Hey MYLP and Bridgers (and anyone else who stumbled onto this blog). I posted up some advice based on conversations I kept having with many of you over and over again. I wanted to share this with all of you and leave it to you to take away what you find of interest. I personally thought Meg was on point!
Archive for the ‘Education’ Category
Advice for those in their 20′s
Posted: May 25, 2013 in Affad Shaikh, American Muslim, career, Education, job, networking, New Leaders Council, Orange County, profession, professional, Progressive, TED, undergraduate0
Pakistan, What if we took an area in the country and started from scratch?
Posted: March 28, 2013 in Affad Shaikh, Democrat, Education, Foreign Policy, leadership, liberation struggles, Politics, Progressive, Republican, Social, TEDTags: august 14, california, california democratic party, charter cities, congressman ed royce, democratic delegates, independence day, Pakistan, pakistani american, partition, politics, republic day, romer
Pakistan is a hot mess. I got that sense of Pakistan recently when I was invited as a distinguished guest to Pakistan’s 73rd Republic Day event. Yes, Pakistan has a Republic Day, which is separate from the August 14, 1947 Independence Day. Republic day marks the day when Indian Muslims decided to split from the Hindu dominated effort for independence to create a Muslim majority nation in the subcontinent. This moment in history is marked by a resolution that was past in 1940 on March 23 and that is the event that we were celebrating. I was invited as a distinguished guest because I was a recently elected California Democratic party delegate (ran in an election and won the second highest number of votes!) for District 36.
I am very appreciative of the invitation, however, as an American Muslim of Pakistani roots (I was, after all, born in Karachi) I am a bit disappointed that the most distinguished politician in the room was Congressman Ed Royce, a Republican who has no love for Muslims let alone for Pakistan. The fact that the Pakistani community could only rope in Royce is a sad state of affairs, but that is also reflective of the hot mess that is Pakistan.
Pakistan has so much potential. I saw it on the streets of Karachi when I visited in 2008, but its split by economic class warfare, compounded by ethnic and sadly religious sectarian violence. All of that is politicized into a neopatrimonialist structure of coercive power.
That got me thinking, what if- WHAT IF- we could take a portion of Pakistan and cleave it from the Federalist system to create a experimental political and economic model, not a perfect society, but rather one in which democratic institution building is given a chance to succeed while there is real economic development. Basically, why can’t we scrap the entire government/social structure to begin building a small piece of what Pakistan could be and slowly roll that model out elsewhere.
This is not my idea, is actually something Paul Romer has been advocating. His contribution was this concept of “charter cities” which he promoted at a TED talk in 2009. Subsequently Honduras followed suit but that relationship quickly fell apart, largely I believe because of Romer domineering (almost new form of imperialism) character, but not out of malice but rather out of a desire to keep the charter city concept from falling into the interests of a few elite elements within the political ruling class.
Check out the NYTimes article about the project in Honduras and in terms of Pakistan, a charter city in the Himalaya’s where tourism could potentially feed economic growth or Gwadar, China’s deep sea port access to the oil rich fields of Central Asia, really its pet project, in the arid deserts of Baluchistan, would be awesome sites for consideration. Pakistani’s can start from scratch, young activists and western educated entrepreneurs, congregating into a place where democratic institution building can truly take shape- utopia? Dare I dream?
Spanish- Gonna Sing You a Love Song!
Posted: March 20, 2013 in Affad Shaikh, American Muslim, Education, SpanishTags: entertainment, music
So I am a good month and a half into my Spanish 101 class and I am excited to share the news that I am going to be able to sing a Spanish love song of epic proportions by the time I finish the first semester! Its going to woo my soon to be wifey where ever she is.
Afghan Troops Are…American Troops Must Be
Posted: December 13, 2012 in Affad Shaikh, Afghanistan, American Muslim, Education, Foreign Policy, History, PoliticsTags: afghan security forces, army, cultural competency, incompetence, NATO, Taliban, WSJ
“Many of the confrontations occur because of [coalition] ignorance of, or lack of empathy for, Muslim and/or Afghan cultural norms, resulting in a violent reaction from the [Afghan security force] member” according to the draft handbook prepared by Army researchers in a 75 page manual that will be given to troops heading over to this theater of war and was reviewed by the WSJ.
Basically the reports central argument is that cultural insensitivity is driving insider attacks by Afghan security forces. I don’t buy it. I believe that the Afghan Taliban has strategically infiltrated the state security forces in order to tactically attack and hurt NATO forces. And it works in their favor because the US is just starving for Afghans to step up to the plate and take over security roles. Worse, how are we supposed to know who is standing up for what? How do you vet Afghans when Afghans recommend others to be part of the forces?
This is also working in the favor of the Taliban in that their people infiltrating these forces will have access to weapons and sensitive places but worse, they are getting trained by the US on how to fight. When we pull out the Taliban will be best placed to take the fight to the Afghan civilian government.
Though the WSJ reported that a military study of 600 Afghan security personal and 200 American soldiers interviewed about the underlying problems and the rise in the Afghan security internal attacks “painted a grim portrait of opposing cultures with simmering disdain for their counterparts.”
American troops were suggesting that “Afghan forces engage in thievery are ‘gutless in combat,’ are ‘basically stupid,’ ‘profoundly dishonest,’ and engage in ‘treasonous collusion and alliances with enemy forces.’”
All of which I believe about Afghan troops and I would go further and say this precisely depicts the Pakistani soldiers as well. Pakistani army being engaged in the politics of Pakistan have reduced them to this status in my eyes.
But in going back to the conclusion found in the manual, I think generally speaking outside of the Afghan-NATO troop interactions, the advice is point on. Americans in general have this idea of superiority that borders arrogance. Our pride can have a horrible affect in how we related to people whose cultures are not similar to ours. If we want to engage the world, we need to understanding that the world will not engage with us if we apply our assumptions and stereotypes. Its good to stop and step back from those things.
The Historical Development of Obesity as a National Pastime
Posted: December 5, 2012 in Activism, Affad Shaikh, American Muslim, Democrat, diabetes, diet, Education, fitness, Green Deen, Health, health and fitness, heart disease, History, lifestyle, obesity, Organic Gardening, Politics, Progressive, Republican, technologyTags: big agriculture, corn, Earl Butz, farm policies, industrial farming, industrial revolution, vegetables
What we eat creates the environment in our body that leads us to health problems in the future. We are, as they say, what we eat.
The human biology by 10k years ago was finely tuned to live a hunter gatherer society. When we killed something we gorged on it because of food scarcity, we turned off the trigger in our head that told us that we were full because it simply was not the right thing to do in an environment were we didn’t have security in food supply the next day or down the week. But the human population couldn’t take on that sort of life style in the long run because of our population growth. That lead to the development of an agricultural society where villages and farming became central to survival.
Thats how society was up until the end of the 19th century. The US was at a turning point in history where we had to start coming up with the means to deal with food scarcity, how will we ensure that there is a secure way to maintain the availability of food for the entire population? Thats when the process being applied in the industrial revolution began to appear in agriculture, giving us industrial agriculture.
We go modern agriculture out of this industrial revolution. We needed to be stronger militarily but we needed food security. The government began subsidizing farmers, supporting research and scientific development. We immediately saw this impact the per acre yield of farms, by nearly 20 times. An acre that would once eek out 20 bushels was now giving up upwards of 200 bushels. This abundance of grains results in a new problem- lots of extra grains that we don’t know what to do with.
So the government began selling it abroad and farmers were now involved in what developed as a commodity. The grain was no longer staple food source, but rather the raw product that government scientist with added industry application had created from the raw grain ingredients. The prices fluctuated and various government policies development until 1973 when the Secretary of the Department of Agriculture, Earl Butz, demanded that farmers either get big or get out. With that a new stage in agriculture began, one that continues to this day: Big Agriculture and the demise of the family farm, that farm that is idealized or romanticized in our current food marketing environment.
Farmers kept producing an over abundance of subsidized grains that inundated the market to which the government and industry kept looking for new ways to use. Because the grain was cheap and high in sugar it began to be used to feed livestock. We wanted to keep food prices cheap and very stable. We built a food economy around this idea of surplus.
While all of this was happening around the way we approached food, other technological advances were changing other parts of our lives. Quite simply technology was all about connivence. We now live in places where we are car dependent, which has cut off our ability to burn calories. We don’t bike, we don’t walk we don’t do physical activity because we have engineered it out of our lives. our work as adults has become sedentary. We are an automated society that is eating food that is cheap and heavy in calories.
The food environment itself is now hostile to healthy eating because we are bombarded by queues through marketing that tell us to eat fast food, food that provides convenience, things that hurt us in the long run because we don’t have a lifestyle or a community living environment that is conducive to burning off all those sugars, fat and rich calorie foods.
Its not that there are evil corporations, incompetent government and an American population that is driven by a lack of self control. The current reality we live in was rooted in a real human problem, has grown in the context of sociological challenge of providing food (at one point 45% of an American households expenditure) for cheap. The government pays farmers $45 billion every five years to over produce soy, corn, dairy and wheat as commodity crops not as staple foods. The foods that contain these products is cheaper because the government is paying you to buy it through the money that they pay Big Agriculture.
Good example is soft drinks and raw fruits. In the past 20 years the price of Soda went up 20% whereas the price of raw fruits (healthy stuff) went up 117%. Soda’s main ingredient is high fructose corn syrup, made from the overly abundantly corn grown in America. Surprisingly enough, fruit and vegetable growers don’t get government subsidies.
These abundant and cheap ingredients have stimulated the growth of a food industry with a financial incentive to use corn and soy products (such as high fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated oils, modified corn starches, etc.) to produce a huge quantity and variety of highly processed foods and not vegetable and fruits. The reason is that corn and soy have, over the century of industrializing agriculture, were found to be the product that lent itself best to the industrial process, not broccoli or squash or sweet peas.
Our farm policies are driving farmers to overproduce exactly the types of foods that are driving obesity in this country while our desire to have the greatest degree of convenience (i.e. freedom) in our lives especially the degree to which we can spend money on “other” items rather then on food. In the end though, our indulgence in eating is producing obesity, but this national pastime has not developed outside of a historical context.
Because Ideas Matter: 10 TED Lectures You Need to Watch
Posted: December 2, 2012 in Activism, Affad Shaikh, American Muslim, Politics, TEDTags: climate, current-events, politics
So ideas are supposed to be powerful and change society. Really excited because TED provides some amazing people the microphone to get their ideas out to the world. There is so much excitement when I listen to these lectures, that its sort of become a ritual where over the course of three months I favorite the lectures that sound interesting and then I sit down at one time, two or three hours, listening to all these wonderful people.
I decided that I want to share the ones that I am most moved by. You will notice that the law, politics and psychology (relationship building, connecting with people, self improvement) seem to carry lots of weight for me. But this most recent batch there is a new concern that is taking over my thoughts, that concern involves the food we eat, the health of America and the health of the planet. While I am not a full blown tree-hugger, I am now comfortable to say that I am on my way to becoming one in some form or fashion.
I am all about evaluating our ideas about the places we live in and where we get our food from.
The following three lectures explore that nexus and build on the idea that a capitalist economy with its focus on specialization of skills and labor doesn’t mean that we provide the best life for individuals, a community or the overall society. Pam Warhurst challenges this notion and builds on the idea that we don’t need government to do whats right and that a local economy can be invigorated by growing local, buying local and eating local.
Tristram Stuart hits on another aspect of the modern economy dealing with agriculture and food- waste, the large quantities of food that is grown and never makes it to the mouths of people, but rather gets incinerated and thrown away. We must address this food waste when it comes to not just going back to growing food locally and eating locally culture.
To build on that we need to realize that the way our cities are developing its not sustainable and to make life worthy of living we need to reconfigure our idea of how to design the spaces we live in, work in and exist in. Kent Larson is amazing and his talk “Brilliant designs to fit more people in every city” is great endeavor in thinking how to move forward with the a cityscape design that promotes locality.
In thinking about locality, cityscapes and energy our big challenge is how to make our processes closed circuits. I love this talk about Jonathan Trent about taking our waste products (poop and pee) to get rid of it but also make use of it so that it doesnt kill the environment or kill us. This is a great talk that shows how thinking outside the box is critical, but one of the most demoralizing aspects of the talk is that government bureaucracy prevents us from initiating the whole innovate technology.
Shifting gears on the economy theme, there is an entire economy that exists supposedly underground, for the West anyway its underground, but totally above ground to folks who travel to the developing world. Robert Neuwirth does an amazing, and entertaining, lecture on the informal economy.
What gets me is that part of citizens taking up action and working outside the system stems from the very premise that government and the capitalism weren’t doing what everyone kept telling us it was supposed to do. Rory Stewart is a MP in the UK, who walked across Afghanistan after 9/11, talking with citizens and warlords about democracy. Now, a decade later, he asks: Why are Western and coalition forces still fighting there? But he turns toward the idea that while in the West Democracy is seen as something less then perfect, politicians as being something less then genuine and the process of democracy as being something less then serving the interests of the people, why are people in the furthest reaches, backwaters of Afghanistan calling for the opportunity to pick its leaders?
I then point toward what folks believe are the underlying problems with our democracy, its not that democracy is flawed, rather it is flawed but its possible to make it work for the people by the people if, according to the two speakers, we have means for citizen participatory mechanism in legislating as well as transparency.
Clay Shirky explores how Linux, open source operating system, approach to open platform editing of the program for everyone, can in essence transform the government in how citizens participate, really amazing piece:
Sanjay Pradhan on the other hand talks about how open data, available and accessible by all, is going to make a government that can be held accountable especially in budgeting and use of international development aid. Pradhan tells the story in a compelling personal history of his fathers struggle with corruption and government bribery in the Indian state of Bihar, one of the most corrupt systems in India:
Finally, I finish the politics with Ivan Krastev. Everything the other speakers presents sound amazing, then Ivan comes on stage with his pessimistic view of the world and crushes your nodding into a full blown “oh shit, he’s right how naive of us.” Basically Ivan argues that without trust there is no democracy and all these measures we talk about are great, however, it reduces trust and makes politics into the very thing we are trying to prevent it from becoming. Listen, you know, its better that you just listen to how he puts it because I am doing his message a disservice:
Since you made it this far, reward yourself with this final lecture by Brene Brown on the power of vulnerability. I explore a key concept during my Ramadan series, specifically in this post about Rahma. I actually got Brown’s lecture recommended to me when I got several responses to my posts about my TED binge, so I am a bit happy that I was hitting on some of the themes on vulnerability when talking about having Rahma in our lives before I actually watched Brene talk about vulnerability being a key ingredient to being happy, confident and fulfilled in life.
Dear Mr. President- Voting for you, again, is hard.
Posted: October 18, 2012 in Activism, Affad Shaikh, American Muslim, Asian American, career, Democrat, Education, Foreign Policy, leadership, Politics, profession, professional, Progressive, public education, Republican, Social, Syria, Tea Party, UC, undergraduateTags: american dream, august, automatic cuts, budget ceilings, civil rights, congress, debt crisis, disillusionment, drone strikes, economy, education reform, election 2012, federal budget, foreign policy, graduate school, hope, military, President Obama, senate, students, washington dc
The following is a letter I wrote back in August 2011. Some background: It was one of those late night rants. I never published it, but in honesty as I head out to precinct walk in Las Vegas, Nevada with fellow South Asians for President Obama, it was fitting I take it from the old note book I scrawled it in and transcribe it here to share with you all. A lot of the mixed emotions, feelings of being let down- even betrayed- are still there.
August 17, 2011
Dear Mr. President,
I write to you as a disillusioned young professional. For the past four years I have tried to remind myself why I voted for you and why as an activist in the American Muslim community I championed your cause. The answers to those questions appear ambiguous.
I look around to see that you have consistently dragged our hopes and aspirations through the audacity of extremist right wing agenda’s- people who hold American values hostage to an America they envision from the 1950′s. Not only have you made it difficult to champion your cause because you have given up on Civil Rights issues and immigration, blundered on healthcare reform, but, worse of all, you continue to champion draconian measures that pale in comparison to President Bush’s administration.
If I was a one issue voter I would stop there, but I am not. Instead I have to point out the horrendous development in the most dangerous policy using technological warfare has expanded under your watch. You have precipitated terrorist-like activities in the pursuit of our enemies, through undeclared wars, in violation of international law in the drone strike program. Worse, you have destroyed due process with the creation of a hit list, extra-judicially executing a 16-year old American citizen. All the while Syria bleeds and our enemies rally around a noble cause of democracy spreading their cancer within the ranks of Syrians seeking liberty, freedom and justice.
Domestically, instead of helping to shore up the home owners of America, you have aided in the largest bamboozling by corporate America of American taxpayers. Billions are given to those that robbed us and dragged our economy into the ground, all the while, millions of Americans are loosing jobs and their homes. Yes, the mess you inherited was not simple, its was immense and the worst since the Great Depression, however, handing out money to the Wall Street folks who should be sitting in jails and awaiting trials seems to be the rewarding of rich peoples complete disregard of the rules and decency that has long governed this nation.
You have cut short the aspirations of the very people who will build the future economy of America- our college students. Your floundering on the Dream Act is but a small indicative measure of your complete failure to provide for college students across the United States the conditions necessary to get an education and build the American economy.
Worse, as the reality of the so-called Debt Ceiling compromise is coming forth, we see that legislators eliminated the interest subsidy for a government-subsidized loan program for graduate and professional students. While undergraduate education will continue to be subsidized by the Federal government, the truth is Mr. President, your future economic vision does not rest on a nations undergraduates alone, in fact, it is clear that our economy demands an undergraduate degree, but future career require graduate degrees in order for young professionals such as myself to become capable of achieving the American Dream.
That reality frightens me because I am part of the elite 10% of the American population that has obtained a high school diploma, successfully pursued a bachelors degree and am seeking a graduate degree, yet will be locked out of my dreams. However, I am blessed, because the majority of our country’s students are left out of the education process and their doors to economic success are shut. This population also is on the federal altar for debt ceiling negotiations.
The question isn’t what has happened to you Mr. President, rather the question is, were you ever really committed to our cause, the cause for an America that belonged to all? If so, you are not fighting for us, rather your actions suggest you are fighting against us.
Mr. President, I have a hard time deciding to vote for you again. I can’t say I will campaign for you. The irony of my situation is that as our Presidential nominee you offered us hope, but as the President you have robbed us of that hope.
Sincerely,
Affad Shaikh
A Demoralized American
Whats telling about this letter is that I wrote it while the debt ceiling crisis was going on. The news articles, I remember them so vividly, were fear mongering and apocalyptic. The news was all around bad and I sensed that that mood doused my attitude while writing this.
A year and a half later, right after the November elections, a lame duck congress will once again be faced with a crisis, the magnitude of which is insane. In the impending debt crisis for the winter of 2012, our military budget will literally be gutted if Congress and the President don’t come up with an appropriate budget.
Finding Your Inner Social Butterfly- A Way to Network Like a Pro
Posted: October 10, 2012 in Affad Shaikh, American Muslim, CAIR, career, Education, job, networking, New Leaders Council, profession, professional, Progressive, Public Relations, San Diego World Trade Center, Strategy, undergraduate, US Bureau of Labor StatisticsTags: networking, professional networking, sdwtc, simon vetter, speaker series
“Great another networking event!” The fact that being inebriated makes you less conscious of your behavior, thus making the tedious task of “small talk socializing” at the event easier makes for an attractive reason to drink (sip here won’t hurt!). But if you choose to stick to the halal/haram distinction (the sunnah and Quranic mandate) then you can’t get your liquor on.
Being drunk also won’t make the situation easier, nor will it be beneficial to you in your personal life or for you career. I think lots of folks feel that “networking” is just a useless term that lacks any credible real world translation. Its fake, so people there are fake, and the conversations there are shallow and ultimately its what you do if you are in the world of business, of any sorts. Working at a non-profit I got to go to my fair share of these “networking” events. They come in a variety of window dressings but ultimately its a means for people to meet other people and get something out of it.
If you are like me, you probably found yourself going toward the corners of the room and finding a group to “nest” with because its safe. But as the years went on I learned to challenge myself and some of the greatest collaborations I had the opportunity to work on came from meeting people in these situations.
If you don’t believe me then just pick up a networking book, anyone, and the statistics are all laid bare. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 70 percent of jobs are found through networking. All my internship during college, my college jobs as well as my career at CAIR came through networking.
Okay, so I shouldn’t have to be selling you on networking, if thats the case this blogpost isn’t for, go over to this post at Yale, do some soul searching there. Below is a how to guide to become a better networker.
I learned to network by watching some amazing networkers, then imitating their style and adapting it to work for myself. There are some basic rules you should remember because networking is a tedious task, its not just simply talking to people, its learning to be efficient in what you talk about. You also have to show a little gumption by presenting yourself as composed an interested in what people have to say even though you might not be. Also, you need to come off as being an interesting person yourself. All of that is an sort of craft, call it acting? This means you can’t have emotional meltdowns, you should stick with the solid rule of leaving religion and politics out of the conversation (a bit hard to to do if you follow certain religious etiquette’s and practices, at which point its the big elephant in the room). Finally, you got to look your best, be presentable because first impressions count.
Like any art its something that through practice and some basic foundational understandings you can make your own. One of the ultimate networkers I have met in my time is a guy who goes by the initials O.G. He’s the ultimate social networking guru. If you know him, you probably can drop his name in any new city you happen to be in and people will know him, or know of him. His style is classic, simple and pretty ingenious. He opens with “So, whats your story.” You feel like he’s there to listen to you and through the first five minutes he’ll get all that makes you the person you are- your name, your brief personal history, why you are at the event, where you are from, what you do, and anything else you drop within that time frame. Then he’s on to the other folks in the room and just like that he’s worked the room where he’s met all the faces he hasn’t been introduced to.
Thats the key though, being introduced. You tell yourself someone is going to introduce you to this person, or that person, but that never happens, what then? Try this activity- give yourself 3 minutes of time without any distractions. Write down “What is your story?” and start the timer. See what you write down. If you want further proof, ask two other people to do the same thing. What I notice is that there is a common thread in the responses people put down to that question, but sometimes there are big holes. Like someone might not put down “why they are at an event” because thats outside the context of the conversation, yet that helps establish a point of relations. In the future people will remember that you were at that particular even for that particular purpose.
At the end of the day you want your networking experience to be beneficial, to give it purpose you need to construct some foundation to work off of. I find that there are some really good questions, and I present them in an order that will make sense later:
- What brings you to the event? how are you connected to the organization?
- Whats your name?
- Where are you from? Where do you live?
- Whats your profession?
- When your not working, what do you like to do?
- Where have you travelled? Or do you have any travel plans in the future?
- Ask any question- except for politics and/or religion- unless the other person brings it up.
This is something I picked from Simon Vetter when I was attending the San Diego World Trade Center’s monthly speaking series. I found it incredibly useful in teaching how to network, get better at art of networking, or help manage anxiety about networking events. I wish someone had told me this earlier because it makes networking easier.
You are probably thinking that this technique will require you to take a notecard with you so that way you can sneak a peak at the questions and jot down the list as you go along talking to someone. No, actually you don’t have to do that. In fact, in my blogpost “I wish they had name tags at weddings” I introduced the technique I learned about remember names. The idea is that you associate what your trying to remember with an image that you will clearly recollect when required to do so. This is a memory technique that is ancient and forgotten, but I am going to show you how Mr. Vetter applied it to the same string of questions above and I think it will help you remember when your at the next networking event.
Close your eyes an imagine each statement. Remember that you need to connect each image to the one before it, like a string of pearls.
- Imagine yourself in a stadium full of people (whatever sporting even you fancy);
- See your name written on the field;
- In the corner of the field you see your house;
- Out of the house- door, window, chimney, whatever- you see a briefcase flying out.
- You keep your eyes locked on the briefcase until it gets pierced by a golf club and falls down;
- At this point you begin to see an airplane flying above the stadium;
- You follow the airplane until you notice it has a green light at the front of it.
Now you tell yourself this ridiculous string of images until you begin to associate the line of questioning in which the stadium reflect the question of “why are you here? How are you associated to this event?” The name on the field is your way of introducing yourself to the person your talking to and getting their name. The house in the corner is the question about “where the person lives and whats their background?” (remember their name, if its Indian, well your names sounds like Indian…) The flying briefcase is connected to the question about the persons profession. The golf club is about what the person does outside of work- they might sit on a non-profit board or be interested in the environment and you happen to know someone who shares that interest. The airplane is the question about traveling, and Mr.Vetter basically said that everyone likes to travel so its a neutral safe question to ask in order to get insight into the person your talking to, who knows they might be speaking at a conference that just might be something you would want to go to in order to advance your professional network? Finally the green light is your opportunity to ask any questions that you feel will help you get to know the person.
Thats networking technique in a nutshell. Go to the mosque or some community event and try it. At the end of the day if you won’t take risks and challenge yourself to talk to people you don’t know, no technique is going to help you. You have to be willing to put yourself out there, this technique is a means of managing the anxiety and awkwardness presented in networking situations. Finally, remember don’t stick to one person, the more you move around the room the comfortable the situation gets. At some point people won’t be strangers, you would have met most of the folks present and the networking situation won’t be as intimidating as it would be had you not mingled.
MSA- New Year, New Board, Same Problems
Posted: September 26, 2012 in Activism, Affad Shaikh, American Muslim, Asian American, Education, identity, Islam, leadership, Muslim Youth Leadership Program, Social, Strategy, undergraduateTags: leadership, muslim student association
How can the board of a student organization ensure a productive year? That was the question that developed over the coarse of a conversation I had with one of my High-School-Student-Mentees-turned-college-student-leader at his UC’s MSA (Muslim Student Association). I honestly didn’t think I would be able to give him a proper answer to his questions given the short notice and my lack of initial interest in having the conversation late at night (and right before I went off to the gym!).
Surprisingly I woke up this morning thinking “Wow, Affad, you probably provided one of the best responses (at least, I have ever come up with, I can indulge in a little bragging) to the perpetual challenge faced by incoming boards when it comes to leadership. The idea of leadership is wrought with all sorts of examples of GREAT leaders, and not so effective ones. While I think that charismatic leadership offers the most return for your money, not having a central charismatic leader doesn’t mean that the organization will suffer.
The cult of personality often obscures the reality of what in essence leadership is all about- its about people, relationships and properly managing those relationships. This is something that anyone can do if they are willing to step up to the plate. We all recognize that bad leaders, or more appropriately, ineffective leaders are people who are divisive, marginalizing, polarizing and all sorts of uncompromising. The word compromise itself takes on a religious tenor when put in the context of MSA’s- “No brother we don’t compromise with the Sunnah wa’Jammah.” But what in my discussion last night I tried to emphasize the idea that many of the conflicts don’t arise because of fundamental theological issues, rather they are simple issues of leadership and work styles that give rise to problems with how people manage conflict that arises from disagreements.
The board over a period of time will internalize these mismanaged responses by exhibiting them in terms of fundamentals, overly simplistic black-and-white realities. ”That brother is to liberal” and “That brother is to conservative” doesn’t really address the issue of “how do we function to make things work in the MSA?” The response to this is always to play the “my way, or the highway” approach because that ensures a zero-sum reality, when in fact, such an outcome never really results in any good to anyone.
One of the best ways that a incoming board, filled with new leaders, can get ahead of the pitfalls of board dysfunction and construct the grounds for a successful year, is to have a real board retreat. We aren’t talking about sitting around a table, saying duahs and talking for an hour only to adjourn until you come back in the Fall. I am talking about a structured, day or weekend long, relationship building and planning session.
Since the new year is just beginning its not to late to do something constructive. Like my conversation with MSA board member X last night, a day long retreat can be planned and executed still. Here’s how to do it:
- Find someone who is willing to chair the planning, logistics and moderation of the retreat. This person should ideally be the President or Vice President of your organization.
- Chair needs to come up with an agenda (more on this below), location (should be comfortable for sitting down prayers and moving around activities), logistics (get food- healthy, drinks, papers, markers, all the stuff you need). Delegate where appropriate.
- Agenda- this should be thoughtfully constructed to make the most out of the time your spending together.
- Execute the retreat.
- Follow up with folks individually and ask if it was productive, what can change, what worked really well. Make adjustments, leave for next years incoming board to repeat.
Agenda-
This is the most important part of your whole retreat. It needs to be designed with care and insight into whats the purpose behind everything you do. My conversation last night worked out a really nice program that can be replicated, with modifications for your particular organizational needs.
- Early Bird catches the warm- so start the day early. Because folks are groggy provide coffee, but have ice breakers that involve activity. My favorite is “Big Watermelon”- its silly, stupid and just plain funny. But when people get involved with it, it will lower the level of anxiety and guard folks have so that the rest of the day is productive. If you feel the folks aren’t going to want to start off doing something like that but you need something that will help build closer bonds and deepen the relationship of folks beyond “knowing people” then there is the “Toilet Paper” game or the “Name Your Name” game. Both are great to get past the “His name is Mohammad and he’s from Fresno” relationship.
- Lay the Ground Rules- in order for your board to function you need ground rules, these rules aren’t just for this retreat, they should be for the following year. This means whenever the board meet, these rules are displayed and people religiously observe them. This sets the tone not only for what it takes to participate in the retreat, but through out the year. These rules should be simple, they should be focused and you shouldn’t have a crap load of them. This is a social contract that you’re coming up with, social contracts should be straight forward like “honesty is the best policy” or “Do unto others what you want others to do unto you” (or better yet- the Golden Rule).
- Follow this up with another ice breaker, maybe here is a good opportunity to do Big Watermelon, after serious business like the ground rules a silly game is just the right prescription to move on.
- Focus on Leadership, this is the place where you can understand what other people know about leadership, but more importantly, how each person on your board reacts and carry’s out their functions. My suggestion is don’t lecture, rather create workshops that are interactive, you want to continue to build bonds and deepen board members relationship with one another, create trust, nurture open lines of communications. The retreat is the way to jump over the “trial by fire” process because it puts people in a situation where they have to start functioning as a cohesive group outside the rigors of the actual year. When it comes leadership workshop, here’s what I suggested last night
- Do a group activity where each person posts 2-3 leadership qualities on the board. Each person should/can talk about why this is important to them. If you want the group can list the top 5 important qualities, which would help do the next activity.
- The group then should discuss an example from the Prophetic Seerah that exemplifies the qualities. Each person should be involved in discussing this.
- The leadership portion should be divided by Zuhr prayer.
- Lunch, it should be time for mingling or you can do a lunch oriented activity to continue to build the bonds of brotherhood/sisterhood.
- When you reconvene, or do this during a working lunch if time is short, people should write down their thoughts on what leadership is after the conversation that took place on the topic. Also they should list their leadership strengths and weaknesses. That last part is really important.
- The President at this point needs to start the session by talking about leadership (“the lecture”). Here it is important to lay out how the President functions. For example if it was me, I would say look emails and phone calls are great, but text messages are much more efficient for me. Stuff like that is what will help the functionality of the group.
- Do a talk back session where everybody shares their leadership style.
- Have a group activity that address how the group will respond to challenges. Your MSA might have dealt with similar challenges in the past, choose those, rework them and present scenarios and talk through how the board will address the issues. Who does what? What worked in the past? What should have been done? Its important to work through nightmare scenarios, I wont list out the why here.
- The final session, after Asr prayers, should be around the idea of upcoming year. Talk out goals, set metrics. Each board member should set one thing they wish to build upon from past years, or pioneer, during their tenure in office. You should end it by Maghrib, afterwards go out and have dinner to celebrate making it through a difficult day, but also because you have an exciting year up ahead!
Things to look out for:
- Make sure everyone participates. People should recognize that they need to “Step back AND step up”- especially when talking about leadership, everyone should be participating and those that are more aggressive in their participation need to allow and encourage others to participate.
- While this will seem liberal of me, there has to be mixed gender interaction. Your board consists of guys and girls, no matter where their Islamic comfortability level is at, they need to be able to interact with the opposite gender. They can establish boundaries during the coarse of the retreat, but that shouldn’t be used as an excuse to not participate or to segregate the process. I can’t emphasize this enough, to make the organization cohesive, the board has to be able to work together comfortably. That does not give license for “kicking it” but it also means that the guys and girls should be divided by a “virtual purdah”.
- The President should pay close attention to potential conflict areas, between people, perspectives, ways of doing things. This will be critical because it will help to manage them moving forward.
- The atmosphere needs to be professional, but not stuffy. This is important fine line, but to much joking around will result in a process that isn’t genuine. To much seriousness will give you a group of people that suppressed their thoughts and inhibited constructive idea’s and perspectives. The moderator needs to play a strong role to maintain a balance, but other key allies should step up to the plate and help guide the process along the fine line.
- Be cognizant that people are coming from a diverse background. The job of the MSA board isn’t just to have a successful year, your Amana is also to develop strong leaders. You are only as strong as the weakest leader you have on your board. Help strengthen that person over the year, you will greatly strengthen the Muslim community by producing a top notch leader.
Bullying in Public Schools isn’t just limited to a students sexuality
Posted: September 20, 2012 in 9/11, Activism, Affad Shaikh, American Muslim, CAIR, Education, freedom of religion, high school, identity, Islam, Justice, Law, Masjid, race in america, racism, SocialTags: anti-discrimination laws, bullying, civil rights act 1964, climate, religion
The past couple of years there have been screaming headlines about student suicides resulting from bullying, specifically for students that are Lesbian, Gay, Transgender and Bisexual identified. However, bullying as an issue is not limited to just sexuality, in fact, Federal law as well as California State law along with the Education Board, school districts and individual schools all define bullying in clear terms as the targeting of students over their color/ethnicity/race, nationality, gender, RELIGION and sexuality. (Sexuality was just recently identified as a protected category in California in 2003, though not federally).
One of the least recognized areas of bullying, in my view, is that based on a persons religion, specifically for American Muslim and Sikh students. While we have seen schools take swift actions on anti-Semitism the same has not been done for Islamophobia and anti-Muslim bullying. There are multiple reasons why I believe this is the case among them I believe is that Muslim parents themselves don’t know how to handle the situation, students dont tell their parents (for many reasons among them being the prevalent perception in the community that this is the “burden of being American Muslim in a post-9/11) world.
None of the reasons however are acceptable. Our laws clearly state that a Public School must provide for the safety and well being of ALL children during the course of their instruction and presence at ALL school sponsored events, and even, in some cases, while coming to and going from school. This is all part of the Federal Anti-Discrimination laws that were passed in 1964- yeah, those laws that Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X died for.. equality, justice, “I have a dream of a day where my child…”- and have since been strengthened to ensure the public safety, security, well-being and equality of students in our schools.
What struck me about working on bullying cases while I was at CAIR was that most of the cases came to our offices when it was too late- students who were the victims were getting expelled, parents removed the child from the school, students graduated and left the problem for other students to face. The worse were the anecdotal telling of what children faced in the schools, “Oh well Muhammad was called a terrorist on numerous occasions by his teachers (and he went from being a “B” student to getting “C’s” though at the time no casual connection was made as to why that was happening). I struggled to figure out how to address this problem and I left CAIR knowing that I hadn’t done enough. So over the summer I came back to CAIR as a contracted Project Consultant to help get a campaign off the ground to address School Bullying, its called “Building an Inclusive School Environment”.
The aim of the first phase of this project is simple- its time to be counted. To really address school bullying an organization like CAIR needs statistics. It might just turn out that at the end of the fact finding phase CAIR discovers that school bullying is not as rampant as the anecdotal evidence has suggested, that fine, it means the organization can now devout its limited resources towards more pressing issues and justify its decisions to donors who felt otherwise. The thing is being able to have hard statistics is a way to empower yourself, your community and give your issues a voice. So I turn to you now to help me help CAIR California gather these important statistics. From CAIR Calfornia:
“CAIR-California wants to hear from our American Muslim youth. We have created a survey to learn more about how our community’s youth feel about their school environment and what issues they face on a regular basis. CAIR-California aims to create, based on the responses we receive, specially tailored advocacy resources and tools for our youth to help create a more inclusive school atmosphere. If you are a Muslim student between the ages of 11 – 18 and are attending a public school, please take our survey here: bit.ly/muslimyouth. Please also help us spread the word by sharing the survey with other youth you may know.”
If you are a youth group leader, Imam of your masjid, community leader, MSA activist, Masjid board member who understand the importance of this, CAIR California needs your help. You can get CAIR into your community to do this survey and to follow up by presenting a “Know Your Rights- School Bullying” workshop. Contact your local CAIR chapter, tell them I sent you!
None of the information on this blog post is legal advice. If you are, or someone you know, is faced with a incident, please contact your local CAIR office or an attorney for legal advice. I am not affiliated with CAIR in any form except as a concerned activist that sees this project as being critical to the protection of rights granted to all Americans under the Constitution (and that education is a critical national security issues, lack of equal access is a threat to our future national security). With that being said I have worked at CAIR LA for six years and speak from my experience there, limited to only that experience and nothing more.
