Cross-Culture

US Optimism Remains—You Just Might Not Recognize It

As a born-and-bred American, I’m glad to relay that optimism remains high here—despite what you might have heard or how things might look.

For people who don’t know the US and Americans well, I should clarify what makes American optimism: 

US optimism is inherently contentious.  Americans routinely  embrace the role of “devil’s advocate” in a discussion, representing the opposing viewpoint as a way to stimulate thoughtfulness, test the hypothesis, or show interest in the issue.  We argue almost routinely, so much so that the actual act of arguing rarely carries the negative impact that observers might perceive.

And we carry this contentious optimism through most political discussions, election cycles and presidential selections.  Energetic argument is the grease that lubricates the machine: often messy, sometimes overly slick or seemingly inconsequential.  Regardless of political affiliation, we value our candidates for their abilities to stand up to the scrutiny, to defend themselves and their ideas as they pitch their versions of positive change and a better future.  Our optimism is contentious.

And our optimism is conciliatory.  Americans revel in political mythologies about friendships between political enemies (Lincoln’s “team of rivals,” the Ronald Reagan/Tip O’Neill friendship, the charitable synergy between President Clinton, Bob Dole and both Presidents Bush).  And, more recently, the trend in US politics seems to be shifting from ideological stalemates toward compromise and progress—if our politicians (on both sides) would only listen.

Similarly, the Occupy Wall Street movements will almost certainly generate ultimately positive, collaborative, and lingering change—not as a clear victory for either side but, again, as a result of the public argument.  Then the movement will wind down: raising some issues, and some ire, but ultimately framing itself mostly within animated debate and eventual resolution.

I’m going to go way out on a limb on this next point, because the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, along with all the collateral events, split our country and much of the world.  American used those calamities to fuel two wars.  Many Americans supported those military efforts because they felt the US would do some good; others opposed those same efforts because they could see no long-term good.  Optimism, in its absence or abundance, is what split the issue for us.  Naiveté?  Possibly.  But optimism nonetheless. 

Ten years after the 9/11 attacks, most Americans recall that time as tragedy and triumph as we mourn the dead at the same time that we celebrate the ‘everyday’ heroes: the passengers on Flight 93 who acted to crash their own plane, the firemen, police, and passers-by who similarly chose to step in to help out, the office workers who slowed their own escape as they carried strangers down the smoke-filled stairs of one of the World Trade towers, and regular folk in Shanksville, Pennsylvania (where Flight 93 crashed) who tended to the crash site with the reverence it deserved but without any fanfare, celebrity or expectation of fame or fortune.  Our optimism comes from the heroism of average people.

Now, don’t get me wrong.  I, and my fellow Americans, know that we face big problems that need serious attention.  We are not the oblivious or ignorant rubes that much of the rest of the world thinks we are.  But we do approach problems with hopefulness, because US optimism is entrepreneurial: we believe we can work our way out of our problems.

Look at this current economic crisis.  In the US we bickered and groaned; our legislators pontificated but accomplished little; the Obama Administration’s efforts very likely averted even deeper, darker crises, but Americans value the presence of progress (optimism) much more highly than the absence of regress (fatalism), so credit for those crises averted comes only grudgingly.   Europeans acted seemingly more decidedly: reconsidering currency alliances, enacting austerity measures, taking to the streets in protests that went farther out of control than anything the Occupy advocates have yet contrived.  But, uh, after all, the situation in Europe is currently no better than in the US.  European pragmatism and immediacy have differed not at all, in terms of impact, from American shoe-shuffling.

Because our optimism is economic.  Some will say we’ve simply outsourced the darker elements of our economy (the sweat-shops and tenements, the pollution and oppression) just like we outsourced so many jobs.  The US is barely 2 generations from those polluted, sweat-shop, oppressive stages ourselves—and time moves much more quickly along those lines now.  But Americans believe, because we’ve lived this dream over generations, that economic power is the answer to all the world’s ills.

Ask the Chinese laborers currently clamouring for increased wages and standards of living.  Or ask the overwhelmingly female and third-world recipients of micro-loans (admittedly not an American idea) about how much more control they have over their lives now that they command the “home economics” in a whole different sense of the phrase.  Or ask the American workers in textiles, manufacturing, banking and a plethora of other industries, workers who have recently found work as jobs come back, now insourced, not even a decade after some of them left.   Our optimism is entrepreneurial.

Our optimism might seem hypocritical but isn’t.  Some see our founding credo, borne in the Declaration of Independence—that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights”—as, at best, inaccurate and, at worst, delusional.  Abraham Lincoln, President during our Civil War—our country at its most contentious—wrote about “the better angels of our nature,” the same theme that Martin Luther King Jr. echoed in the next century in his famous “Dream” speech: that we must always strive to be better than we are.   Americans have always been among the most charitable people on Earth because our optimism is individualistic and aspirational, and sometimes those individual aspirations coalesce incredibly positively.

And our optimism is hopeful and time-tested.  Americans love to frame events as the ‘best/worst ___ since ___’ (the coldest winter since 1930, the largest job loss since 1979, the rainiest Wednesday since records began, the most precipitous financial collapse since the Great Depression), and we do this as a way of saying ‘things have been worse. . . so things will get better.’  Our optimism is historical and hopeful, and Americans continue to believe, in spite of the surveys to the contrary, that the future will turn out well.

But our optimism is sometimes blind and often short-sighted: our infrastructure needs work and our pre-college educational systems are teetering on the edge of ineffectiveness. We have many citizens who are out of work or otherwise severely struggling, we have a debt that seems insurmountable, and a growing/aging/diversifying population that requires attention, even care, that we hadn’t considered.

But we’ve been in all of these situations before: we’ve had harsher economic crises, larger threats, vaster disparities between wealthy and poor, faster influxes of immigrants, fewer resources, higher debts, more onerous taxes, fewer jobs, worse roads and schools and systems, and politicians who make the current crop look downright industrious.  And we overcame, because our optimism empowers innovation.

And we will overcome again.  We’ll fight first, because our optimism is contentious, but we’ll overcome because our optimism is among our greatest strengths, our greatest economic, entrepreneurial, time-tested, hopeful, individualistic, innovative, naïve, blind, aspirational, heroic, charitable, accusational, conciliatory, collegial and contentious strength. 

by Tim Flood, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Management [Global] and Corporate Communication, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA

It could never happen in Norway

But it did. Norway is still in shock after the events of Friday 22 July 2011 - a date that will forever be remembered as a turning point in Norwegian history.

At 3:30 in the afternoon, Norway, with its nearly 5 million inhabitants, experienced its first terrorist attack. A car bomb exploded in the street outside the main government buildings in the centre of Oslo. The bomb was so big and the blast so powerful that it could be heard far outside the city. It destroyed nearby buildings and smashed hundreds of windows throughout the capital.

News about the explosion contained further information about a possible shooting on Utøya. There was some confusion to begin with as to whether the two episodes were related and at first the shooting was thought to be fireworks.

As the day wore on, a shocked Norwegian public tried to make sense of what was happening. There had indeed been shooting on Utøya and many had been killed. Utøya (literally “the outside island”) is about two hours drive from Oslo and is well known as the venue for the Labour Party's yearly summer youth camp.

Three hours after the explosion, Oslo was empty of all but police cars, ambulances, commando trucks and fire engines. With typical Norwegian efficiency a central command was immediately established on the largest town square. The sound of sirens continued throughout the evening and night, and the media confirmed that a man had been arrested on Utøya and charged for both crimes.

A native Norwegian man in his thirties admitted responsibility for the home-made bomb and for the massacre on Utøya. A right-wing extremist with strong anti-Islamic views, he blames the Norwegian Labour Party for allowing the immigration of Muslims to Norway and turning Norway into the multicultural society it is today. The attacks were aimed at destroying the Labour Party and killing its new recruits on Utøya.

Numbers of dead and injured were expected to increase during the night as rescue teams continued to search the government buildings and the island. Thankfully these were adjusted down the next day, but they were horrific. 8 people had been killed in the government buildings and 69, the youngest 14 years old, had been shot and killed on Utøya.

Oslo was a silent, mourning city on Saturday. Television stations sent continuous updates showing pictures taken immediately after the bomb exploded. Nearly all the shops were shut and the task of assessing the damage had begun. The normally busy city centre was empty and most of central Oslo had been fenced off as there was speculation about further undetonated bombs.

Ever the pragmatists, the Norwegians discussed positive aspects. For example, the government “high-rise building” or “Høyblokken” built in 1958 could, after all, be salvaged. The bomb had done extensive damage but the foundations were sound. Also, the majority of those who would normally be working in these buildings were on holiday - July is the main holiday month. In addition, the car containing the bomb had been parked over the extensive underground passages which connect the government buildings and this helped to absorb some of the blast.

By Monday morning carpenters and renovation teams had replaced broken windows with weatherboards and removed all the broken glass from the streets. They had been working all weekend - an amazing feat.

The first flowers and candles were already being placed outside the Cathedral in Oslo and as the days went by they filled more and more of the area around the church. Groups stood silently looking at the sea of flowers, many crying openly. This happened in towns all around the country. Very different Norwegians from the rather private people they are known to be. This somewhat Catholic tradition for showing public sorrow started when King Olav V died in January 1991 when the snow outside the Royal Palace was covered by candles and flowers.

Strangely, Norwegian flags were missing from the floral tributes. Norwegians are proud of their flag and exhibit a friendly and good-natured nationalism. The sorrow shown after the massacre was personal and the sense of bereavement transcended nationality.

This could be seen in the rose procession. 200,000 people each carrying a rose filled the streets of Oslo to express their support for a society that condemned terrorism, whoever was responsible. Norway has always defended her open society. Locked doors with codes and entrance cards are relatively new here. However, Norwegians are sceptical in spite of promises from the Prime Minister that there will be more openness in the future.

There has been much soul-searching in the aftermath of the terror. As would be expected of a society concerned with details and punctuality, the rescue operation on Utøya has been studied minute for minute. Could the police have been more efficient? Could more lives have been saved? What if, what if?

An immigrant was stopped in the street by reporters and asked for his comments. His reply was “My first thought when I heard about the bomb was 'I hope it is not one of ours' ”.

This is a sentiment that has been expressed by many Norwegians. They are thankful that the perpetrator was a so-called native. Norway struggles to integrate its immigrants like so many other nations and had one of them been responsible, this wonderful country would have looked very different today.

Flowers are still being laid outside the Cathedral and there are always roses on the fences around the government buildings. The heavy silence over Oslo has now lifted and voices and laughter can be heard again in the streets but it is going to take a very long time to get back to normal - whatever “normal” will mean in the future.

by Veronica Biong

The Glory that was Greece

The Greeks may currently owe us a lot; but our debt to the Greeks is immeasurable.

Small comfort to a country for which – according to Jeff Randall in a recent article in The Daily Telegraph – ‘there is no deus ex machina. The tragic dénouement will involve its default or withdrawal from the single currency, perhaps both.’

The deus ex machina, in classical drama, was the god who descended from the stage machinery, in order to intervene in human affairs and the phrase is generally used to mean a positive intervention, or rescue of the hero.

Randall’s whole article casts what is happening in Greece as a tragedy – which, of course, they invented, along with the foundations for Western philosophy, literature, mathematics, science, art, architecture etc. Greek intellectual achievements have been unparalleled in the history of the Western world, and they know it.

They also feel that we often fail to respect the source of our heritage enough. So the present humiliation must be all the more bitter for a justifiably proud people.

Starting with Minoan Crete, where there was evidence of settlement in 128,000 BC, real signs of civilization from 5,000 BC, and reaching a pinnacle with the city states of Sparta and Athens – which established the basis for Western civilization and liberal democracies – Greece really was the cradle of Europe.

No wonder that the Greek ideal inspired the Romantics – so much so that Lord Byron, the British poet, died (admittedly of a fever) fighting for Greek independence from the Ottoman Empire, into which it had been absorbed for hundreds of years. Independence was finally achieved in 1832 with the Treaty of Constantinople.

Some of the most famous lines written about Greece are in fact Byron’s:

‘The mountains look on Marathon/And Marathon looks on the sea/And musing there an hour alone/I dream’d that Greece might yet be free.’

Modern Greeks tend to see themselves as culturally-aware, eloquent, sophisticated Europeans, experienced in social and commercial matters, with strong intellectual powers, intuition and a sense of artistry.

Key values are reason, freedom, thrift (paradoxically in the current circumstances!), a love of the sea, theatre, rationalism, debate, close family ties, a talent for business (especially small entrepreneurism), democracy, and architecture.

They are a multi-active, dialogue-oriented culture, very tactile, putting lively human interaction above clock-time, and having been scientifically proven to have the strongest eye contact in Europe. Their style of communication tends to be verbose, theatrical and intense.

Yet their intellectual heritage has given them a strong rationalism to counter the emotion, rather like the French.

To deal with them effectively in business, you should really read up something on their illustrious history as the longer-term historical perspective is important for them and a source of great pride.

Other advice:

• Avoid discussion of Greece’s decline, historical and current
• Don’t mention the problems with Cyprus
• Avoid the topics of Serbia, Kosovo, Albania and Macedonia
• Don’t praise the Turks too much
• Use some Greek
• Be prepared for long, roundabout discussion
• Let them get their emotions off their chest – they can use emotion as a weapon, so remain calm yet show compassion
• Be aware of differences in body language – a backward nod of the head means ‘no’. A tilt of the head to either side means ‘yes’
• Keep strong eye contact
• Identify the boss and address him or her directly. The boss can be extremely tough, in a paternalistic way, especially in more traditional businesses like shipping. Even nowadays, he may motivate his senior team by lining them up and slapping their faces to show them who is boss!
• Be flexible – they may well be flexible on agreements, so be prepared for them to propose modifications
• Be generous and friendly, but remain tough enough
• Even if they are in a weak position, preserve their dignity at all times
• Socialise (even till the late hours) and invest time in relationships
• Be aware they may try to charm you, so try to use your own charisma too
• Bow to their experience
• Understand that, in the end, they are pragmatic
• Above all, be aware of their shrewdness. It is probably their key defining characteristic. It is no coincidence that Odysseus, the best-known hero in Greek literature was primarily characterised for his cunning. It was he, after all, who came up with the idea of the Trojan Horse.

We began by referring to the current Greek tragedy, but does the word describe the current situation in the truest sense of the word? For instance, however sad it is, an accident is not a tragedy. A tragedy is a fall, usually ending in death, brought about by a fatal flaw in character of an otherwise great hero.

There is no doubt that Greece is a heroic nation, based on its intellectual achievements, but do those achievements contain a fatal flaw?

Probably the greatest philosophical contribution the Greeks made to the world was the idea that it is rational to strive for an ideal – whether that is at a personal or political level. The question then arises, as to what that ideal should be. At a political level, Plato’s Republic tries to build a picture of the ideal state, governed not as a democracy – maybe surprisingly – but by the ‘guardians’, who, to simplify it grossly, ‘know best.’

This idea of a Utopia has probably been the root cause of all the various ‘-isms’ that have eventually had to give way to more pragmatic forms of government.

Could it be that the European Union, with its bold single currency experiment, has pushed the ideal of an economically united Europe too far too soon?

If so, how ironic and how truly tragic, that Greece – the source of the idealism that made Europe great, and the concept of the EU possible – should be the first EU member state to bear the brunt of the harsh realities of real politik. The gods above Olympus must be shaking their heads at human hubris, or maybe giving a backward nod or two.

by Michael Gates

Long before the No Fly Zone, the US hit Gaddafiland hard

‘Why consult the crystal ball when you can read the book?’ – Aneurin Bevan

The Anglo-French led air incursion over Libya is being presented in Europe as unprecedented. It isn’t. 15 April 2011 marks the 25th anniversary of the American attack on Tripoli and Benghazi by a force of eighteen F‐111 bombers and twenty-eight KC10 and KC135 tankers from airbases in and around what then was the Suffolk constituency I represented in the British Parliament. The raid was a success in so far as it convinced Muammar Gaddafi to give up his reach for nuclear weapons and to reduce his support for terrorist bombing and assignations in Britain and the murder of Americans in the Middle East and Europe. The complex military details and subsequent political fallout have never been fully revealed but (studied in depth by a subsequent generation of USAF pilots and commanders) undoubtedly played a part in making the Pentagon reluctant to get involved in a contemporary No Fly Zone.

I was closely involved in the preparations for and political fallout from Operation El Dorado Canyon as the US attack was codenamed. Like the British and French air crews overflying Libya today, the Americans were under strict order to ‘avoid collateral damage’ – not to kill or injure civilians. That was why the 48th tactical air wing at Lakenheath in England was tasked to carry out the attack. Only its 493 squadron could deliver the air to surface television guided glide bomb (GBU‐15s) that could penetrate the Libyan defences and carefully selected military targets without inflicting casualties on the population of surrounding buildings.

The targets selected were Gaddafi’s own headquarters, located in a bunker under the Bab Al Azziziyeh barracks in the diplomatic sector of Tripoli and the Libyan Air Force’s facilities at Tripoli International Airport, where large numbers of Soviet‐supplied Ilyushin transports were stationed. A secondary target was the Sidi Bilal naval centre where, under Soviet supervision, the Libyans were training underwater demolition teams some of whom were believed to have taken part in the laying mines in the Red Sea that damaged ships transiting the Suez Canal.

On Tuesday 9 April President Reagan got Margaret Thatcher’s approval for the British bases to be used. The orders already had been typed by a senior clerk in the Pentagon, but no date and time was shown for commencement of the attack. The Secretary of the Air Force inserted these in long hand and moved them up 24 hours to ensure against leaks that might alert the Libyans. A four‐star general then carried the orders across the Atlantic by hand to Major General McInerney, Commander of the Third Air Force in Suffolk.

Only then did Tom McInerney learn that France and Spain had refused to allow US flights across their territory. This would add up to 2,400 miles and six more hours of flying time for his crews to reach Libya and return. The F‐111s must therefore launch from England several hours earlier, thus increasing the risk of the Libyans being tipped off in advance by Soviet reconnaissance aircraft. Because of the greater distance, many more air refuellings would also be needed on both the outward and return legs of the mission.

Each of the F‐111s regardless of weather or any other contingency had to rendezvous with a tanker, on four separate occasions at exactly the right place, the right height and the right time – without using their radios (for fear of the Libyans overhearing them).

My diary records how the mission unfolded:

12.36 pm: Twenty four khaki and brown camouflaged F‐111s began taking off from Lakenheath. Six of these aircraft were spares, reserves to fill any gaps that might arise because of malfunctions among the eighteen aircraft tasked to make the strike.

12.50 pm: Five other US aircraft flew out of RAF Upper Heyford in Oxfordshire. Specially equipped with state of the art electronics. Their task was to put the Libyans’ radars out of action.

6.55 pm: The radar jammers cross into Africa, heading south into the Sahara, then wheeling north. They made their final run into Tripoli – not from the Mediterranean as might have been expected, but from the south across the desert. Their radar‐suppression worked. Though the Libyans loosed off more and denser anti‐aircraft missile fire than the Americans had experienced in Vietnam, virtually the whole of the attack force came through unscathed.

7.00 pm: Complete tactical surprise is achieved. Not a single alarm was signalled in Tripoli. Not one Libyan fighter aircraft took off as the main F‐111 strike force roared in at low level from the Mediterranean. Eight bombed the Sidi Bilal naval training area; nine others aligned themselves on Gaddafi’s command post in Al Azzizyah.

In the event, only five of these aircraft pressed home their attack. The pilots of the other four aborted their attacks to guarantee that they stayed within the constraints laid down by the President – avoid collateral damage. One attacking aircraft released its bomb prematurely. This almost certainly was responsible for most of the 49 Libyans, including Gaddafi’s 10 year old adopted daughter, who were killed.

8.14 pm: Heading home through the Straits of Gibraltar to avoid flying over Spain and France, the Lakenheath F‐111s rendezvous with their first return leg tankers over the Atlantic west of Gibraltar.

3.10 am Tuesday 15 April: Landing at Lakenheath, some of the pilots are so stiff after 14 hours cramped up in their narrow cockpits that they have to be bodily lifted out of their seats.

How effective was the raid?

I subsequently discussed this with Gaddafi when he invited me to Libya in my capacity as National Chairman of the World Affairs Council of America. He received me at the rebuilt Habbinayah Barracks in Tripoli from which he and his son, Saif, would later direct the counter attack against the rebels (March 2011). We sat outside the goatskin tent that accompanied him to New York when he subsequently addressed the United Nations (and made a fool of himself with a 90 minute harangue that led scores of delegates to walk out!).

I began the conversation with Libya’s support for terrorism citing the murders of Libyan exiles in Britain, his supplying of weapons and cash to the IRA and the destruction of Flight 103, killing 258 US passengers and 11 Scots in the village of Lockerbie.

Gaddafi: “We Libyans did not kill them. But Libya has offered to pay large sums to the victims.” His eyes flashed as he went on: “Is Libya not entitled to compensation for the victims of the American attacks on our children?”

We came to the key issue. Griffiths: “Is Libya trying to build atomic bombs?” Gaddafi: “Why should we? Libya does not need them.”

I pressed him to be more specific, but he danced around the subject. “Who would we use (nuclear weapons) against?” he asked. “Not our Arab neighbours; they are our brothers. Not the Europeans, they are our friends and trade partners; as for the United States, how could we reach America?”

It was at this point that I made what may have been a small contribution to Gaddafi, and therefore Libya’s decision to abandon its reach for nuclear weapons.

Griffiths: “If you make a bomb, Libya will not be safer. You will only make it certain that the United States will come after you again, and next time, Libya could be obliterated.”

Tough talk? Yes it was, and I had no authority whatsoever to say this, only my own judgement of the Bush Administration’s outlook and some experience of speaking frankly to political leaders who knew that I no longer had axes to grind, goods to sell or electors to impress.

Gaddafi made no reply. Though he understood my English, he asked his interpreter to repeat my words in Arabic. Unusually, he then fell silent as I had thanked him for receiving me and left.

*   *   *

President Bush later made the claim that Gaddafi’s nuclear ambitions ‘crumbled’ in response to America’s use of force against Iraq. That was too simple by half. On the basis of the talk I had with him and my subsequent contacts with Libyans, there were two main reasons why Gaddafi dismantled his underground bomb-making labs and turned over the blueprints to Britain and the US. One was that oddly named air strike – Operation El Dorado Canyon. The other, as one of his confidants told me was that Gaddafi wanted to ‘come in from the cold’; to reopen Libya’s trade links with the US and the EU, allowing the imports of the components needed to revive its limping oil industry: above all to take its turn as a member of the UN Security Council.

For close to a decade, Libya came close to achieving this. International traders and investors poured into Tripoli; western leaders, among them Tony Blair, Nicolas Sarkozy and Hilary Clinton, flew to Tripoli and embraced Muammar Gaddafi. Not until the Arab revolutions brought down the despotic rulers of Tunisia and Egypt in January 2011 did Britain, France and the United States abandon ‘reconciliation’ and reverse their pragmatically benign approach to Gaddafiland.

The Americans involved in today’s No Fly Zone will undoubtedly share with their allies the critical lessons learnt from Operation El Dorado Canyon.

One is that Libya’s radars and air defence missile batteries must be put out of action ‐ in advance. Another is that no matter how carefully the pilots may try to avoid ‘collateral damage,’ civilian casualties are inevitable, not least because the enforcers have no alternative but to strafe Gaddafi’s tanks if they advance on Benghazi and shoot down any of his warplanes and helicopters that may take off. These are acts of war. David Cameron was talking nonsense when, in one breath he pledged UK participation in a No Fly Zone, while declaring in the next “we will not go to war”.

A third lesson is that while armed intervention may save the revolutionaries from being crushed and at first may be welcomed by many, though by no means all the Arab states, the longer term response is more uncertain. Whatever its merits in human rights’ terms, the No Fly Zone could yet rekindle a new version of the hostility to the West that followed Operation El Dorado Canyon.

by Sir Eldon Griffiths

 

Egypt: Discontents of modernity, promise of antiquity

When Ibn Khaldun, the 14^th-century polymath and forefather of modern-day social sciences, arrived in Cairo after spending 50 years in Andalusia and Maghreb, he described the city as “metropolis of the world, garden of the universe, meeting place of nations, ant-hill of peoples, high place of Islam, seat of power” (Albert Hourani: A History of the Arab Peoples). He also remarked that he who has not seen Egypt could never understand the power of Islam.

Such was the centrality accorded to Egypt by the Arabo-Islamic world. Even today, many historians argue that the true glory of Cairo is to be found in its medieval Islamic architecture which came to being on the back of the prosperity produced by the Ummayad, Ayyubid and Mameluk dynasties. Some of the wealthiest families in Muslim countries that are as far removed from Egypt as Malaysia and Indonesia continue to send their scions to study at Cairo’s ancient Al-Azhar university and other schools. Al-Azhar’s Moorish-inspired campus has held classes since 970 CE and its religious education caters to all four madh’hab or mainstream schools of Sunni jurisprudence. During the current unrest, the large presence of international students in Egypt made headlines as the Malaysian government has gone ahead with a mass evacuation of its nationals from Egypt.

Given that social thought in the Islamic tradition exposes the inherent limitations of man-made as opposed to revealed knowledge, it is not without irony that since the middle of the 20^th century, Egypt has embarked on nearly every–ism described in political science textbooks. Once the old monarchical order was toppled, the country lurched to secularism and militarism followed by pan-Arabism and nationalism. In the past few decades, these have given way to a somewhat Asian-style developmental dictatorship that combines old political instincts with Western economics. To its credit, Egypt has in recent years gained more than a foothold in emerging business sectors such as infocommunications, data services, call centres and outsourcing. Drawn to its respectable tradition of engineering expertise and a young and often multilingual urban population, the likes of Intel have chosen Egypt as one of a handful of their global product definition centres. The government – until recently headed by a former infocomm minister – put its best foot forward, to the extent of making call centre skills an integral part of university curricula. And with its sizable domestic consumer market, the country has billed itself as a logical extension of the up-and-coming BRIC wave of world economic leaders.

These new trends never quite discouraged Western news reports from playing up the physical constraints of providing for a population of eighty-plus million predominantly concentrated in the Nile river delta. In the minds of many social commentators in developing countries, this was yet another example of the West’s “dogma of development”. At present, from either perspective there is no denying that no matter how successful, the outcomes of the recent economic expansion have created opportunities for dozens of thousands rather than millions. Case in point: Flagship companies like Telecom Egypt are headed by exceptionally astute management teams who earned their MBAs and PhDs at the best US and British universities, and know all there is to know about technology migrations and climbing the value chain. Many of their offices are teeming with Western management consultants and development experts. But below this top echelon, there is a reality of hundreds of thousands of employees, most of them breadwinners, who have been on the payroll for decades.  

Prior to the outburst of popular discontent in early 2011, Egypt had for years strived to reconcile its business-friendly, outward-looking face with a repressive government whose brutality has been well documented in global media: for instance, whereas in many other developing countries, blogosphere writings that are critical of the government might earn the author a surprise tax audit, some of Egypt’s bloggers have been dragged out of internet cafes in broad daylight by members of the security services and beaten to death in front of passersby. During my own visit, taking a photo from a downtown bridge has earned me a brisk trip to a nearby interrogation room. Afterwards, when I shared this encounter with other Europeans, they laughed it off as an attempt to collect a bribe; but standing alone in a windowless chamber and surrounded by half a dozen military men felt far from trivial.

Perhaps my friends were right: social hardship and rising prices have created a pervasive if stereotypical bakshish mentality among the crushing majority of local people. On a visit to the stunning Al-Azhar Mosque, a local imam will invite foreign visitors for a guided walkthrough, all the while reciting prayers and bestowing praises on spiritual leaders and martyrs whose fate was linked to these hallowed grounds. Afterwards, he will eagerly and insistently collect cash from each member of the visitors’ group, making it clear that in addition to the amount that goes to the mosque’s upkeep, there is money that is due to him. For a first-time visitor and for many Muslims from other countries, this is a startling sight that will nonetheless follow them everywhere, including Cairo’s holiest Islamic sites that are home to relics of the Prophet’s descendants.  

Similarly, whereas in other Arab societies, haggling is practised as a jovial art form and a facet of local culture, in Egypt it has an air of desperation. It doesn’t hurt to remind oneself that many of the young men loudly peddling their wares and pulling at your sleeve have eight, ten or more unmarried sisters and other dependants back in their village. Granted, true Egyptian hospitality still exists in abundance, but much too often it is to be found among business partners and even government officials as opposed to the creaking and heavy-handed tourism industry.

Faced with intransigent obstacles, for many Egyptians the uncomplicated and glamorous life as captured in local films from the 1950s becomes a past that is nostalgically re-imagined. The fin-de-siècle mansions of Heliopolis still stand as a witness to that era. By contrast, today’s cities are largely a chaotic jumble of shabby apartment blocks and roads where millions of cars wrestle for every inch of space on the carriageway. Over the years, this has given rise to a lifestyle where residents of Cairo eat breakfast they picked up in an “On the Run” cafe at a petrol station, sleep, study, call friends and conduct business inside their vehicles.  

Today’s Egyptian identity is built on such contradictions. During a long car journey through the city one day, I chatted with my local associate, a pious yet outgoing young woman who (unlike many of her more senior colleagues) wore a headscarf, dressed modestly yet very smartly, and spoke flawless English despite never having had the opportunity to travel abroad. Casually, she confessed to spending every last penny of her salary on weekend trips to Citystars, Cairo’s landmark shopping mall. As the car was passing rows upon rows of new housing blocks that spelled the same type of aspiration as her branded clothes and gadgets, I asked if she and her workmates were perhaps sharing one of these apartments while exploring life in the big city. “You see – I am not married,” she explained cheerfully. “And in Egypt, you live with your Mum and Dad till the day you get married.”

Could this clinging to tradition amidst change provide clues to a way out of the current crisis? Predictably, foreign pundits have been talking with disquiet about the rise of so-called Islamist politics as a result of the government’s loss of legitimacy. But contemplating Egypt’s social and economic issues, drawing on the local Islamic tradition may be the only viable way forward, particularly if the emphasis is on social justice and creative local solutions to local problems. There is indeed a rich tradition to draw on: according to historians, a hundred years ago up to an estimated 70% of all commercial land in Egypt was managed through awqaf (plural form of waqf) – charitable and philanthropic endowments. It might not be too far-fetched to trace the roots of the present-day malaise to the secular, military-sponsored shift away from this traditional economic order, coupled with blind faith in physical development – the treadmill of building ever more (housing, roads, schools) yet inevitably falling short. Meanwhile, sheer numbers dictate that a huge role for central government be retained, regardless of its ideological shade: a typical Egyptian civil servant supports a stay-at-home spouse and five or six children. In aggregate, this means that any new government will find itself directly and indirectly feeding half of the country’s total population.

Those that witnessed the ongoing wave of unrest in Cairo have also drawn parallels with the 1989 fall of “real socialism” across central and eastern Europe, a chain of events I had the privilege to participate in back then as a first-year student with a Prague university. With the benefit of hindsight, I can only hope that Egypt will escape the many traps that befall societies in transition and chart its own, meaningful path to post-authoritarian rule. A re-reading of Ibn Khaldun might just be the first step on this arduous journey.

by Martin Králik

Cultural musings from a visit to North Korea

Before going to North Korea (the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea or DPRK) I tried to prepare myself for what I knew would be the biggest culture shock imaginable because it is a country like no other. Would it be a mixture of the culture to be found in South Korea blended with the Soviet Union under Stalin and China under Mao? The simple answer, of course, is “none of the above”, and yet, every so often during a one-week visit, I would be reminded of all three of these comparators.

I had been invited to Pyongyang to teach the United Nations country team there how to become more effective negotiators. Half of my students were expats from a dozen different countries, working for UNICEF, WHO, FAO and a number of other agencies. The other half worked for the same UN agencies, but were North Korean nationals – an elite group who spoke English, were trusted by the regime and who had three jobs: their official UN job, taking on the role of “minder” for UN expats and visitors, and being the eyes and ears of the government within the UN offices.

The thinking of my UN hosts was that it would be good for representatives of the most difficult government with which the international community has to negotiate to be exposed to a negotiation philosophy that emphasizes the gains to be made by putting one’s self in the other person’s shoes and recognizing the interests of both sides in a negotiation. I wasn’t optimistic that we would make much progress!

Arriving at Pyongyang’s Sunan Airport, the first oddity was the customs declaration, which, inter alia, asked if I was carrying any “killing devices” or “exciters”. My laptop was inspected carefully, but my small camera attracted no attention. However, all mobile phones are confiscated and placed in a small pouch, with a receipt being issued for collection on departure. The execution in March 2010 of a North Korean man for using a smuggled mobile phone to call a defector friend in South Korea, is a measure of the sensitivity of communications in North Korea.

The airport has a fairly large and impressive terminal building, but the lack of activity there, with several decrepit Tupolev and Antonev Air Koryo jets sitting ready to provide the airline’s only two daily flights from Pyongyang (to Beijing and Vladivostok) hints of the moribund state of the economy. I was fortunate in that Air China had resumed service from Beijing a week before I travelled, so I was able to avoid the Air Koryo experience.

As my UN car had not shown up to meet me, I looked for a taxi rank, but was stopped from exiting the terminal unaccompanied, and fellow passengers told me that taxis simply didn’t exist. Fortunately, a New Zealand investment banker who lived in Pyongyang (yes, really! At least he will be in on the ground floor if and when investment opportunities open up) was able to call the UN offices where they had thought I was arriving the next day.

When my car finally arrived, I met my 30-something female “minder”, who worked for the UN and who escorted me everywhere and was a participant in the programme I taught. Each time she delivered me to the Hotel Koryo, she made a call from the front desk to tell her controllers where I was, and although she had two children at home, she had a room at my hotel throughout my stay.

Everywhere in Pyongyang there are massive statues and portraits of the founder of the DPRK, Kim Il-sung, and equally impressive murals of revolutionary figures or of him. Even the office of UNICEF has a large oil painting of a kindly Kim Il-sung, surrounded by children, one of whom is wearing his hat. Surprisingly, his son, the current leader, Kim Jong-il, is featured much less prominently, reflecting the concept of Kim Il-sung being the “eternal president, the supreme leader, and the sun of all people” according to the Juche philosophy that he established. It is Kim Il-sung, rather than Kim Jong-il, whose portrait is on the little enamel badges that everyone wears on their lapels.

The personality cult surrounding North Korea’s only two leaders is reminiscent of the adulation of Lenin (and to some extent, Stalin) in the Soviet Union, and Mao in China. But the family dynasty element is different. In some ways the idea of a family being in charge (leaving aside traditional hereditary monarchies) is similar to the chaebol in South Korea – conglomerates of companies owned, controlled and managed by the same family. Ironically, these family industrial empires, closely tied to the political elites of South Korea, have been engines of growth, in contrast to the economic decline of North Korea under its “family leadership”.

Any observations on North Korean culture have to be seen in the context of the omnipresent Juche ideology.  Juche demands absolute loyalty to the Workers Party of Korea and to (currently) Kim Jong-il. It places the ordinary people as the masters of the country’s development, eschews any relationships with the great powers, and emphasises independent thought and self-reliance in both economic and defence terms.

The reality, of course, is that North Korea has never been self-sufficient. Until the collapse of the Soviet Union, it was reliant on aid from Moscow. It has lurched from economic crisis to economic crisis with masses of its people suffering starvation. China has provided tremendous quantities of aid for more than a decade and other countries are providing assistance under the six-party talks framework. North Korea is the second largest recipient of food aid in the world.  All the English language literature in my hotel excoriated American “warmongers”, yet on the day that I arrived in Pyongyang, a team from the United States embarked on talks with the government to provide American food aid.

While it has replaced Marxism-Leninism in North Korea, Juche acknowledges the influence of traditional communist doctrine, although over the past two decades, the military rather than the proletariat or working class, is the main revolutionary force. To the traditional hammer and sickle, symbolizing the factory worker and the farmer, Juche’s icons also include a writing brush for the “Samuwon” class of writers, professors, engineers, and bureaucrats – a departure from the emphasis in other communist nations.

Revolutionary posters all follow the same formula: a farmer, a factory worker, an office worker or engineer, usually carrying a T-square, and a soldier. One is always a woman.

The Juche philosophy controls everyone’s activities and leaves no room for the thought that any ideas emanating from Western or Asian management concepts would have any value. It is uncompromising, and visitors to North Korea are left in no doubt that their hosts are setting the terms of any discussion.

This was a depressing thought as I set out to teach cooperative, interests-based negotiation to 11 North Koreans and 11 foreign UN officials at a hot-springs resort two hours away from Pyongyang.

The resort was reached via an empty eight-lane highway that extended for the first ten miles or so from the capital.  I was told that this also served as a runway and a military access road. Communities through which we passed were clearly very poor, but the rice paddies appeared to be well maintained in this, comparatively visible, part of the country.  The resort itself was surprisingly comfortable and the people running it were considerably friendlier than their counterparts at the hotel in Pyongyang.

Knowing that the North Korean nationals among my students were reporting back to the authorities, I felt a bit self-conscious as I started teaching. Rather like a Western politician whose offhand remarks come home to roost in the pages of the tabloid press, I envisioned myself being grilled by steely faced interrogators, seeking an explanation for the code word, BATNA (Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement, a key element of negotiation strategy) or for clarification of the punch line of a joke I had made. Indeed, the sessions got off to a tense start, with the two groups, whom I had deliberately mixed together in the seating arrangements, regarding each other with suspicion. Early on there was a worrisome moment when I realized that a simulation I had written and for which I was about to hand out roles, referred to something having taken place in Seoul, the very mention of which is taboo. I was quickly able to revise the scenario with the substitution of Bangkok.

To my surprise, I soon found that the North Korean nationals started to catch my eye and smile, asking questions, and enjoying playing roles of people very different from themselves. They cheerfully engaged in negotiations ranging from selling a line of pickles to a Canadian supermarket chain, to being the top civil servant in a finance ministry or his counterpart in the education ministry of a small country, haggling over the latter’s annual budget allocation. After a bit, everyone was laughing a lot, and the inflexibility and hardness that was evident from my minder and most of the others melted away.

There were, of course, constant reminders of where we were. The television offered a steady diet of Kim Jong-il “directing and inspiring” workers at a factory/mine/farm, interspersed with military parades and droning propaganda and martial music. A variation of the latter woke me up each morning both in Pyongyang and at the resort, as recorded music of massed choirs extolled the achievements of Kim Jong-il, the Workers Party of Korea and Juche.

At the end of the two-day workshop, all the North Koreans clamoured to be included in photographs taken with me. It had turned out very differently than I had expected and at the inter-agency meeting (comprising all the UN agencies and foreign ambassadors), which I attended before I left, the expat UN officials reported that this was the first time they had ever experienced such congeniality with their North Korean “colleagues”.

I had no illusions that my teaching had worked some alchemy, but I felt I had learned a bit from living at close quarters with these intelligent and, ultimately, friendly North Koreans. I detected an element of “face” which plays such a big part in Chinese, Japanese and South Korean (where it is called kibun) cultures. At first they didn’t want to make a fool of themselves in front of their expat colleagues or even amongst themselves, but they soon found that much of what I was teaching was making everyone realize the mistakes we all make in decision-making and negotiation, so everyone felt they were in the same boat.

Even though I was with them for a very short time, I also detected elements of guanxi, which underpins successful business relations in China. Guanxi is about mutual dependence in relationships, and reciprocity, key elements of a pragmatic approach to negotiation. In the role-plays we conducted, everyone realized that they depended on others and relationships are very important. This sense of having built a relationship came across very noticeably with my minder, who had been very cold and authoritarian when she met me at the airport the first evening, but who opened up and talked about her hopes and aspirations for her children in a very natural way towards the end of my visit, while remaining firmly focused on the infallibility of Kim Il-sung and professing her love of the very strange country in which she lived.

As someone who teaches cooperative, give and take, and comparative advantage negotiations, was I able to draw any lessons from the implacable hard-nosed approach that the North Korean government displays in international arena?

There was one very compelling lesson from the negotiations between the US food aid delegation and the North Koreans that were underway when I arrived. The Americans had come woefully ill-prepared and insisted on starting the negotiations right away while they were still under the influence of jetlag. They did not, for instance, know which provinces were closed to NGOs, which would be used to distribute the aid, surely an essential piece of homework. In contrast, the North Koreans knew everything about the issues in play and the constraints to which the American team was subject. They were also very happy to let the Americans keep negotiating until 2:00 AM when they were exhausted and no longer on top of their arguments. Thorough preparation and then easing slowly into the negotiations are wise approaches for anyone to embrace.

When I took off on my Air China Boeing 737 (symbolizing, perhaps, the pragmatic Chinese approach of engagement with the West), and flew back to Beijing, which, in contrast seemed such a bustling, open and tolerant place, I reflected on the sad lot of the North Korean people, starving, imprisoned, and cut off from most of the world. I felt depressed when I recalled that a couple of senior UN officials had told me that they had no idea who was in charge in North Korea – certainly not Kim Jong-il, they said. As I write, there is evidently a power struggle between the dynasty represented by Kim Jong-il’s youngest son, Kim Jong-un, and other forces in this secretive state. 

Who knows how long it will take for things to change in North Korea and whether change can come about peaceably. In China, the excesses of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution created an environment where big changes, brought about by Deng Xiaoping through, in part, opening up to the rest of the world, were the only way forward. Maybe the sheer desperation of a failed state will lead to change. Maybe the little green shoots of potential engagement like the Najin-Sonbong free trade zone, the six-party and the reunification talks, and the inclusion of North Korean nationals in my UN negotiation workshop, should give me hope that change is possible.

by Tim Cullen

The Chilean Miners – Culture & Team-work

Chilean President, Sebastián Piñera, recently made a European ‘victory tour’ following the successful rescue of the now world-famous 33 miners. The tour had been previously planned, and some more cynical commentators speculated that one driver to speed the operation to extract the miners from their predicament was that it should be accomplished before this visit. Yet it would be churlish to carp at an opportunism – arising from a heroic rescue bid - that was aimed at lifting Chile’s international profile and attracting foreign investment in new industry.

Chile’s economy had been suffering from decades of dictatorship, but those who know the country well understand that it has a long-term reputation for stability, relative to most other Latin American countries. Geography and history have probably played a part:

• Chile has been handicapped by difficult terrain – uninhabitable mountains, deserts, and rain-soaked forests. And, true to form for land-hungry nations, Chileans have maximised their options by exploiting a variety of land resources and exporting them vigorously to Asia, North America and Europe. The ‘Andes barrier’ has effectively diminished Chile’s interaction with her own continent. The country has been described as a South American ‘Tiger’, or ‘like Taiwan but with better wine’. It seems likely that the constraints of their geography have forced them into ingenuity and a degree of stability, as a means of survival.

• A key historical factor in stability and order may be a strong Germanic influence. The 1845 Law of Selective Immigration was aimed at encouraging the immigration of people who would be able to help colonise the Southern region of Chile – from good social backgrounds and with a high level of culture and skills. The move was helped by the failed liberal German revolution of 1848, resulting in a wave of German immigration – and not just from Germany, but also Austrians, Swiss Germans and others. There is little doubt that German values have affected the Chilean national character through continuing immigration well into the 20^th century, and influenced Chilean economic, political and cultural development. Carlos Anwandter, leader of the first colonists, pledged that they would be ‘honest and laborious’ – a firm Lutheran statement if ever there was one!

So, no surprise that a Chilean official, talking just prior to the President’s visit, signposted the main theme by saying “The President will speak of the Chilean way of doing things which means that it is a country where everything really works. Everyone related to Chile thinks that the rescue of the miners shows that we can do things properly and we hope that business and investment will recognise that.”

Chile, with its mixture of Latin and Germanic influences, may have a good formula for benefiting from a mix of approaches. This diversity of viewpoints can give a broader spectrum to human activity, and better performance:

For a summary of what we mean by linear-, multi- and reactive in the first diagram, see below:

But what about the miners themselves?  How did they behave as a team?  There has been plenty of discussion in the press about the behaviour, and what we can learn – from those initial dark days of chaos and fighting that they have sworn not to talk about in detail, down to the emergence of Luis Urzua as the leader, and the assignment of roles  - presenter, doctor, priest, poet, etc. And management writers, like this one, are already having a field day relating the behaviour to team theory, such as Meredith Belbin’s discovery of nine team roles necessary for success.

From a cultural point of view, one of the reasons German companies have tended to be so successful is their ability to give extremely clear roles and responsibilities to different people, units and departments. And, in fact, the Chilean army was highly influenced by the Prussian army. Military service of 12-24 months is obligatory for all Chilean males over 18. Might it be too fanciful to think that the organisation and discipline which ensured survival relates back to Germanic military tradition?

On a wider level, the team was not just the miners below the surface, but the wider team of the international community, involving players from the USA, Japan, South Africa, China, Canada, Australia, etc.

How did this international collaboration come together so smoothly and effectively?

Many culturally-diverse teams fail.  Research published by Joseph J. Distefano and Martha L. Maznevski has shown that while homogeneous teams cover a wide bell-curve of performance, from not so good to very good, the worst-performing teams are diverse. But so are the best...

The difference is leadership. Although the team below the surface was, apart from one Bolivian, exclusively Chilean, there was certainly a diversity of personality types, and it was Luis Urzua’s adaptive leadership that helped them turn the corner. And whether or not it was the President of Chile, Sebastián Piñera’s leadership that pulled the international collaboration together, there must have been some clear leadership going on somewhere to get the diverse effort to work.

A very wise British diplomat, Alyson Bailes – who has a first class degree from Margaret Thatcher’s old Oxford college, Somerville, speaks more than a handful of the world’s more difficult languages, and has decades of experience running international teams – once wrote 5 very simple rules for building winning multicultural teams. These are:

1. Understand very clearly who you are
2. State objectives and roles very clearly
3. Define them in ways which mean something to everyone
4. Use diversity as an asset
5. Have fun

As business becomes ever more global, such rules are increasingly important to bear in mind.

by Michael Gates

“The Islamic Republic won’t last forever. The Iranian Phoenix will be reborn”

No country, except perhaps North Korea in recent years has attracted so much adverse attention as the Islamic Republic of Iran. Its theocratic regime is rightly charged with persecuting dissenters, forcing women to wear the veil and chawdor, bloodily suppressing the protests of hundreds of thousands of Teheranis who believed that its 2009 election was rigged in favour of President Ahmadinejad. Worse, in the eyes of the US and most (though not all) EU Governments, Iran is seen to be using its nuclear power programme covertly to develop atomic warheads for its missiles that could be used to carry out Ahmadinejad’s threat to “wipe Israel off the map”.

The trouble with this analysis is that like the curate’s egg, it is bad in parts. Born of fear and the same kind of flawed intelligence that plunged the US and Britain into Iraq and an unwinnable war in Afghanistan, it fails to take account of the ‘other Iran’ that I have come to know over a lifetime of interaction with the largest, most populous and in the long run, most potentially pro-Western nation in the Middle East.

We need to get back to basics if the Obama Administration in Washington and the new Con-Lib coalition in London are to pursue with any hope of success the “dialogue with Iran” that is the only sane alternative to a slide into bombing and war. So let’s start again – with the history, geography and culture that mean far more than the dithyrambics of the transitory regime of the Mullahs. Iran is big. Put one end on the Bristol Channel and the other would stretch eastwards from Istanbul. Iran is also rich, a reservoir of more oil and gas than anywhere except Saudi Arabia. Climatically it is hot and arid, yet in the turrets of the Zagros Mountains and in the snows of the 11,000 ft tall peaks where Iranians ski and from which streams gush down to the forested shores of the Caspian, it is not hard for the visitor to fall in love (as I did in my youth) with what one of my more distinguished Parliamentary colleagues described as “those plains of amber, those peaks of amethyst, the dignity of that silence of two thousand years”.

Lord Curzon, who was the British Viceroy of India when he said that, grasped the significance of the continuity over the millennia of Iranian culture. Most classical civilizations have seen their ancient history fade into the mists of time. Today’s Egypt, Greece and Italy cherish the memories but bear little contemporary resemblance to the glories of the Pharaohs, of Athens in the 5th Century BC or the Empire of Rome at its peak.

Not so Iran (and China). Visit Esfahan, Shiraz or Yazd and Iranians in three piece suits as well as gowns and turbans, will regale you with tales of Cyrus and Darius, their great emperors who carried the power and culture of Persia to Sudan in the south and Pakistan to the east.

Therein lies one of the keys to dealing with Iran. Far more important, because it is more deeply rooted than the Koran-thumping of the Ayatollahs  - or the consumerism of the Americans – is the self-image of the Persians. Above all, they are proud. They too believe that – like the Brits – they are unique.

Personifying this critical quality of the Persian character is a wise old man living in Le Chateau des Roses, overlooking Lake Geneva in the Swiss city of Montreux. Meet Ardeshir Zahedi, son of the Persian general who restored the late Shah to the Peacock Throne in the long-ago 1950s. Foreign Minister of Iran, Ambassador to Britain and (twice) to America in the ‘80s, Zahedi has even more reason to be hostile to the current regime than other members of the Iranian diaspora. Its agents targeted him for assassination in the 90s. Nor has this muted his calls for an end to the Ayatollahs’ persecution of dissent, their mis-management and corruption of the Iranian economy, their support for terrorist causes among extremist elements of Hamas in Palestine and Hezbollah in Lebanon.  Zahedi is broadly, though not uncritically, pro-British and pro-American. Above all else he incarnates the cultural characteristics of the Persian. In his youth he was passionate and playful. As an Ambassador he was generous to the point of extravagance in the parties he gave for Presidents and Prime Ministers. As Foreign Minister he could be prickly and sometimes profane in his pursuit of Iranian interests, for instance in his insistence that the Gulf must never be referred to as anything other than Persian, and that its islands must be Iranian.

Zahedi today is a pragmatist to whom increasing numbers of thoughtful Iranian exiles look for advice and guidance on how to interpret the cross currents of Iranian politics. Iran watchers at the UN Security Council and the EU Commission in Brussels – though not, alas, the know-it-alls of the State Department and Pentagon – study his occasional speeches and excerpts from his memoirs that appear in the Swiss-Iranian and Persian language journals of west coast America. But Zahedi’s advice is very different from that which might be expected from the ‘Bourbons’, the term traditionally used to describe exiles who ache to destroy the regimes that dispossessed them.

Consider just two examples:

“Bomb Iran to stop it making atomic bombs?”

“Madness,” says Zahedi. In addition to murdering the innocent, this would be more likely to consolidate support behind the regime that he, no less than the hawks in Washington and Tel Aviv, wants to displace.

“Tighten up sanctions to squeeze the Iranian economy and bring the regime to its knees.”

“It won’t work,” says Zahedi. Iran is self sufficient in food, energy and minerals. Unemployment is a major problem for the rapidly increasing numbers of school leavers in a country of 74 million, more than half of whom are under 20 – but as in Cuba and Myanmar, it is not hard for a regime that controls the press and TV to put the blame for the lack of jobs and declining living standards on “outside enemies” seeking to punish the Iranians for failing to bow to the “Great Satan” (as the Mullahs describe America).

Ardeshir Zahedi’s anaylsis, like mine, is that the dialogue with Iran that the Obama Administration in Washington now says it wants, will get nowhere if it is confined to the nuclear question. Between the US and Iran, there are other festering issues that cry out to be tackled.

For instance, compensation – to the Americans, for the 1979 seizure of their Embassy and incarceration of their diplomats; to the Iranians for the families of the 248 pilgrims killed in 1988 when the US cruiser Vincennes shot down an Iranian airliner en route to Mecca. Both sides also accuse the other of aiding and abetting terrorism. Iran helps fund and arm extremist elements of Hamas in Palestine and Hezbollah in Lebanon. The CIA makes use of money appropriated by Congress to assist anti-Iranian forces not only among Kurds on the borders of Iraq and Turkey but inside Iran itself.

There are nevertheless broad interests that Iran and the West have in common. Trade is one example. As Britain and Europe strive to pull out of the global recession, Iran is too large a market to be left to the Russians and Chinese. And Iran could pay for its imports if only its oil and gas were allowed back onto world markets. Politically too, an Iran at peace with the West could help stabilize the Persian Gulf by removing the Arab fears of Iranian over-lordship after the Americans leave. It could also assist in resolving the Middle East’s most dangerous confrontation, between Israel and Palestine.

There are, as yet, few signs that the Mullahs will put aside their proclaimed intention to export the Islamic Revolution. But that is not the aim nor the wish of the “Other Iran” that constitutes the overwhelming majority of the Iranian people. For them the best way forward is to restore the links with the West that in Ardeshir Zahedi’s day (and mine) made Iran our closest friend and stoutest ally on the crucial land bridge that links greater Europe (including Turkey) with the tomorrow-lands of Central Asia, India and China.

A pipedream? I do not think so. For the Mullahs are not forever. One way or another, they too will pass or be absorbed into the cultural fabric of historic Iran. With Ardeshir Zahedi, I cling to the belief expressed by a mutual friend, Houshang Navahandi, when he served as Rector of Shiraz University:

“Four thousand years of history with so many ups and downs have taught this to the Iranians: Iran has always survived, overcome its invaders… absorbed its occupiers. The Phoenix is always re-born from the Ashes.”

by Sir Eldon Griffiths

Unhappy valley: Kenya in 2010

The old colonials associated with the “happy valley” also used to call Kenya “God’s own country”. It remains an attractive, even spectacular country, with a metropolitan lifestyle and tourism industry which is the envy of most African countries. Its capital Nairobi has on its fringes Africa’s largest slum – three-quarters of a million people on 550 acres, not adopted by the city council, dependent on NGOs for such services as exist, living in shanties owned by landlords with strong links to the ruling elite.

It has by African standards a relatively large and diverse economy with a modest manufacturing base, and a sturdy private sector. Associated with that is a thriving middle class, diverse and free media, and a strong civil society. Its 38 and a half million people – growing at an annual rate of 2.6% - enjoy a GNI per capita of $770. Annual economic growth (in 2008) of 3.6%, though less than before the 2007 election, maintains the healthy improvement in economic activity under President Kibaki, who replaced in 2002 President Moi’s 24-year ascendancy. 

Kenya has few natural resources of the kind that have made Nigeria, are making Ghana and will make Uganda rich (and perhaps cursed). Its most notorious scam – the Goldenberg affair – was based upon fraudulent subsidies for gold exports – a resource whose incidence in Kenya is negligible.

What it has is a well-educated people, with a developed entrepreneurial spirit and sense of purpose and common interest (tested to the point of destruction  in 2008). They are relatively progressive and dynamic: mobile cell phone subscribers in 2007 were 42 and internet users 8.7 per hundred: both figures are nearly twice the sub-Saharan African average, and the proportion of the population using the internet is ahead of India’s  – not bad, against the social and economic background. Although value added in the agricultural and manufacturing sectors have declined in recent years, the informal economy is large (no-one knows how large) and keeps people going even in hard times. In 2007, FDI was over seven times larger than in 2000, and official aid two and a half times. Time required to start a business is reckoned by the World Bank at 30 days in 2008 – 24 days quicker than in 2005.

This dynamism masks one of the world’s most unequal societies. The World Bank (source of most statistics in this piece) cannot quote 2008 figures for important indicators like income share of the poorest 20%, life expectancy (probably over a decade shorter than in India in 2007), contraceptive prevalence, HIV prevalence, malnutrition or primary school completion rates. 

The country – about the size of France – contains almost every measure of diversity – measured by topography, aridity, ethnicity, religion – and unevenness in development reflects the evolution of the country’s politics since Independence 46 years ago. The first 15 years, the Kenyatta era, saw extensive land transfers to African owners, as all but a residual few settlers of European descent left. There is still large-scale commercial farming, but land pressures have led to the break-up of many large estates into smallholdings.

Increasing competition for resources and high population growth has sharpened the edge of ethnic politics, particularly in areas where traditional populations and incomers meet. The end of the Kenyatta era and the ascendancy of President Moi led to a deliberate effort to shift the balance of advantage towards his own Kalenjin peoples of the Rift Valley and to weaken the former Kikuyu dominance which Kenyatta had fostered. 

Poor governance resulted from the thoroughgoing subversion of most of the major institutions of the state through corruption, political interference and nepotism. Concerns about governance and Kenya’s reluctance to embark on economic reforms of privatisation and liberalisation led to recurrent crises in her relations with the international financial institutions and major development partners.

The 1990s, however, saw a loosening of the KANU single-party system and the development of opposition. The anti-KANU parties which, until 2002, seemed too fragmented to defeat President Moi’s ascendancy did combine in a Rainbow coalition whose flag-bearer, Mwai Kibaki, defeated Moi’s chosen successor – Kenyatta’s son – that year. 

The Rainbow Coalition campaigned on a programme of reform: of the Constitution, to relax the centralising tendencies of the presidency; of institutions, particularly the justice and law and order sectors; of the economy - to improve growth and introduce major poverty-reduction measures like universal primary education; and to tackle the defining characteristic of the country’s politics – corruption, both grand and petty.

Around the time of President Kibaki’s election in 2002, polls showed Kenyans to be among the most optimistic people, and the most proud of their country. The shine has gone, as disillusionment has dulled hope.  

After 2002, reform stalled, save for the introduction of universal primary education – with heavy donor backing. Constitutional reform was blocked by disagreements between the erstwhile reformers-in-opposition become government; the drive against corruption was obstructed by its own corruption at the heart of government, the enfeeblement of the institutions set up to tackle it, and the frustration and eventual flight into exile of the man (John Githongo) whom the President had appointed his top official and adviser on corruption. 

Meantime, the issues which had set up internal tensions within the victorious 2002 coalition broke it up and led to its principal leaders standing against each other in 2007, and then to bitter disagreement over the result.

Kenyans’ easy pride in their country’s  fabled stability took a huge knock when the post-election dispute in late 2007/early 2008 led to vicious inter-ethnic and political violence which left over 1,100 dead and 350,000 displaced. 

A successful fruit and vegetable-export sector sits alongside recurrent food shortages among Kenya’s own people. Having been the only third world member of the International Wheat Council back in the early 1970s, Kenya is now a wheat importer. Recurrent scandals involve profiteering from the sale of the country’s maize reserve against hungry times, followed – as happened in 2009 – by the discovery when famine strikes that the cupboard is bare and Kenya is forced to go cap in hand for international food relief.

One of the best known current sayings from Kenya is “it’s our turn to eat”. It also says the most important thing about the defining characteristic of the country’s politics – namely the quest of Kenya’s ruling elite for personal enrichment through politics. It is not the most corrupt country in Africa, but its grand and petty corruption are a daily preoccupation of beneficiaries, victims and reformers: it comes 146^th in Transparency International’s corruption perceptions index for 2009 – equal with such models of probity as Russia, Zimbabwe and Sierra Leone, for examples, but shamefully after much poorer countries like Ethiopia, Uganda and Tanzania, and even after notorious Nigeria. 

The way corruption has worked in Kenya in the multi-party era is that competing leaders have sought through political power to lay hands on the state’s revenues and the other levers of self-enrichment, in order to pay the personal debts incurred in fighting elections, to build up a fighting fund for the next election (the key to maintaining their hold on power), and to benefit their own people and districts to the extent necessary to persuade voters that the politicians’ interests are theirs. Hence, each election produces people who regard their entitlement to eat as the natural fruit of victory; and, because all aspire to a place at the trough, all have an interest in a culture of impunity.

Along the way, nepotism and favouritism, and the thoroughgoing distortion of the administration of what was until the 1970s a well-run country has spawned imitators at lower levels, so that most ordinary transactions cost the citizens a premium beyond the face-cost of the service; and deny them services of the standard and extent which Kenya’s revenues could afford if they were not mismanaged. 

As things stand, Kenya is becalmed between severe weather systems. Her power-sharing government is in internal conflict: it was the basis of a truce between the former presidential rivals and their supporters, but not a peace agreement. The major issues predating 2007 and those which have arisen since remain largely unresolved. The next election is due in 2012. Many fear that, if there is no explosion before then, there will be a repetition of the disorder and violence unleashed after the 2007 election, aggravated by the organisation and arming of ethnic militias by the political elite.

And yet. Life goes on. The non-indigenous communities of long standing survive and prosper, keeping a low profile and cultivating their gardens and businesses. Tourists still flock to the delights of bush, mountains and coast. 

Kenyans, despite the fragility of their present political modus vivendi, still retain a sense of common interest, and work hard for personal targets which are common to most of them. If confidence in their leaders is at a low ebb, still the country seems resilient. Growth – 3% perhaps this year – helps. 

In the region, Kenya remains the key to access to the ocean, and peace in Sudan emphasises the importance of that. The UN has in Nairobi the only two of its organisations based outside the northern hemisphere. Nairobi’s diplomatic corps is larger than anywhere else around. 

Somalia’s disorder is the most sinister external contagion, bringing into focus again the country’s vulnerability to Al Qaeda attacks first demonstrated in the blowing up of the US embassy in 1998. These worries, and the piracy off the Horn, are engaging Kenya’s old western allies in propping up the country’s own defences – but wondering how sound is the basis structure to which they pin their battle-colours.

And yet. Kenya has been drawing down on its resilience for many years. Without fundamental reform, it risks sliding into the basket category, which would be disastrous for Kenya and for its region.

by Sir Edward Clay

France as a model?

It was not long ago that France was regularly criticised by the more liberal economies of the world and its leaders. The intervention of the State in many facets of the French Economy was often seen as being backward and a hindrance to the free market flow of goods and services.

Recently however, these criticisms have been more subdued and you can nowadays hear comments and read more and more articles explaining that the heavily regulated French economy together with its massive public and social spending have actually helped cushion the negative effect of the worldwide economic crisis. “L’Etat-providence” in this situation proved to be the right choice and have made some governments think that more regulations and state intervention may actually help to avoid the type of crisis we experienced caused by economic liberalism and lack of real control of financial institutions.

Indeed, the French Economy has been more resilient than many other developed countries and President Nicolas Sarkozy has been quick to state that France has been one of the countries that best resisted the crisis.

The situation is in fact not that rosy and 2010 and beyond will hold many challenges for the French Economy. The pick up from the crisis is actually quite slow and quarterly GDP growth projections for 2010 are between 0.3 and 0.4%.

The immediate problem will be a further deterioration of the unemployment figures now at almost 10% with this percentage much worse for the young. Consumer consumption is badly damaged and is not expected to recover easily. The business climate is not healthy and recent surveys show that activity will actually slow down rather than pick up in the coming months. Many of the economic measures that the Government implemented in 2008 and 2009 will not be extended and that won’t help.

Additionally, one should also not forget that public finances have been heavily used recently and will continue to be through, among others, its recently announced “Grand Emprunt” (grand loan). As a result, the public deficit is forecasted to soon represent an unprecedented 8.5% of GDP, far above the EU’s target of 3%.

President Nicolas Sarkozy promised back in 2008 to implement many necessary reforms to the way things were organised in France and the majority of the population supported him at the time of his election. While quite a number have been implemented in the last 30 months, many have been actually watered down and quite a few have been postponed partly due of course to the crisis, but also partly due to the steady unpopularity of the President whose rating is nowadays below 40%. 

His style is leaving many French people uncomfortable to say the least. Trying to do everything himself and taking all the decisions or at least giving that impression is actually putting him at the front line constantly. The recent debate regarding “L’Identité Nationale” (what it means to be French) is actually further polarising the electorate and is very much seen as an attack on the immigrant population and more of an extreme-right idea coming from someone like Le Pen.

But this is actually a sign of a much deeper problem. While the official country’s motto has been historically “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité”, a good part of its population, not only immigrant, is not seeing much of these words practiced in reality. The social fabric is breaking down and a growing percentage of French citizens are “falling by the roadside”. The immigrant population especially from the former colonies is struggling to integrate into French society and the number of “new poor” is growing regularly and dangerously. Paradoxically, the number of “privileged” civil servants in France has grown in the last 20 years much more quickly than the private sector to reach 5.4 million or 1 in 5 employed people, but this has not benefited much the above mentioned groups of people. France will need to tackle this problem seriously to avoid more unrest in its cities’ suburbs.

There is no doubt that France needs more essential reforms partly to cut down on huge public expenses even in time of “normal” economic condition. France is living beyond its means and President Sarkozy has again recently insisted on getting them through. One of these reforms will be the delicate one on retirement age and pension benefits, but at a time of slow economic growth, implementing all the planned reforms will not be easy. Of course, almost everyone still continues to believe that these reforms are needed, as long as one is not touched by them.

We can of course here easily recognise one of the key characteristics of the French character, but this is basically what the French government is up to. Contrary to the Swedish population which had to accept many painful reforms a few years ago for the common good, a good percentage of the French population does not see it that way and will resist any attempt to modify earned privileges or any set arrangements. With 2010 just starting and to duplicate last spring’s demonstrations by 3 million people all over the country, one can easily envisage more unhappy people ready to fill up again the streets of France and/or going on strike to stop reforms or to demand improvement in their conditions. It remains to be seen how well the French Model copes!

by Jacques Méon