Imtiaz Sooliman – Visionaries’ Lounge Episode 2
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss the history and success of the Giver's Program, including its impact on society and the importance of generosity. They also touch upon the challenges faced by the program, including unexpected events and dangerous operations. The speakers emphasize the importance of faith and serving others in a tough environment, as well as the need to refuel one's faith. They also discuss the benefits of working with the Giving Program, including night prayers and quiet moments, and highlight achievements made by the program's members, including becoming a doctor and a specialty in internal medicine. The speakers emphasize the importance of compassion and embracing one's own successes in achieving goals. They end with a call to action for the next week.
AI: Summary ©
To handle a disaster is easy for me.
To handle conflict at home is not easy,
my son, I'm not asking you, I'm instructing you to form an
organization. The name in Arabic will be wakul waqifin. You
Good evening and welcome to visionaries lounge. It's a huge
pleasure to have you with us. In fact, if you were sitting on this
couch next to me, I'd offer you some tea or maybe some water, just
to show you some good old fashioned hospitality. As you
know, generosity is encouraged by every society, and when it comes
to generosity, my next guest is someone who has gone over and
above the call of duty, Doctor MTS. Suleiman, the founder and the
chairperson of gift of the givers. It is Africa's largest disaster
relief agency. Docker, very good evening to you. Thank you so much
for joining us. Good evening. Thanks for having me on the show.
It's a huge pleasure. Let's talk about mtrs before he was the great
doctor and humanitarian that we know today. Where did you grow up
in the north west, in a town called potches room, very small
place, but it was a wonderful place. It still is a wonderful
place. And we grew up in an extended family, grandfather,
uncles, brothers, sisters, families, all living together in
one big yard, chickens, fowls, everybody in all in the same
place. It is a lovely upbringing in a lovely place. It sounds like
you got to up to a lot of mischief. Tell me a little bit
about that. More than mischief, I think we grew up with a lot of
love between us. Cousins did everything together. Brothers did
everything together. Even the elder ones like my father and his
brothers, my grandfather and his brothers. Everybody did everything
together. And it was not only a close knit family, it was a close
knit community. Everybody was one family. If somebody was having a
wedding, even if you were not invited, you came to help. So it
was something that built spirit. It built unity, it built a sense
of community. And that's what I love. Our projects from even up
till today, I'm seeing a thread that's starting to form now in
your life, is that where you got the sense of giving and the sense
of helping humankind? Well, the giving came more from my father's
shop and my grandfather. They are traders, and my grandfather's
passed on now, and even his father has passed on. But they started
off the customers were mostly black people and poor African
people living in potters room, and you would find everybody used to
buy an account. That was a tradition in those days. So that
trend ran from the great grandfather to the grandfather to
the Father, and even runs today. And the other way, my mother, she
started an employment Bureau, and she said it's important to help
people help themselves. So she found that, you know, making
people earn themselves, get dignity or progress in life. And
she had some people who came from nowhere, and they became top CEOs
and companies, you know. And the other thing she used to say is,
the poor, the real ones who need help, don't ask. So you must go
out in the area, and if you can afford only one food parcel, then
do only one food parcel, but don't dot, don't sit and don't do
anything, because I want to now focus on your tertiary education.
So you're done with high school and the like, and you go to
varsity, you study to become a doctor, and you think to yourself,
I'll be a GP, etc. What were you thinking at that time? No, the
idea to become a doctor started also in portageville, because
there was a family doctor called Dr hafeji. And what I loved about
this man is, whenever they called him, whether it's Monday, after
hours weekend, he would come with a broad smile, no no sulky face,
and he would do what, besides coming with a happy smile, he also
was a very good doctor, as if that idea came from that age, that I am
going to be a doctor when I get big. How long did you practice?
Eight and a half years. It was I started on the first of January in
1986 and I closed my doors on the 30th of June 1994 I want to talk
about why you closed your doors. Let's let's go there,
because something bigger came in my life, gift of the givers, and
that had a fantastic beginning. It was in Turkey I visited a
spiritual teacher in 1992
my wife was with me, and we came to a Muslim holy place. What was
very amazing that in a Muslim holy place, people from all religions
were there, Jews, Christians, Hindus, and even people said we
don't believe in any deity or any form of God. But.
Feel a vibe, and they were there, and they were from all different
countries. And after the program, the preacher just looks at me. I
can see his eyes are focused on me, but he's connecting somewhere
else. He says, in FLUENT Turkish, I don't speak a word of Turkish.
In fluent Turkish, my son, I'm not asking you, I'm instructing you to
form an organization. The name in Arabic will be wagful waqifen,
translated into English, means gift of the givers. You will serve
all people of all races, of all religions, of all classes, of all
colors, of all cultures, of any geographical location and of any
political affiliation, but you will serve them unconditionally.
You hear this great revelation. The atmosphere is charged up. You
hear this word, your wife is next to you. Eventually, you're on a
plane, you're back to South Africa. And then what? And then
take it so serious.
I thought that this old man is telling me something. Is the old
man is telling me something. I've got a private practice in South
Africa when I'm going to be doing all these things, yeah? Maybe one
food parcel here, feeding scheme. There's talking of something
small. You know, part time you have to respect the old man. You
can't say much. Okay, let's show something with some respect, yeah?
And, you know, discipline. I said, Fine. I had no idea what he was
talking about, but every time I met him subsequently, I've been to
Turkey 21 times. He said, My son, this thing will get bigger. It
will get bigger. It will get bigger. He's gone. I passed on in
1999 but I know what he's talking about now. And immediately I came
away from Turkey. What happened? The inspiration came. You need to
respond to the boy in war. The war in Bosnia, Eastern Europe, is
tearing itself apart. I'm thinking to myself, person start logically,
he does something small in his own country. Yeah, yeah. From food
puzzles, of course, blanket something simple, of course,
exactly on your own, but you didn't have your team? No, no, no
team that time, one man, one man. And I said, No, I full faith in
what this man has said, and that's how he responded to Bosnia. And
that was the beginning of gift of the givers, 31 containers, where
it we took in food, blankets and other kind of stuff in November.
That was August, 92 doc, let's hold that thought for a little
moment, and when we come back, we'll find out what Dr MTR
Suleiman could possibly still want to do over and above the
exceptional work that gift of the givers has already done. Stay with
us.
Welcome back, and thank you once again for joining us. We continue
with our riveting discussion with Dr MTR Suleiman. He is the founder
and the chairperson of gift of the givers. Just before the break,
Doc, we were speaking about this great revelation that you had
received, that you would start a gift of the givers. You thought it
would be something that a small scale. It turned out to be much
larger than you had anticipated. Your very first mission, your
operation to Bosnia. What was that like? Very challenging. Almost 90%
of what I know today I learned in that first project, crossing
international boundaries, Reserve Bank rules, SARS rules, being in a
war zone, encountering opposition, getting shot at getting bombed,
you know, trying to be effective for doing intervention. And the
point we came to in after the first two missions, we decided to
build a hospital, because, for the first time ever, a containerized
mobile hospital was built. A big international media company
compared the South African hospital to any of the best
hospitals in Europe, and it was a product of African technology,
innovated by Africans and taken to Europe. So it makes me really
proud to be South African.
We started as a disaster with relief agency. Everybody knows us
for that internationally, but we started adding on other projects,
agriculture, boreholes, as life skills, counseling services,
wheelchair distribution and 21 types of projects. But within the
project itself, we could still handle more than one disaster a
and then several disasters at the same time. And as the capacity
grew and we started bringing management and new teams and
people with heart, the most important thing is people with
heart. What compassion, what an Ubuntu spirit. And South Africa is
full of people like those
in a war in Gaza or Syria. Within three minutes, we have 120 medical
guys want to go into a war zone. It's dangerous, and they can see
how people are dying in the war zone. That's the spirit that
drives you. Where do you get the money? 99.9%
of the money comes from ordinary South Africans. And I'll give you
another example about the Ubuntu spirit of this country. You know,
orange farm. People in orange farm, or kids in orange farm,
don't even have shoes to go to school. Forget the lunch they
don't even have the lunch box. They don't have a bag for the for
the school books. They have no jersey. In the winter, the kids in
orange farm raised 40,000 Rand for the people.
In Somalia. Wow. So how can you not be driven when you have this
kind of support from what you do on the other side and those behind
you and faith in the middle of all this? It hasn't come without
controversy, though. Doc, some of your interventions, especially
when it comes to hostage negotiations, some people have
been saying you stepping on the toes of government, that perhaps
you do things unilaterally, talk to us about some of those
obstacles along the way. I have one policy, the teaching of my
teacher, best among people are those who benefit mankind. I would
do everything possible to benefit mankind or to help people.
Controversy doesn't matter to me, as long as it's right. If I was in
that situation, if my wife or my child was in that situation, what
would I expect? I would expect somebody to come running to help
me, take me out of our state situation, no matter who has to
say what, I really don't care. That's the kind of person I am. If
it's right, if something to do to help people, we go all out, and
eventually the same noises, people making the noises come out, and
after they say, thank you very much. I'm glad you touched on if
my wife or my daughter, my child, were in this situation, because
family is quite integral in the operations of gift of the givers.
Is it not? Yes. First of all, if you don't have the family support,
you can't what I do. You know, sometimes my wife calls with
absentee father. You know, she's, she's the very divorced lady kind
of stuff. And, you know, my kids sometimes don't talk to me for 20
days at a time, and I'm in the house because you're a workaholic.
I'm in the house and they tell me you are here, but you're not here
that kind of story. And if they didn't have the same spiritual
inclination, the same kind of thought processes or the same kind
of support. This work would have been very difficult, because, be
honest, to handle a disaster is easy for me, but to handle
conflict at home is not easy. So it's very important to have
equilibrium understanding and support of your family. How do
your family support you? First of all, they allow me to go. I mean,
I can just get on a plane with enough an hour I'm gone. I mean,
one morning I phoned home. I said, I'm in Joburg. I just went to
school. I jumped on and jumped on the plane. I went to Joburg. I
once left for Bosnia in 35 minutes. You know, things like
that, yeah. And they understand, because they understand what what
implications are and what spiritual teaching is all about.
It makes life very easy. But besides that, they're involved
with me in my work, my kids, my wife is heads the counseling
division of gift of the givers. My children said we want to do what
you do in our own time. What are some of the highlights when you
look back and you think to yourself, that was such a close
call. I didn't think we'd get out of that situation, or that was
such a huge achievement. I didn't think we'd get that far. What are
the most memorable events in your journey with gift of the givers, I
think two really stand out, one in Haiti and one in Syria. We sent
our first gift of the givers, own search and rescue team to Haiti,
and we made world history, because first time in the history of the
African continent, a search and rescue team from Africa pulled
somebody out of the earthquake, Rubble alive from the earthquake,
and this was eight days later.
It was a huge achievement to show to the world that Africa has its
place, that Africa can do something, and we carry the
message of Africa. The second big challenge was in Syria, when two
opposing rubble groups went into the hospital and started shooting
in the hospital, and my guys were in theater. I went under the table
and started teaching patients clothes. It was the fastest close
up in history, I think, of a patient, and the test was after
that. I said, Does anybody want to go home?
And they all looked at me and they said, we know this is fate driven.
They said, Whatever you do we follow? I said we stay. And
everybody put hand up and said, we stay. Do you have any fear that
there could be possible harm that comes to you or your team during
one of these dangerous operations? That is my biggest anxiety. I'm
not afraid to die for myself, but I'm afraid when I'm taking the
trust of wives, mothers, sisters, children, when I'm carrying all
these other members with me, and you know, I have to do everything
possible to make sure that they stay alive. It's risky. But they
come and they own this. They tell them. They tell me, we are adults.
We are people of faith. We know why we coming. We know we can die,
but we still want to come. It's a conscious, conscious decision,
decision we ourselves make, but still it's on your head
eventually, because you take the team in, it's a big burden to
carry, you know. And when those bombs fell inside, they were
* dangerous, you know. And I thought, oops, we're going to lose
something here today. And that's my only fear that I have, going
into a disaster zone. You speak of faith quite a lot. It's another
central theme here. How do you top it up? How do you refuel? Because
you're always on the go. There are always things to do, but there
comes a time when you have to come to that quiet place again, where
you refuel your own faith, tank fasting as well. Of it, you.
Top up in a fasting month, you are super conscious. You're eating
less, you know, morning and in evening. And while eating less,
you feel your soul gets nourished. You're not disturbed by a lot of
food. Your mind is clearer. You can reflect at night. We have
night prayers, which extends late into the night, which I spoke
about the doctor who mentioned, you know, who was near the Quran
Bihar, and those night prayers boost you. Then we have what is
called Big nights, special nights in the Islamic calendar, and you
stand up praying for the whole night, and then you have your
quiet moments. But you see, you can't live this in isolation.
You're dealing with human life. And the more you serve human life,
the more your faith grows. Because every time you serve somebody and
you bring somebody to somebody else, your faith grows. You cannot
live this in a vacuum. You can't say, Okay, I'm praying now and I'm
serving somebody else. It's two different things. It's not two
different things. Faith actually grows through service. So you more
yourself, the more you get refueled, and the more it drives
you. You know what? I'm not on the other side. I'm helping somebody
on the other side. And the more you make a difference to one
person's life, the more it fuels you, and you're driven, I have to
have this. Can you imagine a reality without gift of the
givers? I'd rather be dead, to be honest. There is no life without
gift of the givers. When your soul is and your mind and your body and
your spirit is in one, you take one of the elements away, you're
dead. You're a dead person. Rather be, you know, a dead person, than
to be walking like a zombie in the world, you have no sense of
purpose. Life is about purpose. It's not about money. It's about
purpose. And I found my purpose in life. Doc, I am very intrigued.
Now let's hold that thought for just a little moment, and when we
come back, we'll find out what Dr, mts Suleiman could possibly still
want to do over and above the exceptional work that gift of the
givers has already done. Stay with us.
Good evening to you once again, and if you've just joined us, a
warm welcome to visionaries lounge. We continue our discussion
with Dr MTS Suleiman, and we highlighted all your great
achievements through gift of the givers. Doc, but I do believe that
there are two things that you have yet to do that you've always
wanted to I have a sneaking suspicion that that garment next
to you has something to do with it. Tell us about that before I
come to the garment, let me dispense of something else.
All my life, I wanted to be a physician. I loved internal
medicine. I still have a passion for internal medicine. But
effectively, when the teacher said, You know what, this is an
instruction for you for the rest of your life, and I had to make a
choice between medicine and the deep work, I had to give up
medicine. So effectively, my dream to become an internal medicine
specialist or a physician was killed. But I accepted that the
second dream was not related to the spiritual teacher or to give
to the givers, to or to anything else. It was something personal.
It was came born out of Bruce Lee movies. I loved watching Bruce
Lee, and I always said to myself, one day, I'll be a black belt in
karate, the only black belt I have, the one that I'm wearing on
my pants, no, no black belt. But something strange happened. I was
invited to a karate function, and a karate master in South Africa,
guy called soli said, came to the podium, took out his belt, and he
said, my friend, this belt is what I've worn for the last so many
years, and said, This is what my master gave me. It's a fifth, then
Black Belt. And he said, What I hold dear in my heart, I am giving
to you because I hold dear the work of compassion that you do.
But not only am I giving you this belt, there were two American guys
with him. They said, We are now inducting you in the Hall of Fame
in America for martial arts. It's not the real thing. See, you got
an honorary Black Belt first. Then, okay, okay. But I said, Look
Me, I like to earn what my stripes. And I said, what I would
like to do is, when I come to Johannesburg, I like to come for
an hour or two to your dojo and do whatever training I can, but
Doctor, I have your book with me here today, and just going through
it and seeing some of the pictures and reading one or two of the
paragraphs there, I can't help but wonder what all of this has taught
you about yourself.
Well, it's shown me that I have lot of capacity. I have
capabilities. God has given many gifts. And I think what stands out
strongly, and that is reality. He is mainly compassionate, that
because you cannot do this without compassion, and if you not, you
cannot do that about yourself, then there's something wrong with
you. Yes, he's given me great compassion, and he's given me many
skills, and has given me a warm heart to watch people, and it's
taught me to be selfless, and it's taught me that the ego has no
place. In Kosovo, I had a man who was a multi millionaire, and he
came to me, he said, I'm now standing in the great queue. So it
could happen to the best of us. If you know how you want somebody to
respond to you, then you will do your best.
To respond to people in need, and always goes back to the teaching
respect the dignity of man. So when you do it, don't do it from
an ego position, from I'm the boss. I got the strain. I'm in
charge. You lower down, and I'm handing out to you. I'm in this
great position. I'm doing things so people know it must be done.
What humility, respecting the dignity in privacy, if possible,
maintaining the confidentiality of the people and doing it with love
and compassion. Again, ask yourself, how would you want
somebody to respond to you in that situation? What does the future
have in store for the next five to 10 years? I don't know. I don't
know. There is no plan. For 23 years, I've been working without
any plan, because it's driven by God Almighty, and for 23 years,
the plan hasn't failed. So I'm not going to ask for the next 23
years, what's going to happen. I look at you and I see passion, I
see drive, I see love, and I see someone who is genuine, but I
think to myself, if I were to dare to do what you have done, first
things, first feelings of great inadequacy would overwhelm me. Why
me? Why would God choose someone like me? Did you ever reach a
point you know, in your journey where you thought, I'm not worthy?
You do question yourself. You say, Look, you are a human being. You
have failings. Are you spiritually strong? Are you a righteous
person? Are you like a priest or an imam? Are you a rabbi or
somebody to that effect? How strong has God made you from a
spiritual point of view, are you flawless? And when you look at
yourself, you realize every human being has failings. If all of us
are going to think like that, nobody's going to do anything. So
that's out. You're never going to be perfect, but your perfection,
or your attempt to ditch perfection comes through service.
You've got to be realistic. I can't help the whole world. When I
go to a disaster zone, I can't help the whole country. Actually
can't even help the whole city. I may be able to help one street in
that whole city. So okay, I'm focused. I will help one street in
that city. We'll send such an SQ teams out. We'll be do primary
health care, and we'll do trauma medicine. We can do 50 patients a
day with the themes that we have, but we may save 50 lives a day. So
if you've made a difference to one person's life, imagine making a
difference to 50 people's lives every day for the next 10 days.
You got to be realistic, Doc, you have helped millions of people,
and yet I know that even if your efforts were for but one person,
it would have been more than enough. Thank you so much for
joining us this evening. I've thoroughly enjoyed our
conversation. I trust you have too. I know that I'm inspired. I
hope you are just as inspired. Let's do it all over again next
week, have yourself a fantastic evening
to achieve something in life requires determination, commitment
and self belief. God helps those who help themselves. Is a very
common statement. But have you ever done introspection? I give
you my own life story. I met a spiritual teacher by chance, a
spiritual teacher who gave me an instruction to serve all of
mankind. I followed that instruction with sincerity and
faith, and that sincerity and faith made me help millions of
people. Can you make a difference? Do you believe in yourself,
introspect and you will find the power within yourself. Do that
reflect and you will achieve miracles and move mountains. You