Susan explains how Rabia’s leadership excites her in a chaotic time in the United States after the election of Donald Trump
The niche of the podcast is strategies towards building common ground and not political activism or spiritual practice, not that it doesn’t support both
Lines between activism, spiritual practice and neutral interventions can be blurred
Rabia describes her work as an “exercise in happiness”
Internationally known citizen activist and women’s advocate
MaShieka- spiritual guide and teacher in the international Sufi way
Non-dual Buddhism
Social and environmental justice issues
Extensive and creative travels around the world
Works on Buddhist retreats and women’s empowerment programs throughout the world
Referred to as a “Global Grandmother” in Afghanistan
Earlier social activism in Selma, Alabama, USA with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
MA in Liberation Theology from Marquette University
Youth coordinator on the White House Conference on Children and Youth
Assistant Program Director National Public Radio
Special consultant for John D. Rockefeller III on Women’s empowerment, population, and development
Doctorate from Harvard University Influenced by Catholic priest Fr. Thomas Berry and Buddhist teacher Joanna Macy
1999, Rabia and husband sold home and undertook a deliberate period of homelessness as an international pilgrimage of service
2002 peace group in Iraq- first American delegate to the Global Nonviolent Peaceforce (started by Mel Duncan)
Teaching active nonviolence in Asia and the Middle New project: “Waking Up Together: Feminine Wisdom and Global Transformation”
Deep respect for the activating power of the receptive and a deep faith in the capabilities and intuition of women of all ages and cultures
“Love and Dust: On the Road from Selma to Kabul”
Recently, supporting Native Americans at Standing Rock
Committed early to social justice and adventure
Rabia says the first part of her life was more “standard,” going to Harvard and being deeply influenced by living on welfare for a year
Got to the place where she wanted to generate peace: What would it be like if I just showed up and began? Talking to local activists? This encouraged her and Elias, her husband, to get up and travel the world. They both had many concrete, transferrable skills.
Went on a retreat and told her husband that she wanted to get on the road and he said yes! Sold house and agree to spend years on the road.
She dreamed to be a peace and social justice activist on the road. She wanted to be the source of this peace. Peace comes from within us, and Rabia thought peace was more intimate than what she had been doing for the last 20 years (foundation proposals, planning, evaluations).
Went to friends and asked for their support. Elias and her had good reputations and people trusted them with quite a bit of money.
Gave out small grants totaling up to half a million dollars to people around the world through their foundation: “flow funding”
7 year story
Came to call what they doing “bearing witness” after working with MLK
Bear witness is show up in the world- intimate work
How do you become part of a system and generate healing relationships
Invited to Burma to help start training activists
Invited by Right livelihood award winner Sulak Sivaraksa who had met Rabia by coming to a school in Colorado Rabia and husband had started to train people in Deep Ecology
Sivaraksa wanted something similar in his region for liberal monks and tribal people
Many activists were attempting to persuade the Thai government to preserve land for national parks, but there were many native peoples living on this land and had never been consulted. These activists were mostly urban and did not know the tribal people and had never been in the jungle.
They began to move around by using a network of activists doing similar work
Susan reads Rabia’s description of “Bearing Witness”
All sides of most disagreements tend to use the same tactics for change, and they are not successful
People spend time meeting with others who hold the same opinions as us, this is not productive in our diverse world
Bearing witness is showing up to where the suffering is. Show up with “unknowing” and no judgement. The exact opposite of a plan.
Intention is to be of service, but not to have goals.
In this story, she didn’t know anything about the tribal people of Burma. Led a “vision quest” with activists in Burma into the jungle to interact with tribal people. Began to think of herself as a pilgrim: the journey is the building of a spiritual friendship.
King Arthur story: ask a question
Asks the tribe: what can we do for you?
The tribal people wanted their story heard.
Elias (husband) agreed to bring people back to hear their story. They are the protectors of the forest, and if becomes a National Park, it will be destroyed.
Begin “solidarity walks,” bringing about 1,000 people to hear this story
Elias and university students created a series of ecological maps of the forest and had a “Forest Festival” to have the tribal people meet and interact with civil society groups Bearing witness (steps learned in Burma) (Learn more here)
Meet the other, you show up
Ask questions that open the heart of the other
Practice deep listening without judgement
Set aside one’s own belief
Run meetings without pushing your own agenda
Learn the difference between fixing, helping, and serving
See ways to bring forth the greater whole that is emerging
Perceive what is yours to do and where action is needed
What did the people think of you?
The people didn’t know what to think of them because they weren’t typical tourists. They became friends with people everyone respected. “It isn’t as hard as maybe it’s sounding.”
Did this in the Middle East
When you ask people what they want, people open up.
Effects of getting the tribal stories out?
Disputes around the forest area are resolved
Signs about how to behave in the forest
Document made for the King- they gave their land to the King with the understanding the they would stay on the land and protect it
Rabia and Elias brought attention to the people and problem
This attention has kept the police at bay because they were working with the loggers and destroying the forest
Vision Quest/Solidarity Walks
Not protests, walks based off Native American teachings
Brought Native Americans to Burma every year to participate. Native Americans to the tribal people: “Don’t lose this land and don’t lose this battle”
The people stepped up (this doesn’t always happen because there was not an evident threat, as there was in Syria and Afghanistan)
In Thailand and Burma, the forest monks travel to teach Buddhist practices to villagers.
Vision Quests are familiar to westerners, a way to learn from the forest
Rabia also did this in the Middle East, specifically Syria
Before 9/11, Rabia and Elias had contacts in Syria and heard the problems of the people
Confused by U.S. leadership because it did not seem to be responding to the people of the Middle East. Who were they listening to? Wrote papers on what was going to happen between Sunnis and Shi’ias if the U.S. entered Iraq
Went to Afghanistan with a group, Code Pink
The women in urban Afghanistan did not want the U.S. troops out because they were afraid of being killed. Code Pink was not saying what Rabia was hearing from the urban women. The rural women did not care if troops were in the country or not.
Rabia able to get funding for a women’s organization between Pakistan, India, and Afghanistan
Wanted the military to take off their uniforms to speak to a large group of women, and they wouldn’t. This was a major road block. Peace gets difficult at the high government level.
Rabia reiterates what “bearing witness” means for her
This is going to take more time than we think. This will be messy, but it’s the only way to let people understand their diversity.
Rabia was not giving advice or helping, because this creates a power dynamic. Only the people in conflict have their answers.
At Standing Rock, the parties could not engage with each other because the people for the pipeline would not collaborate. This is another roadblock.
No one tried to reconcile black and white people in the U.S. south which is why these racial tensions are not yet resolved
It is essential to collaborate and communicate in every movement. People have to let go of their plans. We just don’t know the answers. We have to listen.
Challenge is to lose our personal agenda
“Applied Systems Thinking” course Rabia teaches
How to believe that you are part of a larger whole
Interconnection: no one knows how to see interconnected relationships
This is the opposite of what we’re taught (we are talk persuasion)
We will not change by street activism, we have to get inside and see the relationships
Advice:
Learn to serve the whole of the situation
Get out of the hierarchy. All trained to be part of a hierarchy, and this must be broken.
Don’t be a fixer. Fixing assuming problems.
Most of us have a humility problem
Might be healed through training or spiritual process
Getting welcomed in by multiple sides
Still have not figured this out in Middle East
You need some buy-in from people. People need to be willing to work with you.
Systems thinking: learn to trust that there are larger relationships than you, and you have to surrender to how that’s happening. Enter a negotiation thinking that you don’t know the answers.
Women are wired to listen and receive.
Women need to be empowered to be feminine, they will be much more successful in their work as peacebuilders
Difference between letting women in and letting the feminine in
Embrace the feminine in these situations. Insist on relationships and listening.