Under the Spotlight Program
Orbit Channel
Interview with Mr. Talal Abu-Ghazaleh
2004
 
Commentator:
Dr. Talal Abu-Ghazaleh is only one person but he summarizes the story of a people. He is only one businessman but represents a group of outstanding companies.
Dr. Talal Abu-Ghazaleh is the founder and chairman of the Talal Abu-Ghazaleh Organization but everyone calls him “the teacher”.
 
Mr. Talal Abu-Ghazaleh:
The lion wakes up every day and reminds itself that it has to be faster than the slowest deer to catch it. The effort required is that the lion encounter a deer slower than he is, yet the deer needs to be faster that the quickest lion to save its life. So this is an unequal struggle; you want the strong party to be faster than the slowest and the weak party to be quicker and stronger than the strongest. This is a problem, but at the same time you need to realize it is a blessing, since lions can become lazy and regress and cannot live and some deer can excel and gain.
Probably the best thing is for me to start from the beginning. I am a Palestinian refugee, and as a refugee I lived in circumstances you could call difficult and I call them enjoyable.
When the ship –which was a cargo ship- dropped us off near Sidon, luck would have it that my father had business relations with one of the chiefs of Lebanon named Hajj Rida Khalifa. So when we came to this village we did not live as refugees in the refugee camps because this man allocated one of the homes of his children to us, and he ordered all the shops in the region or village not to take money from my father Hajj Tawfiq Abu-Ghazaleh. He told everyone that if my father had owed them money, then he would take care of it. So there was someone who took care of us and from the start I felt that if there is a Zionist criminal enemy then there is also a virtuous Arab represented by this person.
A second stop: My entry into school. When you have to go to school walking for two hours (each way) to get to class and when you have to go to school walking under the rain in the winter, or in the summer under the heat. Once I arrived at school when I was 13, I was soaking wet when I entered the class and the water was pouring off me. The other kids starting laughing at me because I looked like I had just been in a swimming pool because of the rain. I just smiled and sat down. The next day when I got to class, the students greeted me with applause because one of the students told them that this person you were laughing at was wet actually because he came walking from Ghazziiyeh to Sidon two hours under the rain, and did not have an alternative to being wet. So he was not playing but was persistent and came to class.
I wanted to continue my studies at the Islamic Makkased school. So I went to the Makkased school and I didn’t have money to pay the tuition. Accordingly I spoke with the principal and asked for a scholarship. He stated that all the scholarships have been distributed already, to which I replied that he just give me a chance, and if I do not come up with the top ranking in the entire school, then I’ll pay the tuition, otherwise I get the scholarship. He said that I seem very self-confident and I said that I am just confident in goodness. He stated that he’ll take a risk on me and wrote up a personal scholarship paper for me for one year, and thank God I found another area with integrity in it.
My father used to tell me that I have the responsibility of my siblings just like the father of the family because he really was old. So I took responsibility for managing the family’s affairs. Here I was an outstanding student with a scholarship and now with a family to spend on, with my younger brothers and my sisters and mother. So what to do? I had to think of means of acquiring extra income, so between classes and studying, I used to translate books; that was one activity. Another was selling ice cream, as I used to carry a box on my back and sell ice cream out of it.   
For a while, I worked in the vegetable market. I would go to the market at 5 am, and wait for the vehicles loaded with vegetables to arrive. I would calculate how many boxes were being unloaded from the vehicles and the cost of each box being handed to the retailers, and add these up and give it to the retailer, who’d take this paper and take it to accounting. So my job was calculation for these items. At 7 am I’d be back at my house, and would shower and get changed and go to school. There are other areas I worked in also such as teaching. All of these jobs enriched my experience in life. I owe Lebanon a lot, as I studied at the American University there under a full scholarship.
There are private stories I don’t like to bother people with, but the scholarship included education, books, accommodation and food. So at the end of the week, I would visit my family and take the fruits with me that I would accumulate because we were entitled to take an apple or orange or banana with every meal. So that would be three meals a day where I would gather fruit. At the end of the week I would take these to my family who were waiting to eat these fruits which they otherwise would have been prevented from. Gathering this fruit for my family was not a burden for me but rather was a joy and a blessing to be able to provide this for my family.
For my refugee brethren in Palestine who feel the pain of the ordeal, I call it the blessing of the ordeal because in order to strive as a people and nation, we need to excel and exert great efforts. So this should be our direction and not pain, suffering and despair. On the contrary, if I have to learn, then this is a blessing, and if I have to work while learning, then this is an added blessing because it has given me expertise and the strength of the experience and knowledge.
Commentator:
Does despair generate failure or is it a golden opportunity to start anew? Does suffering generate frustration or is it your personal project to respond to life?   
Mr. Abu-Ghazaleh:
How did I decide to be what I want to be. Hamlet says that what we should do, we will do when we are able to do so.
So what should I do? I decided to defeat this enemy by being better than him. So when should I do this? Whenever I can. The best way to expect what will happen the future is to make it, so whatever we need to do we will do when we can as Shakespeare said.  
I do not know what despair is. I want to take the opportunity here to say that my enemy, and I have one enemy named Israel who is neither a neighbor nor friend, does everything in its power is to frustrate us and make us fail to reach the point of despair, so why would I help this enemy in becoming desperate?
 
Commentator:
Jaffa was not the birthplace of Abu-Ghazaleh, but where his consciousness was born.
Lebanon was not the place of his learning, but the place of his dreams.
Kuwait was not where he worked, but where he became creative. The Arab world is not his source of wealth, but what he feels loyal to.
And no longer has one war separated him from the enemy.
 
Mr. Abu-Ghazaleh:
Kuwait gave me everything. It took me in, and in Kuwait there are men who gave me more than a father gives his own son. At that time I was at the beginning of my career; I had graduated and went directly to Kuwait. I received more than what a father would give his own son in regards to support, trust and unlimited capabilities. I acknowledge that it is one of the foundations of the success of this organization whose roots are Kuwaiti and will remain so.
The dream was to create a professional Arab group that is at par with international institutions. Thank God, in all standards relating to level of performance, or the scholarly, technical or ethical levels, if we were not surpassing our counterparts in the world then at the very least we were no less than they were.
We started out in certified accounting, in the second year began with consultations and in the third year we started with intellectual property (IP). We have now become the top organization in certified accounting, consultations and IP. When we started in the accounting profession, there weren’t any establishments in this field, as the leadership of the profession was dominated by foreign corporations. Now the leadership of this occupation is Arab. We have become the first professional organization in the Arab world. Also, when it came to the realm of IP, we found that we have a role to play and a responsibility. Thank God we were successful.
I want to tell you a short story. About 30 years ago, I was visiting a friend of mine who was the head of one of the chambers of commerce. In a recent speech this person delivered at a global conference, he talked about my visit to him 30 years ago. He mentioned how I spoke to him of IP and the necessity of protecting it, and added that after I had left him, he felt somewhat worried because I was educated and he wondered how I could be thinking of this nonsense. He then added that 20 years later, he realized the significance of what I had told him and that we in the Arab nations should have utilized the issue of IP better at the time. I faced battles in one of the Arab countries when I asked for more IP protection on medicines and called for the non-imitation of foreign products. I was accused of being an agent for foreign monopolies and there were ads to this effect against me in newspapers. The truth is I wanted us to be competitors for these products and not steal them, and that is a key difference. I do not accept that our Arab nation steal inventions or imitate them, because this is not a part of our ethics. Rather, I want to competently compete with them and we can do so.
For example, we have now become the leading IP company in the world. We started with a new activity which is translation, and now are among the biggest translation companies in the world. The same applies to our legal services company. How? With a new concept, we are a network of legal offices throughout the Arab world. So we do not compete with them but rather coordinate with them to create an international Arab organization of lawyers.
There is also the area of recruitment, since we have a bank of information on available positions, and work with companies that need to fill these positions and we are involved with the procedures of selection and appointment and contracting and so on. In regards to education we established the Abu-Ghazaleh Cambridge IT Skills Center.
We are an Arab organization that has offices in all the Arab capitals, and we work towards the well-being and welfare of the Arab world.  
I also do not believe that the mind requires rest. That is a lie. The mind is part of one’s body and the part that works the most is one’s heart. So why not rest one’s heart? It cannot happen because if the heart stops for even a second, a person will die. So one must always be exercising his/her mind for their own benefit, regardless of one’s nation and responsibilities. A person is hurting him/herself in the time he/she is not taking advantage of to enrich the mind. 
Undoubtedly, every organization or company faces struggles and battles. When I face a problem I am happy because it gives me a chance to succeed and prevail.
One of the pieces of wisdom I learned was from someone who passed away, may he rest in peace. I had told him that people are attacking me unfairly and unjustly. He inquired if I wanted these attacks to end and of course I said yes. His response was then I should just stay at home. So the moral was that I should keep on working because it is only natural for people to attack me and my work.
Another wise man in Kuwait advised that I not respond to these people who attack me. Rather, I should just keep working and not stoop to their level, because my success itself is the best response to them. So not responding to them means that I would win the war of words. The person who advised me this is a giant in the world of Arab media and intellect. 
 
When things were printed about me in the papers, the same person said that if I respond then I am only serving those who attacked me. I always remember this advice.
 
Challenge is a gift and an opportunity. My colleagues and employees at the organization always find it strange that I become refreshed when I have a problem. I tell them that when a person has a problem, it is a chance to succeed.
 
When I have a difficult problem or a worrying one, I listen to rich music, such as a composition for Wagner for example. I find that the there is something in the greatness of the music that surpasses the greatness of the worry I have.
 
Money is not a gift. Money is merely a tool that can be used for good or evil. I do not have a fortune thank God, but I have this organization and not deposits or a bank account anywhere. Anything that comes out of this organization is reinvested in it, and this is the secret of its success. This is what I do instead of taking the profits and investing them elsewhere. Numerous people and banks come to me requesting me to invest my money with them. I ask them what they would give me for it and they say 5-10%. Yet when I employ this money in the company, I get more. How? First it gives me income. Second it gives me more national product and social work, which is a service to the nation. This is because I am building an institution and employing and training employees who serve organizations and states and who provide expertise. So all this is done instead of freezing my money. Actually, frozen cash is a burden that does not increase the national income; what increases is production. 
 
I do not run the corporation; there is a management that does that. My role is a vision; I suggest to the officials in the organization what I believe should be their interests and tendencies. My other role is when they need an opinion. This means that there is not a decision that requires my approval unless there is a difference or interpretation on it in which they need my opinion. Yet there is no need for my approval on anything. In short, my concern from the beginning was to build the organization so that the organization can work.
 
The people who work with me call me the teacher, not the chairman or other fancy titles. There is no objection to these titles, but personally my role in this organization is that of a teacher and father where I convey my expertise.
 
This is what I always tell my children; that I am in a transitory stage and will be moving on while you will remain, so I want you to take the good and the bad that I have and continue after me.
 
Family businesses worldwide are more successful than others, and the main thing is to separate the emotional relation from work and ownership.
 
I have four children; two sons and two daughters. My daughter Jumana is the youngest and she finished her studies at Harvard and now trains in New York.
 
My children work with me and I am very lucky that they do. God has blessed me with my children and I believe anyone would be blessed by God to have children like mine. They are also owners of the company, but that does not give them the right to take decisions. So if one of them is a worker or a manager at the company, then he would have authorities and specializations that he cannot transgress as the owner. As for being a family member, that has nothing to do with work.
 
At work, my kids only call me “sir’ or “my teacher” but do not say father. So God has granted them with these morals and intelligence. My experience is that one should separate the family relationship completely from the company, ownership and management.
 
When we talk about family, one must always remember that his value is as a human and if he lost his humanity then he cannot conduct his duty. So a person who does not respect his/her family and does not undertake his/her duties towards it, cannot conduct the required role towards the country or firm or nation or anyone.
 
I am happy with two gifts; my relation with my children and my relation with my parents. I had a special relation with my parents that is the same as my relation with my children. I do not want to exaggerate but there is no description for the amount of mutual love, respect and admiration between us.
 
For example, an earthquake took place a couple of days ago. I was here on the sixth floor and my son Luay was on the fourth. When the event took place and people left the building, I was surprised to find Luay running up the stairs to make sure I was ok.
 
This is similar to the relation I had with my mother and father. Before my mother passed away, she suffered from a disease that led to her complete paralysis, and was in bed for two weeks. I was at her bedroom door for two weeks and would only leave for the bathroom.
 
At that time everything stopped so there is nothing that is important; no appointment or engagement or project or work. There was only one issue; my mother.
 
There is another story that is somewhat emotional. When my mother went into something like a coma, the doctor would poke her with a needle to see if she was still alive. When he did so, she would say my name, and the doctor found it strange that even her subconscious was only talking about me.
 
Also, before my father passed away, he had said that he only wants to be buried if Talal is around. Sure enough, when he died I had just arrived in New York. I received a phone call with the news and I did not unpack but returned straight back to the airport. There was nothing more important than that.
 
I am proud of these relationships. The greatest thing to me was when my parents would say “May God be pleased with you”. To me, these words were priceless. God has blessed me in that He made my relation with my children similar to this also, and I always say this for my children whether they hear me or not.
 
There is no geographical location called the “Middle East”. Is this supposed to include Cyprus, Turkey and Tunisia? Or is it detailed however we want? I only accept that we speak about an Arab region.
 
There are attempts to use this phrase. I am the chairman of the Arab Society of Certified Accountants, and there was an attempt to establish a society for accountants of the Middle East and this was at the national conference for certified accountants. So I said fine, define what the Middle East is for me. They said it means certain countries and Israel. My response was why not Cyprus and Pakistan as well? Who said that is the definition of the Middle East? So the term “Middle East” is prohibited from my vocabulary. There is the Arab region and Arab states. But if anyone says the Middle East then I demand to know what they mean by that term. When the Middle East is mentioned they always include Israel with the Arab states.
 
So getting back to our topic, I just want to take the opportunity to convey what I feel is important which is that we as Arabs are good and strong and we are ashamed to declare our strength. Why should I be ashamed to say I am an Arab? On the contrary, I am proud to say I am an Arab and am not ashamed of this.
 
So to conclude, I want my conclusion to be like the beginning of the Arab nation; a great nation. De Gaulle in his office always had maps of the world on the walls and history books on the table. He used to say that one cannot take a correct decision unless one goes back to history and geography. By history and geography, we are a great nation. No attempts to hide this fact will succeed.
 
Civilizations of the world owe much to this nation which has contributed positively to all fields and has a role in the future. This nation will be victorious because the elements of good are in it and justice is on its side.
 
In the end, this justice will prevail. I do not believe that there will be a phase of peaceful coexistence with Israel. Israel cannot exist in these surroundings because it does not have the foundations of a state or history or geography. In the context of history and geography, it does not even exist. The Arab region will recover based on the faith of its people.
 
If we want to defeat this enemy, then we make its project fail. This project aims to destroy our will and self-confidence and trust in the future. So I repeat and say that the future is ours no matter how much the world wrongs this great nation.