Go figure: A guy decides to bring the world's most celebrated peacemakers to Atlanta, and, in short order, he's at war with the mayor, the Jimmy Carter clan, the Ted Turner clan and the city's resident Nobel laureate (in whose name the whole confab was being organized).
That’s what Mohammad Bhuiyan (sounds like “bouillon”), a college administrator by trade, has managed to do in his quest to make Atlanta this year’s venue for the annual Nobel Peace Prize Summit. The confab will bring the likes of Mikhail Gorbachev, the Dalai Lama and Lech Walesa to our fair city to spread their wisdom — if Bhuiyan and his foes can reach a truce long enough to pull it off.
Bhuiyan is a colleague of Muhammad Yunus, the 2006 Peace Prize winner, who teaches at Emory and has been saying he wants to make Atlanta his second home. A Peace Prize winner picks a town for each year’s summit, and for 2015, Yunus was the one who got to choose.
So, over the past two years, Bhuiyan has toiled ceaselessly at no pay to make the event happen. He’s done it under the auspices of something called Yunus Creative Labs, of which he, not Yunus, is the CEO.
Back in 2013, when the whole idea was unveiled, Kasim Reed, a savvy practitioner of Atlanta-speak, called it one of the "most important wins the city has had since I've been mayor." He said it would "continue to strengthen the recognition of Atlanta as one of the leading cities in the world."
By this March, Reed was exchanging testy letters with Bhuiyan and pulling the city's support for the event. Last week, city officials and other civic types were reportedly forging a plan to organize their own summit.
The devolution — and potential reincarnation — of such a universally appealing event is certainly a head-scratcher.
“How could something that had so much promise last fall turn so terrible, bitter and destructive this spring?” asked Willis Potts, a former businessman and chair of the Georgia Board of Regents. Potts recently resigned from Bhuiyan’s board out of frustration.
In the next breath, he kind of answered his own question. “This is a lesson in a lack of communication, of personal pride, of hubris.”
Things began to fall apart last year, when several leaders in Atlanta suggested that Bhuiyan might be in over his head. They pushed him to hire an event planner, transfer the organization’s funds to The Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta and set up a new board structure with a local retired business exec as the front man.
Apparently, someone mentioned that having a local exec as the “face” of the effort was how things are done ‘round these parts. Bhuiyan, employing another well-honored tradition, took that suggestion as a bigoted slur. He cried racism, alleging that City Fathers (and Mothers) don’t want a Bangladeshi in charge.
Reed called that charge ridiculous. Bob Hope, a long time PR guy who has volunteered as the summit’s communications honcho, also contradicted Bhuiyan’s claim. “Atlanta is not bigoted against anyone but jerks,” said Hope.
I beg to differ: Atlanta has embraced many jerks.
Bhuiyan claimed that Reed refused to shake his hand in January before a MLK event. He said the mayor was miffed because he had turned down an event manager suggested by Reed. The mayor, in a letter to Bhuiyan, said he lacked common sense and was untethered from the truth.
In March, Reed announced a formal split days after Bhuiyan wrote Ted Turner complaining about the mayor. Bhuiyan and Reed exchanged testy letters, with the aggrieved summit leader hinting at a lawsuit and the mayor telling him, in George W. Bush-fashion, to bring it on.
In April, Yunus resigned from the organization bearing his name. He complained that Yunus Creative Lab, which is really Bhuiyan, not him, was misstating his views in press releases. (Bhuiyan says Yunus, the guy, not the Creative Lab, just wanted to get out of this public mess.)
This month, summit board members Jason Carter, the president’s grandson, and Laura Seydel, Ted Turner’s daughter, issued a joint statement taking Bhuiyan to task for refusing to lighten his grip on the organization’s reins. His actions, they wrote, are hacking off “many of the relevant leaders in this community.” They then resigned, although Bhuiyan says their terms expired. (You can’t quit! You’re fired!)
Nevertheless, Bhuiyan told me last week that he plans to go ahead with Nobelpalooza even if Atlanta’s elite turns its back on his event. He said he has gotten commitments from 22 Peace Prize winners and has $1.5 million in cash donated to stage the event.
“We have every intention to do the summit,” he said Friday. “I have all the money. I have the laureates. We are moving forward.”
Then, with a certain Billy Payne and Juan Antonio Samaranch flare, Bhuiyan added that it will be “the best summit ever.”
He’s clearly absorbed some of the local culture: It’s never been a sin to oversell an event in Atlanta.
On the other hand, Bhuiyan said there’s nothing stopping the city from having its own Best Ever Nobel Peace Prize Summit. “There’s no copyright.”
And that’s precisely what seems to be happening. The city, along with the Rotary Club and many of Atlanta’s movers and shakers, spent the week carving out a plan to put together such an event. The details have haven’t been ironed out, and final approval for the switcheroo must be granted by something called the Permanent Secretariat of The World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates, which is located in Rome.
But my guess is that Jimmy Carter will prevail upon his Peace Prize buds to snub Bhuiyan’s Best Ever Nobel Summit and instead go across town to Kasim’s and The Rotary’s Even Better Nobel Shindig.
Anyway, Hope, the PR guy, said Bhuiyan has so far reserved 5,000 hotel rooms. Another insider said Bhuiyan also said that he’ll need 10,000 sandwiches.
Hopefully, they won’t be filled with crow.
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