Leadership Inspiration from Tahrir Square

Keynote Speech By Egyptian Public Speaker Sahar El-Nadi

His Majesty King Carl XVI Gustaf Young Leadership Seminar At The Swedish Royal Palace
Thursday 26 April 2012

Your Majesty Your Royal Highness Excellencies Leaders of today and leaders of tomorrow
Its a great honor for me to be here today as an Egyptian Muslim woman, thank you very much for inviting me, and congratulations to the young leaders who

received scholarships today, I wish them success in making this a better world for all of us to enjoy.
As you know, I come from Cairo, home of the famous Tahrir Square, and I have been taking part in the ongoing Egyptian Revolution, which is creating monumental changes, not just for us in Egypt but also for the world. Over the past year, people have demonstrated in over 80 countries and 900 cities on every inhabited continent. They borrowed themes from Tahrir Square and echoed the demands of the Egyptian people for freedom and social justice. Im certainly proud to have participated in removing a corrupt dictatorship and replacing it with an ethical leadership. Under oppression, leadership is forbidden. Its seen as a direct threat to the dictator. But because of the bravery of Egyptians, in a few weeks, we will be voting to choose our president for the first time ever in our long history. Today, Id like to share with you some valuable leadership inspiration I have gained firsthand in Tahrir Square. Its logical to begin by asking: who is the leader of the Egyptian revolution? well, it is said to be leaderless, since there was no specific person leading the millions who went to the streets to demand their rights. However, I think I know the real leader of the Egyptian revolution: none other than Mr. Mubarak himself! The first lesson Ive learnt in Tahrir is that bad leaders can actually help create good leaders. Through their bad example, people know exactly what they dont want in a leader, and even start examining their own leadership skills to see if perhaps they can do a better job. I call this leadership by bad example and I certainly hope this is not the kind of leader you want to be. Good leadership creates change, and change inevitably creates resistance, or even confrontation. However, difficult times are a blessing in disguise, because while testing our values in application, we learn that our capabilities far outweigh our limitations. 2

And in the process, some totally unexpected leaders are made. We used to think of a leader as someone imposing and charismatic, but some of the natural leaders I have met in Tahrir were only 7 years old, others were simple rural women and unemployed young men, previously regarded as a threat to society, not as valuable human resources. As you might know, the average age in Egypt is 24 years, which means that its actually the young Egyptians who are leading 85 million citizens + hundreds of millions worldwide to rise against injustice and to build a better future. That is what young leadership is capable of doing: nothing short of changing the world! For example, last month, over 1000 Egyptian men and women from all over Egypt have applied to the elections committee to be president. Only a year ago, this was unthinkable! So, the lack of a leader in the revolution did not mean the lack of leadership. In Tahrir, everyone was an efficient self-leader, and together we formed a strong team with a collective vision and a solid determination to create change, regardless of the sacrifice. I was amazed to see simple Egyptians proving that crowds can be much smarter than the smartest people in them. When masses of average people were free and in charge, they did not turn into looters, instead, they followed the lead of their values and created a Utopia we all enjoyed for 18 days. Even in the face of life-threatening brutality, we kept the revolution peaceful, so, we literally brought down a tenacious dictator with the sheer power of ethics. No doubt, this was a life-changing experience. Suddenly, every problem had a solution, because so many people pooled their resources and applied their values. It was amazing being among them; it was like being at the center of a massive beating heart. You couldnt resist joining hands and working hard to do your best. Of course we were eager to replicate this experience in rebuilding our country. And this is when we faced an even harder battle! I once read a story about a Soviet official who cooperated with foreign intelligence to bring down the Soviet Union, his only task was to always hire the worst possible candidate for every job, eventually the entire system collapsed.

Apparently we had many of him in the previous regime! I remembered his story when we lived for many weeks without any administration. Amazingly, those were the most organized weeks I have ever experienced in Cairo in my lifetime! After removing the dictator, volunteer citizens did the policing; trash collecting and traffic organizing, and suddenly, life ran as efficiently as it should in a modern state. Except, there was no state! The people were the state! From this unusual experience, I learnt that a failed leadership is not just useless but actually destructive, and Ive also seen how a sense of ownership sparks peoples involvement in leveraging a system. If this has happened spontaneously in a struggling country of 85 million people, half of them illiterate, then it can certainly happen in a well-managed organization anywhere in the world. Theres an ancient Arabian proverb that says: "Because I have suffered thirst, I will dig a well so others may drink." This is whats happening in Egypt right now. We are struggling to establish democracy, human rights and the rule of law because we have suffered under tyranny, oppression, and lawlessness. Through my work in cross-cultural communication, Ive learnt to use the same principles of diversity to connect with people from different social levels in the same society. So while in Tahrir, I spent a lot of time with simple Egyptians who hardly had any education; yet they were not at all ignorant. They had a lot of awareness and self-motivation. They took risks, created solutions, inspired others and made massive change happen, all without realizing how skilled they were at transformational leadership. Constant hardships offered them precious life lessons that we cannot learn in a classroom. I learnt from them to be brave enough to take risks, to be strong enough to embrace my human weakness, and to live life with a content smile. They showed me that those who are less privileged are not merely venues for charity, but valuable sources of inspiration. I once sat next to a German scientist on a long flight, he had volunteered in the UN Peace Corps in Bosnia, so I asked him what he learnt from the experience. He said it was a life-changing discovery that he wasnt there as the savior for some helpless refugees, but that they actually had the strength and wisdom to save him from some of his own weaknesses.

Over the past months in Egypt, our perception of the concept of leadership is changing drastically to finally include us, the Egyptian people. We have seen how the true leaders in Tahrir valued the people, whose role is instrumental in creating change as they turn a leaders ideas into reality. We have learnt that transformational leaders dont create followers, they create more leaders, and together they achieve. Thats why Im impressed that the Swedish Royal Palace is a place for sharing knowledge. Until recently, I wouldnt even dare to walk close to the Egyptian Presidential Palace, let alone go inside to learn and discuss. So, this interactive connection with the public Im experiencing here now is a lesson I will take home with me to contribute to our new democracy. In addition to learning from other nations, were also rediscovering the inspiration in our own Arab & Muslim heritage; precious knowledge that was hidden from us for decades. There are many references in Islamic history to the brave men and women who embraced revolutionary ideas, at a time when nonconformists were severely punished. There are also several great rulers who humbly asked their people to correct them when they made mistakes and thanked them when they did so. Back then, men, women and non-Muslims enjoyed the free speech and democracy we struggle to restore. But for so long, we seem to have preserved the legends and lost the lessons. We are now realizing the possibilities of learning from our past to resolve the challenges of our future. And so, Im happy that many Egyptian revolutionaries, journalists and politicians who have impressed the world over the past year were women. I'll never forget a shy young woman who came on her own to Tahrir from a small village she had never left before. When I asked her why, she said simply: my country needs me. The following day, I found her with a group of young women from her village; she had influenced them to come too, just one day after achieving her own transformation! Womens courage in standing up to oppression was a strong reminder that Muslim women have already been political and public leaders long ago. For example, 1400 years ago, lady Aisha was in charge at a very critical political time in Islamic history, yet she excelled in political engagement, public speaking,

scholarship, and even military leadership; by modern standards, she would be a famous politician, a full professor and an army general all in one. Her leadership style offers a powerful model for women even today. More recently, Egyptian women were the 1st Arab women to be members of parliament in the 1950s, and the first all-women mass demonstration in Tahrir Square was actually in 1919 against occupation. This history of womens leadership is now resurfacing to inspire young women in the entire region. Sometimes, we all look for inspiration everywhere and forget to look in our own backyard. Rumi, the famous Persian poet once said: "The inspiration you seek is already within you. Just be silent and listen." That doesnt mean being self-centered or isolated from the world, but rather, that we all have the same universal values deep within our hearts. And as an advocate of tolerance and diversity, I believe that those values can connect us across race, color and creed. To be true to my words, heres a story from my cultural heritage related to our topic today: Prophet Muhammad explained ethics-based global leadership in a simple analogy, he said: Imagine a group of people on a ship. Some of them got seats in the upper deck, and the others in the lower. When the ones below needed water, they had to go up to bring it, so they said: lets drill a hole in our share of the ship below deck to get water without disturbing those above us. If the people in the upper deck let them do what they wanted, all the people of the ship would be destroyed, but if they prevented them with gentleness & wisdom, both groups would be safe and the ship would reach its destination. I think this analogy perfectly relates to our world today. We have all suffered the consequences of the dangerous notion that the ends justify the means while actually, noble ends can only be attained through ethical means. We, the people of the world, are the passengers on the same global ship. Some of us are on the top deck with more resources and better global awareness, and others are on the lower deck, perhaps with fewer resources but precious life lessons. If we shared our collective resources, and reached out to each other through our universal values, we could then save the boat together. I believe that the better world we all want is coming!

It's just waiting for us to allow our values to lead the way. Thank you.