Shining a light on real-life concerns in the trouble spots of the world
Elmira native Matthew Brubacher to speak about security and terrorism concerns at WCC fundraiser
MATTHEW BRUBACHER IS BRINGING his international experiences home to share with a wider audience.
Raised in Elmira, Brubacher now lives in Tunisia where he works for the United Nations Office to the African Union as a rule of law and security institutions officer.
He’ll be giving a talk titled Understanding Terrorists: Views from Palestine, Central Africa and Libya in Elmira next month, which is based on his 20 years of international work. It’s being put on by the Woolwich Counselling Centre.
Brubacher had been helping his dad, Ray, coordinate a guest speaker to come to town for the counselling centre since he has a number of interesting contacts from his international work, but in the end his dad asked him to give the talk himself.
“One of the issues that’s really big in the media right now is international terrorism, and it’s one of the issues that we deal with a lot with the United Nations and it’s an issue that I’ve dealt with in my portfolio over the last few positions I’ve had. I thought it’d be a good topic to discuss,” he said on the line from Tunis, Tunisia.
He says his discussion should somewhat humanize the issue by looking at it from a global normative perspective first and then explaining it on a more personal level in relation to the people he’s met and worked with in his career.
Most of the past two decades he’s spent in Africa and the Middle East. He’s worked with the Palestine Liberation Organization in the West Bank, followed by the International Criminal Court and then on demobilizing soldiers in the DRC and working on counter-
terrorism operations with the African Union. Now, he’s working on building security architecture in Libya.
“The issue of terrorism is one of the issues that I’ve been dealing with for some time. It’s evolved over the last 20 years, so I was thinking to give an overall perspective of the developments in regards to terrorism and difficulties in defining what it is to begin with. But more, I’m looking at some of the experiences I’ve had with people that may be considered terrorists in the definitions that we use today and trying to look at why they engage in these activities, what was their objective, personally, why did they choose that course of action as an individual and why did the organization that they are working for compel them to do those types of acts,” he explains.
Working on international issues is something that always intrigued him. He started with Mennonite Central Committee in the West Bank, but says he was always interested in human rights.
“I always look at the most effective way of achieving the objective and that’s always pushed me to the next step, whether it was joining the Palestine Liberation Organization or becoming a lawyer and going into the ICC or, after the ICC, trying to go into international peacekeeping,” Brubacher said.
His parents have been involved with the Woolwich Counselling Centre since he was a child. Despite not being based in Canada anymore he says it was important for him to provide this type of support to the centre. Free-will offerings will be accepted at the event in support of the Woolwich Counselling Centre.
He hopes those who attend will take away from the discussion a more nuanced approach to what we call terrorism and perhaps a bit more understanding about why people engage in these activities and what the effectiveness is of some of these approaches being taken to try to counteract the threat of terrorism. Also, he’s hopeful he can provide a fuller understanding of what’s fueling terrorists and the differences within the groups that are perpetrating some of these acts, which is a wide range.
“I think terrorism is often a misused term and it’s a pejorative term, but it’s a term that’s increasingly used and increasingly adopted, even by institutions such as the UN, even though none of us can agree on what the definition is. But understanding terrorists, the individual, I think is a different approach and I think it’s something that’s maybe not easier to understand, but a little bit easier to appreciate,” Brubacher said.
Woolwich Counselling Centre presents Understanding Terrorists: Views from Palestine, Central Africa and Libya on Aug. 3 from 7-9 p.m. at Gale Presbyterian Church.