SPEAKER_03 0:08

Welcome to Between the Threads, a podcast exploring the threads that connect us: story, memory, identity, and meaning, and how they weave the fabric of peace in our lives and communities. Between the Threads is a joint initiative between Kahani and Narratives. Kahani is a nonprofit organization that amplifies storytelling for peace building. And Narratives is an award-winning planning and design firm based in Winnipeg, Canada. Welcome to the next episode of Between the Threads. On today's episode, we talk about the story of where we belong. And our guest is one of my favorite people, Aisha Khan. Aisha is a lawyer whose extensive career has been dedicated to promoting and protecting human rights, dignity, and equality. As a CEO of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, she's focused on engaging deeply with community to build a better understanding of human rights through storytelling, transformational experiences, and modeling a culture of respect for human rights. Aisha also sits on the board of the Main Street Project, another one of our favorite organizations, Balmoral Hall School, and the Executive Committee of the International Network of Museums for Peace. Welcome. Thank you. Nice to be here. So, Aisha, I love asking people. The first question is always what was little them like? So, what was little Aisha like?

SPEAKER_00 1:34

Hmm. How little do you want to go? You decide. She was super happy. Yeah. Really happy. Um, surrounded by family, big extended family, the baby of the family. Kind of chubby. Mom fit me in clothes that were a little bit too tight. It was the 70s or something. So a little gaping buttonholes. Um uh yeah, happy, um, lots of friends. Um, and I don't know. I think as the youngest, watching things going on around me and trying to make sense of it and knowing that a lot of it was internal, right? Like it's not the baby doesn't speak out always, right? Uh, there's there's a lot of other things going on around, and then you know, that was that was little me, I think, but very loved and supported and cared for. And I think I attribute so much of where I am today because I had a really solid upbringing in that way.

SPEAKER_03 2:40

That's incredible. Were you born and raised in Winnipeg?

SPEAKER_00 2:44

Yeah. Yeah. So I'm the third of three kids, the only one born in Canada. Yeah. In a, you know, my parents were immigrants, my brothers were born elsewhere, and and then we had aunts and uncles and cousins and people coming to visit and grandparents living with us uh from time to time. So that's incredible.

SPEAKER_03 3:01

Yeah. Beautiful, rich family.

unknown 3:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:04

It's always curious, like the the youngest one. I love observing, like getting to know people and then trying to guess what birth order they're in, because there's so many similarities and you know what they choose. And I'm the oldest, and people who know me would say, Oh yeah, totally. Oh, yeah, I got that. Uh you read that. No, I just and then, you know, my husband's the youngest, and he ended up in also a field where it's like avoiding conflict. What does it look like, managing conflict, and so on? What inspired your journey? You were first a lawyer, or you are a lawyer. What inspired becoming a lawyer?

SPEAKER_00 3:46

So the story's not as romantic as I wish it was. You know, when I talk to so many, yeah. In the second time, we might need to. Um, I talked to a lot of young lawyers or want to be lawyers or human rights advocates, and I always think the story's not that inspiring because I didn't know I wanted to be a lawyer. I certainly didn't think I was going to work in a museum one day. I did a philosophy degree, I did a minor in religious studies. Um I wanted to work internationally. I wanted to essentially, you know, I was the kid who wanted to save the world, right? So I had all these visions of what that would look like. Uh and then I had a philosophy degree and didn't know what to do with it. And uh and people said co-op programs back then for philosophy. Yeah, no, I was working retail in some kind of sketchy environments, and uh and I, you know, people said it's a good law is a good stepping stone. And and I think it has been. And so really the inspiration was I did want to work in justice, I did want to work in human rights, I wanted to advocate, I wanted to use my voice. Yeah, and so I saw law as a way of doing that.

SPEAKER_03 4:55

What do you think inspired if you go back and think about what little Asha was observing in the world around her? What inspired the desire to work in human rights?

SPEAKER_00 5:08

Yeah, so you know, people often when they ask me the question, I feel like I should have this one pivotal moment, like one horrible thing that happened to me.

SPEAKER_03 5:16

You know, it's almost never the case though.

SPEAKER_00 5:19

Yeah, well, that gives me some comfort because I've also, you know, you wrestle a little bit working in human rights to say the things that have happened to me are nothing compared to the things that I know happened to other people. And so I've kind of become, you know, I'm 52. I'm sort of owning who I am and realizing that that's okay. I can still, I can still talk about racism, I can still talk about those things. Um, and I can also acknowledge great privilege. Um I think I I I think I only know these things with hindsight. Like what inspired me.

SPEAKER_02 5:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:57

Um I now can look back and see, you know, my mom was, you know, at six weeks. I was a six-week-old baby, and she put an ad in the newspaper to get someone to look after me so she could go back to work. You know, she was working in a in a downtown medical clinic. She'd wear a sari every day to work. My parents were trying to make their way. I had older brothers navigating like teenage issues. Um and I think we all knew that we were a little bit different. I grew up in like elementary school. I'm the, you know, one of very few other kids of color in my school. Um, and I did have, I did feel othered, right? Of course. Um I had a great, great surround like support around me, and yet I knew I was different, you know, little things like standing up in class and you know, what did you get for Christmas? And you stand up as, you know, an eight-year-old kid and and and lie, right? Like, oh, I got a cabbage patch kid. No, no. And I mean, I did get one. Was it for Christmas? Not so much, but you know, um, so there was some of that. And then I think, I think, you know, going back to Pakistan as a kid, um, and we didn't go often, but we did go every few years and just seeing great disparity, poverty, um, and trying to reconcile then how did we have this life that we did? And and I think with hindsight, my parents never talk about racism, but seeing it.

SPEAKER_02 7:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:34

Like shopping with your mom, and she has a strong accent and seeing how people were treating her. And as I got a little bit older, I just realized like this is, you know, you first you're just embarrassed. Like, why is your mom asking if this is on sale or, you know, whatever it is, as all kids do. Yeah. Um, but I think it's all with hindsight, kind of having greater reflection and insight into what they were going through, realizing that they weren't always treated equally, equitably. Um, and then of course, this smattering of someone telling you to go back to your own country and those kinds of things that sadly do happen.

SPEAKER_03 8:09

Right. Oh, thank you for sharing that. You know, when I think about our experiences, and you're absolutely right, like the journey only becomes clear somewhat in hindsight. Yeah. I think in the moment you're just living, you're just navigating, you're just experiencing. And if I think back to how my journey evolved in the work that I do, I don't necessarily know if I knew anything about human rights. It was just your daily observations about how people interact with each other, how people treat each other. I remember my dad coming home one day from work, and this was in Abu Dhabi, coming home from work one day after the Gulf War, and saying that he his company had hired an American manager. And and I thought, oh, American, like what's American? And my dad said, you know, those movies, Hollywood movies, that's what they look like. Because we'd never seen a white person before, right? And we we had this like inherent memory of British occupation and what people, what those people looked like, and that kind of thing. So my dad started talking about this American manager, and uh and I and he wouldn't really say too much in front of us kids. And later that evening I heard him talking to my mom about how this person was not at all qualified. They used to just work at McDonald's, and yet they were gonna be leading a telecommunications company. And then he said it's just because they're white. And I didn't, it didn't make sense to me at the time. Like skin color does not compute. So it was all those like little, little, little, little markers, I think, that I think sit in your system in some way that then you want to do something about at some point that informs our journeys as we move along. Yeah, I totally agree.

SPEAKER_00 10:05

I I think it's all these tiny moments, none of them are significant, but when you put them all together, and then obviously I would say as I started working as a lawyer and I did early on started to specialize in labor and employment, so workplace issues. And so human rights, you know, women who are pregnant and getting fired. And that was right when maternity leave was um, you know, the government had just extended maternity leave and parental leave was brand new, and people were struggling with with so there were lots of human rights kind of issues, you know. Um so it all sort of flowed eventually into doing actively doing human rights work as a lawyer, and then yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:48

And what is that, what did it look like to move from practicing law to the Canadian Museum of Human Rights? Yeah, so it's pretty different.

SPEAKER_00 11:00

Yeah. Um, I think I so I often say I remember exactly where I was when I got a text from a woman I used to work with who said, who sent me the posting for, you know, CEO of the Museum for Human Rights. And I sent her back the emojis with like the little face with the Zeds, like the snooze emojis. Like, I would never do that. Um, thinking about working at a museum. And she's like, you should think about it. And and so I just kind of sat on it and was like thinking about how I felt about what I thought was the best job I've ever had, which was when I was the lawyer and uh executive director of the Manitoba Human Rights Commission. And there were a lot of things going on in my life at the time in that job, like difficult things and work-wise. And I was so, so tired, so emotionally tired. And a friend of mine had mentioned the word compassion fatigue. And all of this was kind of in my head. And I thought, well, maybe if you go to a museum, maybe you don't need to use that same compassion. I don't know, you know, like maybe this is a good foray into somewhere else.

SPEAKER_03 12:10

Right.

SPEAKER_00 12:11

Um and so, yeah, and so I applied for the job. And the more I more I thought about it, I got excited about it because there was so much opportunity, and I was honestly just really tired of the justice system.

SPEAKER_03 12:24

Yeah, yeah. Oh, that's so interesting. And then you were shocked when you started working at the museum as to how much more compassion you probably also needed to exercise.

SPEAKER_00 12:35

Yeah. I mean, I had applied for the job, and then June of 2020, the museum is all over the news with its own um, you know, staff calling out the museum for anti-indigenous, anti-Black racism, homophobia, it's COVID. I'm scrolling, like doom scrolling endlessly because I'm at home working from my couch and thinking, do I want to work in this place? But the more that I actually saw, you know, in a weird way, all the trials and tribulations the organization was going through, I understood it because I'd been doing work mediating conflicts and human rights complaints in organizations for, you know, almost a decade. Right. I was like, we can sort this out. And it kind of renewed my interest in being on the inside of a system that needs to change.

SPEAKER_02 13:26

Right.

SPEAKER_00 13:26

And so, yes, of course, you need compassion and equity and all of those things. And I thought, I I think I can do that. There's a lot of things I don't know how to do, but that part I think I can figure out.

SPEAKER_03 13:37

So in this season, we've been reflecting a lot on uh, you know, how how communities mark their mark their presence through landmarks. And museums to me are a really important landmark. So when I go into a new city, I usually try to find the oldest library and try to look at the archives, see what maps they have, what stories they have, while also recognizing that the world that I come from, it was so much oral tradition that we're not gonna necessarily see everything on paper. But museums to me are one of those important places where you walk through and you can tell who got to tell their story. So when you imagine like when you started working at the museum, how did stories play a role in your in your day-to-day at the museum?

SPEAKER_00 14:34

So I started during during the pandemic and we weren't open to the public.

SPEAKER_02 14:39

Right.

SPEAKER_00 14:40

And the organization was really in disarray. Like I don't know how else to say it. We had kind of imploded and there was so much feeling and emotion, and people, people were in a tough spot. And so stories, the focus on stories was all the stories of our of our own team. You know, what had you experienced in this place? What was it like to work in this place that's shiny and beautiful on the outside? And now everyone's looking at it and saying, what's going on in that place? And bringing up their stories of harm or really negative experiences. And there were the people who were advocates for change. There were the people who felt bad because they were kind of oblivious to things that were going on around them. And then there were, of course, some people who who felt defensive and, you know, this wasn't the case. And so it was really complicated interpersonal work. So all the stories were about what was happening inside and trying to weave together what does this mean? How do you lead a place where there are, like, how do we bring those stories to a convergence and find the way forward? I think in terms of the museum externally, so much of my work was about rebuilding trust in the museum as a place that could be trusted to share stories of communities, of people, of grave violation, of hope. Um, you know, because human rights, obviously, as we know, are deeply personal. It's about who you are, yeah, and how you're valued. So that work was, I mean, it almost fueled the energy I needed to do the internal work because as much as there was a lot of being held to account, I was in a fortunate space where I was new. And so I was there to listen and to find the way forward to rebuild trust. And I have to say, there was so much graciousness offered to me to say, this happened, we were harmed, or this is how we felt, but there is a future, right? And so, so the idea of stories became they are the I mean, stories are the reflection of who we are, right? It's how we articulate who we are, whether it's through verbal stories or otherwise. And so I spent a lot of time just listening to folks.

SPEAKER_02 17:00

Yeah, beautiful.

SPEAKER_03 17:03

That thank you for sharing that story. It makes me think about how important it is for places that carry stories from many parts of the world, many parts, many ways of being, many histories, many histories of conflict. Sometimes we forget to do that internal work within our, you know, in our house, if you will. And like my grandfather would always say, the hardest of the conversations are in our own courtyards. And we can we can resolve conflict all day long externally. We can bring people in, have them sit around, listen to them, listen deeply, maybe feel a little bit impacted by it. And but we can help them find a way. But when it bec when it comes to our own internal challenges, those can be very tricky to navigate. So when I hear your story, um, I feel a sense of warmth knowing that if that internal work has happened, then perhaps the stories that the museum carries, it carries it with a little bit more intention and and care.

SPEAKER_00 18:05

Yeah. And I would I feel good about the way that we do that work. You know, obviously there are times we have certainly made mistakes and there's there are still mistakes to be made. People say, you know, people um sometimes will say to me, Oh, you know, you you you work at the museum or you know, you're the CEO of the museum. You've really cleaned those things up. You you fixed everything. And I always laugh and say, Well, I fixed them until I haven't. Yeah. Right. Like you don't just fix respect in the workplace or creating an equitable organization. That's that's the long game that sort of never ends, yeah, sadly, but true, right? Yeah, and there are mistakes yet to be made. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 18:49

Part of the journey. Hopefully not today or tomorrow, but yes. Yeah, let's experience summer first. So human rights coming back to the nature of human rights. So human rights are so nuanced because they're so deeply personal, you know, you you may exercise someone's rights at the expense of someone else's right. There's so much, right? And how does how does a museum that carries so many stories wrestle with that?

SPEAKER_00 19:20

And I think that has been part of the journey of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, is wrestling with who are we and how do we do this when everybody has something they want us to share. For me, what guides me, and maybe, you know, maybe because I'm a lawyer, so I I came at human rights, obviously from the feeling side, but also I learned about the foundations of human rights, you know, as we understand them from a Western legal perspective. And so I always, you know, I push, I push back often at the idea that particularly for an organization, human rights, you know, valuing human rights is the North Star. It's what we aspire for. And I say, and it's it's not a North Star, it's actually our foundation. We just actually have to go back to recognize the foundation of human rights or foundational, universal. The point is we all have them.

SPEAKER_01 20:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:11

It doesn't matter if you're white or brown or black or gay or not. Um, and so that helps me, that framing helped me uh sort of infuse that in the organization, right? Telling one community story, it's not just to tell that community story, it's to draw the thread that we're talking about human rights that exist also in that story and that story. Beautiful. And trying to have people understand that, you know, learning about the invasion of Ukraine will help them understand what's happening in Palestine. It helps them understand what's happening with indigenous rights in Canada. Like there are threads because human rights are fundamental. There's still work to do, of course, because we all have our own idea of what they are and how they play out. But I think centering the foundation of human rights, and that's why in the museum, Article One, no, all human beings are born free and equal, like wearing it on the t-shirt.

SPEAKER_03 21:14

I love that wall so much.

SPEAKER_00 21:16

It's there for a reason. Yeah. It's there because it grounds how we understand the stories that we tell and scope the stories that we tell. They're not just to make people feel good or feel seen, but we do want them to feel good and feel seen.

SPEAKER_02 21:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:32

They're for perhaps a bigger reason, which is so people understand what human rights are and then they do something with that knowledge.

SPEAKER_03 21:38

Yeah. You know, so I really appreciate that framing, Aisha. When I think about one of my favorite uh quotes of Rumi is oh, beyond the ideas of right doing and wrongdoing is a field. I'll meet you there. Yeah. And often in my work I love that quote. Isn't it? I go back to it often, actually. Beautiful and easier said than done, yeah, though, right? Because we When something happens, even for myself, I find myself like very quickly taking a position, and then I say, uh, Rumi's field, Rumi's field, Rumi's field, and you know, I need I need to stay in the field. And sometimes in the nature of my work, it's very tricky to be in the field. And I have very strong personal emotions on a certain topic, on a certain discussion, or I'm really, really struggling with something. So when that happens, I go to the museum and I spend the day there. Because one of the things that is deeply valuable in that museum is you really do get a sense of being in that field because you hear stories from so many different perspectives. You experience how human rights, what is a human right, how symbols like a dress or a flag or the color of someone's skin, how all of these different things become symbols for human rights. So it's just a really beautiful grounding exercise for me. And it's a good, like I if if I'm really struggling, that's where I disappear to for the day to the museum. I love that. I'll look for you behind some corners. And actually my favorite part of the museum is that very that wall. Yeah. And I often just like stand under it and stare up. Yeah. Because it's um it's a bold statement and yet deeply, deeply human.

SPEAKER_00 23:32

Yeah. Yeah. And yet so, so misunderstood. So misunderstood in our times, right? Yeah. I think it made me think that when I worked at the Human Rights Commission, so we were dealing with individual stories, right? Um, things that had happened to folks renting an apartment in the workplace, wherever where they felt discriminated. You know, as we analyzed those complaints or investigated them, there were lots of times where we would say, well, we have to switch, switch up the characteristic. Now, this isn't a woman who's been sexually harassed. This is a man who's black who um who's been harassed. You know, how would we look at this? And so we had to always force ourselves to be able to take the same approach regardless of what the specific issue was that was playing out. It had to be grounded in the principle. And that helped me understand and has helped me throughout my life or my understanding of human rights, that the principle underneath what's actually played out is important. And so I often talk about we have to learn to live human rights. They're already there. We already, we were born with them, we all have them. We're just not living them out. And and to me, the example was all these, you know, heinous things that were happening to people in their lives where we weren't, we weren't living the true principles of human rights.

SPEAKER_03 24:56

Oh, beautiful. And it's it's realizing that connection that can be so, so important. So over the years, as a member of the museum, and so for everybody who's listening, if you're not a member of the museum, she said it. You should become a member because one of the things, one of my favorite things about being a member of the museum is when new exhibits are brought in, there's an opportunity to meet with the curators beforehand and meet some of the family members, perhaps, who were involved, some of the storytellers whose stories are being brought to life through that curation process, and it's deeply special. Tell me about some of the exhibits over the years since you've been the CEO that sort of stand out for you.

SPEAKER_00 25:44

So I've been there almost six years, and we opened two, you know, blockbuster major exhibitions. One was about music and human rights, and it was just really fun, right? Like it was powerful in all the ways that it needed to be at the time. We were developing it during COVID, and we knew that we and we had had all our own struggles as a museum, very public struggles. And it was intentional that we wanted to do an exhibit, an exhibition around a theme that was cross-cutting, that everyone could connect to. And you know, if you think about, so I can't remember now, it opened in 2023, maybe. Right. Around there. Yeah. Um we, you know, we were struggling. George Floyd had been murdered, Black Lives Matter. It was on, you know, the end of the first sort of you know, awareness of me too.

SPEAKER_02 26:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:42

Um, all the COVID vaccination, human rights, bodily autonomy kind of discussions. And we wanted to bring people together. And so the music exhibition, not only was it just fun because, oh my God, I love that person. And that's their notebook and that's their outfit. And we had a big concert, and Tom Morello came and like sort of, you know, shook the house. And we thought museums can be places that bring people together in really fun ways. So that was amazing. Um, and we got to meet great artists who use music as their as their mode, as their advocacy. Um, so that was fantastic. And then I would say Love in a Dangerous Time. Yeah. About the story of Canada's LGBT purge. To me, that was, you know, I I had always walked along folks who'd been whose human rights had been violated, you know, in my previous life. And now we were doing it differently. Now I'm in a museum and we're telling their stories, and it was complicated and messy. And the idea of centering survivors of their stories and the care that you put in to tell the story the way they want it to be told.

SPEAKER_01 27:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:54

No, I mean, lawyers try to do that, right? Like they try to understand the story, but then they put it in their own legal framework. Sure. But in a museum, our responsibility is to share the stories the way people want them to be shared. And that was pretty um transformational for me. And so, you know, of course, it opened and it was, you know, days after Trump had announced the, you know, executive orders to purge trans folks from the military. And we were standing there with a group of survivors who'd been through so much in their lives, you know, they'd been purged from the military and the RCMP and the civil of the public service. And we were like, whoever thought this would be as timely as it is? And just seeing how it felt for them to have their story told, have some trusted someone else to do it. So they didn't have to do it themselves. Yeah. But they were there and it was authentic, it was important. I could go on, but I would also say um bringing the witness blanket back to the museum.

SPEAKER_02 28:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:59

Um, and all the work that has gone around it to understand what it means to steward stories, not just collect them as a museum would, to give value. And actually, in the case of the witness blanket, and if folks haven't don't know what it is, it's you know, 800 pieces gathered from residential school sites and churches and buildings sort of woven together in this, what looks like a blanket, yeah, um, carved blanket. That piece for me, and the way we we we brought it back in ceremony and we bridged to, you know, Anishinabe and Kokwakawak traditions and had this agreement circle. And I stood holding the eagle feather that I was gifted and was gifted with with items to represent that I have a leadership role, and I felt the weight of a post-colonial world and navigating for others with a human right lens, what that means. That was huge. Yeah, huge for me.

SPEAKER_03 30:02

That just sounds so special. Yeah what a sacred moment to be to be a part of. I want to go back to one of the things you said, Aisha, about finding ways to honor how a survivor tells their story. And I think I think that is where the real magic, the real opportunity lies. Because when we work with difficult stories, we we often try to maybe massage them or tell them in ways that can that people can understand. And sometimes we can get carried away with that. And when I think of a survivor's healing journey, uh it's it's messy. That story's messy, and I really appreciate the uh the care with which those stories are stewarded. Because it's not just about telling the story, it's about telling the story in a manner that honors both the survivor and the one who's then going to carry the story forward. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 31:10

Yeah, yeah, thank you. I I mean, and you do that work, right? I know you do. So that we we share that responsibility in common in different ways.

SPEAKER_03 31:20

So thinking about one of the things that we were touching on earlier about human rights can sometimes be contested. How do you how do you work and you know, sometimes they're contested, sometimes they can be contradictory in people's perception of those, sometimes there's overlap. If museums can be a place where representation comes alive in a city, how how do you balance that responsibility of representation?

SPEAKER_00 31:53

Okay, I need a coffee. Yeah, so how do you do that work? It's hard. I think you just said it, it's messy. I think um, whether it's a museum or an author or you know, someone in a workplace, a leader in a workplace, we sit at the intersections of people who bring their own histories and ancestry and um feelings, like intergenerational trauma. Um and so that's the compassion part, right? Like realizing that everyone is coming with all of their advocacy, use that, right? Because the museum's often in the center of advocacy from different places about a story that should be told or not told, or should be told this way, or it's missing, or why are you telling it? Um, feel like we're at the intersection of a lot of things and sometimes become a proxy for other conversations or dialogue or arguments to be had. And I'll say on that point, and so have tried to embrace that and say, let us convene people, let us actually embrace that we are sometimes at the intersection. Like let's let's let's do good there. So, I mean, the concept of balancing rights, even from a legal perspective, has been around for a long time. Right. Um, and I think if we understand that human rights are foundational, if we know that that is that is where we come back to or what underlies this balancing that happens, it's much easier because you look at both sides, if we've got a two-sided story, and you can see those threads in both places. And the the work is to have people see that.

SPEAKER_02 33:33

Yeah. Right?

SPEAKER_00 33:34

To people say what I'm saying is actually what they're saying.

SPEAKER_02 33:37

Right.

SPEAKER_00 33:37

Yeah, what I want for my family is the same thing they want for their family. My hurt is is no different than their hurt.

SPEAKER_02 33:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:45

That's our work as imperfect humans to be able to see others the way to see that others will feel the same things that we do, depending on where they come from.

SPEAKER_03 33:53

So I love that. And there's that's where the opportunity is. And you know, I like to call that expanding the frame. Yeah. Where when conflict happens, when rupture happens, we can get defined by that rupture. And it's almost like you're looking through that conflict through the straw, and all you see is that conflict, and it it becomes our identity. And then a beautiful way to expand the frame is to also think about what else is true about who we are as people. And then that's where you start seeing some overlaps and some similarities between you know the other and the self. And that's where the opportunity really lies in my mind. And earlier when you were talking about music and the power of music and bringing people together, power of music and expression and throwing out heartache and everything else that goes with it, it's those modalities that can be really powerful in bringing many, many people together.

SPEAKER_00 34:53

Think I yeah, exactly. I I think, like, you know, you asked me earlier about things that inspired me along the way. It made me think that about so just before I joined the museum for you know, a little less than a year, I worked in the federal prison system and I was reviewing cases of people who were in solitary confinement. And they hadn't had human contact for four days or more. And so my job was to figure out what's going on. And so, really, and it was COVID at the time, you know, I was at home and you couldn't get into the prison. So after doing some visits in prison, I was mostly talking to people on the phone. And that work inspired me in the sense that it made me understand we're all we're all imperfect humans. Yeah. Even the people who have committed, you know, egregious crimes and are in our prison system, they made one bad choice, they had a history behind them, like whatever it was. We're all humans. And I think that place, the field where we're trying to be, the work that you just talked about is about being able realizing that, and I believe this, nobody's nobody's bad. They may do bad things. We're all humans. We are all good humans. We just have layers of our own harm and trauma that sometimes makes us do bad things. I think that's a human rights lens.

SPEAKER_02 36:12

Yeah. Oh, that's beautiful. You are so much more gracious than I am. Well, that's me this morning, right?

SPEAKER_03 36:18

What was in your coffee this morning? Um, when so I want to go back to, you know, this idea that museums can be, there's so much opportunity and potential in museums to be a place where human rights are celebrated. And yet museums also have a pretty dark history, especially through colonization of like objects that are at museums and what that means and whose story becomes the story that's told. When you go, if you think about you know the museums that you've been to, maybe share with us if there was something about a particular museum that stood out for you as a representative of a beautiful human rights story. And you can't say Museum of Human Rights.

SPEAKER_00 37:09

Yeah. I mean, I can tell you that, and I maybe won't name them, but I'll I've been in museums that are telling stories of you know our history of colonization of indigenous peoples and felt physically ill by the way the story is told, whether it's something that I know is a sacred object that's in a glass case, something that's that's referred to as an object, but I but I know this for far more. It's you know, a spiritual being, it has life, it has meaning behind it, and there's no medicine around it, you know, the things that I've learned along the way, um, and I'm still learning. So I've had that very strong reaction. And and sometimes being, and in one case, I was with my colleague who's a First Nations woman, and and just seeing that through the eyes of my colleague.

SPEAKER_01 37:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:58

And you know, I remember taking a minute. Um, we were on a tour and just being like, Are you okay? Um, because I could just see how that must feel to have your your history, your sacred objects, beings being shared in that way as just, you know, with a with a label.

SPEAKER_02 38:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:17

Is what is from where who it came from, and yet it's a story, right? Um I sort of couple that or put that against, you know, I was in the States at one of the Smithsonians, the uh African American, the African American history museum. And we were going through part of the exhibit, and um, it was very emotional, talking about black slavery, story of slavery. And as we rounded the corner, there was a security guard there, a black woman. And she was kind of quiet and she was just doing her job, standing there, and I might became sort of overwhelmed. I might, you know, I was crying essentially, or trying to like fight back tears because I thought, what must it be like for her to stand in this gallery every day around surrounded by these stories that are her, the history of her people, and have people walk through them and just maybe take meaning out of them, or maybe flippantly being like, oh no, I'm going here and controlling their kids. And it was just stark for me that I needed to take a breath. So I see people do it well. I see people who are still learning in the museum sector. I'm understanding there's still so much growth. And I don't think the Museum for Human Rights is the only museum doing good work in that way. I I know there are others, the conversation's changing.

SPEAKER_02 39:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:46

Um, but we've got a long way to go.

SPEAKER_02 39:48

We do.

SPEAKER_00 39:49

And I think people are still stuck in this idea. It's maybe the next step from true collecting and putting behind glass cases was collecting and putting it behind a glass case, but consulting. And I think that was good. Yeah. But I think consulting isn't the answer. The answer is actually doing it with communities, actually having them have ownership. And that's the space I'm hoping more museums move into.

SPEAKER_03 40:15

I appreciate that. And, you know, and with that, it is a collective responsibility. If you're if you're going into a museum, are you going in to just consume the history and like get some quick tidbits on what what this looks like? And um, I I talk a lot about relational learning, and you've alluded to that and you know, working with with community, what does that mean and working with people? When I think about the responsibility of a story listener, what is that responsibility that we carry? So years ago we were working on um um this you know paper, if you will, on the experiences of uh South Asians and Muslims, Arabs and Arabs and South Asians in the workplace. And as a part of that, we had um lots of conversations with people about what is it, how do we how do we build better understanding of each other? And I remember one of the conversations sort of went off the rails when a few members of the discussion said it'd be great to have like more cultural awareness workshops. And the the people of color in the room, I just saw them like retreat into themselves. And one of them, the brave soul, spoke up and said, I'm tired of this extractive approach to understanding who we are. If you want to know how terrible that feels, how about tomorrow? Put together a presentation on white people and give me 10 slides because that's my attention span. Give me 10 slides, and what do I need to know about white people? And and it was just like so bold and brave, and you know, the room went. And and because this was an incredible group of people, they all understood each other. And from there emerged this idea of like relational learning that if we want to learn about the other, we have to spend time with the other. And to me, if a museum can do that well, so create an opportunity where you learn from the other, not just in a I'm gonna look at this glass case, yeah, but be in a way immersed in it and know that you carry a responsibility, like you're coming here to engage with a sacred story, that would be ideal. I don't know how we achieve that, but to me, the listener, the visitor to the museum also carries responsibility.

SPEAKER_00 42:47

Yeah, I love that. I love that you name that. I think that's that's true. I'm gonna reflect on that. Yeah. You know, we talk about how we want you to engage as a visitor, yeah, but the responsibility.

SPEAKER_03 42:58

Yeah, and especially especially for a museum that is constantly striving to bring people from many walks of life, different demographics, different age groups. I think that uh that's an important part of the part of the conversation. Because like you, I've been to so many museums around the world and it it kills me on the inside when I see visitors who are just there to take photos or are not not realizing the mountain of emotions that may lie behind a simple object in a glass case.

SPEAKER_00 43:38

And that's how I feel about tourism too, right? Yeah, like you go to these beautiful sites in the world and it's for the gram.

SPEAKER_03 43:44

But yeah. So there's a place for both. There's a place for both, absolutely. Yeah. So I hope that's where that's one of the conversations that we can also have about the future of museums is uh the responsibility of the visitor. Yeah. What that is. So what What lies ahead for Aisha?

SPEAKER_00 44:04

Hmm. I don't know. That's a big question. I don't know. I will finish my cup of tea with you. I will reflect on this lovely time. I don't know what lies ahead. I really don't. And it's funny you asked me because I've been thinking a lot about it. I think so. For me personally, you know, I'm I have an appointment in my job. I've got a five-year term. I'm on my second five-year term, I guess.

SPEAKER_03 44:30

Uh I loved your reappointment.

SPEAKER_02 44:33

Oh, thank you.

SPEAKER_03 44:33

Announcement. I was there. I don't think they were meant to. They didn't plan on sharing that, but then it one of the elders shared it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:40

It was just beautiful. It was, it was, it felt good because I felt like I still have work to do. Um, and I'm still learning. And I knew that I would I'd come to the museum and I would stay. My my my promises to myself were as long as the work was meaningful and I was continuing to learn. It's been all that. But the world's pretty messed up. And if I think about my learning and how I want to apply it, I I don't know, but I know we have work to do. Yeah. Um, lots of work to do. And it's it's it's nuanced, and on the other hand, it's so simple, and we're not doing it. And we can't see it as simple work sometimes. So I don't know what lies ahead. I'm excited about things happening at the museum.

SPEAKER_02 45:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:22

What's ahead for the museum? So we've got Palestine Uprooted, which will open at the end of June, uh, and has been the subject of so much reflection on what it means, all the things we've just talked about, right? What it means to tell stories and work with community and and rights and stay focused on the principles of human rights and having people understand them. Um in uh August, we have this international network of museums for peace conference. So people from around the world, you know, this the theme is truth and right, uh peace building through truth and reconciliation, which is not a Canadian issue, right? Think there are countries all over the world who are who are through going through their own journeys of truth and reconciliation. So how amazing will that be? Um, and then we'll open at the knees of our ancestors in September, which tells the story of black slavery and its impacts on black history in Canada, early Black history of Canada, and is part of this this work that the mus this journey the museum's been on. You know, we told the story or telling the story of the Underground Railroad, but not the story of black slavery, you know, we're telling it online or whatnot, but not in that tangible way in the museum. And that's the work we got to do. Yeah. So I feel really excited about some of these big things because they are the culmination of the last few years of work as we figure out who we are and how we do this work in an increasingly, I don't know what our world to call it, but fractured. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Uh fractured and messy world right now.

SPEAKER_03 47:03

By the way, whoever came up with that expression knees of our ancestors, that's beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 47:08

That's she so the curator, Aliyah Aluma, says that uh as she started meeting with families or people from across Canada and sort of exploring the idea, community-based research, people kept inviting her into their homes and um and in their living rooms, and they'd bring out their stuff that they'd held on to. And I think we all have examples of those in our home. Um, you know, my mom's got a couple trunks in the basement with some pretty neat stuff in them. And so yeah, it came from the idea of like sitting in a room and having our ancestors tell our stories, tell their stories. Beautiful. And we listen.

SPEAKER_03 47:47

Beautiful. Elisha, thank you so much for your time today. It was great sitting down and hearing about the the heart behind the museum and everything that that happens in that beautiful building. And I'll say it again for anyone who is not a member of the museum, please. If and if you've never visited it, you're missing out. And if you're not a member, it's a great opportunity to meet with everybody who works at the museum behind the scenes and hear from the families and hear the stories.

SPEAKER_00 48:15

So you might be our most favorite member. So this is great. Thank you. Yeah, I was I was shooting for that rank. I think you've got it. Hands down. Thank you for the conversation. Thank you very much. Yeah.