Old "The Post Gazette" article on my work for the CF

Message of Muslim soldier intended to help troops see humanity

Speech prepared to remind Task Force 107 of the humanity of the Afghan people.

By Andrew McGilligan
For This Week [Saturday, October 14, 2006]

By his own admission 2Lt. Saeed Fotohinia’s appearance is a contradiction.

“Take a minute to see the image before you. First you may notice I am Middle-Eastern by appearance; then you may notice I am military by dress

“As an image I at once fit the profile of a terrorist and an anti-terrorist,” he said “A vivid oxymoron in green and brown, juxtaposed against a glorious red and white.”

Fotohinia, who was born in Iran and raised in Vancouver and Montreal, is more than a talking metaphor.

He’s an academic, a man of faith and a soldier all wrapped up into one.

He has some big ideas that flow out of a little blue office at the St. Mary’s Chapel in CFB Gagetown.

Educated at McGill University where he studied military history, he joined the Canadian Forces as an officer in January 2005.

Since coming to CFB Gagetown, Fotohinia, along with Senior Chaplain Maj. John Organ, has started the Centre for Middle Easter Relations (CMER) for the Canadian Forces in Gagetown.

“The faith tradition in the Canadian Forces seems rather homogenous up to this point and a lot of work and energy will be used to broaden that homogeneity to Muslims, Jews, and anybody of any major faith tradition,” Fotohinia said.

The idea is to first meet the demand for prayer space on base for members of the Muslim tradition and expand from there.

“Beyond that we’d like to set up some area where Muslims, and people of Middle Easter background, can feel as though there’s something of their own, a space they can connect to and have some type of ownership over it,” he said.

In addition to those of the Muslim faith, he envisions the centre beign a source of information and knowledge for soldiers seeking to expand their knowledge about the region and faiths associated with it.

However, the main goal for Fotohinia and Organ revolves around a speech, a message they want to relay to soldiers heading to Afghanistan and the population at large.

“We want to meet the portrayal of Muslims and the Middle Eastern world in the mainstream media today with a more positive portrayal that uncovers the elements that are quite valuable and inherent in the Muslim and Middle Easter world,” he said.

He hopes to deliver a prepared speech to Task Force 107 upon their deployment to Afghanistan.

Helping soldiers remember the humanity of those in the Middle East and not dehumanizing their enemy is what he hopes to accomplish if given the chance to speak with the Task Force.

“Canada has historically paved the way for peace and has been free of the idea that we have been fighting wars to extend our financial interest or conquest.

“We’re in a position to say this and to say this in front of Task Force 107 is a powerful way of doing that,” he said.

Fotohinia sees this message as important in trying to win the hearts and minds of the average Afghan living through the current conflict.

He sees the message as making the West seem like people Afghans can relate to.

The West cannot continue to view those who oppose the Canadian Forces as all powerful terrorists whose minds cannot be altered, he said.

“They’re impressionable, just like we are, to good ideas and positive goals,” he said.

Instead of antagonizing those in the region with what is typically shown in the media, the message he wants to convey will speak not only to those who oppose the West, but people in the region who are in the middle; those who are not extremists and are looking to make a living and feed their family.

“By getting this message out there we hope it will be the beginning of opening a discourse with that region that would be level and hopefully they’ll accept some of the values the West and Canadian Forces have to share,” he said.

Sharing ideas and understanding the difference and similarities between cultures has already happened for Fotohinia and Organ on a small scale.

Organ said he’s learned a lot from spending time with Fotohinia.

“There are a lot of common aspects between people and that’s what we discover once we get past our differences,” Organ said.

“It’s important to rub shoulders with people different from ourselves, but when we’re not doing that we can’t work through our difference and then discover our similarities.”

Traditionally Canada’s involvement in conflicts such as World War I, World War II and the Korean War is filled with humanity in terms of liberating people and lifting them up, Organ said.

“That’s what Saeed’s message is all about. That we understand one another sufficiently, that we see the humanity and work to honour that as much as possible,” Organ said.

It’s not just Organ and Fotohinia that see the value in this message as others have read the speech and responded positively such as world renown author and academic Noam Chomsky.

As for the grand aspirations and hopes Fotohinia has for his message, he understands it will be a difficult one to convey as widely as he would like, but in addition to all of the things he is, another way to describe him would be a dreamer.

“It’s a very small scale in terms of where it comes from, but large scale in its idea,” Fotohinia said.

“I think the world is ready and welcoming this type of positive message. We need positive ideas, not only about the Muslim and Middle Eastern world, but in general.”