Why being Palestinian has greatly influenced my life choices and the business that I started
In some ways it seems inevitable that my two sisters ended up in the careers that they did.
One is a doctor and the other a human rights lawyer and this is no coincidence considering our heritage.
What is our heritage?
Our parents are Palestinian immigrants to the UK, moving here in the late 1960s displaced by the 1967 war.
Finding themselves studying outside of the West Bank and Gaza when the war broke out it meant that, after Israel won the war and occupied both areas, they were not able to return there to live.
Instead they moved to the UK so my dad could undertake a PhD “whilst the fallout from the war cleared up”; whether this would be a permanent home they were unsure but they certainly hoped that they they would be able to return to Palestine whenever they wanted and that was the ethos that they brought to family life as we were growing up.
That belief that we would be allowed to return flowed through in the languages we learnt, the food we ate, the friendships we made, the culture we adopted, the way we conducted ourselves and more.
As the years rolled by this right of return continued to be elusive but, as many of our family were still based there, as soon as we had British passports we began visiting the West Bank annually to see grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and friends.
As a child, it seemed a blissful place, one we associated with climbing trees, playing in the street, eating a host of delicious sweets and more.
That was until Easter 1987 when, in the build up to the first intifada, we were caught in the crossfire one night when the Israeli army stormed through my dad’s hometown looking for activists.
I won’t go into the details but I still remember the explosions, the tear gas, the guns and more. As an impressionable 7 year old it was certainly hard to forget.
Because of that incident, our naivety was shattered and we learnt the harsh truth about the division between Palestinians and Israelis; it would be 8 years before we returned.
Over subsequent years, when the situation permitted it, we would visit as often as we could but it wasn’t easy.
For me I decided to also do some longer stays in the West Bank to really learn more about the culture: In my university years I spent summers studying at Birzeit university and in my mid 20s I worked at An-Najah University in Nablus.
As an adult, I became acutely aware of the lopsided nature of 2 peoples from the same race who lived side-by-side ; it was deeply frustrating to realise that I was treated as a different class of citizen simply because of my roots (and let’s be clear I was treated a lot better than Palestinians that didn’t have a British passport) — the disparity in equality for everyday Palestinians was shocking and permeating.
As a Palestinian you have no rights to travel freely even within the Occupied Territories, you constantly need permission from Israeli officials to do the most mundane of daily activities and most things (water, electricity, telecommunications, education, jobs, etc) were ultimately at the behest of a more powerful party.
Heck, I didn’t even get treated equally as other Brits; every time I travelled to Palestine as a UK citizen, I would be pulled from the immigration queue and subjected to endless hours of searches and questioning (some of it acutely personal) before I was allowed to enter the country.
What has this got to do with my life choices and Shiageto?
Wherever you sit on the “Nature vs Nurture” continuum , it is hard to avoid the impact your experiences and beliefs have on your future decisions.
For me personally. whilst there were invariably other factors too, my experience of seeing Palestinians lacking an equal voice inspired me to make many key decisions that would ultimately lead to the creation of Shiageto.
One of these was my decision at the age of 17 to go and spend a year living in a little village in the mountains of Nepal, a place where the disparity with where I had grown up (London) was acute and I spent my year teaching English and doing development work (a small drop in the ocean of trying to improve equal access for the villagers).
Once I got to university, my 4 years of welfare roles in student life was my attempt to support other students who were going through tough times and ensure that their experience was not impacted.
Post university I went onto a first career as a school teacher; a noble profession and a definite nod to attempting to lend a helping hand to as many young people as possible [something I have continued to do as a school governor, an independent volunteer to foster kids and as a Trustee of educational charities for the last 15 years since I left teaching].
Sure, my years in the corporate world (first in the energy world and then as a strategy consultant) aren’t natural selections for someone keen to promote equality but it is how I handled myself in those careers that resonated with my striving for equality.
I invariably focused on the people every time in my work; I made a concentrated effort to get to know as many people as possible, to integrate them as much as possible into whatever project I was involved in, to connect them to someone who could help them, to listen to their problems and to try and find a solution.
My dream working day has always been 8 hours of coffees and catch ups even if it means the detriment of my own work (and having to work into the night to make up for it).
This ethos invariably flowed into the culture of Shiageto but more than that it is actually the reason I set up Shiageto.
How do we apply this ethos at Shiageto?
Looking at the work we do at Shiageto: Although we focus on strategy and effectiveness, the way we do it is all about challenging biases whilst getting greater inclusivity and psychological safety into teams and companies which in turn delivers so much strategic benefit (i.e. increase in profits and key metrics).
For us one of our key tenants that we constantly preach is to follow the Platinum rule :
“Treat others how they would wish to be treated”
This means not just treating them how others treat them or applying your own standards but identifying and empathising with their specific needs, their challenges. This means not just making generalised assumptions or taking things at face-value.
It’s about including them as part of the wider group and communicating to them in a way that works well for them; you have to understand the person and genuinely want to support them.
Every team, every business has lop-sided relationships and hierarchies (often unintentional) which means that people are not included as much as they could be which is detrimental to them and the company.
Quite simply, through our facilitation and training, we are attempting to be the most inclusive person for the most people in the room and building leaders that do the same.
This is an approach that I carry on in my personal life as well.
It is evident that, consciously and subconsciously, one of my key passions is to unlock equality in every community that I am lucky to interact with — this is surely not a coincidence considering my roots.
And that brings me back to my sisters
I can’t speak for them directly but I’ve always believed that one of the key factors for their career choices has been a similar desire for equality; one in the arena of health and the other in the arena of human rights — sure pushy immigrant parents might also have been a factor 😉.
Heck, my other sibling works in data and perhaps he is driven by a desire to provide equal access to data 🤷.
Would I be doing something different if I wasn’t Palestinian?
Being Palestinian would certainly not be everyone’s dream choice of origin but for me it is an absolute privilege to be Palestinian; like many a Palestinian, it has driven me in so many ways to do so many great things that help society, of which Shiageto is the latest.
I can’t say whether I would still have created Shiageto if I wasn’t Palestinian but I certainly wouldn’t change it for even a moment.
I may not be able to influence global matters and bring equality to the Middle East but through Shiageto and my other endeavours, I will strive to make as many of the environments that I interact with have the most level playing field of equality and prosperity for as many people as possible.
Someday I hope for that same equality and prosperity for Palestine.
Faris
Faris is the CEO and Founder of Shiageto Consulting, an innovative consultancy that helps firms and individuals sharpen their effectiveness. Connect with him here
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