I feel afraid that I may not be noticed or chosen at school to do things that help me to stand out in front of my peers’. She worries that the teachers may not be fair and that she may not be accepted by her peers. Not fitting in amongst your peers is very challenging, says Dania. Some children get bullied if they don’t fit in and this can be scary for children, she says.

As I sat listening to the answers that were being offered to me by these young children, I remained astounded by how much has not changed since my younger years. Although technology has hit an all time high for creating amazing gadgets, our children are still suffering from the same issues of self-doubt as we did in our younger days!

With Age Comes Wisdom

‘Life is 10 percent what you make it and 90 percent how you take it’ Louise Priscoll
Interestingly, my last interviewee was a mid 30s mother of two children who remembers feeling self-doubt as a young child, but most especially at this time of the year when she was younger. To Melanie, the self-doubt reminded her of the ‘inner 5 year old child that lacks confidence, perseverance and drive’. I could not agree with her more. I too remember that my self-doubt really kicked in at the age of 5. Most countries across the globe begin to welcome children into school by the age of 5 and I do believe that although school is a place where children learn to build their characters and learn to mix with other children; I also believe and agree with Melanie’s statement; ‘as parents, we must become aware of our children’s feelings’.

Recently, the news printed a story about a young 13 year-old boy who tried to end his life because of his self doubt. Are parents, teachers and the community really aware of our children’s feelings of self-doubt that continue frightening them into doing things that seem like their only hope for escape?

A Coach’s Perspective….

In my working experience and in my personal experience, Self-Doubt is very common and I have still to meet an individual who has never experienced a lack of belief or a fear of failure. All those years ago and if I am very honest, not too long ago I still believed that my self-doubt existed to harm me. However, it is now my belief that ‘Self-Doubt’ enters our lives to give us some wisdom. The question is, are we ready to ‘see’ the wisdom in our fear of failure? It is a fact that teachers and caretakers have a huge impact on our children. Most teachers have more quantity time with children than some of the parents do. Therefore, it is important that parents and teachers work together to find the wisdom in the Self-Doubt that is causing havoc on our children’s lives.

Some of my tips are:

First and foremost, normalize the self-doubt. Most children are on a sole train called ‘EGO’ and they are not aware of the fact that many of the other children are also feeling scared, nervous and afraid of not being a success at school. As my evidence shows, all of the children that have previously been in school have already developed self-doubt. Sit down with your students and your children and share
your own memories of self-doubt as a child. In fact, share some of your most recent memories of self-doubt as an adult. Normalizing a lack of confidence will help your children feel comfortable with their own feelings.

Secondly, use the child’s fears openly and brainstorm as a family or as a class around the possible wisdom that is available to the child because of their self-doubt. At first, there will be no apparent wisdom just sadness and helplessness. Keep asking and soon enough the child will begin to say something positive about their learning’s because of the existence of their self-doubt.

Finally, once the wisdom has been made consciously aware, ask your child to take more actions that will continue to let them grow. Remember, ‘It is not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters’ (Epictetus) Sit down as often as your family or class feel is necessary and discuss the actions that were taken and give your child the feedback that they need. Praise them for whatever action they took and encourage them to keep moving forward.

Final Thoughts

I believe that it is our role as parents and teachers to help each and every child achieve their full potential. I stand strong and ask that you do too. At the end of our time here, I would like to believe that as a community we were able to light a fire within our children and help them to shine brightly for the next generation to see. What have you done today to help your child see the wisdom in their self-doubt?

For more information about Maria and her work, please visit her website, www.bpacoach.com or contact Maria directly through her email maria@bpacoach.com

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