By Mike Conklin
Tribune staff reporter
Published November 28, 2001

It is an unlikely war that the U. S. has been fighting against terrorism, what with the dropping of both bombs and food on Afghanistan. It seems fitting, therefore, that one of our allies in this improbable war is about as improbable a partner as you could imagine, namely that bastion of business-minded boosterism, Rotary International.

Yes, that Rotary. The same white bread, middle-America institution that summons mental associations with George Babbit and whose lapel-pin wearing members meet weekly for lunch and award scholarships to local high school students.

As it happens, Rotary is one of the most popular organizations within the territorial confines of Pakistan, where it has 84 active chapters and more than 2,300 members (5 percent of them women), some of whom are the country's most influential opinion-makers.

Given that pivotal Muslim nation's status as our new, best friend in the battle against Al Qaeda, it is no stretch to assume that the Rotary connection between our two nations was instrumental in helping to forge the important alliance. At least, according to N.D. Tanwir, Rotary's district governor in Pakistan.

"We have had many group exchanges between our two countries and the results have been very fruitful," explains Tanwir, who is a retired colonel in the Pakistani army. "Those who've gone [to the U.S.] from our country have been able to establish many new friendships, helping us to find new financial partners to share our projects. This has been most important."

Meanwhile, he adds, "The U.S. visitors here were always happy to see that Pakistan was quite different from what they had been reading or hearing. They also noticed our problems, especially the influx of refugees, and have carried our message to their home."

Ever since Sept. 11, the communications traffic -- e-mails, faxes, telephone calls -- between Pakistan and Rotary International headquarters in Evanston has been especially heavy, according to Wen Huang, Rotary's public information specialist for the Asia/Pacific region.

"Much of the early communication was whether we were OK in the United States after the attack," Huang said. "Now, it is more about how programs -- especially our polio immunization initiative over there -- will be affected. I'm happy to say not much has changed."

Massive immunization

Earlier this month, Pakistani Rotarians, plus other volunteers, poured into Afghan refugee camps in Pakistan for three days of immunizing the homeless against polio. This was the 96-year-old, Chicago-born service group's second round of fighting against the disease in these locations since the terrorist attacks against the U.S.

"Afghanistan is one of the world's hot spots for polio and, in fact, the areas where you find lingering diseases like this also tend to be the world's most conflict-ridden countries," says Liza Barrie, chief spokesperson for UNICEF. "Rotary is one of those organizations that goes on the ground, as we say. They get as close as they can to the problem."

Abdul Khan, a Rotarian in Pakistan who oversaw the latest polio initiative, says more than 5,000 fixed immunization centers are being established by the organization. He says special efforts have been made to greet Afghan refugees with relief as they cross the border and are met by local Rotary members and other volunteers.

"The condition of the refugees is seriously alarming," Khan says. "We've also started working on providing other support in these locations [particularly] the construction of shelters. More long-range plans will be drawn up as the situation becomes clearer."

Akhtar Alavi, a Karachi insurance executive who was in Chicago earlier this year for a Rotary conference, adds: "Rotarians in Pakistan are also providing blankets, food and other provisions for the refugees from Afghanistan. This is nothing new for us. It has been our concern since the Russians were in Afghanistan."

Doing good amid evil

Spread across the country from Islamabad to Rawalpindi, Pakistani Rotarians have found themselves increasingly in the middle of the tensions as they tackle the same do-gooder projects -- health care, education, drug abuse -- that occupy club members elsewhere in the world.

While none of this relief work is directly sanctioned by the Pakistani government, it couldn't take place without the cooperation of Pakistani officials. Moreover, it is almost entirely a Pakistani production. Only a handful of U.S. Rotarians have been on hand to assist since Sept. 11.

It's not for lack of trying, though. Late in September, for example, Jim Lacy, a candy manufacturer and Rotary official in Cooksville, Tenn., was to be in Karachi for a meeting with Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf. Lacy was going to make Musharraf an honorary Rotarian for his previous support of the organization.

Change of plans

The plans had to be scrapped for reasons related to the international situation. But while Lacy didn't get the chance to stick the familiar Rotary pin on the general's uniform, he's optimistic the ceremony will get re-scheduled. "We were hoping for November, but, given the current circumstances, that isn't realistic," he says.

"I know Pakistan's health minister, but I'd never met the president," he notes. "I believe he's pro-American. I know he's pro-Rotary because he's helped us in the past with our polio efforts.

"It pains me no end to see those pictures of all the Afghan refugees at the border checkpoints. I've stood at those same spots myself on relief missions we've made and seen all the misery and suffering. It's got to be worse now."

Dave Groner, a funeral director and Rotarian from Kalamazoo, Mich., is still on -- as far as he knows, anyway -- to lead 80 club members from the Midwest to Pakistan next February. The group plans to meet with fellow Rotarians there, stay in their homes, and discuss projects such as aiding the refugees.

Little more than a year ago, Groner helped host an exchange that brought eight Pakistani students to stay in Michigan homes. The visitors wanted mostly to improve their English skills, but the stay proved meaningful for everyone involved, he says.

"These were people the hosts would never get the chance to associate with," he says. "We learned our different religions were no factor. I've received a lot of e-mails from my Moslem and Sikh friends in Asia [who are] very concerned that we're all OK."

Soon after the Sept. 11 attacks, a special Web site was even established by Rotary officials here to accommodate the 1.2 million members, scattered among 162 nations, who were looking for updates from, or about, their fellow Rotarians.

The site has been flooded with expressions of outrage and shock over the World Trade Center and Pentagon violence as well as the subsequent anthrax terrorism.

Ed Futa, general secretary for Rotary in the Evanston headquarters, says he feels that what's happened since Sept. 11 underscores the "person-to-person" nature of the service organization. "Our desire is always what can we do, how can we serve?" he says. "But not through any government or religion. In fact, we go out of our way to avoid this."

Polio-free world is goal

Futa said Rotary's principal humanitarian focus now is to make the world polio-free in time for the organization's centennial year in 2005. More than 200 million people in South Asia, including refugees from Afghanistan -- where an absence of Rotary clubs is only one of many voids -- have been immunized. About 57 million of that total were Pakistanis. "The disease doesn't know borders," Futa says.

Rotary will spend nearly $25 million this year on its Ambassadorial international scholarships for college and high school youth -- the largest privately funded program for such grants in the world. Sara Anson Vaux, director of the fellowship office for Northwestern University, calls the organization "a major player" in scholarship foundations, ranking alongside prestigious names such as Fulbright, Carnegie, Luce, Marshall and Gates.

Scholarships are as likely to go to foreign students to come to the U.S. to study as they are to Americans wishing to study abroad. Sadako Ogata, UN high commissioner for refugees, is a past recipient.

Nancy Erbe, director for the Rotary Center for International Studies at the University of California-Berkeley -- one of seven such centers funded by the organization on university campuses -- says the current conflict clearly points out the need for more dialogue among nations.

"When we dehumanize people, terror is more likely to happen," Erbe says. "After Sept. 11, we started getting all kinds of telephone calls from people asking what they could do.

"People need to develop and use networks that reach out to other countries, especially at the community level," she adds. "I met an 80-year-old Rotarian awhile back who's in charge of 10 relief programs, including one in Indonesia.

"We tend to think conflicts have to be worked out at higher levels, governmental or whatever, but sometimes effective solutions are right under our noses in the community."

Vital stats

What: Rotary International, world's first service club.

Founded: 1905 in Chicago by attorney Paul Harris, who wished to recapture, in a professional club, "the same friendly spirit" he had felt in the small towns of his youth.

Headquarters: Evanston.

Membership: 1.2 million, which includes approximately 90,000 women who were first accepted in 1989. There are 30,000 clubs in more than 160 nations, including Cambodia, Kazakstan, Pakistan, India, Australia, Russia, Malaysia, Philippines, Brazil, Poland, Peru, Bangladesh, South Africa, Martinique, Turkey, Ukraine, Lithuania, Montserrat, Mongolia, Iceland, Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan.

Noteworthy: Rotary spends $26 million annually on its Ambassadorial college scholarship program. It pledged in 1985 that it would celebrate its centennial in 2005 by eradicating polio worldwide, a project that will see the organization spending $500 million.

Copyright © 2001, Chicago Tribune