site.btaBritish Council's Country Director for Romania and Bulgaria Abdi Hassan: We Still Believe in European Ideals

The British Council still believes in the European ideals, in the European engagement and cultural institutions of Europe in particular, the British Council's new Country Director Romania and Bulgaria, Abdi Hassan, says in an interview for BTA's Dahnyelle Dymytrov. For the British Council, both Romania and Bulgaria are really important countries, he says. “We have been here for decades, 70-80 years in both countries. Relationship between the UK and Bulgaria and Romania remains strong, remains engaging,” he adds.

In his words, the great mission of the British Council is to make the world a more prosperous and secure place. "The local mission related to Bulgaria is exactly the same - to make Bulgaria a more secure and prosperous place. But in each country it is different. With you, we work in terms of education, focusing on the English language in general. We also focus on creating platforms for British and Bulgarian universities to coordinate with each other and cooperate, to exchange practices, knowledge and experience," Abdi Hassan notes. He emphasizes that very soon the British Council Digital Library will be launched - the digital library of the British Council with over 100,000 sources, which will be available for free to anyone over 18 years of age.

“Honestly, I think Bulgarians know a lot more about the UK than the British know about Bulgaria. So my role as Director of the British Council for Bulgaria is to create a platform for cultural exchange and a better cultural connection between the UK and Bulgaria. This means promoting British culture in Bulgaria and promoting Bulgarian culture in the UK – so that there is mobility and engagement between our two nations,” says Abdi Hassan.

Following is the full text of the interview, in which Abdi Hassan talks about his attitude towards Bulgaria, its culture, history and language, about the local and global missions of the British Council, about the communication between the various cultural institutes, about the upcoming opening of the British Council Digital Library. And more - why today more than ever we need a "truth engine"? Why does the British Council put Bulgaria and Romania under the same umbrella? Does he think that Bulgarians and British people know their cultures well enough?

What kind of child were you? What did you dream about?

I am based in Romania, but I come to Bulgaria very regularly and I engage and I lead our operations here. I have a multilayered identity. I am both British, Welsh, Somali and also a global citizen of the world. I was born in Somalia. My family has been long living in the UK and immigrated to the UK from before my birth through my grandfather and other family members. I was born there. I was brought up in the UK and many other countries around the world. I speak three languages almost equally, my first three languages, so I speak Arabic, Somali and English. And then I speak a little bit of Welsh, so I sometimes say three-and-a-half [languages], if I want to be generous.

At the start of my life and as a child, I wanted to be a doctor - very different to wanting to be actually in the area of culture or cultural institutions. But I always had a passion and love for art, and particularly poetry. None of my family members are artists, but we are all art lovers, whether it's music, whether it's performance, whether it's painting or poetry in my case. And many, many years later I happen to join the British Council and fulfill my passion of love of cultural engagement, cultural connections and arts. I joined the organization around ten years ago. I have worked in the UK, I've worked with the British Council in Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Nepal, Iraq, Rwanda and now in Romania and Bulgaria.

"I survived a deadly gun and rocket attack in Iraq," as you say in an interview. Your life is worthy of a movie...

I was working in Iraq between 2020 and 2022. This is a time where Iraq had quite a number of security challenges of different sectarian groups fighting for power and other complex issues. I should add, Iraq is a tremendously historic and wonderful country, and I really enjoyed working and living there. However, there was a moment when we were in the British Embassy in Baghdad, in the what's called "international zone", and a gun battle started between two warring factions. In the middle of it, the Embassy was caught up and we had to essentially hide in our fortified areas of bunkers and different structures for 12 hours where we've had guns, motor runs and other things falling on the Embassy. And it was an interesting to all of us to live through. It was the only time in my life that I have lived through something similar, but it also brought to me the importance of why the British Council exists.

Would you learn the Bulgarian language?

I love languages in general and I really want to learn. I am a great believer in having a better understanding of people, having a better understanding of the history of how our society functions, we have to understand their language. And one of the ways that you can understand the society is through understanding their humour and their emotions. And that can only come through languages. So I want to understand the Bulgarian society better. I want to understand Bulgaria as a country better and, hopefully, I can learn Bulgarian. I have been told it's not easy, but I can try.

Why are Bulgaria and Romania under the same umbrella?

For the British Council, both Romania and Bulgaria are really important countries. We have been here for decades, 70-80 years in both countries. Relationship between the UK and Bulgaria and Romania remains strong, remains engaging and, in fact, we have many people from both Bulgaria and Romania living in the UK, and we have many people from the UK living in Bulgaria, in particular. So we are at a time where Romania and Bulgaria are thriving, engaging, they are looking towards Europe. They are developing fast, and this is the time to engage, and they have very positive attitude towards the UK and the UK, vice versa. So that's one area in terms of coming to a place that is really important, that wants to engage with the UK and the UK wants to engage with it.

And then on the personal level, I have two small children, and living in some difficult spots of the world was getting more and more difficult for my two little daughters. So living in two European capitals that are absolutely beautiful, where we can go and visit galleries, go to the theatre, walk around was really important at this stage of our life and our family. I love Sofia in particular. Sofia is such a green city and it has wonderful architecture. From Old Gothic architecture from 300 years ago to some of those wonderful Coptic church cathedrals, which I am really fascinated by, to communist era architecture and modernism, and all of those cobbled streets, this make me feel at home.

The mission of the British Council today?

So, the wider mission of the British Council is to make the world a more prosperous and secure place. We were set up in 1934, and on December 5, 2024, we celebrated the existence of British Council for 90 years. When we were set up in 1934, it was just after World War One. It was at a time when the world felt more fractured. There was a rise of extremist ideology, particularly fascist and Nazi ideology in Europe. We realised how dangerous it was because a few years later, we had World War Two. And that's why the British Council was set up. We feel a lot of times that we are living in similar times. I hope we don't end up in the same place as World War Two, but it feels we are fractured. It feels that the world is dangerous. It feels that there are lots of extremist ideologies around.

Now the British Council achieves the aim of more prosperous and secure world by doing three things: by creating connections, understanding and trust. If you have a connection and you create a platform for people to connect with each other, as I'm doing today with you, and hopefully with your readers, and then create a level of understanding between our backgrounds, what we worry about, what is important for us, that will create a level of trust. And if we trust each other, we are far less likely to fight with each other. So that is the mission for the British Council, and we deliver this through two things: arts and culture, and education.

Does the British Council have a local mission?

For the British Council Bulgaria and our local mission, it is exactly the same. It's to make Bulgaria a more secure and prosperous place. But the delivery is different in every country, because it focuses on those countries. Now, in Bulgaria in particular, we work in terms of education and specifically on English, we are focusing on English in general. English is a cornerstone of sharing UK culture, UK engagement here. We also find English and English assessment or exams as the key to unlocking opportunities for young people, both in terms of employment, further education, better life or access in global engagement in general. So that is one area.

The second area is around arts and culture, and education. We focus on two things: creating platforms for UK universities and Bulgarian universities to coordinate, to cooperate for partnerships. So Bulgarian universities can have better capacity building, better engagement with the UK, learn to practice from the UK, and UK universities will have access to Bulgaria and also learn from Bulgarian universities.

And then the other area which I'm really passionate about is the work that we are doing in our arts and culture. And, particularly, around supporting young people and building the capacity of young people against disinformation and wider societal cohesion. We do this in two programmes. One of them is called G-LENS (Gender Inclusive, Long-lasting Empowered Networks and Societies), and it looks at tackling gender misinformation and particularly online. We know that in reality, violence against women and girls is on the increase; this is in real life, on a day-to-day basis. Even so, violence against women and girls online is far much more on the rise, it's becoming more of a concern, more problematic. All of that is dealt with by us trying to give young people critical thinking skills and their ability to safeguard themselves and other young people.

And then the second area that was close to my heart, because I also attended the launch of the fantastic movie made by UK filmmaker James Jones, The Antidote, through our programme Credible Local Voices in partnership with Sofia International Film Festival.

Do you think Bulgarians and British people know their cultures well enough?

I think there is enough knowledge, but you can always increase it. To be frank, I think people from Bulgaria may know about the UK more than the UK may know about Bulgaria. So my role as British Council Director for Bulgaria is to create a platform for cultural exchange and better cultural connection between the UK and Bulgaria. This means promoting UK culture in Bulgaria and promoting Bulgarian culture in the UK, so there is mobility, there is engagement between our two nations.

Is communication important between different foreign cultural institutes in a capital?

We think it's vitally important. Together we can go further. It goes without saying that partnership will give us greater impact, and there is something that is really important for us, as British Council: we still believe in the European ideals. We believe in the European engagement and cultural institutions of Europe, in particular. So we sit and we are part of the unique European cultural institute network [European Union National Institutes for Culture, EUNIC]. We contribute to this. We work very closely with our European cultural institution counterparts. And in fact, a lot of the UK movies as part of the 29th Sofia International Film Festival, which the British Council has been organizing in partnership, were shown in the French Institute, in Geothe Institute, in the Polish Institute, so working together is a central part of what we do.

Why do we need The Engine of Truth today more than ever? 

So let me start with why do we think we need it and how important it is. I asked Prof. Evelina Kelbecheva as a historian whether she is more optimistic or more pessimistic about the world today. And her answer was unequivocal. Her answer was really clear. She is more pessimistic. She thinks in the past couple of years, the world has changed so tremendously and so fast, unlike any other time, like from the time of the 1930s and the 1940s. So given this backdrop, and given the fact where we are, having programmes like Credible Voices and Local Credible Voices, The Engine of Truth giving people the ability to have critical thinking, to fight disinformation and misinformation, it is as important for our security, for our societal cohesion as any other time before. And that's why the British Council is doing it. We believe in using art to deal with global challenges, so we are using art in terms of film-making to deal with misinformation in this area of Еngine of Truth. We also use art to look at violence against women. We use art to deal with global climate change. So this brings together two key things for the British Council: making the world a more prosperous and secure place, and using art to achieve it.

Tell me about the future plans of British Council in Bulgaria. 

There are some key important areas of our work. One is that we want to grow and learn from the work that we have done with The Engine of Truth and G-LENS. There will be more programmes in this area to continue supporting young people to develop critical thinking. We also want to build and increase our ability for English language and English language provision. So my call to action for everyone who is reading this article is to do three things. One, go to our website and learn about the activities of the British Council and how to take part in them.

Two, we will be launching very soon, in the next couple of months, the British Council Digital Library. The British Council Digital Library has over 100,000 resources. It is free for access for anyone who has a mobile device and over the age of 18. It has English books and particularly UK culture and UK books and others from around the world. It has audio books, it has publications, movies, concerts, periodicals, magazines.

Three, I invite everyone to follow us on our social media platforms and particularly our Facebook.

Is there a particular word that describes you best as a person?

I would say two words. I'm always generous of myself [laughs]. One word is optimistic, which I think we need at this time, and the second is persistent.

How would you continue the sentence, "I am a person who loves...“?

Reading. Also cooking, but reading is more important.