Dr Rola Hallam: The Fuckery of Philanthropy

The Art of Asking Everything

Rola Hallam: The Fuckery of Philanthropy

Amanda Palmer 00:34

This is The Art of Asking Everything, I’m Amanda Palmer.

You probably don’t want to hear what Dr. Rola Hallam has to say. Trust me.

Rola Hallam 00:44

For ten years, governments have failed Syria’s children. For ten years, schools have been getting bombed, and so have been kids. And as a doctor, as a humanitarian, and as a mum, I think it’s time that we change that. And I have time.

Amanda 01:07

It is, this week, the 10 year anniversary of the war in Syria. And I say that kind of ironically, knowing that it’s probably not marked on your calendar, or even something that you might be aware of. The war in Syria is far away for a lot of us, and ongoing and exhausting for those who are paying attention.

You may not know much about it, except that it’s bad, and tragic, and occasionally in the news, and every time that you see something about it, you just sort of feel powerless to do anything.

Children and civilians are being targeted, and killed. It is a crisis that is almost unfathomable, and therefore, we find ourselves not really wanting to fathom it.

But for the actual human beings, the Syrians who’ve lost their families, lost their jobs, their houses, any sense of order and sanity, this is their lives. This is the daily reality. People who had totally normal lives, like many of you, and me, even though this year has been anything but normal. People who are artists, teachers, tech people, doctors, they’ve found themselves fleeing their normal lives, and living a nightmare that most people I know who live in America, Europe, or Australia just can’t wrap their heads around.

One day you have a normal life, with a normal job, and a normal family, and then, for seemingly impossible reasons, it’s snatched away from you. And you find yourself begging for help.

My guest today, Dr. Rola, was defiant in the midst of an onslaught from all sides. And having not only seen the government attack its own people, its own schoolchildren, she saw that help was

not on the fucking way. And any resources that were getting into the country were slow in coming, and weren’t going to the hospitals in the middle of a warzone. And as you’ll hear her explaining in the podcast, they are bombing hospitals and schools, attacking the most vulnerable. Not by accident, but as strategic, planned acts of domestic terrorism. Absolute destruction. Leaving behind dead 6-year-olds. Deliberately meant to destroy the human spirit, at its deepest core.

The title of this episode might sound crass and offensive to you, ‘The Fuckery of Philanthropy,’ given the gravity of the topic, but the story behind the title is actually great. I was working with my podcast team on the day of the recording with Rola, and we were like, uh, will Rola be too offended if we use a title like, ‘How To Hustle Money For A Hospital In A War Zone’, or ‘How TO Pimp A Hospital Into Existence.’ And we were like, ahh, and we sent these ideas to Rola, and she wrote back, ‘These are great, why don’t we just call it The Fuckery of Philanthropy?’ and I was like, oh my God. This is a sister on my level. She is not fucking around. She gives no shits in all the right areas, and all the shits in the right areas.

And Rola, like me, is considered by many to be the village crazy lady. Seeing this devastation around her, and feeling no power to change a broken system from the inside, and being just one woman, one doctor, she took it upon herself to crowdfund an entire hospital. And it worked.

And she’s done so much more since then, you’ll hear all about it in the podcast.

There is one thing. She is helping fundraise right now, right here, to put early warning systems into 150 Syrian schools. And these early warning systems will help alert students and teachers to aerial bombings, so that they can get out of the building in time. And a few minutes is all it takes to be able to alert these kids in a school to run away, and not get bombed and killed, and this is Rola’s mission right now. This specific fundraiser, to get money to make sure these alert systems get into schools and hospitals, so that innocent kids don’t have to die.

I have never before put out a podcast, and also put out my hand to fundraise on behalf of one of my guests, but I’m doing it now, and I offered to do it with Rola, it wasn’t her idea, it was mine, because it is such a specific, immediate, and desperate ask. And I know this community, and when this community motivates, we can get stuff done. So Rola is donating the money that she would have been paid for this podcast back to the charity, I’m taking a chunk of this episode’s Patreon profit and donating it back, and I am asking you, listening, to kick in 10, 20, 50 dollars, and send it to Rola’s crowdfunding mission. It’s called SaveSyriasSchools.org, it’ll be plastered all over the podcast notes.

And I hope after you’ve heard the podcast, you’ll understand why it’s so important. And you guys, this is some heavy shit. It’s COVID, we’re all exhausted. Some people are financially tapped. It is totally understandable if you feel unable, and have no capacity to even listen to this conversation, and these tales of suffering, and war, in a far off land, in an unfamiliar culture. And

I talk all the time about self care, and self protection, and right now, with what is going on in all of your lives, even more so.

But our worldviews are always limited by our perspective. What we know. The stories we hear. One of the reasons that I started this podcast was just so I, myself, could broaden my relative perspective, and take you with me. So at the very least, listen. Listen to these stories, donate if you can. If you can’t, tweet. Send the Save Syria’s Schools call to action onto your social networks if you can. And maybe don’t just post the link, but tell the stories that Rola is gonna tell you. Share the stories of these kids in Syria.

And as Rola says in the episode, this isn’t just about what’s happening in Syria, the sad, faraway land that some of you may never go to. It’s about something bigger. Because if we turn our backs, this could happen where you live. What would you want someone to do for you? For your family? For the kids in your school? Think about it that way.

And with that, I give you Dr. Rola Hallam.

Dr. Rola, thank you so much for joining us today.

MUSIC BREAK – There Will Be No Intermission

Rola 08:46

Thank you for having me, I’m honoured to be here.

Amanda 08:49

You are a fucking punk rock doctor. I’m just gonna start with that. And even today, when we were talking about what to title the episode, and I was like, can we say that you’ve pimped a hospital, crowdfunded a hospital into existence, and you’re sort of like a crowdfunding hospital pimp? And we were like, God, the doctor’s gonna be offended. You wrote back and you said, let’s just call it The Fuckery of Philanthropy. And I’m like, I love this human being.

The first thing I want to start with is ‘The Conflict in Syria for Dummies’. And I want you to pretend that there is a 14 year old American teenager girl listening to this podcast in suburban Wisconsin, America, who only knows the word Syria vaguely as a place far away where maybe something bad has happened, because she heard it on the TV. And what can you tell, in the simplest terms, especially given that it’s the 10th anniversary of the conflict in Syria, what can you tell that teenage girl about what has happened? And who you are, and where you come from?

Rola 10:11

So before when I would think about Syria, I would think about the smell of falafel opposite my grandmother’s house, or the wafting of spices from the old souk, or walking in the ancient old Damascus, which is just so beautiful. And that all changed in 2011, when peaceful protesters

started chanting for freedom and dignity. We’ve been under a dictatorship for decades by the Assad regime. And as part of the so-called Arab Spring, people decided enough was enough. The poor were getting poorer, the very few who are rich were getting filthy rich. The classic story of corruption, and bleeding your country dry, and people had had enough. And so it erupted with peaceful protests, and my cousin who was there used to tell me it was jubilant. He said it was like a festival, he said it was men, women, and children. Music, chanting, dancing, food. People had broken through the fear barrier, and were literally calling for freedom and dignity. And that carried on for a few days, and then a few weeks, and then slowly but surely, the regime decided to meet that with tanks, and guns, and crack down on the protesters, to quell this uprising.

But it was too late. People like Assad had lost the fear barrier, and they kept going to the streets, more and more of them. And the regime had taken a bunch of 13 year olds who had written on their school ‘Down With Assad.’ And he had rounded up these 12 and 13 year olds, tortured them to death, and returned them to their families, as ‘thou shall not speak against the regime.’ The boy was called Hamza. And that really kicked off mass protests across the country.

And as the protests grew, the bloody crackdown grew, and the defense, then people started to want to defend themselves. And so where my family are from is from a city called Homs. It’s the third largest city. And I don’t know if you remember back in 2012, do you remember Marie Colvin, the journalist who was killed in Syria? She was there with them. Yeah, she was there with a photographer called Paul Conroy and where they had been, they’d snuck themselves into one of these civilian enclaves that were surrounded by the regime. And basically they were massacring civilians who had dared to go up against them, and that’s how she was killed, God rest her soul, and how he was severely injured, and that’s where my family are from. And that’s when we lost more than 30 members of my family.

Amanda 13:18

Before we go too far, it is really important to point out, we’re in the middle of another crisis, a giant global pandemic. COVID is ravaging everyone, and everyone’s attention span, and ability to care about fucking anything outside their bubble. What has that meant for something like the conflict in Syria, where it doesn’t care if there’s a pandemic raging, it’s still happening? What have you felt around your own fatigue, and the fatigue, and the ears and hearts of people who you’re trying to tell these stories to? What is happening?

Rola 14:00

Hmm, such a great question. I think, unfortunately, there was already Syria fatigue before the pandemic. We’re talking about 10 years of it now, right? And I think there is something so devastating to each one of us when we talk about war, that we can’t, not only can we not fathom it and understand it, but it’s so dark, right? This idea that we are killing each other. It’s not a natural disaster. It’s not a virus, it’s not an earthquake, it’s not just a freak chance, or a freak accident. We’re murdering each other. And so I think the natural human tendency is like, I don’t want to talk about that. I don’t want to hear about that. I don’t want to see that. Because if you think about it, we do that within ourselves, right? How often do we deny our so-called negative

feelings or emotions, or our so-called shadows or darkness? How much of our lives do we spend running away from our shame, from our anger, from whatever it is that we don’t want to see in ourselves? And so it is outside as it is inside.

And so I think that that was sadly already there, and then, yeah, you get to the pandemic, and my God, I can’t get anyone to want to talk about it or hear it. Even though, here’s the thing, the world’s crises march on, whether you’re talking about the racial issues in the US, or you’re talking about ongoing sexism, and the need for the Me Too movement, or the climate change,. There have always been multiple frontlines, and there still are multiple frontlines, it’s just that we now have a unified, as it were, frontline, that we’re all having to deal with. And so yeah, it absolutely has, I think, made it so super difficult to cut through people’s attention, and get it to their hearts and minds. And I think that’s where the power of storytelling comes.

Amanda 16:05

I saw you doing an interview with Trevor Noah, on a television interview, and you actually said something really incredible, that stopped me in my tracks, about the idea of Syria as a microcosm, and especially given what’s going on globally, politically, right now, do you feel like you have an even more powerful perspective on the fact that if we’re letting this happen there, it’s not going to be long before it’s happening in your own backyard? And do you look around at the UK, look around at the States, and go, do you guys understand that this isn’t just over here, it isn’t just these brown people in this teeny little country that you’ll never have to care about, like, if you don’t pay attention, this is going to come and this is gonna come for you. Do you see that?

Rola 17:06

Of course. I mean, it’s so blindingly obvious to me that I don’t see how the decision makers don’t see this. We protect hospitals, and enshrine them in the international humanitarian law, because what protects one protects all. It’s there for our collective safety. And if you start to say it is okay to bomb a hospital over there, that is a signal that it’s okay to bomb hospitals full stop. And actually, that is what’s happening. The hospitals are being bombed in more places, even the school bombings. I talk about bombings of schools in Syria, bombings and attacks on schools have happened to 93 countries in the last five years.

So we mustn’t let these injustices, and these war crimes, and crimes against humanity, to become the norm. We must absolutely, every day, at an individual, and a collective, level, be protecting these, because it’s when it breaks for one, it breaks for all.

Amanda 18:10

Well, and maybe if the pandemic has one giant silver lining, it might actually smack people awake to the idea that there actually really is a wider collective. And that if you don’t pay attention to hospitals being bombed in Syria, that is actually, you can look at it as a kind of a self interest. And now with the eye-opening perspective on how interconnected we are, given what’s happened with the virus, maybe this will actually be a little bit of a wake up call for people.

Rola 18:50

Oh, absolutely, I think that’s exactly what the message I hope is to most people. What happens to someone in China matters to someone in the US, and it matters to someone in the UK, and it matters to someone in Syria, because we are all interconnected.

While solutions must be local, there has to be a global effort. And that is what we’re seeing right now, to some extent, but with just so much selfishness still at play, which just feels incredulous, really, but I really do hope that everyone does see this beautiful interconnectedness. And actually, it’s not something to fear. It’s something to rejoice at, and just understand, actually, just understand, and be with, and see, how do we make the most of that?

MUSIC BREAK – You’d Think I’d Shot Their Children

Amanda 19:54

I have come up with a new catchy phrase for crowdfunding and patronage that is not at all catchy, but it is: ‘the entire system is fucked, and maybe someday we’ll fix it, but for now, please do this.’ It’s not very catchy! But it’ll do for now.

Rola 20:09

Maybe if you put a tune to it or something.

Amanda 20:10

Oh God, I can go talk to my branding and marketing department.

And where were you? Because you’ve been based in the UK, so what’s your relationship between Syria, what was happening there, and being in the UK, and how much of that time have you been in Syria versus living in the UK, and working as a doctor in the UK, or in Syria?

Rola 20:36

So my childhood was in Syria. I was in Syria from when I was like, 2, till I was 12. And so it’s very much, my childhood is all about Syria, and playing with my hundreds of cousins.

And then when the war kicked off, I was in England. I was a trainee anesthesiologist, and I was working full time as a doctor in the National Health Service. And my father, my sister, and my brother were in Damascus, were in Syria at the time of the revolution, and then the war. And it was a crazy time, because the security device of the regime is so strong, is very much like the kind of Gestapo, where phones are monitored. And so, I would be seeing on the screen all of this massacre of civilians going on in our hometown, and getting messages about our family getting killed. And when I’m speaking to my dad, he’s like, ‘Everything’s fine! Yeah, don’t worry, everything’s fine! No, they’re just exaggerating!’ and like, we had to develop code words, so that I would know when I needed to send money, or when I needed to do anything, because you couldn’t actually openly speak about it.

Amanda 21:50

And did you go? Take me back to 2011, 2012, 2013, did you physically leave the UK and go to Syria, back to your hometown, or at all, to see with your eyes what was happening?

Rola 22:03

Yeah, absolutely. So from what I was telling you about, when they started to attack civilians, it then just literally just went across the whole country. And one of my things that pisses me off the most is calling it a civil war, because it’s not. Civil war means there’s two sides killing each other. This is a war on civilians. This is a war, by a regime, on its own people, trying to stifle their freedom, and trying to stifle their voice, and trying to stifle their call for freedom.

So I did the only thing I knew I could, and I joined the humanitarian effort. My raison d’etre has always been about helping people have access to health care, it’s all been about, life is precious, we need to protect it and save it. And so I joined that humanitarian effort, and so I would take holiday from my hospital job in London, and on my holiday, I would go on medical missions to northern Syria.

Amanda 23:05

And what was it like?

Rola 23:11

I remember the first time that I went, and I was at the border area, and I was with a Syrian-led organization, and there was a bunch of us doctors who were going to go on a medical mission, and it was the first time we were going. And just like, about an hour before we were about to go in, they said, ‘Have you got a will?’ I was like… no? He’s like, ‘You should probably write a will.’ I was like, okay. That was sobering.

Because I’d really, genuinely not thought about going in and dying. I just like, I’m gonna go, and I’m going to be a doctor, and I’m going to do what I can. But it sounds stupid, because you’re going to a dangerous war zone, but genuinely, I hadn’t thought that was gonna happen.

So I did, wrote a will, there and then. And in we went.

And I’d been dying to go back to my home, to do what I can, for my bleeding homeland. But when I went there, it didn’t look like home, it didn’t feel like home. It was unrecognizable. I just saw just thousands of homeless people who were just destitute, looking at me with just such desperation in their eyes, just crowding around you, people just carrying their children, just looking at me, like, please help us, please help us, we need shelter, I need medicine, just like a cacophony of sounds and voices, and pleas. And that was just the beginning. That was just, you’ve just come in. And I hadn’t even at that point gone anywhere near the front lines yet.

I remember this one guy who had said to me, he said, ‘Please don’t see me looking dirty, and smelling, and thinking that I’m nothing. I’m a teacher. I used to have a home. We had a happy life. We had two cars. And that’s all gone. We have nothing now.’ And he was carrying three children, and he’s like, ‘I’m not asking for a handout. Please help me to find a job. I can translate, I’m an English teacher, I speak English really well. Help me survive.’

And that’s what I’ve seen throughout this whole experience, is the reason that people survive in crisis is because of the local doctors, nurses, and aid workers. It’s because of the people themselves, who don’t want a handout, they want a hand to help themselves.

Amanda 26:01

Wow. I’ve looked at a lot of your talks, and a big part of your story is what happened in 2013, when there was an aerial bombing in Aleppo. And so, to understand the story of your work, and what is happening now, in 2013, you managed to get some media covering this, and the BBC came to do a documentary called Saving Syria’s Children. And there was an aerial bombing, a school bombing, outside Aleppo, and something happened, and I want you to tell that story.

Rola 26:44

So, a few weeks before that, I was on one of my medical missions, and I was just walking around an internally displaced people’s camp, having just come from one of the frontlines where a bakery had just been bombed, and there was just pieces of bodies everywhere, and I just called up one of my friends who was a doctor, and a humanitarian, and also she wore a media hat, Dr. Saleyha, and I was like, where the fuck are the journalists? Why aren’t they here, seeing what I’m seeing, and reporting on the humanitarian situation, reporting on the civilian suffering that I’m seeing, instead of reporting the bang bang stories that they’re always putting out?

Amanda 27:27

And by the bang bang stories, you mean the frontlines, and the people engaged in conflict?

Rola 27:31

Yeah, basically, just always talking about the military, always talking about the politics, always talking about this, this force versus this force. The people who caught, and were suffering as a result of it, were ordinary people, and that story wasn’t being told. And that’s what I was dealing with. And that, to me, was all that mattered.

I feel like it confuses the matter when you talk about sides, because it becomes a political discussion, or a military discussion, but you forget that actually, children were dying as a result of it. So I really wanted to focus the conversation on that.

And so, with the BBC crew in tow, we went off to northern Syria. And this is now August 2013. They were essentially filming me as I went round, and doing my normal medical mission. I was then the medical director for a Syrian-led organization called Hand In Hand For Syria, and I was

going around our different facilities, doing quality assessments and checks, and going to the various frontlines in the area, to see what medical services or or health aid they needed.

And for context, just five days earlier was that giant chemical weapons attack that had happened in Damascus, the one that Mr. Obama at the time had said was a red line, and that that was the red line for the United States of America, and that there was going to now be repercussions as a result of it. So we’re in that timeframe.

So on this day, we’re at one of the hospitals that I had helped to set up. And the first thing that happens is a seven month old baby comes in with burns. And so we’re treating the child, and then before I knew it, there was just an outpouring, and just dozens and dozens of severely burned children, teenagers, started to come through our doors.

It’s a day that’s etched on my heart, mind, and soul. And I’ve told the story so many times, but I think I’ve told it before as a doctor, and a humanitarian, but now I’m a mother. And now it just hurts in a way that is very different. Because now, I somehow have started to feel the pain of the parents in a way that I thought I felt before, but I now know I hadn’t gone anywhere near, until I now have my own daughter.

So they start pouring in, and quickly the room fills with an awful smell of burnt flesh, and the temperature rises really high, and they’re covered in this white powder dust, and because of this chemical weapons attack that had happened just days earlier, we had no idea what we were dealing with. At that point, we had zero intel, I’m like, what the fuck is this? And I just remember, for a second, pausing and going, this might be the day I die.

Okay. Carry on. No time to dwell on that thought.

And in the UK, in the US, anywhere with a good health system, you would have the tools, the equipment, the medicines that you need in order to treat that mass casualty. That day, I had the ability, and the knowledge, to administer potentially life-saving treatment to these kids. But that day, I didn’t have these things. I didn’t have the oxygen, I didn’t have enough painkillers, I didn’t have enough ventilators, I didn’t have any ambulances. These kids were arriving in the back of a pickup, and we were sending them on in the back of a pickup, it was completely shoddy, Something that no one would ever accept for their own child, you know?

And they were all so severely burnt, that I knew that most of them weren’t gonna survive.

Amanda 32:18

There was a story, I just want to make sure you tell it, because I saw you tell it somewhere else, but there was the story of one boy, and what happened, and what you asked him when he came to you, can you tell that story?

Rola 32:42

So, I’d love for people to just go and see the documentary, Saving Syria’s Children, because seeing it is gonna just tell you so much more than I could possibly describe.

But I remember seeing this boy walk in, and I’d never seen anything like it. He came in with his arms up in front of him. Do you remember that famous picture of the Vietnam War, and the Napalmed little girl, she comes out with her arms in front, and he was a bit like this. And he was so severely burned that he looked like a tree trunk. It was just unbelievable. And it looked like it was some kind of Hollywood scene. Honestly, it looked just so incredulous, and I was incredulous he was alive, and walking towards me, and I didn’t know what to say, except, ‘how are you?’

And he replied, ‘Hamdulillah,’ which means I’m fine, thank God. And he’d obviously had internal burns, as well as the external burns, which is why he could barely speak, and I knew that he had just minutes, maybe an hour, to live. That’s it. And I knew that, really, considering how many patients we had, and how few doctors and nurses we were, that I probably should have just, we would have just said, that patient, it’s futile to try and treat them, because they’re not going to survive. But I knew he was gonna choke to death because of the burns, and so I treated him so he would just slip away quietly without choking, and he was one of eleven children who died that day.

Amanda 34:44

‘How are you?’ is a really weird question right now. I have just been noticing, when you know someone is suffering, when it’s so obvious that someone is suffering, that question really changes. And when I heard you telling that story, because I was watching this video of you a few days ago, that situation is so extreme, the most extreme, and the most tragic, and the most suffering that you could imagine, especially with this being a child.

But it made me think about the weird poetry of that question nowadays, because nowadays, that question comes up all the time, every time I talk to a friend, a relative, someone who’s now been in lockdown for 12 months. And you ask someone, how are you? And then there’s always this pause.

And I also think, in our culture, in your British culture, and American culture, I don’t know about Syrian culture, there’s almost two questions. There’s like, am I asking how you really are? Or am I just saying, hi, I am authenticating your existence and making a sound?

Rola 36:11

Absolutely.

Amanda 36:13

So that you know that, even if you’re an hour away from dying, I care about you. And maybe that really should be the greeting that we evolve towards, which is instead of saying, hi, how are you, you just say, hi, I care about you.

Rola 36:27

I like that.

Amanda 36:28

Which is sort of more or less what you were trying to say to him.

Rola 36:35

I think it’s all about how you say something as well. Like, ‘how are you?’ is different to saying, ‘how are you going?’, ‘how’s it going?’ How are you in a more nonchalant kind of way. There’s one where you’re genuinely interested to hear, and one where it’s like, I’m ticking a box.

Amanda 36:53

Absolutely. In my hometown of Boston, Massachusetts, the colloquial greeting is how are you? And it’s even like, at a coffee shop, when you go into Dunkin Donuts in the airport, the woman behind the table says ‘Hi, how are you?’ And you say, ‘I would like a bagel,’ and she says, ‘Okay,’ to the point where it’s devoid of all meaning. But also, that’s what happens with language, and we’re getting off topic, but we’re not, because this is actually what we’re talking about.

So, at that point, you were a doctor, you were going over there, you were doing these acts of humanitarianism as a doctor. You were presumably purportedly working under other umbrellas, right? You were sort of aligning with nonprofits, I assume, aligning with organizations, you weren’t just packing your bag, getting on a plane, taking a taxi to the middle of the conflict, and saying, hey, how can I help? You had an organization and an umbrella, presumably, around you.

And fast forwarding to 2016, and there was a bombing at a hospital with children, and this moved the needle for you, and what you decided to do. So can you tell that story, and take us through that?

Rola 38:16

What happened in that school bombing really shook me. And the main lesson that I took away from that was that if we truly wanted to save lives on the frontlines, we needed to put the resources in the hands of those who are saving lives, and that was the frontline health workers. That’s the local doctors and nurses who are from the hardest affected community.

And from my experience, that was not where the resources were. There were, and still are, billions of dollars that pour into the humanitarian system, and then there are so many large, huge institutions that take huge chunks of that money, and very little of it arrives at the front lines. And so I was still, as you said, kind of going and coming between Syria and the UK, with various different Syrian-led organizations, and in that time had helped to build six hospitals in the north of the country, because the one thing that a lot of people don’t seem to know, despite

everything, is that our healthcare system was being targeted. Hospitals were being purposefully bombed. Doctors and nurses were being purposefully killed.

Amanda 39:40

Why? Why?

Rola 39:44

Well, in one video, one of the regime competents had said, if you kill a doctor, it’s like killing a thousand civilians. It makes perfect sense, if you are trying to terrorize your population. It makes perfect sense when you know the framing is a war on civilians, because what you’re trying to do is bomb civilians and civilian structures, and how else can you terrorize people than say we’re gonna bomb you, and there’s nowhere that is safe for you, not a hospital, even. And so, Physicians For Human Rights, who are a US-based human rights organization, say that they’ve got the evidence of nearly 400 healthcare facilities that have been bombed, and nearly 900 healthcare workers who’ve been killed. And, imagine this, 40% of them under torture.

MUSIC BREAK – You Know The Statistics

Amanda 40:48

And so, you’re in the midst of all of this horror, but there might be the sense that help is on the way, because, great, the BBC came, and was all of a sudden covering it, and the world’s eyes will be watching the horror, and the attack on health workers, but was that the case? Did that happen? Did all of a sudden the world start to care deeply about what was going on? Because clearly, it didn’t fix, and it’s now 2021, and we’re 10 years in.

Rola 41:15

Yeah, I don’t know if it was my naivete back then, but I’d hoped, I guess, thought, assumed, that if the world truly saw the horror that was going on, how children were being burnt, I thought world leaders would act. And so, when Mr. Obama said, this is a red line, and we’re going to do something, I remember my dad calling me and saying like, ‘Obama’s gonna bomb, they’ve mobilized the Navy, you need to get out.’ And I was like, well, I’m kind of needed here right now. Plus, I didn’t really believe this was gonna happen.

And so the documentary goes out, and… and nothing. Everyone sees it, a lot of people cried, I’m sure, millions, probably. But no decision makers did anything. Obama’s red line turned into a green light for the Assad regime, and the Russian, and the Iranian, and every Tom, Dick and Harry who was killing civilians, to continue.

And so, meanwhile, obviously, I just carried on. And one thing that so many people don’t know is that I was having to build hospitals, and rebuild hospitals, and so were my colleagues, because hospitals were being bombed. They were being targeted, they were being strategically destroyed as a weapon of war. Not accidentally, not like, oops, sorry, the bomb fell, it wasn’t meant to be there, it was meant to go to a bakery, or school! It was actually as a weapon of war.

So Physicians for Human Rights, a US-based human rights organization, they’ve been documenting this for the last 10 years, and they’ve documented nearly 500 attacks on healthcare facilities, and about 900 of my colleagues have been killed, 40% of them under torture. And they say that 90% of these killings and these bombings are by the Syrian regime.

And so, the crazy thing, when my friends and my colleagues and I were trying to rebuild hospitals, we would literally be asking ourselves, where might this hospital not get bombed? I mean, what the fuck? No one should be having to ask a question like that, right?

Amanda 43:43

Does such a place exist? Can we put a hospital in a place where it can’t get bombed? A hospital is big.

Rola 43:49

Yeah, I mean, literally, we were having to then, like, we put a hospital in the duty-free area, literally between the Turkish border and the Syrian border, because it was as close to Turkey as we could get it, and we kind of thought that maybe the regime wouldn’t go as far as doing that, although we did get one bomb there. We built a hospital in a cave, we’ve built hospitals underground, we were literally needing to hide ourselves, creating what we called field hospitals, which was kind of taking over villas and houses and things like that, and turning them into makeshift healthcare facilities, so that we could try and treat patients in relative safety, because it wasn’t a known hospital.

But it’s not enough. It’s not protective enough. And so, fast forward to 2016, and now we’re talking about Aleppo, and the siege of Aleppo. So, again, one of the big tactics of the regime was the sort of siege, starve, and surrender tactics. So it would besiege an area, it would starve it, like in medieval times, and then just before they’re all gonna die, then you say, okay, you’re gonna be nice now? Okay, fine, we’re gonna let you out.

And so they had bombed, in the space of five days, several hospitals, including a children’s hospital. And I will never forget the footage I had got of the head nurse, who had literally just ran into the special care baby unit, and was grabbing babies out of incubators, putting them under her armpit and trying to get them to safety before she broke down in tears.

She’s an incredible woman, you need to know her story. She’s called Malakeh, which means Angel. And she really is an angel. She’s seen so much, and been through so much, yet she always has a smile on her face. She’s been injured 10 times. Not just like, I’ve cut my finger. Like, concussion, broken spine, hit her skull, major life-threatening injuries. The kind that, after one, you’d be like, fuck this, I’m packing my bags, I’m out of here, if you even get that far. And she would recover, and go back to the front line. She would recover, and go back. She was just so dedicated to saving children’s lives.

And one day this hospital gets bombed for the fifth and final time, and I was furious. I was so angry. I remember when I was getting all this news, I don’t know if you’ve felt this, have you ever felt so angry, like you just didn’t know what to do with yourself? You’re just stomping around just like, I don’t know whether to scream, or shout, or hit myself, or hit something, hit someone. What do you do with… There’s just the egregious injustice of it. And the fact it had been happening for years. For years. Everyone knows it, everyone knows this is going on, and standing by going, ooh, that’s bad, isn’t it?

Amanda 47:24

And so what did you do?

Rola 47:30

Well, I spent a good two days just being angry. I just couldn’t get out of that, sending various ‘what the fuck?’ messages to people, and just couldn’t think, I was just so out of my mind with the frustration of just, there we were, literally sweating blood and tears to build hospitals, and try and save lives, and they just kept bombing them, and in everyone’s view.

But one thing that I’ve really learned through this journey is that anger never solves anything. I hear it so much at various conferences, events, activists calling each other to be angry, we should be more angry about this, let’s be angry. But the thing is, that’s just part of the story, right? We must feel the anger, we must allow it.

Amanda 48:28

It’s a motivator.

Rola 48:31

Yeah, it has to be there. But anger is like fire, if it’s well contained, it can be positive, it can warm you up. But if you don’t then keep it in check, or transform it, then it will burn you, and it will burn everything, and it will be a destructive force. And so it’s always about like, what I’ve learned is you have to feel it, and allow it, and accept it, and not judge yourself. But then you have to either let it go, or you have to transform it. And you have to lead from that transformed place, which is love. Because that’s how you heal. That’s how you change. You can’t lead and charge with anger.

Amanda 49:19

This is so true about fucking everything. I mean, war, countries, politics, the pandemic, marriage, your relationship with your kids, everything.

Rola 49:33

Everything. Racial injustice, sexism, everything. Yes, we have to feel the anger, and allow it, but it’s not where you lead from, it has to be harnessed, and changed. And so, after a few days of fury, I managed to connect back into love, and, okay, why am I doing this, and what’s the purpose? It’s like, okay, to save lives. And then it was like, okay, right, that’s it. Well, if

governments are not going to stop the bombs from falling, well, we’re not going to stop from saving lives, so we are going to rebuild this goddamn hospital. And you know what, we’re not going to just rebuild it, we’re going to take all the hospital equipment all the way from England to Syria, in a convoy. If the governments are failing, the people will take charge. And so I launched The People’s Convoy, with 38 other organizations and partners, and everyone thought I’d lost my mind.

Amanda 50:33

So this is the story that brought us together. So you crowdfunded a hospital. And I mean, that is so beyond the boundaries of my imagination, that I need a little bit of information, and also to understand, why crowdfund a hospital, especially if there’s a chance that that hospital is going to get bombed, why not just let the government spend another million dollars, or someone else spend another million dollars? Why crowdfund the people’s money, your community’s money, into a hospital that might just get bombed again? What was the difference? What was the difference between working within the system, and going fuck the system, I’m gonna just do this off grid? Why? Why did you do that?

Rola 51:27

I just felt very strongly that governments had so very clearly failed. They’d been watching this unfolding, and doing very little to solve the root cause issue. They’ve been just throwing a plaster at it, instead of using diplomacy, and any other options to protect civilians. So there’s that.

But I think the other thing that most people don’t appreciate, and I didn’t know it until I got involved in the humanitarian response, was that the humanitarian system is broken. The humanitarian system is not fit for purpose. The humanitarian system is generally led by huge, bureaucratic, multinational organizations, that frankly still operate in a colonial way. It still has that white man, white woman, going somewhere to save poor brown and Black people. And my experience of it in Syria was that it was slow, and cumbersome. And I would be calling up all of these charities at the beginning, and saying, help, we need help, can you do this, that and the other, and they’re like, okay, well… Yeah, sure.

Amanda 52:43

Send it up the chain.

Rola 52:44

Yeah, send it up the chain. And literally, I’d be having the same conversation like, 3, 4, 5 months later. I’m not joking. And I’m like, I hate to tell you this, but it’s a fucking war zone, the bombs are dropping now, not in five months time. Like, we need action now. And so, I wanted speed.

And I also wanted to help to harness that people power. Because I knew that a lot of people cared, I knew there was a lot of us who were sitting there going, watching it unfolding on the news, and not knowing what to do. And I knew that, from my experience, the most impactful,

and cost effective, and cost efficient, way to save lives was, let’s get the resources to those who need it, those frontline health workers, let’s help them to rebuild a hospital, because that’s what’s going to help us to save lives.

Amanda 53:33

What year was this? What year did you launch this crowdfunding campaign, this was 2016?

Rola 53:37

So this is December 2016. And I’d never done a crowdfunder before.

Amanda 53:41

So what did you know, at that point, about crowdfunding? What did you feel about crowdfunding? Were you afraid? Did people tell you, this is crazy, this is stupid, this is greedy, this won’t work? Paint me the picture of what it was like going into the concept of crowdfunding, and maybe what did you think was gonna happen? And what did happen? And especially tell me about the blowback, because there must have been at least some, if not some criticism, some cynicism.

Rola 54:13

Yeah, there always is. So I’d already been looking into crowdfunding, because of all the reasons that we had just mentioned, and I just kept hearing from people like, I want to help, but I don’t know how, and I’m fed up of giving my money to charity, and not knowing where it went, and how much of it arrived, and what good it did, it feels very disconnecting. So I was like, okay, how about if we connected people who cared from around the world directly to those on the front lines, and channeled the resources directly there, cut out all of that middlemen, all of the…

Amanda 54:51

Skip the UNHCR.

Rola 54:54

Control Alt Delete, just delete the United Nations and all of that stuff, let’s just get it straight to the frontline, from people who cared. And so, it was already an idea that I loved, but I had no experience of it, and so that was very much my test case. I was like, I’m gonna try it, and if it flops, then I’ll have to try something else. And you know, it was a huge amount that we were wanting to raise, it was like £90,000, and I know that most crowdfunding campaigns are like, give me 500 bucks to make a poster or whatever. And so, I knew we were asking for a lot, but I just thought, sod it, you don’t ask, you don’t get, so let’s try, this is really important.

And I also thought, we’ll galvanize a lot of partner organizations to work on it. And everyone really did think, a lot of people didn’t tell me that they thought it was mad til afterwards, because they didn’t want to freak me out. It was only afterwards that I then got so many emails from people who were participating in it, to go, I really didn’t think you were gonna pull it off, but somehow you did, and it’s really amazing.

People didn’t disappoint. It went viral. And I think it captured people’s imagination. People wanted to do something, and they wanted to do something tangible, and practical. And so off we went, five of us, representatives of the people on the convoy, and we traveled through snow, and we arrived on Christmas Eve with the hospital equipment.

Amanda 56:24

Describe the convoy. This is just a bunch of vehicles carrying hospital equipment?

Rola 56:28

Yeah, it was like two huge trucks filled with incubators, and hospital beds, and ventilators, and serum bags, and stethoscopes, and everything you can imagine a children’s hospital might need, we packed it into the vans, and then we were three humanitarians, and Paul Conroy, who is the journalist who was with Marie Colvin when she passed on, and off we went, and catalogued our journey as we we traveled there.

And it was incredible, because the campaign was still running as we were going, and so we were getting all of these updates as someone was throwing in 10 grand, and then someone else threw in 30 grand, and before we knew it, we were at 150% of our target, which just seemed just unbelievable, and it was so… It felt so healing, actually, it felt so healing. Because I, and so many Syrians, had been feeling unheard, unseen, and uncared for. Literally, the world has been seeing us being butchered, burnt, gassed, bombed, every mechanism of death has been tried, and everyone’s going, ooh, that looks bad, let’s bring another bag of popcorn, shall we? Keep watching this saga on TV. And so, for thousands of people to come together and say, I hear you, I see you, and I’m standing together with you, in solidarity of your efforts to save lives, it was huge. In a way that it doesn’t feel like that when it’s a government grant or something like that. It’s energising.

MUSIC BREAK – Remember The Fair Ma

Amanda 58:30

There’s something extraordinary about that, because that’s my experience, and many artists’, and musicians’, experience with direct patronage. Our work is very different, but in a weird way, that’s the same story that I’ve heard from any artist who has been… There’s a difference between being the recipient of a government grant, or getting signed by a major label, and selling a bunch of copies of a record, versus having 10,000 people literally pull out their wallets and say, you. I’ll give this to you for your work, because I see you. And trying to describe how that emotionally feels different from, hey, we got a call from the UN, and they’re gonna give us half a million dollars, and you’re like, okay, and just not being able to feel the humanity, the actual connected humanity. And this is something that I find myself trying to explain, and describe to people, over, and over, and over again, about a direct system of patronage, because it’s just hard to describe how, and it doesn’t matter if you’re a doctor or a musician, knowing that your community is right there saying, yes, we’re here to help, we got you, is really different from

going, I’ve been authenticated from above, and I’ve got my check, and I’m gonna go off and do my job.

And yet, there’s a couple of dark sides here. One is, and I just want to ask you these two questions, because I can’t imagine that on your side, it’s that much different from my side. Is there a feeling that, by going off grid and saying, the fucking government’s broken, the system is broken, we’ll just do it ourselves, which also, speaking of the patriarchy, and a bunch of women going, fuck it, it’s just not working, we’ll just figure it out, that it’s almost a darker tragedy, that this is what we’re reduced to. That as amazing, and as inspirational, as these stories are, this is what it’s come to. That the system is so broken. And with all of our wealth, and all of our academia, and all of our intelligence, and all of our evolution as a human species, it’s come down to one really, really smart, brave, I just don’t give a fuck if you think this is a crazy idea, woman, doctor, who goes, there’s got to be a better way. And that, in a weird way, your exceptionalism almost proves the rule of how incredibly broken the system is.

Rola 61:36

It’s so bad.

Amanda 61:40

And I don’t even know how you’re gonna answer that question, but maybe that’s just…

Rola 61:44

Okay, so the ODI, the Overseas Development Institute, is a British think tank, and they just straight up said in a report two years ago, the humanitarian system is ineffective, inefficient, and not fit for purpose. Boo.

Just to give a little bit more context, so in the Syria context, the data shows that Syrian humanitarians and aid workers and medics do 75% of the humanitarian work.

Amanda 62:14

Wow.

Rola 62:16

Yeah, which is the first thing, right? Most people don’t know that, most people are like, oh, yeah, I think it’s Save The Children, and the UN, and all of these things, and it’s not. They do a really good job in refugee countries where it’s safer, but they do a really, really bad job of being in country where the bombs are falling. And so Syrian humanitarians are doing 75% of their work, but they’re getting 1% of the budget.

Amanda 62:42

Wow. And the budget, whose budget? Which budget? What’s the budget?

Rola 62:48

So, this will be governmental budget, so this will be member states of the United Nations, for example. They will each be giving a chunk of money that goes towards a humanitarian response, and then that will get distributed. And most of the money basically goes to various UN organizations, and then some of the bigger international NGOs, like the International Red Cross, for example.

Now, don’t get me wrong, these organizations all do good work, and they are filled with incredible people, but they are huge, gigantic bureaucracies that have become self serving, and spend money in order to maintain their existence. And so the question has long stopped being, how do we best serve this affected community? The system should be saying, hey guys, you’re in a war zone, you’re up shit creek, what do you need? How can we help you? Tell us how we can assist you, and we will help you. But it doesn’t do that. From New York, it says, I know what we’re gonna do, we’re gonna build a hospital there, and we’re gonna put a clinic there. And hey, do you guys want to do that for us? We’ve got the money!

Amanda 64:04

So I have a question about, right around this, and I think we’re also just seeing this with civilization in general, communities in general, systems in general. How much of this is just about scale? And you must think about this all the time, because you can be efficient when you’re small, lean, mean, human-being-trusted. And then the minute things sort of start to balloon out, you wind up with the giant, bumbling, stumbling, inefficient bureaucracy of a huge government that can’t really take care of its people, as we’re seeing all over the world right now. And giant systems, like if we want to take the parallel back to the arts industry, the music industry, giant systems that have just lost the plot, don’t serve the purpose of making art, inspiring people, connecting people, because it’s so messy, and so profit-driven, with no accountability anywhere, that it just doesn’t work. And do you think about that, because you must constantly be tempted to scale up, hire more people, build more hospitals. And do you think about that scale as it relates to system, and how you will keep yourself able to respond today, instead of six months from now, because all of a sudden, I’ve got a board, and I’ve got to check with these people, and we’ve got to do this, and by the time you get around to it, the children are dead, and the hospital’s been bombed. Where do you see yourself, you’re at this moment in the story, where you’re actively trying to do this work so that you can respond right now, but is it just a scale issue?

Rola 66:00

Yeah, such a good question. I mean, the thing with scale is these organizations all got big in order to scale their response. But we all know from business, if you’re going to scale, you end up having to basically have a cookie cutter approach. And so you end up with a one size fits all. They will tell you it’s not really like that, but it is really like that. And that’s where it fails, because you can’t respond in Syria, same as in Somalia, same in Sudan, even though they all begin with the letter S. We are different communities! And so that’s where the failure of it happens.

But on the other hand, you do need scale. Because here’s another thing that many people don’t know, is one in five children live in a war zone. That number is rising. And actually, war and conflict drives 80% of humanitarian needs. Most people think humanitarian aid is an earthquake, it’s whatever, it’s a tornado, it’s whatever, it’s some sort of natural disaster.

Amanda 67:09

Drought.

Rola 67:10

But it’s not. Actually most of the conflict, most of the humanitarian response, is driven by conflict. But here’s the thing: most people don’t like giving to conflicts. People like to respond to an earthquake, because it’s a natural disaster, and most people don’t even want to think about war, let alone wanna look at a war, let alone wanna respond to a war.

And so this is where you have this problem with scale, is that the scale of the disaster is gigantic, and so it does need to be met with scale. But you have a failure of that, because you don’t have enough money, and the money that is going in isn’t doing things in an effective way.

But back to me, honestly, this is how I came, I started reading your book, because I was having a bit of an existential crisis about the whole thing, because I had created CanDo, and created the CanDo platform as a crowdfunding platform, with the idea that it was giving these small, nimble, local-led, community-driven humanitarian organizations a chance to connect with a global audience, so that there could be this rapid response, so that there could be this response to that was needs-based, and being delivered by the pillars of the community, in a culturally appropriate way. And it sounded all great, and the People’s Convoy was a great success, so I was like, great, let’s do this.

And five years on, we have been impactful, we’ve reached nearly a million people with seventeen different health projects that we’ve done, and HOPE Hospital for Children that we built with the People’s Convoy, I mean, my God, that’s still going, and it’s treated hundreds of thousands of children now, so that’s people power. They have been saving lives since it opened in April 2017, so it can be really impactful.

But my experience has been two things. A – the structure of setting up a charity as I’ve done it, is itself limiting. Even though we’re small, and nimble, and agile, there’s so much bureaucracy that’s put on you, from the Charity Commission, from this, from that, that actually, it’s crippling to a small organization. This is why these organizations end up getting big, because the whole system is set up to say, we need more paperwork. We need more, we need report on the report about the report about the report. And you need more people to do that. And then you need more money, and so before you know it…

And so yeah, this issue of structure, I’ve even been toying with maybe doing something more like your mechanism with a Patreon-lite program, and saying, okay, who likes the work that I’m

doing? Who’s in this with me? Who wants to get shit done, and build hospitals and save lives with that? Shall we do it more like that, because it’s…

Amanda 70:13

And so much it comes down to you being you, and people trusting you. And that’s the thing, is as soon as it gets out of the bounds of, I trust this person, this entity, even if it’s you and your five doctor friends, once it’s beyond that, and once it’s faceless, and it’s just a billboard saying, ‘People are dying, please give money,’ that’s where you lose people.

And that’s where I think our conversation becomes the most interesting. Because you have probably talked on a million Zoom calls, on a million screens, or news programs, or even podcasts, about this work, and the suffering, and what needs to be done, and I started a crowdfunding system. But you are a human being, who’s also trying to actually do your other job, your main job. You were not put on this earth to just crowdfund things into existence. You’re a doctor. The same way I technically forget most days that I’m a musician, because I spend my whole day doing the hustle.

And now also, like me, you’re the mother of a young child. You just had a baby, right? How old is your baby?

Rola 71:31

Naya is one years old.

Amanda 71:34

So you are trying to be a human being mother, trying to actually do your job as a doctor, and then your side hustle, main hustle, is this system is broken, no one else is fixing it, why the fuck do I have to fix it, but I guess I’ll fix it because no one else is fixing it.

And one of the things that I was even just talking about with my podcast team is like, it would be two fucking women sitting in like the middle of nowhere having this, with teeny children, with no time to do this, having this conversation, because of course we would be. Because when the system is so giantly broken, it would take a couple of women going, I don’t care if you think I’m nuts, I don’t care if you think I’m crazy, I don’t care if I’m going to be the village crazy lady, because I’m just going to go and build a totally off-grid system over there, because I just see a need.

And I guess my question to you as a human being would be, and especially because of the pandemic, how are you? And how are you coping with trying to prioritize spending time with this actual child of yours, that you just gave birth to, plus trying to give birth to a system to save the broken system, plus trying to even just do your actual work? My actual work, that I feel like I haven’t done in a year and a half, is like, sit down, write songs. And if your actual work is like, sit down, heal people, how are you juggling those three things right now? Actually, how are you? Stop crowdfunding for a second.

Rola 73:28

Yeah, exactly. How am I? You know, honestly, I’m variable. My baseline is one of hope and enthusiasm, but I’ve definitely been very variable, and on a rollercoaster.

It’s the 10 year anniversary, right? Honestly, I’m tired. I’m tired of trying to make people care about the fact that hospitals are being bombed, that schools are being bombed, that children are being bombed. I’m tired of having to state these things, I’m tired of having to say these words, but yet, can’t not say them, because they are happening.

And I’ve learned that as a doctor, to save lives, it’s not just about building a hospital, it’s about bearing witness. It’s about telling these stories. It’s about bringing the stories of those who are unheard and unseen, and trying… I’m a storyteller on a mission, right? So that you can, in whichever way, try and create this human connection, that might result in the magic that both you and I know it absolutely can.

But on the other hand, the platform didn’t work, and it’s for the thing that you just said a couple of minutes ago, which is that people would give when it was me asking, but when I connected them to these incredible human beings who were there doing the actual life saving work, I was just sort of being their pimp, their hustler, and working alongside them, obviously, when I can, and helping them to build the hospitals, but when I connected them directly to the people, actually, it then didn’t work. Actually, people would give money…

Amanda 75:20

They missed their charismatic leader!

Rola 75:24

People would only give money when I was on stage, or at a conference, or an event, or they’d hear me on the media, and they would speak, and so I found that really hard, because here I was trying to give people a platform and create that direct connection. And you know what, this was something that the BBC team had said to me back a few years ago, when we were talking about the documentary, and I didn’t want to be in it, actually. I just thought I was gonna say, you should go there, and here and there and speak to these people and go, off you go.

Amanda 75:50

Go film this.

Rola 75:52

And they were like, no, you need to tell this story. I was like, why? They were like, because people listen to people who look and sound like them. And that was such a startling thing for me. As a backpacker who, as a student, used to just literally put all her student savings and go off in a backpack, and relished the variety, and my name, Rola, is the name of a big Bedouin family in the Sahara Desert, I think I’m a Bedouin at heart, and so I never think that you have to

look like me or sound like me for me to give a shit about you, but actually, for a lot of people, unfortunately, it is a thing. So I definitely feel just sad that I have to do that, that the system is so broken that I have to do that.

But motherhood has been incredible. It’s literally been the single most transformative experience of my life, and I’ve been through a warzone. She, I think, has made me a better human, a better activist, and a better doctor. She really has. Just in this one year of being her mum. She’s reminded me about joy.

Amanda 77:20

I feel that way.

Rola 77:21

And she’s reminding me it’s okay to feel joy. Even in the face of suffering.

Amanda 77:25

I feel that way about Ash. I can’t imagine how I would have felt through this last year of the pandemic, if I didn’t have this kid to just constantly pull me out of this global catastrophe, and into like, look at this ant! And I’m just constantly, he’s like a vortex back into the moment. And yeah, children are really handy that way.

Rola 77:56

Amazing! Totally. I’ve sung the Wheels Of The Bus Go Round And Round 20,000 fricking times today.

Amanda 78:04

The wheels on the bus keep going round and round.

Rola 78:08

She loves it.

Amanda 78:09

Are you feeling stretched, just in terms of your priority between doing these gigantic projects, and just spending quality, non-stressed-out time with this baby?

Rola 78:25

One of the things that I’ve learned through this whole process is, finally I’ve learnt it, is self care. I think it literally took me getting pregnant, and realizing how important my health was for her, both when she was in utero, and thereafter as a baby, for me to really, finally understand that my well being is intrinsically linked to the well being of those around me, and to everything I’m trying to do. And so, it really created a mental shift from it being this luxury that I was gonna fit in when I could, to something that was really necessary. And so, for the first time ever, I’ve started to draw boundaries around, okay, I’m finishing at five, because from there on, it’s Naya time. And,

bloody hell, I’m actually doing it. My team are like, what?! This is a new you! And I’m like, I know!

But hey, but it’s really difficult. Because we’re coming up now to this documentary, and this new campaign we’re launching, and I’m finding myself, whereas normally I would have worked till 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, any hour given, now I can’t. Even if I tried, I’m so exhausted that my brain is dysfunctional. So there is a tension, and certainly, often I don’t want to leave her, but then I say to her, Mommy’s going to help save little babies like you. And it makes me feel a bit better about leaving her, when actually I just want to stay with her and sing The Wheels Of The Bus Go Round And Round.

Amanda 80:05

It’s also a really important project, just you know, I will remind you. Both projects are super worthy. That’s the thing, with Ash, I find myself constantly pulled, and I just have to constantly remind myself, it doesn’t matter which project I’m working on, they’re both totally worthy projects, whether it’s Wheels on the Bus time, and looking at grass, or going off and doing save the world shit, or working on my artwork. And that has been a hard level to get to, where I’m not always just looking over the fence at the project that I’m not doing, whether it’s I’m not with the kid, I’m not saving the world, I’m not working on my art, I’m not dealing with my team, I’m not tending to my friendships, whatever. It’s just, on any given day, I’m like, I’m just gonna work on this one, and if I give it my attention, then I’m giving it my attention. I can’t give it half my attention while I’m sort of looking over the fence at the kid, or the world, or whatever. And I’m not saying I’m nailing that every day, it’s still a struggle.

Rola 81:16

It’s still work, right? It’s still work. I used to pride myself on being a multitasker, and then I started meditating and realizing I was being a total dick. Like, what? No! It’s not about multitasking, it’s absolutely not about that. And somehow, in our society, we’ve been taught that that’s how it’s really good, and well done you if you can split your attention 20,000 ways. And now I’m like, no! That’s how you go cuckoo!

Amanda 81:44

No, it’s just fucking us all up.

Rola 81:46

It’s like, no, you try and focus, you pay something attention, and you then move on. But yeah, it’s definitely a challenge. But they’re interlinked, right? Because on the one hand, I want to make the world a beautiful place, or a more beautiful place, for Naya when she grows up. But on the other hand, I want her to grow up being a powerful, conscious woman, who is on the front lines of change, whatever front line she decides to be on. And so you’re right, they’re both essential. So it’s not a case of this is lower than this, or whatever.

Amanda 82:31

Apples and oranges, in a way.

Rola 82:31

It all feeds into one. Because everything is one, everything is connected.

Amanda 82:36

I’ve got a new mantra with Neil, when we’re dealing with, and juggling the household, the kid, the work, the time, and energy, and priorities, and I just keep saying, we’ve got to do one thing at a time right now. Because the two of us are really historically terrible, panic driven multitaskers, where we are convinced that texting on the phone, while talking, while running down the street, is actually really efficient, and it’s just become more, especially with the pandemic, it has just become more and more and more obvious, that we will be more efficient if we stop, look at one another, do one thing at a time. We’ll remember more, we’ll be more considerate to one another. And also, when the 5-year-old is watching you, I don’t want the 5-year-old watching us going like, let’s try and do five things, because it’s like, what a terrible way of being, to teach the 5-year-old.

We’re starting to run out of time. Before we run out of time, I want you, because we’ve been touching it all over the place, but you haven’t directly explained, or made the pitch for CanDo, and what you’re doing right now. And for the patrons, you’ve got a captive audience right now, of the people who are going to be listening to this podcast, because the majority of them believe in patronage, and they believe in direct, no bullshit, anti-corporate, fuck-the-bureaucracy giving, because now that we’ve met Rola, and we trust her, this actually sounds like a place that I need to send my $50.

So knowing that you’ve got that captive audience, if they’ve made it to the end of the podcast, what is happening with Syria right now, in your work with CanDo, and beyond Syria? And how can people listening right now, who are inspired by everything that you’re saying, how can they help? And what should they do right now?

Rola 84:42

So one thing that I’ve been working with the BBC team on now for over a year is doing a follow up documentary. We have traced the survivors, and the victim families of that school attack, and we’re just in the final stages of putting that documentary together, for them to tell their stories, of how their lives were torn apart, and how have they managed to get them back together after that. And so, we’re hoping, through that, to tell the story that, you know what, this wasn’t the only school that was bombed. This was one of over a thousand schools that have been bombed, and this still is happening to this day. And so, that’s going to be airing any day now.

And with that, we are launching a big campaign to save Syria’s schools. I am fed up of waiting for presidents and prime ministers to stop the bombs falling on schools. I have been scratching my head how we might protect children, and stop them from getting injured before they arrive at my hospitals burnt. And we have found this hardware, an early warning system, that uses a

combination of human observers and sensors, to input into a system, and alert a network of users before a potential aerial strike. And so, this early warning system will give each participating school up to six minutes warning before a potential bomb. And that would give them a chance to evacuate safely, and hopefully stop the injuries, stop the trauma, and the devastation that we have been seeing all of these years. So I am super excited about this, because this is going to be the first protective measure that’s going to be putting in place for schools. We’re working with our local partner Hurras to do that and several other partners like Help Refugees. So we’re about to launch the campaign, Save Syria’s Schools. I would love if everyone who’s listening would go check it out, and just give what you can. We want to get this early warning system into 150 schools that are at high risk.

And one of my favorite bits about this project is we are going to be providing all the children, and the teachers, with trauma recovery therapy. Mental health is so often forgotten, and these children, so many of them have been devastated through what they’ve seen and been through. So it’s time to give them some hope for a brighter future, so please, yeah, go to Save Syria’s Schools, and give what you can. We can put in the solar panels, and an internet connectivity, and give them this early warning system, and help protect lives, and heal minds, and we can’t do it without everyone mucking in and giving what they can. So please support.

Amanda 87:39

Well, you’ve come to the right community, and I know I will be giving, and some of the money from this podcast will be directly donated to the effort, and I am sure people listening are gonna pitch in.

Rola 87:53

I’m so grateful for that, that’s beautiful.

Amanda 87:56

Because this community is awesome.

Rola 87:57

It literally is awesome.

Amanda 87:57

And you are an amazing punk rock fucking doctor.

Rola 88:02

Thank you.

Amanda 88:06

And I just want to say, it’s so incredible when a doctor and a musician have so much in common. It’s really weird. Our jobs are really different, our backgrounds are really different, but I

feel like I have more in common with you, your life, and your work, than a lot of mainstream musicians out there. It’s just so weird.

Rola 88:31

Totally. That’s true. When I was reading your amazing book, I was like, first of all, I thought, damn, I should have totally read that before I set up the platform, because I probably wouldn’t have set it up if I had known what she had told me. I learned so much from it. But I was like, I need to meet this woman. So yeah, I’m really happy that I’m meeting you, albeit across the ether.

Amanda 88:55

I am so honored, actually, that you reached out to me. And I know my whole podcast team is too. And thank you, especially with the time change, thank you for making the time to tell us the stories, and to talk. Thank you.

Rola 89:13

Thank you.

MUSIC BREAK – Bottomfeeder

Amanda 89:20

And before I let you go, I’m going to try something. This is my team’s idea yesterday. It’s totally fucking random. This is the Amanda Palmer Bonus Round Rapid Fire Question, an inaugural outing, virgin voyage.

The first nine questions are taken from the ten questions that originally came from this French series called Bouillon de Culture, and better known as the Inside the Actor’s Studio questions. So I am exhuming these questions from the past, because they were very 70s questions, but they’re still awesome. And then I added my own questions.

So just clear your mind. First answer, best answer, it doesn’t matter if it even comes out as complete gibberish or nonsense. Just free associate. Free your mind. Free yourself. Let us do it.

Dr. Rola, my punk rock doctor icon mentor. What is your favorite word?

Rola 90:21

Compassion.

Amanda 90:23

What is your least favorite word?

Rola 90:25

Hate?

Amanda 90:27

What turns you on creatively, spiritually, or emotionally?

Rola 90:33

Nature. Any walk in nature. Sound of the sea. The sound of the birds.

Amanda 90:39

What turns you off?

Rola 90:44

War.

Amanda 90:49

War, good. What is your favorite curse word?

Rola 90:53

Oh fuck. Throw a fuck in, all the fucking time.

Amanda 90:59

What sound or noise do you love?

Rola 91:06

Naya’s laugh.

Amanda 91:10

What sound or noise do you hate?

Rola 91:12

Snoring. Fuck that. No. Get out, get out! We’re not doing this!

Amanda 91:22

What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?

Rola 91:27

Dancing. My alter ego is a dancer.

Amanda 91:35

What profession would you not like to do?

Rola 91:39

Oooh. I’ve never really thought about that, what profession would I not like to do? Well, look, I don’t like numbers, so accounting or something like that, I’d be like, ah shit. I’d be so bad, and I would hate it.

Amanda 91:55

What do you do with your phone at night? Do you keep it on, off, or on silent? Where does it go?

Rola 91:59

Airplane mode, and then I try to not turn it on until I’m actually ready to face the day. I just found I woke up so much more relaxed when there wasn’t anything on my phone to be that instant adrenaline shot. So yeah, airplane mode. Occasionally I feel guilty about it, in case disaster strikes and I’m not there, but I got over that.

Amanda 92:21

You’ve got to turn off sometimes, especially when you’ve got a baby. Can you tell me a song that makes you, or has made you, cry?

Rola 92:31

A song… Well, actually, that happened just today. And I was listening to… Don’t leave me high, don’t leave me dry.

Amanda 92:43

(Singing) Don’t leave me high… That’s Radiohead

Rola 92:47

It suddenly came on today, and I was like, oh, I love that song! And then before I knew it, I was crying. I was like, what? Where did that come from?! No idea.

Amanda 92:56

The lyrics in that song are incredible.

MUSIC BREAK – High and Dry (Radiohead cover) by Amanda Palmer

Amanda 93:21

What is a bad habit that you would rather not tell me that you have?

Rola 93:25

I pick my nose.

Amanda 93:27

We all pick our noses, that doesn’t even count!
As a child, what is the first time you can remember the feeling that things were not okay?

Rola 93:45

I remember being told off. I’m the oldest of four, and I remember being told off for doing something with my youngest sibling, and I just remember being told very distinctly, it’s not about you. You’re now the big sister, and you have to look after what they need, and what they want. And I just remember, just feeling really shocked, like somehow my needs didn’t matter. Like, now that I’m a big sister, it was all about these little babies. And I think it’s partly why I am responsible in the way that I am. But I think it was definitely also a little bit of a… Okay, it’s not about me any more.

Amanda 94:35

A humbling wake up call. Oh, my God, this was going to become the theme of your life.

What’s one of the hardest things you’ve ever asked for?

Rola 94:54

Hmm… Telling my husband that I was going to Syria on my first medical mission, I think that was… That felt really, really hard, his face dropped as I said it, and I could just see the fear in his eyes. And it was not like I wanted to go, but I needed to go. And he was super supportive, he was incredible, but that was really hard. Especially when I then phoned him and told him, ‘I’ve just written a will! I’m leaving everything for you!’ I must change that, with divorce.

Amanda 95:34

I didn’t know this was gonna lead on so perfectly, because you may have even already answered this question, and I wrote this on the ferry this morning, just thinking this would be a great question to ask anyone. What’s the closest you’ve come to dying?

Rola 95:57

Let’s see. Well, I mean, you’d think, in lots of my forays in Syria, that would maybe be taking me as close to it as I could. But yeah, so I guess that day, as I told you, that was maybe the day, the only day in my life where I had really truly thought, this could really happen.

Amanda 96:22

This might be it. Wow.

And this is my last question. Tell me the first word that comes to mind when I ask you to close your eyes, and think about, and picture, your childhood bedroom.

Rola 96:43

I see three beds, for three sisters.

Amanda 96:53

Thank you.

Rola 96:54

We all bunked together.

Amanda 96:59

You are amazing.

Rola 97:02

You’re amazing

Amanda 97:03

Thank you so much for doing this, but also, thank you for being a fucking incredible force in the world.

Rola 97:10

Thank you.

Amanda 97:12

You’re a real inspiration, to me, and I’m sure to everyone who’s gonna listen to this.

Rola 97:18

Thank you. Thank you so much.

Amanda 97:20

Thank you.

Rola 97:21

I’m so happy to be here with you.

Amanda 97:29

This has been The Art of Asking Everything podcast. Thank you to my punk rock doctor, Dr. Rola, for her work, for her immense amount of heart, and for sharing everything that she’s shared with us today.

Once again, it’s the 10 year anniversary of the war in Syria. You out there can help protect children right now who are being targeted in attacks like the ones Rola was talking about, so please, donate a little, even if it’s $10, to save Syria’s schools, where Rola is raising money to install these 150 early warning systems, to help kids get out of buildings before they are bombed. And you will also be supporting trauma therapy for the kids, which you know is deeply important to their future selves, to the health of the whole country, to the health of the whole world.

The URL again is SaveSyriasSchools.org. It’ll also be plastered all over the internet, you can Google it, it’ll be on my feeds.

And check out the show notes for links to Rola’s TED talk, and the BBC documentaries that she talks about in the podcast.

For all the music you heard in the podcast, you can go to amandapalmer.net/podcast.
Thank you to Morten Gamst at Envy Studios in Auckland, New Zealand, for recording today’s

interview, and helping with the filming that we’re using for the promo.

And lots of thanks, as always, to my incredible team. Hayley Rosenblum, who makes so many things possible, she is the ghost in the machine of our Patreon, and she makes sure so many things get done, words, pictures, live chats, general internet love. I could not do this without her. My assistant Michael McComiskey, who makes sure that scheduling happens, and trains run on time, and that I’m able to do all the things. Our Merch Queen Alex Knight, who’s also helping us transcribe this podcast, so that the conversations are accessible, much love to Alex in the UK. Also in the UK is Kelly Welles, my social media guru, co-editor, mastermind, sister-friend. Cat and Rose at Spellbound for helping with the wonderful graphics and the video making. And of course, in Sydney, my manager, Jordan Verzar, who brings us all together, and makes sure we all get paid. The podcast was produced by FannieCo.

And last but not at least, as always, again, this podcast would not be possible without patronage. At current count, I’ve got about 13,000 patrons, they make it possible for this podcast to have no ads, no sponsors, no censorship, no bullshit. Just the truthful media, as far as we can make it. So special thanks due to my high-level patrons Simon Oliver, Saint Alexander, Birdie Black, Ruth Ann Harnisch, Robert W. Perkins, Leela Cosgrove, thank you guys so much for helping me do this, and make this.

Everyone else, please go to Patreon, become a supporting member. This will also give you access to the live follow up chats that I sometimes do with the guests after the podcast comes out. I won’t be doing one with Rola, because this was so immediate, but that’s a perk of the Patreon.

And thank you. If you donated, thank you. If you could just listen and share, thank you. I love you.

Signing off for now, this is Amanda Fucking Palmer. Keep on asking everything.