Hope in Times of Oppression with Khalid Mahmood from Pakistan's Labour Education Foundation

0:00For me, fashion is a verb. So it's too fashion. You're listening to Wardrobe Crisis with Clare Press. Join me every week as we look at sustainability, ethics and the business and madness of fashion.

0:17Hello again. Did you know that I've been producing this podcast for nine years? Sometimes I do wonder why. Sorry, that's true. I never did want to turn it into a machine with a team and loads of commercial ad partners. So that's on me, right? But it is tricky to find a way through. Sometimes I think maybe I should just close it down and read a book in bed instead. Do read quite a lot of books in bed. By the way, I am reading, here's my book recommendation for the week, a brilliant book by Robert McFarlane. It's called Is a River Alive? Have you read it? It's got nothing to do with this week's episode, but it is so good.

0:54every sentence is just a thrill. Anyway, let me know if you've read that one. You can find me on Instagram at Mrs Press. Okay, enough of me complaining about how hard it is to make this podcast. The reason I brought it up is because my guest today is the perfect example of why I have kept on with it. It has been the great privilege of my working life to meet and talk with so many incredible people, whether they're writers or scientists or artists or legendary activists, or, as per this week, heroes of the labour movement. My guest is Khaled Mahmood from Pakistan. He is the director of something called the Labour Education Foundation in Lahore.

1:35I met Khaled through the Clean Clothes Campaign's 35 years anniversary event in Bangkok, which if you've been listening to this series, you'll have heard me mention before. But he gave a very charismatic presentation about hope in times of oppression. And he sang a revolutionary poem by the iconic Pakistani writer Faiz Ahmed Faiz. And you'll hear him. We're going to play it at the end of this interview. But it was so rousing. I was determined to persuade Khaled to sit down with me and record this for you. Not least because of the glaring omission that until now I've never done an episode on Pakistan, which is a major international fashion manufacturing player.

2:20First, it grows a lot of cotton. Second, it's got a lot of factories, including many leather and footwear manufacturers. And also, it's just a massive country with a massive workforce, and the textile industry is its largest employer. So it deserves our attention. In that regard, this episode follows on from previous ones, sharing insights on some of the key South Asian countries where our clothing is made. Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, Myanmar, and the Philippines. Here we're looking at the specifics and progress of the accord on fire and safety, the holes in the system of factory audits and who is responsible.

2:59We talk about some of the incidents that have happened around factory fires. We talk about the climate impacts that are making life more difficult, but also history and who gets to tell it, politics, power, democracy, and what happens when that is captured by the military, for example, and how all this impacts on workers, freedom of association, social justice. I mean, how do you organise in the face of that? Why should you? And what are the stakes? And it's about Khaled's own extraordinary journey from taxi driver to labour leader. What to do when conventional routes are closed to you and the power of enthusiasm and creative thinking.

3:41Without further ado, let's just hear from Khaled Mahmood. And if you enjoy this episode, please do help me share it. As usual, you can support the show via Substack, sharing the story on social media, letting me know what you think about it is deeply appreciated. We're going to begin. Yeah. Welcome to the Wardrobe Crisis podcast, Khaled Mahmood. Thank you very much for inviting me here. You are the Director of Labour Education Foundation, LEF. Yes, I work as Director of Labour Education Foundation in Pakistan. We're going to have a conversation about the garment industry in Pakistan, about workers' rights, about the challenges.

4:20Yes, there is a lot to share. Let's get a bit of context around this. I said to you before that I'd never made an episode focused on Pakistan. I've done several episodes about India, I think Bangladesh, episodes about Rana Plaza and then Rana Plaza 10 years on. And yet I find myself knowing very little about the industry in Pakistan. but it's very sizable, very significant. We're talking about textiles, clothing and footwear, right? How big is it? How many people are employed? First of all, I think it's important to know that how big is Pakistan? Pakistan is the fifth largest country in the world.

4:58Is it 220 million? More than 220 million. And when it comes to the labor force, we are ninth biggest in the world, more than 80 million workforce. The textile and garment sector is the biggest sector in Pakistan, starting from the cotton growing and then the garment factories or leather factories or the shoe factories, sportswear, all these kind of factories. The workforce that is involved in the textile and garment sector is around 60 % of the total workforce. When you told me that, I was amazed. It's enormous. It's so significant for the country. It is huge and we are among the top five exporting countries in textiles and garments.

5:49So it is a big industry and employing most of the people. How are the wages? What's the situation there with wages comparable to, for example, neighbours of India and Bangladesh? The minimum wage in Pakistan right now, which was fixed in July this year, is 40 ,000 rupees, Pakistani rupees per month for unskilled labor. Roughly, what's that in American dollars, for example? In dollars, it is around 120. It's low. It is, as compared to India and Bangladesh, it is not very low, but it's quite similar. Interesting. I said it's low because I've just done a conversation about Cambodia. So in comparison to Cambodia, it is low.

6:34But then you say, no, think about Bangladesh. Yes. So when we compare ourselves with the Southeast Asia region, it's almost same level of minimum wage in all the countries. I think Bangladesh is even lower. Before that, it was 37 ,000 rupees. So it is not a very big increase, but still it is an increase in this year. The stats that I've got from my research, correct me if I'm wrong, there are actually a lot of different stats out there if you do a quick Google. But I have here in front of me that Pakistan is the 8th largest exporter of textile products in Asia. I think you just said the 9th, something like that.

7:12It's also the 4th largest producer and the 3rd largest consumer of cotton. Does that sound about right? Yes, that is right. We are huge in cotton production. We are also exporting the raw cotton to countries like Bangladesh and China and few other countries as well. I'm ashamed to say I didn't even know that Pakistan was a huge cotton producer. Pakistan is a huge cotton producer from the colonial period. I mean, now, if you want to know the real context. I do. That starts from the British colonialism. The canals were made by the British colonialism. The rivers were diverted, the land was cultivated, the people were displaced from one area to another area just for the cultivation of the land, and they were producing cotton.

8:04Which was the same story that we've heard tell before on this podcast via the story of Gandhi. But essentially the British came in and insisted that the Indian cotton was exported to the UK, where it would be made into ready-made goods and then sold back to India. Exactly. Which decimated the local economy. And in that process, they decimated the local production of the textile. They destroyed it deliberately and they imported cotton. From here, they built their own industry. The whole Manchester textile and garment industry was built on the subcontinent South Asian cotton. Actually, if you're listening to this and you are wondering about that word, I'll just throw in an interesting fact.

8:50In Australia, where I live now, we call bedding Manchester. Yes. I don't know if that happens everywhere, but it doesn't happen in Britain. But in Australia, if you go to buy some sheets, you could go to the Manchester department. And that's because in the Industrial Revolution, the north of England, Manchester, Yorkshire was the centre of cotton production. Exactly. That all was developed by exporting the Indian cotton, subcontinent cotton. And in Pakistan, we have a city called Faisalabad, which is also called Manchester of Pakistan. Is it? Yes. Because there is a huge textile industry. Is the story of GM cotton or BT cotton and Monsanto replicated in Pakistan?

9:31Yes, that's the same story. That's the same story everywhere in the cotton producing countries, I think. And the multinationals have sold their own seeds of the cotton. They have destroyed the local seeds. And they have forced the cotton growers through influencing the government policies to buy that multinational corporation seed. And that's the same story. And then there was like a lot of loss that the cotton growers had to face because there was this lot of crisis because of the pests. And then the pesticides companies, they earn profit out of that. So it's, I would say, exploitative, systematic cycle of the multinational corporations for controlling the cotton production and then again controlling the cotton and the garment, textile and the garment production.

10:32Before we get off this, I'll just finish on Cotton about Monsanto and the story of sort of corporate hijacking of farmer stewardship of land and essentially making small farmers beholden to them. Basically, you transition to this seed and then you are no longer able to own your seed and each year you have to buy the seed again from the company. Exactly. And then later on it was discovered that actually the science behind the genetic modification of these particular seeds was actually regionally not specific or not appropriate. And so these seeds often actually were not pest resistant. So then you had to buy a whole load of pesticides and herbicides from the same company.

11:09But in India, that is state sponsored stuff because they're in bed with each other. In Pakistan also it's the same story. The Pakistani government has always been under the influence of the multinational corporations. on the name of foreign investment, on the name of ease to business, they have actually destroyed the local seeds, the local industries, and they have allowed the multinational corporations to capture the market, to control and to not only to control but to exploit the farmers, the workers and the whole supply chain. Farmers are just stuck in these absolute imbalanced relationships where they can't get out of this cycle of oppression.

11:53Yeah, I mean, they are stuck in this cycle. And then on top of that, the climate crisis. I mean, in 2022, the floods, the heavy rains and floods. I want to ask you about that in more detail. But just before we do that, would you be able to give us, for those of us who've never been to Pakistan or don't live there, give us a very quick history of how Pakistan came to be. Can we just sort of touch on partition and what happened? Yes, that is, I would say, a story of where a lot of propaganda has happened. People in Pakistan and India on both sides nowadays, they call it freedom of struggle. But that was, I believe, a plan to divide the subcontinent.

12:41And on the name of religion, that kind of division was done. Well, the British carved it up along a very weird line that only the British could do. Let's just draw a line on the map and say, half to you, half to you. Insane. It's actually insane. That is insane. And I mean, when you do a division of a country on the name of religion, that is the most unfortunate thing to do with the people. Who for hundreds and hundreds of years had lived as neighbours in the same communities without... We lived in the same country and we would have been one of the very strongest country in the world if we were not divided.

13:23I would say after the division of the subcontinent, which we call independence now, that happened in 1947. We have seen that in Pakistan especially, we talk about Pakistan, the same ruling elite, which were part of the British colonial government. they captured the power again in Pakistan and unfortunately soon after the partition the military became very powerful in Pakistan they still are and Pakistan has never actually experienced a true democratic rule in Pakistan so people of Pakistan have been very unlucky I would say in this regard in India we have seen some political progress through the land reforms or through the democratic governments they built their own constitution right after the partition but in pakistan we have been very unlucky because the same ruling elite captured the power they did not change the system and they were majority of feudals who actually got lands from the british colonizers and they started ruling pakistan as well and then the military had their own role in that power capture So Pakistan has experienced very unfortunate things.

14:44It's a complex political system that makes, for example, union organizing difficult, maybe if you compare it to other places, although I feel like over the last two days we've talked about how it's difficult everywhere. However, what are the key and common issues that workers in Pakistan and the garment industry face? You've mentioned the floods will come onto climate, but is it wages, the right to organize, and safety? Should we talk first about safety? I don't know. The most important thing is that the government and textile workers do not have a voice. So the freedom of association is the biggest issue in Pakistan.

15:21And that is linked very much to the political situation of democratic rule, rule of law. Because the government wants to suppress union organization or because? Because the government is run by the employers in one way or another way. Actually, can we just touch on what you said to me? We've been at this event for Clean Clothes Campaign, and we've just had a dinner with lots of different organizers, and I was asking you about unions, and you said, the biggest union in the country is the employers' union. I said, what? Yeah, in Pakistan as well. They are the most effectively organized group. how can there be an employer's union?

16:03Surely unions are for workers. It's employers association. I mean the All Pakistan Textile Mills Association the Pakistan Readymade Governments Manufacturers. They are organized and Pakistan is a country where textile ministry they have a ministry and it's controlled by the employers and one of the employers usually is the textile minister of Pakistan. So when the textile minister is an employer how can you imagine that that ministry will allow the unions or in the textile and garment factories and that ministry will not influence the labor ministries as well in the provinces i mean that's impossible so the political will is absent even though in our constitution in article 17 it is very clear that the workers are free to organize in trade unions of their choice they can join trade unions of their choice but practically there is no implementation of the labor law and there is no implementation of the constitutional rights given to the workers of pakistan in our constitution not only the freedom of association is covered equality is protected the social protection the economic protection it's all covered in the constitution and in the labor laws as well we have very good labor laws but the problem always is the lack of political will to implement the labor laws in the country and that is because the employers are so powerful and this ruling elite which is the military establishment the bureaucrats the political elite, the employers.

17:51So they are ruling the country. So in Pakistan, the ruling elite consists of military establishment, the bureaucracy, the political elite, the employers, the feudals. They all are together and they change the parties. They shift. One family member is in one party. The other family member is in another party. And when there is a direct military rule, we have seen direct military rules three times in our history. They also get support from this ruling elite to run the governments. Are you putting yourself in danger by speaking out about these issues? You've been doing this for 30 years. You must be a thorn in the side of those who would rather not hear this.

18:37We have no choice, actually, if we speak these things in Pakistan as well. because if we want to work on the labor rights, on the human rights, we want to exercise our political rights, we have to speak truth to the people. And this is what we do in Pakistan as well. Of course, this puts us in a lot of danger. Is it physical danger? Like is it danger of being arrested or is it just danger of being, I don't know, marginalized? Danger of being marginalized is always there and we are marginalized in many ways. but sometimes it's danger of being arrested, danger of being sometimes eliminated. So these are all kinds of dangers out there.

19:25Okay. Heavy. Moving on to more heavy, because I do just want to talk about safety, worker safety. I mentioned that we've done a couple of podcast episodes focused on Rana Plaza. Listeners may well be aware, because it's very widely known about the Bangladesh Accord. There's also a Pakistan Accord. I wonder if you might tell us a bit about that. But I wanted to touch on, and I was going to call it an accident, it's not an accident. I wanted to touch on a devastating, catastrophic garment factory fire that happened in Karachi in 2012, where more than, or something like 260 people were killed. in 2020 two people were convicted of arson of having set that fire on purpose because they hadn't been paid their extortion money i mean this is mad but this is a fire that killed many many workers let's talk about the accord let's talk about maybe you could tell us the story of that incident and what made it such a danger to workers because weren't there like grills on the windows actually the safety conditions in pakistan at that time or even now it's not a very different situation but in the big factories it's it is different now it is better but at that time it was in almost all the factories that kind of situation so that kind of incident could have happened in any factory now whoever had set the fire most important thing is what were the safety mirrors taken in the factory fire could have happened due to any reason if that factory was safe for workers workers could have come out of the factory within five to ten minutes and that was very much possible if according to the social audit report happened only two weeks before that incident really only two weeks before which said the factory is safe for workers i didn't know that there was social audit company italian company rena who did that audit so now it comes to the involvement of the brands in that that kind of incident the brands knew that that factory is not safe the audit report is false and they could say they didn't know that the auditors they can but who who doesn't know how the social audits are done in the government industry all around the world it's not only in pakistan so these 260 workers lives could have been saved if even if there was fire the factory could easily have saved the lives of the workers if the doors were not locked it was a jail for the workers not a factory in new york in i want to say 1909 but maybe it was 1912 in the early 1900s there's a famous incident called the triangle shirtwaist factory disaster in which very similar things happened workers couldn't escape the buildings the doors were all locked locked the doors were locked in that instance in order to make sure workers didn't leave too early, stayed there and sewed their stuff.

22:40You know, I feel when I hear these stories that we've heard them all before. It's like this echo across history of these appalling, criminal, inhumane conditions that the owners inflict on the workers. Yeah, I mean, the conditions in the supply chain of the government industry was not hidden. the brands the employers in pakistan and the government in pakistan they all are responsible for these kind of incidents and after this incident the fires have not stopped in the industry they continue to happen fortunately there is no big loss of lives or there in some incidents there is no loss of life but these kind of incidents are still happening last week only there was a factory fire in Karachi.

23:33Do you know, I saw this when I was researching these questions for you and I thought, no, no, I'm looking at that wrong because I'm looking for 2012. But it's just last week again. Last week again, there was a factory fire. Fortunately, there was no loss of life, but one worker is missing from that factory. Still, it's not confirmed. But definitely that worker has lost life in that factory fire. How have conditions improved since the Pakistan Accord, the international accord yeah so after this incident the trade union in Pakistan and the labor NGOs they started working on the safety measures for the factories this incident happened before the Rana Plaza after a month of the 2012 fire yeah yeah it's actually September the 11th wasn't it yeah it was the 11th Tazreen fire happened in Bangladesh before this then Ali enterprises fire and then rana plaza so after the rana plaza when the bangladesh accord was signed actually the work in bangladesh of bangladesh accord started before rana plaza because the pakistani labor movement was not that strong and because pakistan was i would say politically isolated at that time the global community was also not very much interested in Pakistan the Pakistani workers could not actually gain the way the Bangladeshi workers got the Bangladesh accord but after Bangladesh accord we started working on the Pakistani accord thing and we the trade unions and some of the labor engineers and we came together and we started campaigning for the Pakistani accord now we have got the Pakistani accord there is now international accord for health and safety the situation is improving as the pakistani accord pakistani accord has actually started inspecting the factories although there was a lot of hurdles the employers were not willing to allow pakistani accord to work but because it's an agreement between the brands and the global unions and we as ccc clean clothes campaign witness signatories to the international accord.

25:40So after the branch's pressure, some of the employers agreed initially and now a lot of factories are covered and inspections have started happening in Pakistan, which means that the conditions of safety for Pakistani workers will definitely improve. Before we get off, I'm going to say heavy stories. Let's just also go back to, since you raised it, the 2022 floods. I'll refer listeners back to an episode we did in series 11 about climate change and extreme heat and how this is making situations for workers even more difficult than they have been but that literally like it's about fainting being unable to withstand sweltering temperatures for hours on end that obviously is made worse as the climate crisis accelerates but extreme weather is another thing right and so talk to us about the impact that the floods had or just tell us what happened if people The 2022 floods mostly happened in the South Punjab and Sindh province, the hub of the cotton production.

26:45So these floods at that time destroyed more than 60 % of the cotton crop. That resulted in not only the losses for the cotton growers, but also Pakistani garment factories and textile factories had to import the yarn. So that made it the input cost was bigger, which means that the workers' salaries were not increased according to the expectations. At the same time, the infrastructure issues like electricity and some other issues are in some areas. These also exist in Pakistan. Overall, if we look at the impact of the floods, the workers did suffer. The implementation of the minimum wage was not adequate after those floods.

27:34The workers who were working in the industry and they belonged to those areas, their hometowns were destroyed, their villages. Landslides and all sorts. And the workers, the kind of wages that the workers get, they do not have any savings. We saw that during the COVID period when workers were out of jobs, they had to sell their motorbikes, their mobile phone, their washing machines just to buy food. and in the floods also when their homes in the villages were destroyed they had no savings to rebuild the houses so they were totally dependent on the government aid and the governments were looking for aid from the global north and keeping in mind the historical responsibility of the global North for destroying the climate and making Pakistan one of the most vulnerable country in this climate crisis the Pakistani workers, the Pakistani working class, the people did not get anything out of that very few workers got support from the government I mean, I want to come on to your own story before we end, but I do think it's worth us talking a bit more about responsibility, often when we're talking about social justice particularly focused on the fashion industry there's all these questions around who's who can change it whose responsibility is it and commonly people will say well it needs to be the brands the policy makers and the consumers a partnership of three but actually i think if we're realistic we should say that the responsibility is very clear those who profit are responsible.

29:15Exactly. I mean, those who profit. Or who stole profits. They stole the natural resources during the colonial period. Now they are stealing the wages. They are stealing the hard work of the workers in countries like Pakistan and they are making profits. But also, those are responsible who allow these companies to exploit labor in their global supply chain. the governments of the northern countries they are responsible also we make our governments responsible for not implementing the labor laws but the governments of the northern countries who allow their corporations to go and exploit with their capital the cheap labor of countries like Pakistan they are also responsible and historic responsibility falls on them the colonial masters who exploited our resources and now the same companies are exploiting our labor and earning profit out of this exploitation.

30:17So I would say the system, the capitalist system, this neoliberal economic model, which allows capital to go and exploit in whatever way it's possible, that is responsible. I'm going to recommend a book to listeners if you want to read around the history and global story of the planned economy and how governments are implicit in this system with money and banking and brands and companies is Grace Blakeney is her name and it's called Vulture Capitalism. Very good. Yeah, yeah. Very annoying though. It's pretty annoying. You read it and you feel like a rising anger on every page. So I suggest when you're reading it, you also read like a nice novel in between for a break.

30:59Okay. I'll try to do that. All right. I would like to just ask you to tell a bit about how you got involved in this, please. your story is quite a fascinating one i think because you told me that it was kind of by chance you're a student you had a second job and you happened upon some swedish activists how and why do tell yeah i'm i was uh studying uh in the evening classes and driving taxi in lahore in the morning and driving a taxi is not a very i would say very uh high earning job in in pakistan i came across this Swedish trade union delegation, they hired me for two weeks because I could speak English at that time.

31:42So they hired me. And they were working together with some of the Pakistani labor and political activists to establish this organization, Labor Education Foundation at that time. So when they came to know that I am studying cost and management accounting, they said, okay, this organization needs an accountant. So why don't you join them? I went there, I had an interview and they hired me. How old were you? I was around 22-23 years old at that time. So I was hired and then I was happy that I have a job and because from my student times I was a bit inclined towards the activism and the left politics so I was very happy to see that this is an organization which is aiming at working on the labor rights and at that time they had projects for working children education for the working children yeah and when you said that to me i said what do you mean what do you mean what you mean is as in their child labor there is a big number of working children in pakistan and at that time it was even more than but the idea being like okay we can't wipe out child labor but the least we can do is try and get some education into you at the same time yes that was the the purpose because the elimination of the child labor depends on the a situation of the poverty and the protection of the rights of their parents.

33:00So when there are no rights protection for the parents of the children, they are forced to work. So when they are working, at least they could get some basic education so that it can help in improvement in their life. So that's what the project was aiming at. But we named those schools as Union School for Working Children. So that means we were working at the same time, And not only educating the children, but at the same time, we were working with their parents as well and organizing them in the trade unions as well. At the same time, we had another project of adult literacy for workers. So we had established literacy centers in the factories, in the communities where we were educating the illiterate adult workers and giving them awareness on their rights.

33:47Why were the Swedes involved? Was it just by chance or what? It was by chance, you can say, but the Swedish trade union movement at that time was very much involved in working in countries like Pakistan. They were traveling around and they were working with different trade unions and NGOs. So they came in contact with the founders of Labour Education Foundation at that time. You were lucky that you were driving them around. I was lucky. Like a life-changing thing. Exactly. Like a chance, life-changing chance. That was a life-changing chance for me. and when I started working, it developed more interest for me.

34:24And then I decided that, yeah, this is the work that I'm going to do. And then I did my master's in business administration in the evening classes. I did MBA in the human resource development. I did different courses for NGO management and I developed this organization. And within the next two years, the board of the LEF handed over the program side to me as well. So I became the program manager and then I became the director after a couple of years. Just briefly, because it is relevant, your father was in the military or the Navy? My father was a soldier in the Navy. But your mother was a garment, was a sewer.

35:06She sewed at home. She was a home worker who laid clothes, right? Yes, she had to do this work as a home worker, sewing cloths for the wives of the naval officers mainly. And she was earning, she was very good at sewing cloths and she was earning a good income out of that. So that's why I think we were able to get a better education. We were able to get awareness and learning from that whole process. You were a working class family, like your father was a soldier, not a colonel. No, no, no, no, no, no, low rank soldier. And we, we, I belong to a working class family, yes. So did your mother see the work that you did?

35:49Did she get to see that? And if so, what did she think? And if not, would she be proud? Oh, yes, she knows what I do. And when I started working this organization, she was very happy. And she has been to initially when I was organizing different meetings, She also had been to different meetings. She felt very proud and she was happy that I am doing this kind of work. She was also happy that I have a job. That's the most basic thinking of a parent. Yeah, exactly. I mean, as compared to driving a taxi and having a job. Let's end on why you keep doing what you're doing. This work can be difficult work.

36:32We talk about the winds keeping you going, but there's often lots of, I don't want to say winning and losing, but there's often cases that don't turn out how you wanted to or you talk about a devastating fire where people lose their lives or you talk about systemic corruption or union busting, whatever it may be. What gives you joy in the work enough to keep going? And I use that word on purpose because I feel like Clean Clothes Campaign is quite a joyful thing. It is my passion. it became even higher passion for me when I started working in this sector. And when I meet workers, when I do trainings for the workers and when I see them, I talk with them.

37:15I mean, they are intellectuals in their own way. They tell you the stories. They tell you the learning from their life. And I learn from them. and it gives me a lot of motivation when i talk to the workers so that's why even if i'm busy in managing the organizations i try my best to be involved in the trainings all the time even if i have to travel a lot for that but i give you a couple of examples how important this work in countries like Pakistan is when we do campaign on the increase in the minimum wage that is impacting millions of workers when we do campaign on the labor laws for the home-based workers or the domestic workers which were not there before and now we have laws for the home-based workers and domestic workers that impacts millions of workers and when we build the capacity of the trade unions in the textile sector for example that saves a lot of workers from the modern slavery that improves the lives of the workers when they are negotiating for better wages that makes the workplaces safe and when we work for the Pakistan Accord we know for sure that the millions of workers will be working in the safe factories after Pakistan Accord is becoming a success so this gives a lot of motivation this gives a lot of energy so that's how i continue working in this i have never looked back my friends who have been working in the multinational corporations after completing their education i did not get a chance to go to a regular university i'm not a university graduate i did my b in the evening classes from a private institution which is not a recognized degree so there is another interesting story to that I applied for a scholarship for master during the COVID period.

39:17It was University of Turin, Italy. I was accepted from the Global Labour University, which is ILO run project. But when I applied to the university for admission, they said, I do not have enough years of graduation education. They wanted to have a three or four years graduate education, which I had only two years of education in the graduation classes at that time. and my MBA degree was not accepted. So I mean, when I wanted to go to a regular university, they did not accept me. Khaled, I think your path has always got to be unexpected and not the normal one. You are a person going your own way.

39:58That's how I did it, actually. There is no normal path for me. But I like that. I quite like it. I mean, obviously, I don't like that you went through that. But looking back on it, you're smiling when you're telling me. You found other ways. you seem to be some forgive me if i'm i don't know making statements about you when i've just met you but you strike me as someone who'll always find a way who doesn't need a conventional route in fact maybe like the around the outside way yeah i mean i i i have learned this that there are many many ways uh if you have passion if you have if you have clarity what you want to do you can find many ways actually yeah is it i was thinking it's because you're creative and you need to go a different direction but is it stubbornness is it like i'm not taking no i'll find another route i would say i have i have learned this from my life that i have to be consistent even if it's not very fast growth but i have to continue doing this and one day i will reach there and that's what i have been doing it's a long journey it's a long You don't just get it like that.

41:08There is no shortcut. It's a long journey. You may have a different route. But I love my work. I really like it. And I want to do this forever. We've finished except that we haven't because there is a post script. We're going to, with your permission, share some wonderful audio of you singing. I would love for you to just tell us what you are singing and why. Well, I like to sing. I listen to a lot of music, of course, the Pakistani traditional folk music and the classical music and sometimes the modern music as well. So I like to sing. I don't know if I'm a good singer or not, but I do love to sing.

41:55And the kind of songs that I sing mostly are revolutionary songs, the workers' songs or the folk songs where there are stories of people, their struggle and their love as well. This morning at the CCC 35th celebration, I sang this song which is a poem by a revolutionary poet of Pakistan, and this song is about taking the power by the working class, about revolution, about winning their rights, about throwing the ruling elite from the power. And this song has become a song of South Asia. It has been translated in Bangla language. The students of Bangladesh were singing this song. Oh, were they?

42:45The students of JNU University in Delhi were singing this song. in Nepal the song is sung by the movement so this is kind of a song which has a South Asian identity now Thank you so much for taking the time to tell your story Khaled it's been a joy and I'm really grateful Thank you for inviting me it was wonderful talking to you and I hope that people do find this interesting They will, thank you Thank you very much This is a famous Uttu revolutionary poem by Paz Amat-Faz who is a very famous poet from the left politics. He was a trade unionist as well. The poem expresses a powerful vision of justice and liberation.

43:30It declares with certainty that the day of truth and freedom will come, a day already promised and written in destiny. On that day, oppression and tyranny will collapse like fragile dust. The earth will tremble under the feet of the oppressed and thunder will roar over the heads of the rulers.

44:18That day which is the truth Which has written in the world We will see We will see That we will see We will see

45:04Thank you for listening to Wardrobe Crisis. You can find the show notes for each episode over on our website, thewardrobecrisis.com. I hope you've enjoyed the show. I'd love you to help us spread the word. tell a friend share on social media or leave us a rating and review in apple podcasts it really helps new listeners find us on the app you can get in touch with us on social media the show is on instagram at the wardrobe crisis and i'm on there too i'm at mrs press