Speaker 1: Pushkin. When I think of this show, I don't imagine
Speaker 1: talking to guests who grew up with a president visiting
Speaker 1: their house. But that was zaneb Salabi's life in Baghdada
Speaker 1: Rock during the early days of Saddam Hussein's presidency. That
Speaker 1: level of familiarity with Saddam brought both privilege and danger.
Speaker 1: He was a ruthless leader, capable of betraying those he
Speaker 1: was close to. Zana, but her parents felt trapped by
Speaker 1: their proximity to power. In our conversation, Zanab talks candidly
Speaker 1: about how this terrifying reality even led her mother to
Speaker 1: attempt suicide. I wanted to talk to Zanab because her
Speaker 1: story is about starting over from the bottom. When she
Speaker 1: left I Rock to live in the US, her life
Speaker 1: of privilege fell away. Then she created a remarkable charity
Speaker 1: to help women survivors of war. The story of herries
Speaker 1: the nonprofit ranks as an immigrant is incredible. This has
Speaker 1: started from the bottom, hard earned success stories from people
Speaker 1: like us. Can you paint a picture for me of
Speaker 1: what bag Dad was like when you grew up there?
Speaker 2: Well, I have great memories. I have beautiful memories. I'll
Speaker 2: start with my family's garden, you know, a beautiful garden.
Speaker 2: My mom would have me pick vegetables and fruits as
Speaker 2: she's cooking. Great school. I you know, all my family,
Speaker 2: as in cousins and uncles and aunts lived in the
Speaker 2: same neighborhood, but not close to each other. But in
Speaker 2: the afternoon, I would as the parents go to their siesta,
Speaker 2: I ride my orange bike and put my collections of
Speaker 2: race cars. I liked race cars when I was a kid,
Speaker 2: and I would back to my to raise with them.
Speaker 2: And I don't know if this gives you a picture
Speaker 2: of it, but it's sort of how I grew up.
Speaker 2: You know, my parents were I call them the yuppies
Speaker 2: of that time of the city, and you know, loved
Speaker 2: dancing and partying. And you know that dancing and partying
Speaker 2: actually was a frequent occurrence in my home. Now, mind you,
Speaker 2: as I, as I even hear myself say it, I
Speaker 2: obviously grew up in a middle class, a primary class family,
Speaker 2: and I do not want that reality to also assume
Speaker 2: that everyone in Iraq grew up like this. I actually
Speaker 2: write about it in my book. We also had a
Speaker 2: living maid who had you know, a very different reality.
Speaker 2: You know, her family lived in two mudrooms and six children,
Speaker 2: you know, yeah, and six children, you know, So it's
Speaker 2: you know, so not everyone had that reality. But nevertheless,
Speaker 2: her parents came from the village and were given land
Speaker 2: by the government for free to settle in. So, you know,
Speaker 2: Iraq was at the seventies, in the seventies when I
Speaker 2: grew up, was had already gone through so many turmoils,
Speaker 2: but had also gone through some progress, depends on who
Speaker 2: you're talking about in political turmoils, but some progress in
Speaker 2: terms of women's rights and that were actually reformed nineteen
Speaker 2: fifty eight, for example. But still there was joy. Let's
Speaker 2: say it this way, there was joy in my memory
Speaker 2: of the seventies. In the eighties, that joy transformed into fear.
Speaker 2: That is, once a dam took over, you know, becoming
Speaker 2: the president. That is when we also were consumed by
Speaker 2: the Iran Iraq War, and the Bathist Party was stronger
Speaker 2: than ever at that time. And the joy of the
Speaker 2: parties and the dancing that I described in the seventies
Speaker 2: I defined my life in the seventies was really transformed
Speaker 2: into christs and fears and whispers.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the Baptist Party I just wanted just for people
Speaker 1: who aren't super familiar with the history. And that was
Speaker 1: Saddam Hussein's party. That was the party he was head of.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, it was a totalitarian party, and it was
Speaker 2: very much I grew up like a nineteen eighty four
Speaker 2: George Orwell's description of a totalitarian country, which is how
Speaker 2: the country transformed into the eighties into.
Speaker 1: That or corresponds with your reality of the eighties quite
Speaker 1: quite nicely.
Speaker 2: Clearly when I watched the movie and I was like, oh,
Speaker 2: it's exactly how I grew up. The only difference is colors.
Speaker 2: You know. The movie was very dark colors, Soviet colors
Speaker 2: kind of thing, and I grew up in colors.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the desert has vibrant colors. You know. So but
Speaker 2: very much that's how I grew up in the eighties,
Speaker 2: and that I was teenager at that time.
Speaker 1: Your father was Saddam's personal pilot. How was that relationship
Speaker 1: forged and what did that mean for your thinking about
Speaker 1: his rule?
Speaker 2: Well, Saddam, beyond the profession of my father who he
Speaker 2: was his personal pilot, he was also the head of
Speaker 2: civil aviation Iraq, Saddam chose my father and my mother
Speaker 2: to be his friends, his social friends. They were one
Speaker 2: of three family members who he chose to be his
Speaker 2: social friends. But in essence they were not political people.
Speaker 2: They had no political ambition. My father was a commercial pilot,
Speaker 2: my mother was a biology teacher, and they were not
Speaker 2: a threat to him politically. But they had access to
Speaker 2: what he didn't have access to, which is what does
Speaker 2: it mean to live in an upper midt class family,
Speaker 2: you know, be exposed to Western music, Western etiquette, English language,
Speaker 2: Western close, if you may so.
Speaker 1: He felt they had a sophistical that he lacked.
Speaker 2: And he did like that. So then grew up in
Speaker 2: a very tough life. He grew up in a small village.
Speaker 2: His stepfather made him work and refused to take him
Speaker 2: to school. He beat him up until the age of
Speaker 2: nine when he escaped from his stepfather and to the capital.
Speaker 2: And that was his first time to go to school
Speaker 2: at the age of nine. Right, So for him, he
Speaker 2: always you know, there was a class difference, you know,
Speaker 2: and while he became a political figure and mobilized all
Speaker 2: of that, he did not have access to this particular
Speaker 2: sozooeconomic background which my family provided. And so it was
Speaker 2: the job was just the job. The father, you know,
Speaker 2: the pilot of the president. It was the friendship that
Speaker 2: really was a prison in my family's home, because just
Speaker 2: because you are a friend of the dictator, it didn't
Speaker 2: mean that you are safe from his grip or his fear,
Speaker 2: or his killing, or his torture or his punishment generally,
Speaker 2: and so it just meant that we were closer to danger.
Speaker 2: And the relationship was kept secret from me and as
Speaker 2: a child until the day he came to our home
Speaker 2: in a very public way that was on the national news.
Speaker 2: And I was about eleven years old, and that's when
Speaker 2: I realized, oh, oh, my parents are friends with a
Speaker 2: president whose picture is in my classroom, you know.
Speaker 1: And did you have any feelings about him at that point?
Speaker 1: Had you formed an idea about him?
Speaker 2: No, as a child, you don't. As a child, you
Speaker 2: only see your parents and how they are reacting. And
Speaker 2: so I saw my parents and you know, crying, my
Speaker 2: mom crying hysterically throughout the eighties, my mom attempting suicide
Speaker 2: over and over and over again. Her friends who would
Speaker 2: gather in the seventies and dance and love were crying.
Speaker 2: And so you know that you're seeing these things, You're
Speaker 2: seeing the emotions when we are with him. You see
Speaker 2: my parents being very polite. Our instructions was to always
Speaker 2: smile when he smiled, to cry when he cried. But
Speaker 2: you also see them, you know, you know when they're
Speaker 2: scared of him. Is as a child in the surrounding,
Speaker 2: and so so you grew up with that fear because
Speaker 2: your parents are afraid, you know, and you see it
Speaker 2: more and more and more and more and more, And
Speaker 2: to be honest, it's I had no It's almost like
Speaker 2: an internalized drama that only in later years of my
Speaker 2: life as I settle an American and stabilize myself an American,
Speaker 2: all of that and I start working on myself, did
Speaker 2: I realize how this is there these moments that are
Speaker 2: scary and traumatizing and sort of I internalize it and
Speaker 2: did not express it until much later in life, where
Speaker 2: I was able to process it and understand, Oh, that
Speaker 2: was actually a very scary situation I was growing up in,
Speaker 2: and a lot of it. You know. We were surrounded
Speaker 2: by soldiers, Our homes were monitored, our bedrooms were monitored.
Speaker 2: I no longer had friends, you know, I was not
Speaker 2: allowed to have just regular friends, and everything about our
Speaker 2: life was taken over by the dictator, and that's how
Speaker 2: life was.
Speaker 1: And you know, you describe your parents' relationship with him,
Speaker 1: I mean he chose them as friends, and you sort
Speaker 1: of describe that relationship then as sort of like in
Speaker 1: a sense like a prison for your parents, for your
Speaker 1: family ultimately for you and that friendship, that closeness, that
Speaker 1: proximity you had to sit down. A lot of people
Speaker 1: might think that made you safe, but it's ultimately what
Speaker 1: you know, drove your mom to send you to the
Speaker 1: United States a way to the United States, right, yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean I my mom who would cry throughout my teenage.
Speaker 2: I mean she says, we are living in a prison.
Speaker 2: I can't prove to people that I'm surrounded with prison bars,
Speaker 2: but I see the prison bars. And that was like
Speaker 2: she would say it over and over again, you know,
Speaker 2: And so it was literally prison because also the you know,
Speaker 2: everyone in the country was afraid of us because we
Speaker 2: are his friends. But we are afraid of him because
Speaker 2: he killed his best friends. And of course we're afraid
Speaker 2: of the people because they're afraid of us and think
Speaker 2: that we are like him, but we are not, like
Speaker 2: you know, we're not of his people either. So the
Speaker 2: reason I called my memoir between two worlds because we
Speaker 2: were stuck between two wolves. We're neither here nor there. Nevertheless,
Speaker 2: you know, you grew up in this. You know, you
Speaker 2: get used to it, right, I mean your fear, you're
Speaker 2: all of that, but you you get used to it
Speaker 2: until and you think that this is life, right until
Speaker 2: the day where my mom asked me to accept the
Speaker 2: marriage proposal from a guy I did not know in America.
Speaker 2: And up until that time, you know, you resisted your
Speaker 2: own ways. You know, I fell in love with a rebel,
Speaker 2: and I thought he's I'm going to like fell in
Speaker 2: love with a revolutionary guy, and he's going to help
Speaker 2: me escape. And you have all these fantasies of how
Speaker 2: you're going to escape the palace, you know, compound if
Speaker 2: you may, and they're all like failed teenage attempts to
Speaker 2: like rebel until my mom came and asked me to
Speaker 2: accept this marriage proposal. Now, this was a very liberal family.
Speaker 2: I was never I was always to choose whatever I
Speaker 2: wanted to do in life. I was always outspoken. I
Speaker 2: never like whatever. My mom told me to always be
Speaker 2: whoever I want to be. And she was the first
Speaker 2: person who believed that I would dedicate my life to
Speaker 2: women's rights as I grew older. But nevertheless she was
Speaker 2: asking me and begging me and crying, saying, please accept
Speaker 2: this marriage proposal, which I ultimately did, not because I
Speaker 2: was forced, but because my mom was crying.
Speaker 1: And in her mind, and I imagine in your mind,
Speaker 1: it wasn't a matter of women's rights. It was simply,
Speaker 1: probably to her, a matter of survival. I want my
Speaker 1: daughter to get out of your old right.
Speaker 2: You didn't I didn't know. You know, I was nineteen
Speaker 2: years old. There was silence. We don't talk about things
Speaker 2: because remember our house was bugged, and so I didn't know.
Speaker 2: And all what I was trying to do is, you know,
Speaker 2: these are unarticulated feelings because we are living in it
Speaker 2: and we're afraid to express it. You know, I was
Speaker 2: afraid to say the words Saddam Hussein until he was
Speaker 2: arrested and in prison. And at that time, I had
Speaker 2: been in America for twenty years or I don't know,
Speaker 2: something like fifteen years, and I was still afraid to
Speaker 2: say to utter his name while I am in America
Speaker 2: because you sort of you have like this fear that
Speaker 2: you're like, he's always going to be there, you know,
Speaker 2: and so it's unarticulated, but I said yes because she's
Speaker 2: my mom and I didn't want her to cry. And
Speaker 2: I told you I had tried to rebel in my
Speaker 2: own way by falling in love with revolutionary guys who
Speaker 2: ended up only wanting to be closer to him and
Speaker 2: the privilege she provided. So I said yes, And this
Speaker 2: is how I came to America. And my parents returned
Speaker 2: after the marriage immediately and sat down invaded Kuwait within
Speaker 2: a month of my arrival to the States. And it
Speaker 2: led to me not seeing my family for nine years
Speaker 2: and being an abusive marriage to the arranged marriage for
Speaker 2: three months. And I escaped from him and escaped with
Speaker 2: four hundred dollars in my pockets, two suitcase full of
Speaker 2: designer clothes because you know, we were affluent in back
Speaker 2: home and I was a new bride, but designers close
Speaker 2: do not pay anything, right, you know, I had to
Speaker 2: like go to the immigration office. At that time, it
Speaker 2: was called the I S. I was just turning twenty
Speaker 2: and Iraq was already the blacklisted, you know, it was
Speaker 2: you know, the country to be feared, you know at
Speaker 2: that time in nineteen ninety.
Speaker 1: Right, I mean early in the nineties, Iraq goes into
Speaker 1: Kuwait and the Persian Gulf War starts, and so there's
Speaker 1: all this instability happening. I just want to make sure
Speaker 1: that backdrop is solidified to people's minds.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And basically I leave to America June fifteenth,
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety and August second, Iraq invades Kuwait, right, And
Speaker 2: so a month and a half after I arrived to
Speaker 2: the States, I escaped from my then husband, you know,
Speaker 2: in September, and the first Gulf War starts in January
Speaker 2: of that year. And all I can tell you is,
Speaker 2: you know, so there is this backdrop, right, and Iraq
Speaker 2: is the bad guy.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: And so at that time when I tell people I'm
Speaker 2: from Iraq, you know, and I had like this heavy
Speaker 2: accent and all of that. And there are two kinds
Speaker 2: of reactions I got in America. Either pople taking a
Speaker 2: step back thinking that I am a terrorist, you know,
Speaker 2: I'm going to kill them, or people hugging me and
Speaker 2: saying we're really sorry for what's happening to your country.
Speaker 2: And I got both reactions in truth, and if I
Speaker 2: am to count my blessing, I would say I got
Speaker 2: more welcome and more, you know, like when I told
Speaker 2: you I went to the I ins and with my
Speaker 2: return ticket as a tourist because I didn't stay long
Speaker 2: enough in the marriage to transfer whatever my paper legally right,
Speaker 2: And so I said, you tell me, I'm coming to
Speaker 2: the bee's mouth basically, you know, you tell me. This
Speaker 2: is my story, this is my ticket, this is my passport.
Speaker 2: I don't know what to do, but I need to survive,
Speaker 2: and you tell me what to do. And I left
Speaker 2: from that office, and it was I I wish I
Speaker 2: know the woman. I can describe it to her, I
Speaker 2: can even paint her, but I don't know who she is,
Speaker 2: an African American woman in the AS office. And she
Speaker 2: took me and two hours later gave me a work
Speaker 2: permit and to stay in the country and work. And
Speaker 2: that's how I end up staying in the country. And eventually,
Speaker 2: you know whatever, eventually I stand on my own feet
Speaker 2: and the rest is history.
Speaker 1: After the break, Zaynab tells us about the joy of
Speaker 1: being able to speak freely about injustices without fear and
Speaker 1: starting her nonprofit organization, Women for Women International, and just
Speaker 1: a quick note. In the second part of this interview,
Speaker 1: Zanab also talks about some of the atrocities women suffered
Speaker 1: during war, including sexual violence. In nineteen ninety three, you
Speaker 1: start Women for Women International. This was sparked mostly as
Speaker 1: I understand by your observations of what was happening during
Speaker 1: the Bosnian War. Explain to me when you became aware
Speaker 1: of what was happening during the Bosnian War.
Speaker 2: So you have this kid, imagine me, I mean the
Speaker 2: kid from Iraq, right, who grew up knowing about injustices.
Speaker 2: And the thing is I wasn't oblivious about the injustices
Speaker 2: in Iraq. I just couldn't say anything about them because
Speaker 2: you know you're in danger, endangering your family's survival if
Speaker 2: you say anything anyway. And then it was the first
Speaker 2: time I noticed another war, right, And this was in
Speaker 2: Bossi and Hertzegobina, as you said, Fromer Yugoslavia. And there
Speaker 2: were rape camps in that war. The women were given
Speaker 2: numbers and when their numbers were called, they had to
Speaker 2: go to the other room and get gang raped. There
Speaker 2: were concentration camps, mostly of Muslim population and some Crowads
Speaker 2: as well, some Catholics as well. What I do know
Speaker 2: is that I was like a fierceness in me rose
Speaker 2: because because this time I was living in a country
Speaker 2: that provided me freedom of expression, right that you can
Speaker 2: speak in here and not go to prison or get killed,
Speaker 2: at least for me. Now, America is a lot of
Speaker 2: dark history, wow and shocking way as an immigrant, right
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: But yes, yes, everyone's experience of that is different. But
Speaker 1: certainly coming from where you're coming from, which was you
Speaker 1: can't even speak freely amongst your family and your own house,
Speaker 1: your experience of the freedom here is like profound.
Speaker 2: You know, it still is, by the way, it still is.
Speaker 2: I mean when I go and then you when I
Speaker 2: whatever make any public commentary on anything, you know, and
Speaker 2: I speak my truth absolutely right, and people like just
Speaker 2: like okay. I was like, wow, the accept that I'm
Speaker 2: just saying my truth is unbelievable. I don't get punished
Speaker 2: for that, you know. So it's still like for me,
Speaker 2: freedom is so delicious. It's like chocolate, you know, to
Speaker 2: like every time I speak my truth. But anyway, so
Speaker 2: you know, unlike Iraq, where I couldn't do anything about it,
Speaker 2: in here, I could. So I demonstrated. I was twenty
Speaker 2: two years old kid, right, So I went to demonstrations
Speaker 2: and all of that, and frankly, after a while, I
Speaker 2: still have that attitude. It's like, Okay, demonstrations are good,
Speaker 2: but they're not helping the people in there. And I
Speaker 2: wanted to help the people in there. And at that time,
Speaker 2: I was newly remarried to a wonderful, wonderful man. I'm
Speaker 2: just Atallah, and I wanted to do something about basically Bosnia,
Speaker 2: and we were just newly new kids, just married. All
Speaker 2: of our friends laughed at us, said, you know, go
Speaker 2: get a job, buy a house, buy a car. What
Speaker 2: are you doing creating this organization Women for Women to
Speaker 2: help women survivors of force in countries you don't even
Speaker 2: know about, you know, Like I didn't know anything about Bosnia.
Speaker 2: But I just honestly, I can't tell you the passion
Speaker 2: I had and still have, you know, And because I
Speaker 2: still believe and my upbringing impacted that right in Iraq
Speaker 2: that one we see injustice and look the other way
Speaker 2: about and avoid it, we invariably legitimize it and allow
Speaker 2: for the corruption of our own values. Even in Iraq.
Speaker 2: I mean, I was a kid, so I can't judge myself,
Speaker 2: you know, But you know, there are people who spoke
Speaker 2: about the injustice and paid for their lives for that.
Speaker 2: But they were consistent in their values right and here
Speaker 2: while I lived in America, I had to I still
Speaker 2: have to speak about injustices. But if I avoid doing
Speaker 2: or saying something about it, then I'm legitimizing it. So
Speaker 2: it came from that value that as like I have
Speaker 2: to do something. I didn't have money, I didn't have
Speaker 2: work experience, I didn't have anything, but I did have
Speaker 2: that belief and conviction.
Speaker 1: And I want to ask you about that because, I mean,
Speaker 1: you grew up in this fairly affluent especially considering some
Speaker 1: of your compatriots in the country, sort of this affluent environment.
Speaker 1: How was it for you to be here with essentially
Speaker 1: nothing and none of the comforts you were used to?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I had a lot of comfort. What was day
Speaker 2: to day like?
Speaker 1: But I mean, really was what was day to day like?
Speaker 1: When you know?
Speaker 2: I mean, there's some of it funny. You know. My
Speaker 2: mother told me never to learn how to cook a
Speaker 2: clean because no man should expect me to know that
Speaker 2: just because I'm a woman. So I was like, shit,
Speaker 2: excuse my language was like I don't know how to
Speaker 2: cook and clean, and so I had to learn how
Speaker 2: to cook and clean to start with. You know, I
Speaker 2: was so convicted. I became my life, became the activist everything.
Speaker 2: It was like my time to like speak up against
Speaker 2: not only the injustices in Bosnia, about all the injustices
Speaker 2: that I faced in the world right. And I had
Speaker 2: Like I remember in nineteen ninety five, I was I
Speaker 2: got an award from President Clinton for being one of
Speaker 2: the six ye Terrans in America. I was twenty five
Speaker 2: years old, kid, you know, who are doing something for Bosnia?
Speaker 2: And I'm like, enter the White House with a hole
Speaker 2: in my shoes, you know, a hole in my designer
Speaker 2: shoes that I came with from Iraq, you know, but
Speaker 2: a hole in my shoes. It didn't bother me. I
Speaker 2: gotta tell you, it really didn't bother me. You know.
Speaker 2: I was. I was just I was so as I said,
Speaker 2: the freedom of speaking and acting and living my truth continues.
Speaker 2: And then particularly was so exciting for me that it
Speaker 2: didn't bother me that I didn't have money.
Speaker 1: But even beyond that, then you've started an organization, how
Speaker 1: do you know where to start? Like, how do you
Speaker 1: know where to get funds? To get money to set
Speaker 1: the sell like, can you walk me through that first year?
Speaker 2: And I don't know. There were no internets at that time, man,
Speaker 2: there was nothing.
Speaker 1: What was the first thing, What was the first few
Speaker 1: moves you made? Who'd you go talk?
Speaker 2: I tell you. I called every organization on the Yellow Pages,
Speaker 2: which I don't think they are used anymore, on every
Speaker 2: woman's organization, asking them what they're doing for Bosnia, and
Speaker 2: everyone said, ah, come after six months, come out over
Speaker 2: a year or whatever, We're not doing anything. And then
Speaker 2: one of them said, you know what, we got the
Speaker 2: exact same call from the Unitarian Church. So since you
Speaker 2: were asking about the same why don't you connect with
Speaker 2: them and see if there's something there. So at that
Speaker 2: time I already liked scratching my head to see what
Speaker 2: I can do for women in Bosnia. And I already
Speaker 2: wanted to sponsor a child in Bosnia through Save the Children,
Speaker 2: but I said, no, I don't want to do that.
Speaker 2: I want women, adults and give them cash. And so
Speaker 2: I already came up with the idea, let's sponsor adult women,
Speaker 2: let's transfer cash, and let's transfer letters and pictures to them.
Speaker 2: And the Unitarian Church invited me to present to their
Speaker 2: board of directors. I was twenty three years old. Immigrants
Speaker 2: never had a professional job. I mean I worked as
Speaker 2: secretary and salesperson at a Hallmark and at the limited Lever,
Speaker 2: but not And I borrow my father's in laws briefcase
Speaker 2: because I thought that would make me professional. And I
Speaker 2: go and present to this board of directors, which were
Speaker 2: all elderly people. When I'm here like a kid, and
Speaker 2: I said, this is what I want to do, this
Speaker 2: is what we need to do, but with conviction. And
Speaker 2: they called me an hour later said we will help
Speaker 2: you for a year, will help you get on your feet.
Speaker 2: We will help your registration, give you all the support
Speaker 2: at the beginning, and within a year you will be
Speaker 2: on your own. And Lord and behold, that is what happened.
Speaker 2: They gave me all the supports. You know, I'm not
Speaker 2: sure if they gave me money. They gave very like
Speaker 2: they We did fundraising at the church and I started
Speaker 2: speaking to churches, synagogues, mosques, schools everywhere.
Speaker 1: And your experience or no.
Speaker 2: I was speaking about we need to do something. In Bosnia,
Speaker 2: I started studying, you know, I went to school. I
Speaker 2: was at school at that time because in Iraq, I
Speaker 2: did not whatever. I left and twas third year in college,
Speaker 2: so I had to start all over again. And I
Speaker 2: was studying now about what's happening to women in war
Speaker 2: and focusing on women in Bosnia. It became one of
Speaker 2: the experts actually on the issue, and I was giving
Speaker 2: lectures and I was making so many mistakes in my English,
Speaker 2: you know, and people sat calling and saying, we want
Speaker 2: to join you on this effort. People I did not know.
Speaker 2: People said, okay, let's do it. Let's well, come, we'll
Speaker 2: join you. And at that time, I was asking for
Speaker 2: each woman to send twenty dollars a month along with
Speaker 2: a letter and a picture to a woman's survivor of
Speaker 2: war in Bosnia. And just people start calling and it's
Speaker 2: so funny you're asking me about this, because now I'm
Speaker 2: in the early stage of creating a new organization called
Speaker 2: Daughters for Earth and actually, you know, to mobilize one
Speaker 2: hundred million dollars for women let environmental efforts to protect
Speaker 2: and restore the earth. And it's almost the same thing.
Speaker 2: Here I am in my fifties, you know, people come
Speaker 2: and say we want to join you as volunteers. Come
Speaker 2: and they say, we'll help you and then little by
Speaker 2: little it becomes this professional organization. But the secret sauce,
Speaker 2: which is, I think what you're asking for is honestly
Speaker 2: not the skill is conviction, is believing because you when
Speaker 2: you ever u sat something, whether it's an enterprise or
Speaker 2: whether it's a social enterprise, you go through a lot
Speaker 2: of hurdles. You go through projections, you get through poverty,
Speaker 2: you go through you know, not knowing how to make
Speaker 2: ends meet. You go through And it's the difference between
Speaker 2: one person's dreams and the other. Is not the dream
Speaker 2: I would say, it's not even the skill sets. It's
Speaker 2: definitely not the resources. It's the perseverance and the belief
Speaker 2: that you will do that. And I think, if I
Speaker 2: am to tell you what is my secret sauce is
Speaker 2: I believe. I'm a believer in making the change I
Speaker 2: go for Wow, I believe in Yeah.
Speaker 1: When we come back, we'll hear more from Zanib about
Speaker 1: growing into a skill set and dealing with doubt when
Speaker 1: building a highly successful nonprofit. She also gives advice on
Speaker 1: how to lead and build a career with your heart
Speaker 1: throughout those first couple of years as your people are
Speaker 1: slowly but surely kind of like buying into your vision?
Speaker 1: Did that ever translate to any sense of just pressure?
Speaker 1: And like, am I actually doing the right? Is what
Speaker 1: I'm proposing actually going to make a difference? Did you
Speaker 1: deal with any of that early on?
Speaker 2: Or no, it wasn't the doubt. I didn't go through
Speaker 2: the doubt. It's so interesting you asked that the doubt
Speaker 2: did not come in the early part of my career
Speaker 2: at all. The doubt came in the height of it
Speaker 2: because I was a kid when I started this, you know,
Speaker 2: and the organization grew vertically from helping thirty three women
Speaker 2: to helping half a million women, and this is just
Speaker 2: like vertical rise, right, And you know, suddenly I'm on
Speaker 2: the Opera Winfrey Show ten times and each time we
Speaker 2: raise lots of money. Suddenly we are on the front
Speaker 2: pages of many newspapers and we're raising a lot of money.
Speaker 2: That was never a doubt. I was charging, man, I
Speaker 2: was charging. The doubt came when this is suddenly a
Speaker 2: seven hundred staff members organization with HR and management and
Speaker 2: finance and budgets. And because I did not have these
Speaker 2: skill sets, I was growing into them. And you know,
Speaker 2: if I ever have a regret, would be that period,
Speaker 2: not the early stages.
Speaker 1: You know what when would you say was was sort
Speaker 1: of the height of the organization when.
Speaker 2: You you know, it's like, you know, suddenly this organization
Speaker 2: was like operating at a thirty five million dollars annual budget.
Speaker 2: And at what point people tell you should wear a suit,
Speaker 2: you should sit in the front of the table, you
Speaker 2: should act like this, you should hire these experts, you
Speaker 2: should do that. And I do it. I did it
Speaker 2: because I didn't know, right. I didn't know, honestly, And
Speaker 2: then you start doubting your voice, your instinct because now
Speaker 2: you have experts and you need to have measurements and
Speaker 2: analysis and all of these things. And that's when I
Speaker 2: let go of my belief in my instinct right, and
Speaker 2: believe in my voice because I'm not the expert in this.
Speaker 2: I don't know how to do budgets and planning, and
Speaker 2: you know, you learn these things you're not. I did
Speaker 2: not study it. I said woman's studies, right. And that's
Speaker 2: if I have any advice to my younger self or
Speaker 2: younger anybody right as they're growing into their career, is
Speaker 2: you know, the experts really tell you to repeat things,
Speaker 2: but that doesn't necessarily means it's true. And we have
Speaker 2: shifted as a culture into so much dependency on statistics
Speaker 2: and surveys and measurements and evaluation and numbers that we
Speaker 2: tilted the other way and sat dismissing instinct, people's feelings,
Speaker 2: people's emotional reactions, and sort of it's sort of so
Speaker 2: that's when I.
Speaker 1: Lost and that stuff and that stuff has a purpose,
Speaker 1: which actually, I mean it seems to me that stuff,
Speaker 1: especially for you, was essentially that was the engine.
Speaker 2: That's word completely completely right. I mean I remember higher,
Speaker 2: you know, getting BCG who did a survey of now
Speaker 2: our hundreds of thousands of supporters and they were like
Speaker 2: renewal rates of ninety three percent over ten years, right,
Speaker 2: but they had so many complaints about this and that
Speaker 2: and all of these things, but they're so renewing and
Speaker 2: and besch like, we've never seen something like that.
Speaker 1: And consulting groups you hired consulting, consulting, consulting.
Speaker 2: Exactly, and you know what, eventually, sort of you cut
Speaker 2: yourself from your heart, which is the emotions, and you
Speaker 2: become all about tactics and numbers and and calls to do,
Speaker 2: and then the renewer rate drops the story drops right,
Speaker 2: So I came, you know where I am right now
Speaker 2: in my life, that we have tilted all the way
Speaker 2: to the other direction as a society and as not
Speaker 2: only I come from an experience of the nonprofit sectors,
Speaker 2: but I would say in all sectors, and that these
Speaker 2: numbers matters and are important, but our hearts and our
Speaker 2: instincts and our emotions are as important as important. And
Speaker 2: it's the same thing when we work with people in
Speaker 2: different cultures and different knowledge based and different education. You know,
Speaker 2: you go to the country, different countries, and you say,
Speaker 2: I have a master's degree and I am an expert
Speaker 2: on this, and you repeat what you've studied in the books,
Speaker 2: but never dismiss the people who are living and breathing
Speaker 2: their lives every day, because they have the heart, they
Speaker 2: have the instinct, they have the intuition about what works
Speaker 2: and what doesn't work. And if we put knowledge or
Speaker 2: value of knowledge only on the facts and figures and
Speaker 2: not on the instincts and emotions, we are cutting ourselves
Speaker 2: shorts from solutions, viable solutions. And so that's if I am.
Speaker 2: My biggest regret was doubting that part of myself and
Speaker 2: completely outsourcing it to the experts, and my biggest finding
Speaker 2: is the experts matters. But if it doesn't make sense,
Speaker 2: it doesn't make sense. You know, follow your hearts.
Speaker 1: Basically, this is an interesting intension. I mean, you only
Speaker 1: have your experience. You're not an expert, as you would say,
Speaker 1: in terms of how to grow nonprofit But how do
Speaker 1: you think nonprofits can grow to the point that they
Speaker 1: have EAHR departments and are bringing in millions and millions
Speaker 1: of dollars and need to hire consulting groups to sort
Speaker 1: of look at how the organization is being run without
Speaker 1: losing that sort of purpose, that sense of purpose. Is it?
Speaker 1: Is it possible? Or do the organizations need to be
Speaker 1: capped that are certain you know a number of people
Speaker 1: or just curious what you think about that.
Speaker 2: You know, it's an important question, and I do not
Speaker 2: think it is being discussed in an open and honest
Speaker 2: way at the moment in our world, especially as a
Speaker 2: nonprofit sector. A lot of the nonprofit sector, the way
Speaker 2: it is structured, the laws around it, the fundraising around it,
Speaker 2: is still operating in a very dated way, dated societal
Speaker 2: ways you know of having to have you know, board
Speaker 2: members who can give you money but not necessarily reflective
Speaker 2: of the constituents that you are working for and with.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of issues in my opinion, the nonprofit sector,
Speaker 2: but ultimately it boils down to and then and then
Speaker 2: you know, donors. I'm sorry one more like want to
Speaker 2: see growth, but growth is not necessarily always the mechanism
Speaker 2: or the measure for success, right, So I don't think
Speaker 2: it's discussed widely. It's also the cause. It takes on
Speaker 2: our souls. I mean I you know, I left one
Speaker 2: at home and after twenty years of running and leaving
Speaker 2: the organization and at that time eighteen years as a CEO,
Speaker 2: and then another two years in the board. But at
Speaker 2: that time when I left it, I was there was
Speaker 2: nothing left in me, you know, Like I went for
Speaker 2: I became very big and it was successful, but I
Speaker 2: paid the price. I remember one night I was staying
Speaker 2: late in the office working and a colleague of mine
Speaker 2: did not know, upsol in the office and opened the
Speaker 2: door to leave a file and only to see me crying,
Speaker 2: you know, to catch me crying, and she said, what's
Speaker 2: going on? And I looked at her and I was like,
Speaker 2: I created my monster. I created it took over my
Speaker 2: life and so there is no room to talk about
Speaker 2: how do we maintain our sanity and our mental health
Speaker 2: and well being while working on the hardest issues of
Speaker 2: the world, and while having limited resources to how to
Speaker 2: manage them and how to deal with them. With the
Speaker 2: issues that you were dealing with.
Speaker 1: What were what are some of the stories of the
Speaker 1: women that you helped that you recall, because of course
Speaker 1: you did have great successes, but of course there's this
Speaker 1: other side to it. You're talking about your it's you know,
Speaker 1: what were some of the women that you helped going.
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, there's so many stories. Let me just say
Speaker 2: it this way. They're mostly horrendously horrible stories that I
Speaker 2: would come home and just sob for a day until,
Speaker 2: you know, just to process what I had witness. And
Speaker 2: they are also amazing stories of triumph of spirits. The
Speaker 2: Afghan woman Yakuba, who was telling me how she got
Speaker 2: married as a child because her father lost to a
Speaker 2: bet and she was the payoff basically instead of the money,
Speaker 2: and how then her husband dies when she was sixteen
Speaker 2: years old and just had a baby and had to
Speaker 2: be selling hats in the streets and one day the
Speaker 2: Taliban saw her with the shoes and open sandal, basically
Speaker 2: showing her toes and came off the truck and sat
Speaker 2: whipping her. And in the middle of the whipping, she
Speaker 2: holds the Taliban hand and she says stop it. And
Speaker 2: there he's so shocked that she did that that he
Speaker 2: actually leaves her alone. And by the time she's telling
Speaker 2: me the story, she had already sent her child into college,
Speaker 2: she was going back to school, and she was employing
Speaker 2: I think forty women at that time, running a small business.
Speaker 2: Right to a Congolese woman who practically changed my life
Speaker 2: because you know, up until then, I was just making
Speaker 2: it all about the woman that I was helping and
Speaker 2: the poor woman in war zones, and not thinking that
Speaker 2: I or even the money that the woman that I
Speaker 2: was raising money from had stories. Right, It's all about
Speaker 2: the poor woman. Until I sat down in front of
Speaker 2: nanb to a Congolise woman and she was telling me
Speaker 2: about how she was raped and her daughters were raped
Speaker 2: and her house was burnt. And at one point she
Speaker 2: looked at me and she said, I never told the
Speaker 2: story but you, And I was like, well, do you
Speaker 2: want me to keep it a secret? Because I am
Speaker 2: a storyteller. That's how I tell the stories, raise awareness,
Speaker 2: raise money, and bring it back to your country. And
Speaker 2: she looked at me and she said, if I can
Speaker 2: tell the whole world about what happened to me, I
Speaker 2: would so other women would not have to go through
Speaker 2: what I've gone through. But I can't tell the world.
Speaker 2: You can. You go ahead and tell everyone, just not
Speaker 2: the neighbors. And that woman changed my life because I realized,
Speaker 2: as an educated, new class woman, I was making the
Speaker 2: stories of women's oppression only about them. And I was like, Oh,
Speaker 2: it's about these poor women and not me, right, or
Speaker 2: not my daughters or whatever. And I realized, no, we
Speaker 2: actually are all part of the story, and when we
Speaker 2: do not break our silence speak our truth, we are
Speaker 2: perpetuating our violence, or the violence against women or any
Speaker 2: injustices for that matter. So it's what we think of
Speaker 2: all these poor women. They are our teachers. And they
Speaker 2: taught me almost everything I know actually about life and
Speaker 2: how to value life and how to enjoy life.
Speaker 1: How do you feel you evolved personally from the time
Speaker 1: you started the organization to the to now. You know
Speaker 1: now you're out of it now, you know, eleven years
Speaker 1: starting a new thing. But but how did you grow personally.
Speaker 2: If I started my career shouting out of the broadness
Speaker 2: of my chest. You know, as I work on integrating
Speaker 2: between my values and whether I am implementing them in
Speaker 2: myself or just speaking about them. When I went through
Speaker 2: that journey towards myself, I came out of it as
Speaker 2: an activist. I a would say, speaking from the length
Speaker 2: of my spine. I became more compassionate even with those
Speaker 2: who I oppose, uh, and to understand understanding that change
Speaker 2: is not easy. That if I am just lecturing people
Speaker 2: and screaming at them, I am as much guilty of
Speaker 2: building a wall as I am accusing them of building
Speaker 2: a wall. That I came out of it a different
Speaker 2: kind of an activist. I always say, much more, much
Speaker 2: more realizing how we could be what we are fighting against,
Speaker 2: and that we it takes a lot of effort and
Speaker 2: discipline to become in true alignments with our values, and
Speaker 2: that it is dangerous if we're not aware of how
Speaker 2: we can become what we're fighting against. I look at
Speaker 2: America right now, and a lot of the censoring that
Speaker 2: is happening of books, for example, or of speakers in
Speaker 2: different colleges, and at the beginning, you say, oh, it's
Speaker 2: a conservative speaker, I don't care about her whatever. But
Speaker 2: eventually your liberal progressive friend is censored as much as
Speaker 2: that conservative person is. And that's when you realize, oh,
Speaker 2: this is reminding me of back home. This is like,
Speaker 2: this is the beginning of fascism when we do not
Speaker 2: have tolerance to truly engage in discussions with views that
Speaker 2: we do not agree with. Right And so, you know,
Speaker 2: I wish I can embark that. I was like, you know, please,
Speaker 2: you know, be careful, be careful that you know, the
Speaker 2: freedom that this country provided the is not to be
Speaker 2: taken for granted. And I frankly, I see a lot
Speaker 2: of signs of it that is being chipped away, and
Speaker 2: not only by one side, I would say, by our
Speaker 2: own We can lose ourselves and our righteousness, you know,
Speaker 2: and we have to be careful on how we go
Speaker 2: about it to create valid change.
Speaker 1: Zane, what's next for you? You've gone through this journey inward,
Speaker 1: You've had this long, amazing career and you with this
Speaker 1: incredible life that's kind of like a testament to the
Speaker 1: human spirit and to our ability to adapt and survive
Speaker 1: and drive and still love other people do it all.
Speaker 1: What's next?
Speaker 2: Well, I am putting all my energy right now and
Speaker 2: excitement and believe is like my air is in Daughters
Speaker 2: for Earth, which is a campaign and a fund I
Speaker 2: co founded with Jody Allen to mobilize one hundred million
Speaker 2: dollars for women let environmental changes, particularly to restore and
Speaker 2: protect the Earth and shift to our agriculture in a
Speaker 2: kinder way to Earth. And based on the principle that
Speaker 2: the first thing we can do to solve climate change
Speaker 2: is actually to protect fifty percent of Earth. Like, this
Speaker 2: is something you and I, all of us can do
Speaker 2: as humanity, and this is doable. We don't need to
Speaker 2: wait for technology to extract some carbon from you know,
Speaker 2: the skies where we can do it now. And women
Speaker 2: are very active in that, particularly that efforts around the world,
Speaker 2: particularly indigenous women, and so Daughters for Earth is to
Speaker 2: is finding them, putting resources behind them, and mobilizing women
Speaker 2: in different communities to be part of the daughterhood and
Speaker 2: to create change in their personal and communal lives for
Speaker 2: Mother Earth.
Speaker 1: Well, best of luck in this new endeavor.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Where they're lucky to have you, the Earth is lucky
Speaker 1: to have you. I'm sure. You know you'll foindw some
Speaker 1: great resources towards you know.
Speaker 2: I tell you if Earth was a friend, she would
Speaker 2: have broken up with us a long time ago, for
Speaker 2: we have not been good friends to her. But you
Speaker 2: know there's always time to correct that.
Speaker 1: You know it's true. I hope we do. Lord knows,
Speaker 1: I hope we do. Thank you so much, Dane. I
Speaker 1: appreciate you taking the time.
Speaker 2: Pleasure, pleasure, pleasure. It's truly wonderful speaking with you, and
Speaker 2: appreciate your questions and your presence.
Speaker 1: Thank you, ZANEB. Sally. What else can I say about
Speaker 1: her other than she's a true inspiration. I've had a
Speaker 1: lot of conversations in my life with people who are
Speaker 1: getting degrees and want to use them to help others.
Speaker 1: Their passion may be to serve, but they're not sure
Speaker 1: it's actually financially viable for themselves. But Zay't have shown
Speaker 1: you can choose to live a life of service without
Speaker 1: ignoring your own needs also, but the two ideas aren't
Speaker 1: mutually exclusive. We're going to continue highlighting stories like these,
Speaker 1: showing the true breadth and depth of success that exists
Speaker 1: out there. We'll be back with more next week. Start
Speaker 1: from the Bottom is produced by David Jah, edited by
Speaker 1: Keishaw Williams, Engineered by Ben Taliday, booked by Laura Morgan
Speaker 1: with production help from Lea Rose. The show is executive
Speaker 1: produced by Jacob Goldstein, Who's not all up in the
Speaker 1: videos for Pushkin Industries. Our theme musics by Bentaliday and
Speaker 1: David Jaw featuring Anthony Aggs and Savannah Joe Lack. Listen
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Speaker 1: us on your podcast app. I'm justin Richmond.