Moving away from fear

Acumen Fund CEO Jacqueline Novogratz is currently in Pakistan, and, as usual, she is keeping a journal.

Karachi, Pakistan - September 1, 2006

After a day of meetings in London, I flew into the Karachi airport. This time has been a reflective one for me, as we’ve been working on Acumen Fund’s five-year report.

Our history will be forever tied to two significant moments in time. First, the 2000 dot.com implosion. We were incorporated a year later on April 1, 2001. I remember someone telling me I should look at the crash as a good thing, for if we weathered the tough fundraising environment, we would be in good shape when things improved. Second, September 11. We were scheduled to move into our offices near Ground Zero on that day. That proximity reaffirmed our feeling that it was the moment to reach out to the world and precipitated our work – and growing relationship – with Pakistan, a country whose people I have grown to love and admire and whose geopolitical importance in the world I have come to understand.

When you start an organization, you have a roadmap for the world. Inevitably, the world changes – and just as with a child, the organization’s personality and way of being in the world change too, becoming a mix of its original DNA and the external environment.

I don’t think we could have imagined how much the world would change after 9-11. The 1990s, especially in the U.S., was such a freewheeling, optimistic, narcissistic era, when at least some people thought the good times could and maybe even would last forever. When I was first looking for funds in the start-up year, many people would answer that they were not interested in giving globally. We had our own problems to clean up, they would say, so why put money down rat holes in foreign lands when everyone knew aid didn’t work? Then the Twin Towers fell – and everything changed.

The U.S. bombed Afghanistan and then invaded Iraq with no real plan for reconstruction that recognized the complexity of that country. Major terrorist attacks hit Madrid and London. Civil rights were curtailed in the U.S. and Europe, and Islamophobia grew, as did fundamentalism the world over. The world has spent billions on security and on the military, and suicide bombers and deaths of soldiers have become such a regular part of the news that they are hardly noticed anymore. We have numbed ourselves to the growing violence. Most troubling of all in the past five years: we have become a world where politics and governance are increasingly fear-based.

This development is troubling on two counts. First, in these same five years, much has improved in dramatic ways that we too often forget. The world has woken up to the plight of Africans dying from AIDS and to a continent in need of more productive support. It also has recognized (hopefully) that we are facing a climate crisis that will affect every life on earth, especially the lives of poor people living in poor countries. The booming economies of India and China have moved hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, and we are finding new innovations to improve human lives weekly. I see a growing circle of talented individuals with the imagination and commitment, the skills and the contacts to make huge change in the world. That may be what gives me the most of hope of all. In many ways, this century could be one that moves from an era of Information to one of Transformation, both personal and institutional.

To get there, we have to move away from fear. We must fight the urge to push against otherness and move toward it instead. In London, in nearly every conversation, I found myself hearing about the “Pakistani problem” in England. “The Pakistanis in Leeds and Birmingham keep to themselves and don’t want to assimilate,” I was told. “It was because of the Muslims that forced marriage is still legal in England and that is just wrong.” “We really have a problem here – one of alienation of Pakistanis who in turn are alienating everyone around them. This last episode [regarding the plot to blow up several planes simultaneously] has made other British people really fearful.” I’ve never heard such comments as consistently as during my day in London.

But fear isn’t restricted to Europe. Pakistanis feel it as well. I knew as I flew into Karachi that the city was in the midst of a major strike and, consequently, in lock-down mode where everything was closed. A major tribal leader had been killed by the government, and people across the country – including the middle class and moderates – were up in arms that the government would do this. There had been rioting and violence in the streets, and no one knew what would happen on the day of the funeral. When I arrived, I was conscious of my skirt that covered my knees but not my ankles, more conscious of being American than ever before.

Our country manager, Aun Rahman, met me along with a security person (thanks to Siraj Dadabhoy, as always) at the airport. As I walked out into the bright light, I could see only the silhouettes of the people waiting to greet family and friends – few women were there. In the background were the yellow arches of McDonalds…

Aun had brought a white scarf to cover my head just in case we ran into trouble, but the streets were quiet and life felt completely normal. Still, I was more alert than usual.

At the hotel, I went to take a quick swim before starting the day. A hotel worker told me the pool was closed, and I asked him if there was any way I could swim anyway. He looked at me and then smiled and said it was ok. So I continued and it was delicious.

In the elevator, wrapped in a robe and wearing tennis shoes, I stood awkwardly when a conservative family stepped in. The man was bearded and the woman completely veiled except for her eyes. Their young daughter also wore a veil over her head but not across her face and she had the most beautiful, impish smile. The mother and I looked across at one another, women from different universes. I gave her the biggest smile I could and said hello in English. She tentatively asked me in English if I liked Pakistan. I told her I’d been here dozens of times before and that, in fact, I loved this country and had learned so much about generosity and family from its people. She and her husband both clapped their hands and said it was so nice that I liked Pakistan and that they hoped I had a very good time here. The doors opened, the daughter shook my hand and the family stepped out.

I stood there waiting for my floor, thinking about the distancing power of even the tiniest dose of fear and how little it can take to move right through it, at least to start a process of discovery. The question is how to build more opportunity for real discovery. That must start with curiosity, with openness and admitting one’s own flaws, with not thinking you have all of the answers.

We’re trying to build that culture in our own small way at Acumen Fund. The question is how to do that on a much larger scale.