Ideas Beyond Borders Interview

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Hey, if you want to help protect planet Earth, make sure you like and subscribe to the channel, because GREAT is donating 100 percent of a profit towards the most effective causes like climate change, protecting the rainforest and funding climate change technology. And the topic of today is civil rights and critical thinking. To understand more about this topic, we have invited Faizal side, Al Mutare, who is the founder of a movement with critical thinkers. And this movement is called Ideas Beyond Borders, and they’re helping to increase the civil rights in the Middle East. So I want to say welcome, Feisal, to the Cynthia, thank you so much.

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Thank you so much for having me.

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I saw how dangerous is it today to be a critical thinker in the world or specifically in the Middle East?

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I think I think there is an understatement. There are a lot of movements that are against this way of thinking, especially the movements that are authoritarian and leaders that are authoritarian, who really don’t want populations that can think for themselves. And for decades, if not centuries, the authoritarians in the region have set up systems that favor loyalty over dissent, that favor authoritarianism and submission over a free inquiry.

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And I mean, that’s that data and research speak for itself on how many dissidents and activists get. Killed, get kidnapped, get exiled, and how much of the content that is about roughly 96 percent, according to some research of online content, is censored in the Middle East for either political or religious purpose.

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So we definitely have a lot of work ahead of us. However, what keeps me optimistic and what keeps me going really is the spirit of many of the people that I work with and the fact that this movement is constantly expanding and people are tired of authoritarianism, they’re tired of censorship, and they are looking for an enlightened alternative. And that’s what I’m hoping to achieve.

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You’re saying that a lot of content is being censored and that there is you have to risk your life if you’re going to truly stand up for what you see and being a critical thinker and you have experienced this firsthand. Tell us more about what is your experience and how how did you even start this foundation or this movement?

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Yes, I mean, my journey starts from Iraq, and that’s where I was born, I was born in 1991 right after the first Gulf War and the sanctions that was under the regime of Saddam Hussein, which I think everybody is probably familiar with. And then my I mean, in a way I was forced into it is we still live in a residential neighborhood. My parents my dad is an orthopedic surgeon. My mom is a lawyer. And we were just like living as peaceful as possible, minding our own business until our neighborhood moved from a residential neighborhood into a war zone. And it was taken over

by multiple militias, multiple dark forces. So many of the houses became empty and that it was replaced by militias, by al-Qaida at the time and many others. So my crazy self decided when I was 14, 15 is to become a voice against sectarianism and against division.

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And I started with the message of why not everybody should get along regardless of ethnicity, regardless of sect. And then then the threats start coming in both digitally and unfortunately ended up being physically in which I get a death threat, my high school. So I have to leave the country in 2009. And I left to Lebanon and left to Malaysia afterwards. And from Malaysia, I started a blog that by now I think has three hundred thousand followers. And after a bit, I get accepted into the United States as a refugee in 2013 and a combination of the fact that I was able to get many skills and survival guilt in which knowing that I have made it to a much safer place and I made it to a place that that I can really follow my dreams to some extent, I decided to convert that and make the promise that I made when I left Iraq and to really standing for these values, the reality and ideas beyond borders. The organization I founded is the fulfillment of that promise, is that that these these voices, these ideas should be stood for, should be fought for. And in twenty seventeen, with the help of a few generous donors, I was able to register this organization and get it started. And now we are almost three years old.

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You’re talking about quite an emotional.

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Journey that you’ve been experiencing, and I can’t even start to imagine what that must have been. You’re saying that you continue this journey to speak up for people’s civil rights to to actually be able to speak up. And you’ve been doing that for three years now. And this movement that is officially a movement, could you help me clarify to understand what is the problem that you are that you see in the world that you’re trying to solve or would you define the problems?

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So, I mean, the main problem that that we are trying to solve is which I think is. I mean, there are problems that exist in the world. But there is one thing that is within our reach and within our power, which is changing the information landscape about subjects like civil rights, critical thinking, human rights in Arabic and languages spoken in the Middle East. So when we started the organization, only zero point six percent of online content is in Arabic. And there was an Arab development report by the United Nations from decades ago that said there are more books translated to Spanish in one year than Arabic in one thousand years. So most of the content, if any of you go to a library and you go to most of the content that you see in a small library in America is maybe a thousand times more available than when the biggest library in the Middle East, especially the ones that are about the content. This is not an exaggeration in terms of how much there is a transfer of knowledge from other cultures and really some of these values into Arabic. And so the main thing that really we want to solve is the that content scarcity and the fact that many of these ideas are really not available in the language most people speak and very, very little people are very few people in the Middle East are bilingual or multilingual. There are some countries like Lebanon, some countries like Tunisia and some others in North Africa that speak multiple languages. But a majority of people in the region do not speak a language other than Arabic or Kurdish or Farsi. So our goal is to really make inaccessible information accessible, and that is the mission of the organization.

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So all of Floriane regimes are suppressing the information flow and there you would how would you even start to get access to to give provide this information? How does that work?

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So from our end, I mean, we’re in a way, a platform. So we have a digital library that we started called House of Wisdom 2.0, which is named after a building from the 13th century in Baghdad where I come from, that used to translate works of science and knowledge into Arabic. And so we built up this kind of digital repository of all the

content that we translate, whether it’s in multimedia books, articles and videos and infographics. And we equip our team, which is about a hundred, and people who work with us in a full time, part time capacity with both digital security training and VBS, which is a virtual private network in which they can circumvent the the censorship that exists in their countries so that we have, in a way, digital infrastructure that we have built internally with the help of some partners that are experts in the subject of digital security that make make sure that our training, our staff are trained of how to avoid being tracked, how to make sure that they can access the websites that are tied to their countries. How can they make sure that they don’t leave history in their computers or in their phones, that if one day they get caught by a government or by a militia, that they will not be able to see many of the stuff that they are working on.

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So, I mean, this is this is a constant struggle. And I don’t want to send the message that we will figure that out because we have not figured it out. Is something that we always have to really adapt to every corner. There is new laws of censorship in one country and there’s laws about banning this book or banning this organization or banning this activist or killing this activist, as unfortunately happened over the past couple of months in Iraq. So we are

constantly trying to adapt to the new realities that exist in each country that we work in and hopefully is other than really making knowledge about critical thinking and all the accessible, but also equipping the population with digital literacy skills to the way that this becomes more common knowledge. And not just IPB Ivey’s Internet knowledge, but rather making it accessible to as many people as possible and really make sure that these authoritarian regimes don’t have an absolute control on the flow of information.

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So you’re saying that it is a constant struggle to you have not figured it out, but at least you’re working on to to try to be a counterpart of this strong governmental kind of control over what information comes in? Yes. Does this put you guys in danger for are you still getting threats even though you are not living in Iraq anymore?

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I mean, the United States does not even matter in this.

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I mean, on a personal level, yes, of course. That means shifting locations have definitely helped. However, my staff, and most of which live in the Middle East, are in constant threat, whether directly or indirectly. So, I mean, just a few months ago, we we got an email from a translator who worked with us is that I’m sorry, I cannot continue working with you guys. I feel like I’m being tracked and this might really damage me in the long run and not just damage me personally, but rather my family, too, because in some of these authoritarian regimes that they don’t only just punish the person, they try to make an example of that person. So by punishing their family, by getting them not to have a career, stopping them from pursuing further education, and that is on the peaceful end of things, I mean, in some cases end up people in prison, etc.. So the stuff that I currently work with are in constant threat, directly or indirectly. And the goal is I mean, however, is one of the reasons why many people join us and many people be part of our movement is the fact is that they are sick of that totalitarianism and they do want to make change. I mean, sometimes I am surprised of the spirit that many of these people have despite all of this of attempts to censor them in which they reach the level in which, OK, I mean, we have to fight for we have to fight that in a way. And that’s how I reached that conclusion when I became to some extent an outspoken activist when I was 15, in which when I was living under these militias is all the choices I have is that you either submit to us, I would kill you and. So there is no middle ground. What middle ground I can reach out with with all these folks, so I decided to be outspoken, knowing at the time I didn’t know a lot of the consequences, but I just continue doing and that’s the spirit that many of the team that I work with have.

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Your you or and also the organization has been awarded quite. We talked about this before. You have got an award from Barack Obama about the work that you’re doing and that’s, I guess, is a receipt for how truly courageous the work that you that you are doing as. Could you just give us a short what does that mean, that you got an award from from Barack Obama about this?

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Yeah, so in I mean, the United States, there is an A called the Presidential Volunteer Service Award, and these are awards that are given to people who donate their time and donate their skills to help specific cause. And in my cause, it is education and really making education accessible and. I out of nowhere, I have one of the organizations that I volunteered a lot of my time with, I called Marla and they told me that I’m on the list to receive an award from the president. And it was called the gold or the gold. So they have like silver and gold. And so I got the gold to work for, really the time that I have spent and volunteered for really broadly the cause of education. So the award says we are what this the face of Mutare for his dedication and his commitment to education so that in twenty fifteen. That was previous job. And recently we received an award as an organization from an organization called Elevate Prize, which is affiliated with MIT, Massachusetts technology. And that is recent and it is mainly about our work in translation and making education accessible. So we have been the recipient of some awards. We are hopefully building a relationship with Wikipedia and become a major partner of Wikipedia soon, mainly Wikipedia that’s focused on the Middle East. And our goal is to really because to be as known and accepted by the mainstream, because this is an amazingly important cause. Me personally, of course, important, but creating informed populations, creating places I can think for itself is will create a great environment for prosperity, a great environment for peace, and that many of the people in the Middle East have not seen before. So that’s that’s the goal. And excuse me, that’s like dogs around that. Maybe I should just do it myself a bit, but please.

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Makes it more alive if you can hear some nature and animals around. OK, so thanks for that clarification of how understanding the words part and the future, I guess, with Wikipedia. So help me here to understand, why do you think people in the Western world, in America, Europe should care about the Arabic channel Middle East world would get more information?

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Yes. So I, I, I’ve always said it’s like the Middle East is the opposite of Las Vegas. What happens in the Middle East doesn’t stay in the Middle East. So the the Middle East is. And is it I mean, amazing. I mean, as a location, it is really the center of the world and the birthplace of many of the beliefs and ideas that even people in the West

adhere to. And it is a place that is very connected to a lot of the world. And it’s a very significant population, about four hundred million plus people. And so from just from like a selfish geopolitical standpoint is the conflicts of the Middle East don’t drive, stay the Middle East. If we are seeing from the Syrian refugee crisis, as we have seen from the conflicts that exist in many parts of the region, have really ended beyond them. And from from a nonprofit standpoint, is that. There are all these all these individual, especially those who are affiliated with IDB, but also on a broader scale, who really want to live in the same world that many people here in the West want to live in. And they need the firm. They need a fair chance of life. I mean, all of what they have seen, if you are talking to somebody who was born in the 60s, let’s say.

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Right. And all what they have seen is war, like if you are born in Iraq, you are by the time you are 20. I’ve seen the Iraq Iran war. By the time you are 30, you have seen the Gulf War, you are 40. I’ve seen the other Gulf War. And the time you are 50, you see the civil war. And this is all what you have experienced your entire life. And we need to find alternative to that. This is this has to end.

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We are going to Santarus and listen to you, and I want to ask you, what would you want people to do after hearing this interview?

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I think I mean, really, we need a lot of help in both the skill sets and financial and skill set.

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Is that I mean, we have a lot of things to figure out from digital security, from really understanding the landscape of information. So anybody who think has the skill sets that can help with that will be great. And also this effort and we have a team that is all over the region that really needs both emotional and financial support. I mean, one of the things I generally ask for speeches is that if you really think this is an important cause, if you just send us a message to that translators who live in this authoritarian center of societies and tell them that you care because these people are not motivated by purely financial gains, they are really risking their lives. And they are they live in destroyed areas. And for them, a message of hope, of hope, stories of people caring about what they think and what they do will go a long way. So for those who are listening and think that this causes is important, drop us a message and thank the heroes who are working their lives in war and risking their lives to make information education accessible to everybody.

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Where would you want people to connect towards the website that’s called Ideas Beyond Borders dot org? Is there a specific place you want people to go to?

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Yes, the website Ideas Beyond Borders dot org. And also, if people are interested to see our content and how we spread that, there is a tab called video samples and they can see how our content flow is and what we really do.

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And the there is a contact tab and the next time that people can access to and watch one of the videos already about critical thinking and it’s high quality in that video. I really appreciate it. Kind of talks about why it’s important to be critical thinking. I would like to end this interview by asking you the last question here. Is there anything extra important that you would like for more people to understand or would that be?

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I mean, I think I mean, we live in the age of information. We also live in the age of misinformation. And I think it is one thing to be literate, but it’s one thing to be media literate. So I ask everybody to spend more time understanding how to read the news, not just reading the news. And this is the I think the issue of the century is that, I mean, especially the authoritarian regimes that we work on in the region are spreading a lot of misinformation, both internally and externally. And I I think critical thinking is not it’s it’s not just a bad to have, but rather as a lifestyle and a framework for us to understand the world around us. So I think I think this is would be a message that I have for everybody, not just in the Middle East, but be informed and spend more time knowing how to think, not what to think.

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