Global Changemakers

On Mondays, http://www.global-changemakers.net turns into Speakers’ Corner: members of the network and community have their say on their work and the issues that concern them.

Wasta

Today I was sitting in a bank, waiting in line for my number to be called. There were 100 numbers left before me and I had already been waiting for an hour. Yet somehow people who were coming in after me seemed to be finishing before me. I could hear the men behind me muttering about “Wasta” and complaining about it before they finally got fed up and went to report it to the head of the bank.

For those not from the Middle East I have been trying to translate “Wasta” to English for years: Google translates it as “Means, Agency, Intermediary, Instrumentation”. I, like most translator and researchers, just say “using one’s connections”. Except that may not always be a negative thing. We Global Changemakers are considered a network. We can call, email and contact each other at any moment asking for help on a project. That is considered in a way “using our connections”, right? Except that Wasta in my culture always has a negative connotation. It’s using one’s connections to get something they don’t necessarily deserve. It’s a global problem, isn’t it? More of a problem in some countries than others, but still, it’s global. I was in the States once trying to pay for some stuff I had bought and the girl on the counter saw her friend trying to pay for something so she let her go through first. In the Middle East, though, I wish it was as small as that.

In my country, Palestine, unemployment was reported to be 23% in 2009 (this means that almost 100,000 people are unemployed, that may not seem much but Palestine’s population is only a little above the 4 million with 50% of it under the age of 18), therefore it is very crucial for people to find jobs. However, most can’t find any without having Wasta. This can be devastating for newly graduates hoping to find a job as soon as they finish school. It is a known fact here that in a lot of cases, it does not matter how qualified you are, how many languages you know or how experienced you are. What really matters is: who do you know? Who are you related to? It’s the quickest, most efficient way to find work.

Moreover, Wasta in Palestine is looking very much like corruption. I have heard many complaints from people about cases being dropped in a police station and never even reaching court because someone is related or is friends with a police man. It also affects the education system in my country. An official here was given the right to hand out scholarships to outstanding students who financially can’t attend a university. The university that trusted this official is somewhere abroad and most of these scholarships are for medical school. This official, however, does not necessarily follow that criterion. He often gives them to people in the village he was born in, the sons and daughters of his friends or party members, his neighbors, etc.

There are many more examples I can give but that’s not the point. The point is Wasta,  connections, whatever you wish to call it, is like a never ending cycle and it’s our duty to somehow break this cycle. I’ve been thinking about this issue for a while and many ideas came to my mind some more complicated than others but none simple. In the end however, it came to me that a way to end this cycle is maybe to just simply start with ourselves. It is very easy to use Wasta and easy ways aren’t always wrong. However, it is our duty as responsible citizens of this world to recognise when an easy way is not necessarily the right way and say “No, it’s not fair, I won’t achieve what I want this way.”

       
- Lubna Alzaroo, Global Changemaker

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