BOB PEARSON
PreCommerce
Storytizing
HAROON K. ULLAH
Vying for Allahs Vote
The Bargain from the Bazaar
Digital World War
COUNTERING HATE
Bob Pearson and Haroon K. Ullah
ISBN: 978-0-9996623-0-4
ISBN: 978-0-9996623-1-1 (e-book)
Copyright 2018 by 1845 Publishing
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
The author and the publisher make no representations with respect to the contents hereof and specifically disclaim any implied or express warranties of merchantability or fitness for any particular usage, application, or purpose. The author and the publisher cannot be held liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, consequential, or special damages of any kind, or any damages whatsoever, including, without limitation, those resulting in loss of profit, loss of contracts, goodwill, data, income, information, anticipated savings or business relationships, arising out of or in connection with the use of this book or any links within.
Cover by Paulo Simas
Layout by Monica Thomas for TLC Book Design, TLCBookDesign.com
Printed in the United States of America.
INTRODUCTION
Human greatness does not lie in wealth or power, but in character and goodness. People are just people, and all people have faults and shortcomings, but all of us are born with a basic goodness.
ANNE FRANK
W e all start out the same. Whether born in Damascus or Detroit, human beings begin life with similar DNA, common instincts for survival and a basic desire to learn and explore.
Inside our bodies, where we dont think about skin color or gender or religion, we are remarkably similar. The same four chemical bases comprise everyones DNA adenine, guanine, cytosine and thymine and they combine to form about 3 billion base pairs, of which an estimated 99 percent are similar in everyone across the world. Even our brains are similar. Everyones prefrontal cortex, which plays a major role in how we think, act and plan, has a consistent molecular structure. We know some people will be exposed to more diseases due to genetic mutation, and we will battle the myriad disorders that cause our brains and bodies to form differently, but Day One is generally a pretty good day for humanity.
In fact, about 300,000 new people join us every 24 hours. They become one addition to the 7.5 billion of us who already live here, work here and navigate the communities in which we live. Most of us choose to pursue a reasonably fulfilling life, rewarding to us and most of those around us. But a small cohort goes in a different direction; they become filled with hate, even to the point of selfishly single-minded extremism. We dont pretend to know how many young men and women have gone down this path, nor how many will take that journey in the future but we do know we want to do what we can to decrease that number.
We all can agree we have too much bias, hate and extremism in our world. We have too many people who seek to disrupt our view of normal and force us to pay attention to their world view. They change lives. They far too often end lives. And they never stop trying to find the next young recruit to help them do the same thing again tomorrow.
We, as a team, need to get more focused on Countering Hate.
Focusing on a cause like this, and writing a book about it, becomes a deeply personal pursuit. Bob grew up hearing his mom tell stories about her favorite uncle, Alexander Didur, who fought in the Korean War. A captain in the First Cavalry, 8th Division, he was captured and detained as a prisoner of war for three years before he died. Didur was 35 years old when he passed away on August 31, 1951; he has rested in Arlington Cemetery since. In December 1996, Bob was in Paris and ran point for his companys communications team when a tragic terrorism attack killed the wife of a colleague on the Paris Metro. A few years later, on September 11, 2001, Bob was working in New York City and became part of a larger group of friends who grieved the loss of childhood buddies like Tommy Clark and Richard Madden from Millburn, N.J. Both were the younger brothers of Bobs good friends. Those types of violent deaths never leave you, and the list of them is far longer than we ever would care to count.
About ten years ago, two smart and forward-thinking executives, Ed Tazzia and Kip Knight, suggested a new program to U.S. State Department officials. The new program, called The Marketing College, would add to the knowledge of State Department officials in public affairs around the world. Each class would include up to 50 leaders from locations as diverse as Libya, Kazakhstan, Brazil or Belgium. Theyd learn about how to create a story, share it and analyze it to understand why it succeeded or failed in shaping behavior. Bob joined Ed, Kip and the larger faculty as a volunteer several years ago, helping to expand the curriculum. Meanwhile, Haroon participated in The Marketing College as an official at the State Department, where he prepared U.S. thinking on counter terrorism initiatives around the world. Haroon has served as the global planning leader for Secretary of State John Kerry, current Secretary Rex Tillerson and now as Chief Strategy Officer for the Broadcasting Board of Governors in support of CEO John F. Lansing.
Through our combined interactions with colleagues at the State Department and the private sector, we recognized a critical urgency for people and organizations to share the best thinking about how we can counter hate. Otherwise, we realized, our efforts will never move fast enough. In our current form, we cant analyze data, coordinate research expertise and disseminate best practices to all private-sector companies, government officials, NGOs and global citizens battling extremism around the world. We realized that it was time to write a book together, but not just any book. We decided to co-author it so we could do a mash-up of our combined expertise years of countering terrorism with years of shaping behavior for the worlds top brands. Our goal is to think different and to inspire you to join us in countering hate in your own way.