Translator: Ilze Garda Reviewer: Denise RQ
I'd like to speak to you this morning, if I may, about ripples and waves,
and the power that each and everyone of us has to be agents for change.
What is a ripple?
Well, I'd like to think of a ripple as much more than the effect
that is produced by throwing a stone into water.
I see a ripple as an act, a situation, a sentiment, or an event
that has far reaching consequences,
far, far beyond its immediate location in space an time.
I see it as the concept
that refers to every action having a reaction, or consequence.
This concept is used often in sociology,
in economics, and in many other fields
to refer to an occurrence, a behavior, a thing
that can have an effect on many other things,
intended or unintended.
With that in mind, I would like to share with you briefly my story.
I am, like many of you, here today a first-generation Australian.
I am a migrants' kid.
I am the product of an Indian Muslim father
and an Anglo-Saxon Australian mother.
We came to these shores in the late 1970s from India.
And indeed, when arriving as newcomers to this land,
it had all the promise of being the lucky country.
But it was difficult, it was challenging as an outsider to assimilate in what was,
apart from my indigenous brothers and sisters,
a very white Australia in those conservative times.
I remember experiencing firsthand the challenges and the prejudice
my father, a dark-skinned Muslim immigrant
experienced in the 1970s' Australia.
I also remember feeling very powerless and voiceless
at the age of 9,
having been sexually abused by a trusted neighbor and friend.
As a result of these two significant events in my life,
as a young woman, I decided to dedicate my career
to helping others find a voice, to helping others access justice.
To do that, I decided on a career in the law.
I was, however, a very insecure little girl
as a result of these early experiences,
and my maternal grandmother used to tell a story
that at the age 7, I developed an alter ego for myself.
Her name was Caroline Jones. (Laughter)
Caroline was blond-haired, she was blue-eyed, she was a Catholic
- I'm not quite sure why she was a Catholic,
I think it's because most of my mates at school were Catholic -
but most importantly, Caroline ate ham sandwiches for lunch. (Laughter)
Ladies and gentlemen, you don't know how important that was for me,
because I was the only kid at school
that wasn't packed with ham sandwiches in their lunchbox.
No, I was one of those kids that had the smelly curry sandwiches
that I got good at dumping on the way to school.
I guess this story is a reflexion of the fact
that I resented my differences.
I resented being a different race, being a different religion,
having a different name, and even sounding differently
because I came to this country with a British accent.
But having made the decision as the young adult
to dedicate my career and my life to helping others,
I started my career here in Perth as a lawyer.
Don't hold that against me!
But eventually, in the late 1990s, I left Australia for the United Kingdom,
because I had this dream that had become an obsession.
I wanted to practice as an international humanitarian lawyer.
And after leaving for the UK, in a coincidental accident, you might say,
where I was exposed to the British military for the first time
whilst on an expedition to South America,
I decided to commission as a legal officer in the British Army.
As a way, I hoped that I would be able to access places and people
that were suffering in silence for so long.
People who lived in parts of the world
where human rights, equal rights, and justice were foreign concepts.
So I decided on this career in the British Army.
I didn't think when I put my application in
that I would stand a chance.
What on earth would the British Army want
with a foreign, female, Muslim lawyer with absolutely no military exposure?
So I threw the application in and forgot.
That wasn't until seven weeks later when I got the fright of my life
and I got a call from the Head of the Army Legal Services,
asking me to front up for a selection panel.
Amazingly, I was selected to commission,
and I will never forget the day when I found out.
As soon as I put the phone down to the Army,
I rang up my parents here in Perth.
My father answered the phone, and I'll never forget, I was so excited,
I said: "Dad, dad! You'll never guess what!
They've chosen me, I've been commissioned as an officer in the British Army."
And I will never ever forget to this day
my dad's concerning, sensitive, tender words.
In his response he said something like this:
"Rabia, don't be so bloody stupid!"
(Laughter)
For the Indians and Asians in the audience,
you will know that the translation of that is:
"My darling, I'm concerned."
(Laughter)
"Have you thought about this? This seems rather rash." (Laughter)
"Could you take me through your thinking?"
(Laughter)
Following this response, I decided that it was probably a good idea
to take a quick trip home, sit down with my parents,
and explain them face to face
why I had decided to take this seemingly bad and mad decision.
I had five day between finishing off my job as a lawyer in the south of England
and starting my officer military training
at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in England.
So, as a young woman, footloose and fancy-free,
I thought five days, a day there, a day back, three days in Perth -
yeah, can do! (Laughter)
So I decided on this lightning trip.
The day that I was due to board my flight bound for Perth
was the 11th of September, 2001.
A day that I'm sure each and everyone of you
will remember exactly where you were and what you were doing
on that faithful and devastating day.
For me, I was sitting in a London Heathrow Airport departure lounge.
I was looking up at the screen
that usually had departure and arrival information
that had been switched to the news.
I was watching the second tower fall.
And two things struck me in the moments after watching the second tower fall.
The first was this overwhelming feeling in the pit of my stomach
that our world as we knew it
was about to change in ways that we couldn't conceive.
The second was more of an observation.
Because, you see, in my departure lounge
there were a number of flights bound for the Middle East,
therefore there were a number of Islamic, Middle-Eastern people
waiting to board their flights, in traditional Islamic attire.
As I looked at these people, I noticed that they were getting frisked,
they were getting manhandled, and they were getting jeered and abused
by fellow travelers, as well as airport officials.
I thought that that was alarming because this was happening
moments before the words Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda
were even mentioned on the news reports.
But at that point in time, it wasn't personal
because, you see, I had spent my whole life
distancing myself from whence I had come.
I went back home, and by the time I came back four days later to the UK,
I was more resolved than ever that I had to continue
down this unexpected path that I had set.
I felt that I had somehow been guided down this path,
and that this was now my intended journey, come what may.
Three years into my military career,
I received the second most unexpected call of my life;
this time again from my commander.
He advised me that I had been selected to deploy to Iraq
as one of the first legal advisers with the United Kingdom brigade,
on what we called Operation Telic,
and that I was to spend the best part of the year in 2005 in Iraq.
Before I deployed, I had a realization.
I was about to spend a year
in this Islamic, war-torn country as an uninvited guest,
and I was a Muslim woman with a recognizable Muslim name.
I had a responsibility to get back in touch with whence I had come.
So I learned Arabic, and I read about the teachings of the Qur’an.
When I deployed to Iraq, already a square peg in a round hole,
I decided that I was going to do things differently,
that I was going to do my job
with empathy, with respect, and with humanity.
After all, that was what I had dedicated my life to.
And so, when I would meet with my Iraqi colleagues
to help them reestablish law and order in their country,
the country that had been left in a chaos,
in a vacuum of chaos and distress after the overthrowing of Saddam’s regime,
I would start every meeting by speaking a little bit of Arabic.
Poorly, but enough to break the ice.
I would wear a hijab, or a headscarf,
- I wonder what Mr. Abbott would think about that -
(Laughter)
not as a sign of subjugation, but as a mark of respect.
My approach was to ask these people
what they needed, what their priorities were,
and how I could have the honor of helping them,
not to tell them what was required and how they could help me.
I guess by having this different
- what we would call, I'm sure, common sense, respectful approach -
I was able to gain good relationships with my Iraqi colleagues.
So fast forward six months into my deployment,
the 19th of September, 2005, when two of my British Special Forces colleagues
had been kidnapped, detained, and taken to an infamous police compound
called the Al-Jamiat.
The Al-Jamiat was actually the home of a terrorist group
called the Jaish Al-Mahdi.
When we heard news that the two men had been taken to the Al-Jamiat,
we knew that that was not good.
My colleague of equal rank, a chap by the name of Major James Woodham,
was deployed in to conduct a recognizance mission, a recky,
and to see if he could negotiate for their release.
But within a half an hour of James deploying in,
he sent word back that the Iraqis, the terrorists,
the government in Iraq would not speak to him.
The only person that they would negotiate with
was Major Rabia, as they called me,
and I guess that's because by that stage
I had established myself as a person of my word,
a person with some humanity and integrity.
So I was ordered in, despite being a mere legal officer
with no hostage negotiation training and no close hand-to-hand combat.
I was ordered in to lead the negotiations,
and it was clear that despite my misgivings,
I was these two men's only hope.
As we hovered over the compound, I saw a sight that I wasn't prepared for.
Hundreds of Iraqis had gathered around the compound,
and I could hear the crackle of gunfire, as the chopper came in.
We landed nearby,
I jostled my way through the crowd and was ushered into an office
where I immediately began negotiating with the Iraqi government representative.
Eventually, I secured their agreement to go to the cell
so I could see these two man,
because I wanted to ascertain whether they were alive and well,
whether they were who we believed they were.
I wasn't going to let James go,
who had now become the passive observer in this event,
he was my only friend, so he was coming with me, like it or not.
And, ladies and gentlemen, it's about now that I need to confess
that encouraged by this achievement,
encouraged by the fact that it'd been agreed that I could see these men,
adrenaline pumping, blood coursing through my veins,
I am pretty cocky.
We bound through the cell, and I see the two men in the corner,
I ordered that their hoods and their chains be removed,
and in this pumped up state
where I temporarily lost control of my senses,
- I don't know, I thought perhaps I was Lara Croft at the time - (Laughter)
the hoods were removed, and I'll never forget uttering the words
that I will regret till this very day, something like this:
"It's alright, guys!" I said. "I've come to save ya!"
(Laughter)
Yeah.
And, you know, the Brits are polite by nature,
and these two chaps were no exception, and they gave me a wry smile.
I knew on reflection what they were thinking was:
"Oh, my goodness."
(Laughter)
I'm dulling it down for polite company.
(Laughter)
"If this is the best the British Army can do, we're finished."
(Laughter)
Anyway, I've actually got control of my senses again,
and we commit to negations.
And I kid you not, just as we were about to sign a negotiation agreement
upon which the men would be released into my custody,
all hell broke loose outside.
The crowd outside had swollen to some 3,000 in number,
they had set the British soldiers
that were trying to control them and protect us,
they had set them alight.
They stormed to the compound, and within moments, everything changed.
James and I were thrown into another cell,
and we too became hostages for many, many more hours.
During those hours, as the only woman, as the only Arabic speaker in the room,
I was subjected to some degrading and humiliating treatment.
I also faced my, I suppose, moment of death
when a man came in from outside brandishing an AK-47.
He cocked it, and he pointed it in between my eyes,
and all I could do was to look at him and challenge his humanity.
And that single act of defiance must have had some effect,
not on him, but on the man next to him who wrestled him to the ground,
took his weapon off, and threw him out of the cell.
That man was the commanding officer of the terrorist group.
A number of hours later, we were miraculously rescued,
and that should have been the end of my story, but it wasn't.
We went back to headquarters,
James received a heroe's welcome and was sent in for military debriefing.
I received a cup of tea, a kiss on the cheek,
and I was ordered back to my tent.
No debriefing. No acknowledgment of a job well done.
The silence in relation to my role on that day was deafening.
I felt gobsmacked, and I felt abandoned, and I felt betrayed, but I soldiered on
because I had made promises to the Iraqis.
But by the time I returned from Iraq to the UK almost a year later,
I was broken.
And 2006 was my annus horribilis.
It started with a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder.
I was then diagnosed after suffering with ill health
from a very rare ectopic pregnancy which almost cost me my life.
As I was convalescing,
I got news that James had been awarded a Military Cross,
and I received an order never to speak of my involvement again.
As I returned to work after my ectopic pregnancy,
my husband was diagnosed with cancer.
And then, the nail in the coffin:
my friend and my colleague in Iraq
who had worked on human rights abuses with me,
a man by the name of Asaf Al-Nahi had been murdered,
leaving behind a lovely, young family.
Murdered as a result of the work he was doing with me.
I felt guilty, and I felt like I had his blood on my hands,
and I didn't know how I could go on.
But I had to go on,
because I'd made promises to all of those that were voiceless and powerless.
But I realized [that] before I could go on and help others I had to help myself.
So I got treatment.
Treatment that allowed me to regain my inner strength and to heal.
Treatment that allowed me eventually,
after exhausting all other informal avenues,
seek my justice in what became a landmark discrimination case
against the British government and the British military.
And I won my case.
(Applause)
Thank you.
(Applause)
But, ladies and gentlemen, the win was not the important thing for me,
it was the effect afterwards.
I received thousands of messages from people all over the world,
and the message was the same: "Rabia, if you can take on
the might of the British military, the British government and win,
then surely we can take a stand,
in our homes, in our workplaces, in our communities."
And that's when it struck me.
I, one person, had been able to create ripples that became waves.
As a consequence of my actions, a sequence of events were set in course
that ultimately changed the policies and the attitudes
towards women and Muslims in the British Forces.
And I was just one person.
Just one person.
You know, there are many, many people in history and in our world
that through their actions as one person have created ripples and waves.
Those that have striven for equality and peace:
Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Aung San Suu Kyi, the Dalai Lama
to name but a few.
They were those in the world whose act has changed our lives:
Thomas Newcomen, the inventor of the steam engine,
Thomas Edison, the inventor of the electric lightbulb,
Professor Leonard Kleinrock,
the person who sent the first message over the Internet,
and closer to home,
David Warren, the inventor of the black box flight recorder,
and doctors Lidwell and Booth, the inventors of the electronic pacemaker,
and thousands, countless of others unnamed and unrecognized volunteers
that dedicate their life to helping the vulnerable,
the disenfranchised, and the voiceless.
To name but a few.
We all have the power to create ripples. We all have the power to create ripples.
And so I would like, my friends, having shared this story with you,
to leave you with some messages.
In this world, we need more than ever
(Music starts)
to come together and create ripples and waves,
to mobilize ourselves and others for a greater good and a higher purpose.
We can do this by sharing our stories, as I have shared with you today,
by upholding and defending our values that we ought to hold dear.
From time to time, we need to take our head out of our smartphones,
we need to look up, and we need to open our eyes, our ears, and our hearts.
And so I leave you with this call to action, my friends.
Mother Teresa said: "I cannot change the world alone,
but I can cast a stone across the water and create many ripples."
I ask you to do the same.
Join with me, create ripples and waves, and if you have any doubt,
in the words of Emma Watson,
- who delivered her speech recently to the United Nations
launching the HeForShe campaign - she said, "Ask yourself two questions."
I say, ask yourself three questions:
Does it matter?
If not me, then whom?
If not now, then when?
Mahatma Gandhi said: "Be the change you wish to see in this world."
I ask you all: please, be the change you wish to see in this world,
and join me by creating ripples and waves.
Thank you.
(Applause)