Translator: Tanya Cushman Reviewer: Peter van de Ven
When I looked into the eyes
of a suspected suicide bomber
standing in front of me,
I saw how determined he was
to blow himself up and everybody around me.
I was terrified.
And my first thought
went to the 250 Afghan women,
standing outside in the street of Kabul
at 6:00 in the morning,
under the rain,
with their babies in their arms.
They were about to do something
that we all take for granted in our society.
They were about to do something for the first time.
They were about to vote.
So imagine the situation.
They are outside, about to come inside the polling station,
and he's here, he's here waiting for them.
And I felt panic.
How can we avoid such a carnage?
And I started to run away.
And the more I was running,
the more my inner voice was telling me,
"No, you have to go back.
You have to go back to the polling station,
and you have to smile at him."
Smile at him?
Really?
No.
But I did it.
It took me all [my] courage to go back to the polling station,
there to face him,
shaking from head to toes.
And I smile at him,
and to my amazement,
he smiled back at me,
and he turned his back
and left the polling station.
On this historical day,
seven million of Afghans voted
to elect the new president of Afghanistan.
And I was sent to Afghanistan for the United Nations
as a woman-empowerment specialist
to encourage the Afghan women to express their democratic rights.
And Farzaneh was one of them;
she dared to go outside, defied violence,
and she proudly showed to the world
her ink-stained finger
to prove that she voted
to offer a better future for her children.
For 15 years now,
I've been working with the United Nations
in a war-torn region,
with hundreds of my colleagues,
all of us motivated
by the desire to bring peace to the community we served,
and yet the day-to-day reality
of living, working
in such a hard war-torn zone
produced so much fear, so much stress
that sometimes it's very hard to do our job.
I joined the United Nations as a lawyer,
so I was not prepared for war.
I didn't sign up for the army,
so I didn't expect to live under bombing.
I didn't expect to be evacuated in a black chopper.
I didn't expect that my guesthouse would be blast by the Taliban.
I didn't expect that I would be detained in exchange by the Taliban.
I didn't expect that dozens of my friends and colleagues
would be kidnapped or assassinated.
As I say, my master's degree in international relations
never, ever prepared me
to work in such a stressful environment.
I joined the United Nations as a lawyer, not as a soldier.
And unlike the U.S. Army,
the United Nations do not have a department of veteran affairs.
So, imagine when three of my international colleagues
got kidnapped in front of my office.
Immediately the United Nations pulled me out,
evacuated me and sent me back home
without any support.
And I came back home completely broken, burnt out and isolated.
I didn't know - I couldn't work anymore.
For six months, my mind was not focusing properly.
I was having nightmares, flashbacks, insomnia, physical pain,
suffering from depression and anxiety.
And I discovered that I was suffering
from PTSD
without knowing what this strange disease was.
Yes, PTSD stands for post-traumatic stress disorder.
But I never heard about that before.
Yes, you heard in the news
that some veterans commit suicide
when they come back from Afghanistan and Iraq
because they suffer from PTSD,
but you barely read in the news
that the humanitarian on the front line
is suffering from the same disease.
But the facts are here.
The Antares Foundation [did] some research recently
and came to the conclusion
that one-third of humanitarians on the front line suffer from PTSD -
one-third.
And recently, the United Nations came out with a new study
which proved that more than half of humanitarians
are suffering from depression and anxiety.
Can you imagine?
How can the peacekeeper on the front line serve
if they do not have their sanity,
if they are lacking peace of mind?
It's very crucial now
that the United Nations take care of its staff.
It's very crucial now
that the United Nations wakes up
and create a department of wellness affairs
for the humanitarians on the front line,
these humanitarians who are literally killing themselves to serve the community.
So, without any support,
in order to heal myself from my past trauma,
I intuitively went to India
to meet His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
Why?
Because His Holiness the Dalai Lama
came to my university when I was 18 years old,
and he gave a lecture on the violation of human rights in Tibet.
And I got so inspired by what he said
that I decided, at this time, what I wanted to do with my life:
to become a UN lawyer,
to join the United Nations and to contribute to world peace.
That was my dream.
That was my ideal.
And here we are, 20 years after.
I'm in front of you with all my wounds,
with all my trauma,
with all my fear,
naked in my vulnerability.
So this time, I wanted to see His Holiness the Dalai Lama
not as a champion of human rights
but as a master of meditation.
So I went to his course from Istanbul to Dharamsala
during winter.
And what he said at some point,
he looked at us and said,
"You cannot bring outer peace if you do not focus on inner peace first."
And this mind-blowing sentence
resonated deeply within myself,
and I asked myself
who I am to work for peace in the world
if I'm not at peace with myself first.
I'm lacking integrity.
Where is my legitimacy?
So instead of going back to Kabul,
I decided to remain in India,
to go all around India
and to meet the spiritual masters who teach inner peace and nonviolence.
And with them,
I learned the ancient techniques
of yoga, meditation, Ayurveda.
And thanks to this tool, I finally healed myself.
And thanks to this tool,
they completely changed me and transformed me.
So when I finally found my inner peace again,
the United Nations called me back:
(Laughter)
"Are you willing to go back to Afghanistan?"
"No."
"Can you come back to Afghanistan?"
"Okay."
(Laughter)
Why?
Because I just wanted to finish
the democratic process that we initiated before,
and because I love my job as well,
and I love Afghanistan, obviously.
So I went back.
But the security situation was much worse than when I left.
The United Nations came to pick me up at the airport
in an armed vehicle with a bodyguard,
gave me my helmet, my body armor, and put me in a bunker to sleep.
It was not the same condition.
But surprisingly, despite the external conflict,
I remained peaceful inside, thanks to my daily practice.
And I became aware
that all Afghan are suffering from PTSD after 30 years of war.
And I became aware that most of my head workers
are suffering from depression and anxiety.
So I started to teach to them yoga, meditation,
and I was so amazed by the result,
the good benefits in their lives.
They became healthier, happier, more enthusiastic and less stressed.
So I decided to create a foundation
to promote wellness in Afghanistan and within the United Nations.
And I was teaching everywhere:
I was teaching to women in jails,
to kids in school,
to NATO soldiers as well
and also to former Taliban -
I will not show you a picture,
(Laughter)
for my security and for his security.
And finally, when I became aware
that once a peacekeeper on the front line have peace in their mind,
joy in their heart, health in their body
and compassion in their action,
they can really contribute to world peace.
So I came to the idea to create
the inner peace keeping program for the United Nations.
(Applause)
Thank you.
So, this program is to really prepare the humanitarian,
the peacekeeper on the front line,
before going to a mission, during the mission,
and most important, to do a follow-up after the mission,
to check about their mental health
and to reintegrate them into the society.
And I'm traveling the world,
teaching a course on emotional intelligence,
conscious leadership,
mindfulness, neuroscience,
meditation, yoga, resilience,
and I'm so impressed by the good result in the field;
it's a big success.
So many head workers, humanitarians,
encourage me to keep on doing that.
But so far,
it has not been the priority of the United Nations.
So I'm calling upon, now,
the United Nations to sign a resolution
to create a department of wellness for the UN worker.
And I'm calling upon the state donors
to invest in such a wellness program.
And I'm calling now to you
to be also responsible,
to do your part for world peace.
You don't need to join the United Nations to contribute to peace in the world.
The only thing you have to do is to work on yourself
and to work on your inner transformation.
Why?
Because the more you transform yourself,
the more you will transform the world.
Thank you.
(Applause)