Author: Shagufta

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Nine Things Being a Residence Advisor Taught Me About Helping Other People

Coffee/tea go a long way in making people feel comfortable. (Distillery District, Toronto)

Coffee/tea go a long way in making people feel comfortable. (Distillery District, Toronto)

Though I was terrified before I started, during the second year of my Masters I was a residence don, an experience that was an intense education on how to build a community and support others.  Helping students build like-minded friendships, resolve conflicts, succeed academically and avoid unhelpful social behaviours (along with the million and one other things you find yourself doing as a residence advisor) taught me so much. Above all though, it taught me that with warmth, love, good intentions and smiles, it is possible to help others, even when you don’t have all the skills and answers at the outset. Determination, not perfection is what is needed, and all personality types (even the introverted ones) can serve others.

It also taught me that helping is a two way process. Throughout the year, whether it was in tea chats at my apartment, ice cream socials in the hallway, dinners in the cafeteria, or any other interaction, I felt so so blessed to be given the opportunity to work with the amazing 17-20 year olds on my floor. They were interesting, ambitious, courageous women, and I learnt so much more from them than any contributions I was able to make. In truth, we helped each other grow.

These lessons are relevant for any community planner, and to remind myself to keep these learnings alive, I thought I’d outline some of the things being a don taught me about helping other people. For the residence advisors out there, what would you add to this list?

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On Reading Starbucked: A Double Tall Tale of Caffeine, Commerce and Culture

Not Starbucks (Bandung, Indonesia)

Not Starbucks (Bandung, Indonesia)

“How excited can people get about coffee and milk? Starbucks’s worldwide explosion was about more than coffee; it was about the way the company was selling it. Coffeehouses provided something society needed: a place to just be. But no one had any idea of how badly we needed it.” (p.51)

“The coffee wasn’t the point, the place was.” (p.92)

Despite my less than warm feelings towards Starbucks (I prefer local, personal cafes), I read a fascinating book about it recently called “Starbucked: A Double Tall Tale of Caffeine, Commerce and Culture”. Published in 2007, the book is about the journey of Starbucks from a simple coffee company selling coffee for people to drink at home to the coffee empire it is today just a few decades later. The author is not a Starbucks lover or hater, and his perspective makes for a good, credible read.

The book is divided into two parts. The first is called “The Rise of the Mermaid” and describes the rise of Starbucks and the craze for coffee in North America. It describes how coffee was originally discovered, how coffeehouses were originally a creation of the Muslim world that later became popular in the West, and how coffee decreased in popularity in America as the quality of coffee declined. It details the stories of the roasters who were keen on bring the beauty of coffee back to popular consciousness, how the company that gave birth to Starbucks began, and how Starbucks we know today was born from CEO Schultz’s belief that adapting the culture of Italian cafes to an American context would create a profitable business. From there the book details the rise of Starbucks, and describes some of its successes to date.

The second part of the book is titled “Getting Steamed” and describes the debates around Starbucks from the negligible earnings of coffee growers (the milk costs more than the company pays its growers), the company’s relationship to its workers, the machinization of coffee making, the lack of resemblance the company’s products have to actual coffee, its colonization of cities worldwide, its predatorial tactics towards other coffee companies, and other topics that come to mind when you see the familiar green and white symbol.

What fascinated me about the book was how much discussions about place were a part of its explanation of how the company became so popular so quickly. As driving dependent suburbs became a more prominent part of our landscapes and public spaces became harder to find, Starbucks tried to position itself as the provider of the ‘third space” that was missing from cities and communities. (Interestingly enough, the inventor of the term “third space”, and the author of a book about the concept, never approved Starbucks’ use of the term. And according to Starbucked, as time went on Schultz claimed to have invented the concept himself). Beyond the third space idea, the book talks about how many communities vie to have a Starbucks relocate in their town, as the company opening a cafe is seen as a signal of economic vitality, though there is little causational evidence to back up such claims.

On a personal note, reading about the company’s connection to place led to a deeper conviction that truly public, non commercial spaces are needed in cities. Public libraries are an excellent example of such spaces (the Surrey City Centre Library for instance was designed to be the living room of the city), but we need to have a diversity of public spaces that offer choices to residents about where they want to congregate.

The second thing I took away from the book is that it is a not a neutral enterprise to build a city, and where values are not clearly articulated, that gap will be filled by companies/culture makers that may not hold the same values and concern for community that a municipality should. The book talks about how Starbucks tapped into people’s need for connection and closeness by claiming to meet that need, but municipalities should be able to meet these needs in less harmful ways.

On Reading Muhammad: A Prophet for our Time by Karen Armstrong

The world needs bridge builders (Cambridge, UK)

The world needs bridge builders (Cambridge, UK)

Though wearing the hijab tends to bring (unwanted) questions about place of birth and ethnic origin, it does have the pleasant consequence of attracting questions about the Prophet Muhammad. Whether it is with coworkers at previous summer jobs, with roommates, or during grad school, genuine conversations with people trying to learn more about the Prophet are a joy, because they are an opportunity to share and strengthen my own love.

Yesterday to further my learning, I read Karen Armstrong’s book “Muhammad: A Prophet for our Time”. It’s a short, accessible text that focuses on select events instead of a comprehensive view of the Prophet’s life. At the outset, Armstrong explains that she wrote the book because most non-Muslims don’t know much about Islam, totally misunderstand the messenger and the message, and this has to change.  In a post 9/11 world Armstrong says, we need to strive for understanding and appreciation and declare to ourselves and others that bigotry and prejudice is unacceptable. If we have misconceptions, we need to make the decision to learn.

As a Muslim reading the book, it is neat to see a scholar describing the Prophet’s accomplishments and beauty, and how his life and commitment to peace, equity and social transformation holds lessons for our world today. I appreciate her work because unlike so many  authors who find themselves in the “Islam section” of bookstores and libraries she is striving to be a fair and respectful scholar, and doesn’t indulge in stereotypes. She respects and likes Islam, and that sentiment comes through in her writing.

And yet, the love that is missing makes a world of difference.  The book doesn’t convey the love Muslims have for the Prophet, how Islam has shaped civilizations and societies, and the details of his character that Muslims try to embody today. Compared to reading Tariq Ramadan’s book, a book that softened my heart and made me want to be a better urban planner, a better family member, a better citizen, and a better person overall, I felt distant from this book, and it wasn’t a book that engraved itself on my heart.

What I did learn however, is that the world needs more bridge-builders, more people who can explain their deep love and commitment to their ideals in a way that is understandable to others. When I was in undergrad preparing for a trip to the city of Makkah and Madinah, my roommate saw me poring over maps and books, realised that she really didn’t know much about Islam, and asked for material to learn more. In reply, I gave her one of my favourite books, a children’s book called “Tell Me about the Prophet Muhammad”, and we supplemented that text with long conversations about how the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him had impacted my own life. Reading Karen Armstrong’s book was a reminder that  we need to cultivate spaces and cities where this can happen more frequently, where we can be open about what we love and care about, feel comfortable to ask questions, and confident enough to challenge our own assumptions.

Role Models Remind Us of What One Person Can Achieve

  • Everything brings me back to compassion.
  • Role models remind us of what one person can achieve. Person who is compassionate draws people like a magnet. People were drawn to the Buddha. Anyone who puts in a regimen of compassion can become such a person (a person that people are drawn to).
  • Compassion is tough. It requires that you put yourself on the backburner. Socrates said that dialogue is about opening your heart and receiving dialogue.
  • Need to make place for another. Need to practice compassion all day and every day. It’s not that you do something and say, “that was my good deed for the day,” and then go back to living lives of spite and compassion.
  • Have to be able to have your own mind changed. Socrates said that at the point that you can say you know nothing, you are wise.
  • We act so omniscient. We say “she does this, because..” But in reality, you have no idea!
  • Mustn’t identify with your opinions, that is your ego speaking. Socrates told us to open our mind and listen to the other person. We need to empty our minds and forget what you think that you know. Go into dialogue willing to be changed. Fight for cause, but be willing to change your mind.
  • There is no good in speaking with spite and anger.
  • A spot of time is something you go back to and drink from. Similar with an unkind word.
  • To become a sage is hard work.

~Karen Armstrong, Toronto Reference Library, Jan 17th 2011

Intentions for Buying a Book

Wardah Books, Singapore

Wardah Books, Singapore

I was looking at the books in my room that desperately need a home (oh the challenges of bookshelf purchases!), and while wondering whether I should firmly resolve to strictly be a library user in the future, I came across these lovely intentions for buying a book. It was a reminder that when the intention with which you do something is wider than simply yourself, that action can become something good. I’m posting it here to keep the reminder fresh.

The Intentions for Buying A Book

  1. Intend to benefit from it, inwardly and outwardly
  2. Intend to occupy your time virtuously
  3. Intend to learn what is good
  4. Intend to protect and preserve knowledge
  5. Intend to help others, if someone asks to borrow it
  6. Intend to spread knowledge
  7. Intend to occupy yourself with it so as to keep away from idle talk.”

~Source: The Book of Intentions, by al-Habib Muhammad bin Alawi al-Ayadurus

Notes from the Human Rights, Religion and the Law Lecture at U of T (Jan 11th 2012)

In January 2012, the University of Toronto held a lecture called Human Rights, Religion and the Law as part of a series of events with the Ontario Humans Rights Commission (which was updating its policy on creed) and the University of Toronto Religion in the Public Sphere program. Every time I’ve heard Barbara Hall speak I’ve been moved by her warmth and powerful intellect, and that evening was no different. The other two speakers of the evening, Winnifred Sullivan and David Seljak were equally powerful, and scholars who I hope to continue to follow. What was powerful about that night was the widespread acknowledgement that we need to unpack our definitions and understandings of secularism, understand its foundations, and recognise the role of power in constructing what we assume to be natural. Once we do this, it is easier to see that models based on accommodation and tolerance are deeply flawed.

I mostly just listened to the speakers that night, but today I came across my (brief) notes from the lecture, and I’ve included them below.

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Choose Well, Not All (Sixteen Lessons from the 2013 UBC SLC)

Festival at the Gedung Sate, Bandung

Festival at the Gedung Sate, Bandung (Indonesia)

One of my favourite conferences, the UBC Student Leadership Conference is an event that continues to grow and improve with every year. I’ve attended multiple times, and each time the conference has been an opening to an increased understanding of myself and the kind of work that I feel passionate about.  After two years in Toronto, this year I was blessed to attend once more, and this year was perhaps was my most meaningful SLC yet. From the rich lunchtime conversations, to the interesting case studies, and the palpable emotion in the room during the Closing Keynote, all of it left an imprint on my heart. This post has been in my draft folder since the conference, (apologies for the delay in posting!), but in no particular order, here are some of the lessons/quotes I took away this year.

1) Being exceptional is about overcoming complacency. It’s about doing the things that others are too busy, too important to do.~Alden Habacon, Featured Presenter

2) I took part in the SLC Case Studies session this year as an alumni participant, and the experience was a lesson that case studies facilitate deep learning. During the session we were given a description of a real project under development at UBC, a series of questions to guide our thinking and then a few hours later presented our findings/solutions to a panel of people involved in the actual project. They listened, gave feedback and asked us follow-up questions after we presented. Instead of simply consuming information about a topic, we were asked to think critically. The experience was a reminder that learning and transformation is about meaningful conversations. Instead of simply taking in information, for ideas to stick you have to interact with what you hear, digest it, reflect on it, and experiment with implementation. In the future, whether I find myself planning a conference, a course or a retreat, I want to embed a case study learning method into the design of the learning experience.

3) You are an ambassador for the causes that you represent.

Every time I’ve been at the SLC, the volunteers stand out. They are consistently professional, helpful, friendly and excited. They radiate energy and enthusiasm and are keen to serve. Without saying anything, but simply through their state, they tell you how getting involved in the conference has impacted them. Extrapolating that lesson, the volunteers were a reminder that whenever we get involved in something, if it is good, the traces of that goodness should be visible from us.

4)  I spent a magical lunchtime during the SLC this year with friends I hadn’t seen for several months (years in some cases!) speaking about learning goals, and the challenges of finding your way post graduation. Our rich conversation was a reminder that assistance and advice can only come when you allow yourself to be vulnerable and open up on what it is you find challenging. When you’re honest and authentic about being confused. Once you share, you give others permission to do the same, and in that mutual sharing, there is strength, hope and advice to be gained.

5) A great deal of karma, good luck and blessings required for success.~Alden Habacon, Featured Presenter

6) You remember the moments when you ask God to rescue you. ~Alden Habacon, Featured Presenter.

7) Never take advice from someone who doesn’t have what you want. ~Alden Habacon, Featured Presenter

8)Bureaucracies foster environment of scarcity. You need to foster an abundance mentality and see the world through a lens of abundance. ~Alden Habacon, Featured Presenter

9) Do work that would be meaningful to you if you had two years to live. ~Alden Habacon, Featured Presenter

10) I learnt to have patience with myself and world. Because there is hope, but it comes on a different schedule than yours. ~Closing Keynote

11) Each difficult moment has made me the person that I am today. If you can make it through the darkness, will be transformed. Will be closer to the person supposed to be, and closer to doing the work only you are supposed to do. We grow through struggles and pain. We all have gifts. We need to share our gifts. ~Closing Keynote

12) Please live. Life is amazing. When I was struggling with thoughts of suicide, what kept me going was the thought that nothing is forever. ~Audience Participant, Closing Keynote.

13) You are in not even the 1%, at this institution, you’re in the less than 1% of high achievers. You don’t feel like that because you’ve always surrounded yourself with the same sort of people, and so you think you’re just average. No. ~Closing Keynote.

14) Make the time to fulfill your dreams. Wake up at 5 and write every day to finish that novel. ~Closing Keynote.

15) Tolerating Diversity is Not Enough

Whenever I go to a conference, I am used to sadly going over to the table where the vegetarian options are laid out, and hoping that the sandwiches present are somewhat interesting. Not so at this year’s SLC. There were several vegetarian options available. It wasn’t a reluctant accommodation or tolerance of diversity, it was a celebration of different eating choices. It was a refreshing change to experience a conference where a recognition of diversity was embedded within its design and planning process. It’s rare for me to have that experience; whether it is food, finding prayer space, or finding social space that is not alcohol centric, most of the time, I’m used to having to explain and request accommodation.

16) Choose well, not all. ~Faces of SLC

With Warmheartedness, Intelligence is Constructive

Hart House, University of Toronto

 For two days in 2009, I was transfixed by the amazing speakers who spoke about peace and transformation at the Vancouver Peace Summit. Their message, that we need to think about how we are creating spiritually healthy communities was powerful, and it is inspiring to see examples of communities attempting to bring this idea to life. 

Last year for instance, Karen Armstrong, the winner of the 2008 TED prize and author of “Twelve Steps to Live a Compassionate Life” visited Vancouver for twelve days to hold discussions across the city on compassion. The visit also marked “the launch of the Greater Vancouver Compassion Network, part of an international movement to build compassionate communities” (12 Days of Compassion, SFU).  Also in BC, the Healing Cities Institute examines the connections between city form and public health/ healing and investigates the “spiritual dimensions of urbanism” and the “concept of the sacred within planning” (Healing Cities Institute, About.)  And in 2007 Durham University in the UK held a 24 hour colloqium about the “connections between connections between faith/spirituality and contemporary city-making” titled Faith and Spirituality in the City.

Similar to how we consider how social connection, economic and physical health is nurtured or hindered in our city, these initiatives ask us to consider how our cities nurture or hinder spiritual health. They ask us to think about how different areas of city life are connected, and it is exciting to imagine city planning occurring in such an integrated way. They also ask us to be clear about the values that infuse our planning process. In Vancouver for instance, sustainability is an organising principle in the muncipal planning process, and whether it is in food policy plans, regional strategic plans or in buying decisions, an explanation is needed about how the principle of sustainability is being advanced. 

All of this work is still very new and rapidly developing. Here’s to hoping these conversations continue to grow and spread and are able to create change! See below for selections from my Peace Summit notes.

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Stay Tuned to This Space! It’s time to Tell A Story

I just can’t anymore. I can’t open up another book frustrated about the stories of oppressive arranged marriages, the choices characters need to make between “culture and self expression”, their intense desire to be accepted by wider society, and their descriptions of self loathing – the list goes on, but I can’t read stories that leave me miserable. As a reader, I am not uplifted or enriched by narratives structured by such narrow binaries, and they do not represent me.

I say this because today I started a book that was full of such moments (it was assigned by a book club I joined recently), and the experience made me realise that it’s time to take writing more seriously. Not because I want to explain the life of a Muslim woman to other people, but because for myself, I want to tell a story that I would want to read, and I think people I care about would want to read too. And so though the blog posts will still continue, I’ve started on a longer writing project.

If you’re interested in following along/getting updates, please do stay in touch via email or the Facebook page.  And if you have advice about sustaining longer writing projects, please do leave a comment/send an email. Here we go!

Observing, Understanding and Respecting Nature is Imperative of Deep Faith

The Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) thanking students for remembering that some things decompose and others don’t.

 Last week, I read Green Deen: What Islam Teaches About Protecting the Planet, a book that calls you to open your heart and care deeply about yourself, your community, city, country, continent and our shared planet. I started the book after reading In the Footsteps of the Prophet, a book in which Tariq Ramadan writes:

“This relationship with nature was so present in the Prophet’s life from his earliest childhood that one can easily come to the conclusion that living close to nature, observing, understanding and respecting it, is imperative of deep faith. […]Being close to nature, respecting what it is, and observing and meditating on what it shows us, offers us or takes (back) from us requirements of a faith, in its quest, attempts to feed, deepen and renew itself. Nature is the primary guide and intimate companion of faith” (Tariq Ramadan, In the Footsteps of the Prophet, p.13)

This insistence that nature is needed for faith intrigued me, because I love the natural environment, but I am my most energetic and passionate when I’m in a beautiful city. I love the gleam of skyscrapers, the chatter of coffeeshops, the bustle of a crowd, and the feeling you get in a large city that you could meet a wonderful new friend just around the corner. This book however, asks us to think about the world that our city hides from us. It asks us to think about where food comes from beyond the grocery store, the scarcity of water beyond our (Western) household taps, how polluting energy sources adversely impact the planet, and where waste goes beyond the ‘chutes’ in our apartment building or the garbage can outside our house. It acknowledges it is hard to be mindful of these things, but emphasizes that understanding chains of consequence is a key component of living an ethical life.
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