Some contacts asked me recently about ‘whom did you meet’…?

Well, in a way it is a bit difficult to make a list, because some people may be ‘well known’ and others less so, but still were interesting to meet. Or whether they influenced me in any way.

OK, let me try to make a list in the sequence of time that I met them.

1. Mr. Bader, Founder of Scott Bader Ltd. see https://www.scottbader.com/ I was what you would call these days an ‘intern’ at the age of 15 in his company in Wollaston, Wellingborough, Northamptonshire. An outstanding personality! He gave away his company to his workers, saying that ‘I do not need all that’. You can imagine that definitely he was an unusual personality.
2. Sir Mohammad Zafarullah Khan. He came to Switzerland in August 1963 to perfor the opening ceremony of the first Mosque in Switzerland, the Mahmud Moschee in Zurich. Sir Zafarullah Khan at the time was President of the UN General Assembly. He kindly invited me to New York in December of the same year, at the end of his term at the UN General Assembly. I had the honor and pleasure to remain in touch with him until he passed away. In one of my job applications I gave him as a reference and of course got that job.
3. Hadhrat Khalifatul Masih II, Hadhrat Mirza Bashirudding Mahmud Ahmad. I reached Pakistan on my 20th birthday in December 1964 and after staying over in Sir Mohammad Zafarullah Khan’s residence in Lahore proceeded to Rabwah to attend the Jalsa Salana, Annual Gathering. I then had the honor and pleasure to meet Hazoor. It was a very impressive ‘mulakat’ (audience). You can read more about my journey to Pakistan here https://themuslimtimes.info/2017/08/16/glimpses-into-the-life-of-a-global-nomad-part-three/
4. Later on I also met many other personalities of the same family like Khalifatul Masih the III and IV and V. Hadhrat Mirza Tahir Ahmad I met before he was elected to this high office. He was my guest in Kabul as well.
5. OK, Kabul, I did meet His Majesty King Zaheer Shah quite informally. I was at a picknick at his model farm Kar-e-Zameer when he strolled around inspecting his cows. Good old days, 1970, he even did not need a body guard. Just one guy, ok Secretary/Body Guard was accompanying him.
6. Alhaji Sanussi Dantata, Nigeria. The grand father of today’s richest man in Africa, Aliko Dangote. A real gentleman, I was able to host him at my residence from time to time and we shared interesting conversations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanusi_Dantata
7. Well, Antigua 1983 to 1986, I suppose my boss Dr. Erhart could also be considered a personality. He wrote a biography ‘miracles take a bit longer’ describing how from scratch he came to own 13 hotels without any mortgages (at the end). 12 in Spain and one in Antigua, where I was working. Interesting guy I suppose. When I joined him in 1983 he was ‘worth’ about 300 million Swiss francs. Should be quite a bit more by now.
8. During a trip to Pakistan I met Imran Khan, not yet ‘in power’ in 2001. My trip was to prepare plans for Caritas Switzerland to assist Afghan refugees.
9. and Christiane Amanpour of CNN nd others of her class, who were anxiously waiting like vultures to see America invading Afghanistan.
10. Lyse Doucet of the BBC. She also interviewed me later on in Amman, Jordan, when I was Chief of Mission of the International Organization for Migration, Iraq and Jordan.
11. Princess Maria Pia Kottbauer of Lichtenstein, or if you like her full name: Maria-Pia Ludovika Ulrika Elisabeth Paschaline Katharina Ignazia Lucia Johanna Josefa Kothbauer, Princess of Liechtenstein. She came to inspect my work in Kosovo as Lichtenstein was one of the countries funding the Caritas Switzerland project there. An interesting lady. We had long chats while visiting our project.
12. Henri, Grand Duke of Luxembourg, well when I met him also in Kosovo he was the Crown Prince. Luxembourg was also funding our project of reconstructing about 3500 houses that the Serbs burned down before leaving Kosovo in 1999.
13. Well, and then during my UN time .. I shook hands with His Majesty King Abdullah II, during an Eid celebration. As Chief of Mission of the International Organisation for Migration I had diplomatic status and His Majesty invited me with all other diplomats to an Eid celebration.
14. Kofi Annan, the UN top guy and his wife. (As all my colleagues sort of jumped around him I took the time to have a long chat with his wife, whom the crowd ignored).
15. Pope Benedict XVI, visiting Jordan in 2009. Interestingly I cannot recall his speech, it was just polite diplomatic blabla, while I recall exactly the speech of the host
16. Prince Ghazi bin Mohammad, who was the host of the Pope. https://www.acommonword.com/pope-benedict-xvi-visits-jordanprince-ghazi-bin-mohammad/ Well, officially I suppose King Abdullah was the host, but Prince Ghazi spent more time with him.
17. Angelina Jolie came to Baghdad and we had dinner together. Well, not just with me, the host was the UN Country Director and I was also invited to join her.
18. Sergio di Mello, UN country Director, who was killed in the terrorist attack on the UN Headquarters in Baghdad. How he saved my life and lost his you can read here. https://themuslimtimes.info/2017/08/24/glimpses-into-the-life-of-a-global-nomad-part-nine/
19. Not to forget to mention Dr. Abdul Samad Rahman Sultan, Minister of Displacement and Migration, Baghdad. I can say we became good friends. A real gentleman. https://picryl.com/media/dr-abdul-samad-rahman-sultan-minister-of-displacement-67a260 well, and his team. It was a pleasure to work with them and to just be with them.
20. His Royal Highness, then the Prince of Wales, now King Charles. During a trip to London I had the occasion of having a cup of real English tea with him in his bungalow (or do you call it a Palace). The meeting was arranged by
21. Baroness Nicholson, who had an Ngo in Iraq, whom I was able to assist a bit. She arranged a workshop in London which was partly hosted by the Prince of Wales. (Still waiting for an invitation to Buckingham Palace, after his ‘promotion’ …).

Well, I suppose I met a lot more than just 21 people in my fairly long life. Please forgive me if I missed you. Just a thought anyway.

Rafiq A. Tschannen

Your Associate Chief Editor

For full bio just google ‘glimpses into the life of a global nomad’, part one to part ten. Part 11 may be coming up one of these days….

PS. The annoying thing in these days of mobile phones and selfis is that I do not have any photos of myself with these personalities. In the ‘olden days’ we just did not think of it…