Transcending narratives

[Music]

hello good morning yasas

tedxa ueb athens i hope all of you are

well

this is a very strange time to be giving

a tedx talk

i initially contemplated giving this

talk from my bathtub

um but then i realized that i might get

electric unit

so i did not really want to live stream

that

for random strangers to look at so here

we are

those of you who are not familiar with

who i am

my name is omi i’m an academic i’m a war

theorist i’m a fashion photographer and

an editor

among other things before i delve into

my

so-called origin story uh let me address

the moment we are in right now

we are in this extraordinary moment

of upheaval this extraordinary

divergence of many cultural social

economic and environmental disasters

from climate change which we are not

really doing anything about

to coronavirus which has killed at least

a million people and will likely kill

more

to the black lives matter movement the

me too movement

the environmental protests

where a 15 year old or 16 year old has

more common sense that most grown-ups

and they’re trying to show us a way

forward we are really in this strange

moment in history

from george floyd to tamir rice to

brianna taylor to accomplish

other people who’ve been killed

in police violence systematic racism

we are in a moment of complete imbalance

and a pandemic isolation

slow collapse of the economy and this is

not really the best time to be a human

in many ways

but in many ways this is the best time

to be a human

so we are in this intricate moment in

history

i don’t think we have ever seen this

many people rising up to demand

foundational changes

to how we live how we conduct ourselves

and as i said we are in a moment of

crisis but with every crisis there’s an

opportunity

and this is where we are we are the

crossroads where either you’re part of

the solution or you’re part of the

problem there really is no

neutrals anymore

and one of my favorite people um

historian howard zinn once said that you

cannot stay neutral on a moving train

and in many ways we are in the fastest

moving train in history

in human history

so when i was thinking about giving this

talk i was thinking about

the context we are in the context that

defines who we are

and how we react to the world

i was in oslo when i really started

thinking about this but

in a more abstract sort of way and i was

in my hotel room and my

tv was on

and for some reason sumo wrestling was

being broadcasted i’m not entirely sure

why

but i was mesmerized by it and you know

there were these two sumo wrestlers were

who were crashing into each other

the whole thing was slightly off-putting

and hilarious

it was almost like watching donald trump

play golf

but going back to context and how

everything is

imagined through the lens of that

context

i try to imagine these two very large

japanese men

with really beautiful man buns and what

i would

assume are adult diapers

crashing into each other in front of

vasilia sophia’s

or in front of maximo or

a subway in new york or

a street in dhaka or i don’t know market

in kampala

and within those contexts that would be

completely inappropriate

there will be a lot of negative reaction

if it’s in athens

the yayas won’t be happy because these

people are not wearing enough clothing

children would be mortified and somewhat

amused

and the police that usually hangs around

maximum

drinking coffee would have to come

investigate

so all in all it would create a lot of

negative reaction but within the

confines of a japanese arena it’s

perfectly fine

and that is what context is it kind of

defines redefines

and provides value to each singular

narrative we have in our lives

so when you’re thinking about the xyz

narrative

which is the topic of conversation here

today at tedx aueb

um you kind of have to think

within the box of that context

so i decided that the

experiences i’m going to talk to you

about would actually have to go beyond

the realm of context

how to transcend context and become

somewhat universal

and bypass of the duality of

optimism pessimism good or bad

and ultimately you know provide us with

us way forward in terms of how we want

to view our lives where we want to go

and how we want to go there and it’s

perfectly fine if you don’t know

where you’re going that means that any

road you take will take you there

whimsy uh and george harrison aside we

all are

products of structure biological

cultural

social uh every person on this planet

is governed by those layers of

evolutionary history wrapped in a

package of flesh and bones

so to discuss humanity is to discuss the

elemental nature

of who we are not only as a species but

also as individuals

the most unique aspect of our living is

in our lives narratives

and we always think of our lives through

stories right

um in reality we are

actually on this really absurd

trajectory trying to make sensitive

sense of it all through storytelling

so stories real or not relevant or not

our products of our brain trying to find

meaning purpose above all clarity and

that is why it is important to

find one story that is

more authentic to that specific person

and then

project it onto the world

speaking of stories speaking of who i am

i grew up in taka bangladesh i grew up

during a time of

dictatorship in bangladesh and when

you’re young and have

parents who are affluent somewhat

connected you don’t really feel

the burden of a dictatorship and i did

not

uh when i was living under a

dictatorship as a child that specific

threat of

understanding misunderstanding or lack

of understanding of dictatorship

uh became very helpful in the long run

when i was looking at dictatorship

as an idea and dissecting it

through the means of political science

statistics and war theory

as an academic and a war terrorist i

mostly focus on genocide

so i do predictive modeling uh which

basically means that i try to

do prediction models of collective human

behavior in a specific war zone

essentially to see you know where things

are moving is it moving towards genocide

so forth so on uh and one of my most

formative experiences

um concerning this and as a as an

academic was

uh with this experience with this 11

year old boy from pakistan from

waziristan and his dad

who i was interviewing about the drone

warfare

that was going on at that point in time

and initially when i heard that his son

was completely terrified to go to school

during very bright blue days

i thought that maybe there is some sort

of psychological trauma there he has

gone through

but then he told me that every single

child was terrified of going outside

when it was

really nice and beautiful and it came at

the back of

context that context being

a 67 year old grandmother who was

picking

vegetables got hit by a drone strike and

of course she got killed

tube village is over and once that news

spread

people were worried about sending out

their children to school so in many ways

u.s was winning the battle

but losing the war and that specific

instance at that specific point

i kind of realized that in many ways

the ambiguous policies of uh drone

warfare

was becoming so problematic that

we did not have any moral grounding

anymore

that of course changed over a period of

time

through academia through the military

through various other civilian operators

of covert warfare like the cia

it changed drastically and everything

came under

the laws of armed conflict which governs

these conflicts in many ways

but by that time 900 civilians have died

in

random acts of violence through drone

strikes

and the accountability aspect of it was

very low

and that experience told me that

maybe as a society we are

in a mode of static

oblivion because

a lot of things you can lose in a

society but if you lose accountability

if you lose the accountability of your

humanity

you become so static that your society

starts eroding

and i think that was one of the first

indication for me as a person

to try to push something that would

bring in everyone under the same

umbrella of

law and accountability and in the second

term of obama things of course

changed a little and

some people were held accountable some

people were not but

it was still moving in the right

direction i can’t really tell you what’s

going on right now because

i frankly do not know or care to know

that being said that 11 year old boy

and his terrified face uh

haunted me for so long like anytime i

would see blue skies that it would

remind me of that

child and he had absolutely

nothing to do with anything you know

like he wasn’t he was just born in a

terrible situation and

we who were born in a very good

situation are exasperating his life

this situation so i think

in many ways that guilt made me

a find photography as an outlet and b

start becoming much more critical about

what was

the obama administration’s policy was on

drone warfare

and you might find that you know like

i’ve written extensively on this matter

and eventually the policies changed

so at the end of the day it doesn’t

matter how rich you are

how strong you are how smart you are

there needs to be a consequence for

whatever actions you are

committing and i think that’s

what i found to be one of my formative

experiences as a person

is that realizing that so what

america is strong

america is still a civilized society we

still need to hold ourselves accountable

sometimes that works sometimes that does

not but i think

by and large that notion of entrenched

accountability is the only indicator of

civilization

at least from a war theory’s perspective

the last experience i’m going to talk to

you about is

a very personal one and i have never

talked to anyone about this

it’s about my father my father

hussein had our children was an eternal

optimist

none of his sons

got that from him both me and my brother

younger brother um are either

pragmatists or a realist and in many

ways my younger brother is much more

practical than i am

i was in london fashion week when my

phone rang and one of my cousins who is

a cardiologist told me that i need to

come home

and when you get a phone call like that

um you don’t

wait around you find a flight and you go

home that is exactly what i did

i found a flight from heathrow to

colombo

and uh colombo to taka i landed in

colombo

and i need to fill out some forms i was

looking for a pen

and i saw one of the flight attendants

from my flight

walking towards baggage claim so i

stopped her and i asked her whether she

had a pen

uh and uh she smiled at me and she said

sure i do have a pen here

so she gave me a pen and i was filling

up my form and she was like why are you

heading

i said bangladesh taka and she said to

visit family and i looked at her

and i don’t know why i said this to her

because i was in this strange state of

vulnerability and denial

and i told her i think my father is

dying

and in her eternal wisdom and zen-like

sort of way she looks at me and she said

we all have to walk through that fire

eventually

just remember your father the way you

want to remember him

and that really struck a chord with me

because this completely

perfect stranger um gave me this really

bit of information that was always

available to me but

up until now i really did not have the

capacity to fully

grasp what she was saying

i wanted to give back her pen but she

was like no you will need it later

so keep it

so i go from colombo to taka

got ushered in through the airport

end up at the icu in unit where my

father was

once i walk in the attendee doctor

asked me who i was and i told him that

well i’m the

oldest son of jose another children and

he was like okay well uh

your father has no brain functions and

um he’s just some life support because

you know we were kind of waiting for you

and i really did not want to believe

that so

i kind of ignored him and walked into

the room and

uh stood in front of my father where he

looked like he was sleeping there were

tubes coming out of him

and uh it was not a very pleasant thing

to look at but

at least there was some hope but then i

kinda

tried to hold on to his hand and i

realized that there really wasn’t anyone

there

my father was gone and

essentially the machines were just

keeping the

motion the static

alive and that’s it

there was no consciousness so i walked

out

signed the paperwork to take him off

life support

with the same pen this random person

gave me

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and my father was dead

by the time i signed that document

they took him off life support uh

and i felt this intense sort of pain

where

you feel like some parts of you are

not going to be reconciled with some

parts of you

and i think that is the pain we all feel

when we lose a parent

it does not matter how old you are this

does not really go away

it remains with you all the time

and in many ways

my father’s last memory is kinda

entrenched kinda attached to that

pen which i carry around everywhere now

i still have that pen in my bag

and if i ever in ever if i have ever

in that situation where a stranger

tells me about their life’s peril

and as for a pen i would pass on that

pen

but i viewed that pen as a bit of

humanity that

bit of sunshine in like utter darkness

at times

and remind myself that regardless of

whatever happens you know

we will get through this because

ultimately our humanity overtakes

every other need we have

i hope these experiences i shared with

you

in this rather intimate talk in the

middle of a very

strange time i would help you lead

through

the prison of time and expectation

through that prism of upheaval

and progress

and hopefully your experiences will

transcend context

and become something universal which you

can share with other people

and it would also give you a moment of

solace

ultimately this world really does not

exist without you

so it is up to you to take ownership of

it to make it better

and to leave it better and to push it

forward where

the arc of history meets the ark of

justice

thank you for listening to me and i

appreciate

your time and we will definitely meet up

somewhere along the way when borders

open

thank you athens i love you