After a 10 hour day at the free world’s largest political institution, U.N. Associate Spokesperson, proud husband and father of two, Farhan Haq gives The Yard radio show’s Kashmir Hyder a rundown of a usual workday. He talks about his switch from asking to answering the questions, and the inspiration behind his political fashion style.                                       

KH:  How did you rise up to the ranks to be the associate spokesperson for the U.N.?

FH: Well, actually, the funny thing is that it was a bit of a fluke. I started out as a reporter, like yourself and I was actually reporting on the U.N. for many years and someone I knew who was working as a spokesperson actually had to go on maternity leave and she wanted to know whether I could fill in for her for a couple of months. So I agreed to do that and I thought I would do that for two months and go back to my job as a reporter and actually I wound up staying on.  When she had her kid, she decided the hours that you put in as a spokesperson are a little bit long so she switched over to another part of the U.N.

KH: So what are long hours? 12-hour days? Obviously you had the time.

FH: Well, for example, right now it’s nearly 10 hours.  This workday probably started for me when I woke up at 5:30am and I got into the office at 7 a.m. So it takes awhile.  It varies honestly.  Coming in you have to be in fairly early just so you keep in touch with what’s going on in the news and you can inform the Secretary General of what is happening in the world media.  But the departure really depends on the level of activity in the day, what’s happening in the Security Council, what’s happening in the world outside. You kind of get a feeling from what’s in the headlines in the morning whether the day is going to be hectic.

KH: Do you leave at the end of the day when the Secretary General leaves or do you have to stay behind and finish any last minute work?

FH: Certainly once he leaves its easier to finish up your work and head out. The departure time of the spokespeople really depends on other factors such as whether something is happening in the Security Council or in the General Assembly the other main bodies of the United Nations, in other words, the sort of things that reporters want to have information on.  Once those activities end, then we can all leave. Each of us have our own beats, of course, mine is the Middle East. One of my colleagues will focus on Africa, another on Latin America. It depends on what’s happening and what the U.N. is most involved in at that given moment.  

KH: So you’ve been very busy with your focus being the Middle East.

FH: Yea, Yea, it hasn’t been easy at all.

KH: So you were a reporter, now you’re a spokesperson. What was your first day like?

FH: It was November 1999 and it was interesting because I had been one of the people asking questions of the spokespeople so, for example, the spokespeople at the U.N. have a daily briefing that we give to the press at noon and all of a sudden now I am one of those people answering those questions. It was a weird, weird feeling. It was a strange feeling because I do remember that I had gotten a new pass card, which was a red pass card that showed that I was a staff member as opposed to the green pass card that the press have and I do remember the look on some of my press colleagues faces when they suddenly saw the color on my pass card change. I remember one of them initially looked so shocked as if I’d become a traitor and I momentarily felt hurt as if I’d done the wrong thing, but they actually you know realized that I was still on their side and I still wanted to provide them with information. So it worked out ok. It wasn’t like I was going to start pulling the wool over their eyes or something you know even though you get that sort of feeling that when someone’s a spokesperson they’re not really working with us but for someone else.

KH: Your job requires you to be in front of the camera or out in public quite frequently, which means that you have to look pretty sharp at all times. Where do you get your fashion sense from? And who is your favorite designer or place to shop?

FH: I’m actually one of the more poorly dressed in the office. In all honestly, what I do for clothes I’m about the same size as my father, who is from Pakistan, so I wear the clothes that he wore in the 60’s and the 70’s when he was first in college and then working in Pakistan. Actually that goes for the bulk of the nice clothes that I wear now. Because he actually didn’t wear them out till they were ragged and so actually when my colleagues are most impressed with my clothes; those are the clothes that my father wore 30 or 40 years ago and I think they look better than a lot of contemporary clothes. That’s what I really rely on.

KH: Yea, they were probably made with better quality than many of today’s clothes. I definitely wear a belt that my grandfather gave me, he’s 78, and he gave me one of his belts from the 60’s that actually fits. I have it on right now as we speak and I love it.

KH: I have one last question for you. What does the U.N. do to employ young people such as myself?

FH: Well actually, all the various departments at the United Nations have internship programs and there’s a very extensive internship program to help bring in young people from around the world to work at the U.N.  In fact our office has an intern working there right now and we tend to have some every few months, in a few months we tend to have a new intern. So if you look at the U.N. website which is www.un.org there’s actually some information there about how to become an intern. And of course, there are other activities as well including, including model United Nations which helps bring in kids from around the world to discuss international issues and a lot of model U.N. activities involve bringing kids in fact to the United Nations at some point to see how it works.

KH: Well I truly, truly enjoyed speaking with you this evening, thank you.

FH: Thank you and have a great evening.