Cross-Culture

The shifting social dynamics in modern India

It is an accepted fact that cultures are not stagnant - they are constantly evolving; however the normal pace of change is usually extremely slow. When I look back over three generations, I see a difference in my grandmother’s life, my mother’s life and my own. I see changes at many levels – social norms, accepted ways of thought, communication and behaviour, and the role of family and community. However these changes have slowly been woven into the fabric of Indian society, gradually being absorbed as the new norms, without shaking the core.

When I look forward and see the current scenario and compare my son’s generation with the past, the changes that have taken place seem to have manifested themselves at a much accelerated pace and caused tears in the very fabric of Indian culture. They seem to be impacting the very basis of individual identity and the pillars of Indian society. It makes me wonder – what could be the cause of these major shifts at deeper social levels? Is it the impact of globalization? And if so, how much do external events affect the pace of change? Is it one major factor or is it the synchronization of multiple factors that causes this acceleration?

I am going to focus on the phenomenon of the outsourcing industry and the growth of call centres in India to understand if they have been factors in the rapid change, especially because this sector taps into the Indian youth as its main resource and thus is a big influencer. The call centre jobs require the young Indian service providers to assume a ‘Western Identity’. They take on a western name, learn and adopt a western accent, learn about western cultures to help them deal with western clients – in short they live fake western lives while physically being a part of the Indian reality. What are the impacts of this duality – how do they deal with it? Their experience in this role is accompanied by financial freedom – they earn salaries and bonuses at levels never seen before by their parents’ generation. Does this new wealth affect behaviour and roles, expectations and hierarchy within the family and society in general? If so, how does the impact manifest itself?

Some of the changes I am referring to are very overt and obvious and others are insidious. There seem to be many layers within Indian society and the gap between the generations appears to be magnified. There seems to be a diffusion of social boundaries.

Many Indians, whether they admit it or not, covet the Western way of life. However in the past it was only a select few who actually managed to realize their aspirations to study / travel / live abroad. For the majority, it was just a dream. Traditional Indian society has always been restrictive in many senses. Social mobility was restricted. Family, gender, caste, and hierarchy defined one’s place in the social order, determined how others viewed you, related to and behaved towards you and what is expected of you. It also defined what options were open to you in terms of what you could accomplish and who you could become in life. It favoured the privileged and those in the upper classes in society. So dreams of going abroad seemed the only way to break the social shackles.

The offshore industry shook all that up. It levelled the playing fields in some ways. It opened new doors, offered new opportunities and financial freedom, which brought in its wake many other changes. The social fabric of Indian society is undergoing dramatic changes. The changes are redefining the concept of identity among younger Indians and reshaping the role of family and the Indian values of interdependence, modesty, family honour, social hierarchy and so on.

Many of the changes are positive – young Indians are confident, ambitious and ready to take on the world. Unlike their parents, they want to take charge of their life and ‘make’ things happen. They wish to be masters of their own destiny. Young women are seeing a world of opportunities opening up for them like never before. Financial independence is allowing this generation to make choices that were not possible before - for example, they can now buy their own homes and move out of parental homes, spend on material goods and lifestyles without feeling guilty. Consumerism has hit a new high. Money and earning power is the new social currency. They are becoming more self-oriented and individualistic. They are now exposed to members of the other sex on a regular basis and making choices of life-partners from a wider pool of people, beyond the old lines of hierarchy. And more importantly, social mobility is now possible due to all the above. The restrictions of family, religion, gender, and so on are no longer inhibitors. India’s traditional caste system mapped out life-paths for most people. Most Indians walk around with an inbuilt radar scanning for clues to place people who they meet into their mental maps and hierarchy. Their behaviour and interactions with others would be based on their readings of the other. Today, these things do not seem to matter as much.

None of this is bad, except when you put it into perspective of what this means in the Indian context and how it plays out. Below are a few examples.

The Indian identity of self has traditionally been defined by a sense of belonging to a group - of family, caste or community, religion, region and language. Indians did not think of themselves as ‘me, an individual’. There was always a context in which they are a part, and that context was always a group. The family has always been one of the most important pillars in Indian society. Unlike the western cultures, the concept of family in India has always meant the extended family, the entire network of people who are related to each other by blood or by marriage. This extended family maintains and defines social boundaries, norms and culturally prescribed behaviours. Relationships and social responsibilities within those extended networks are given prime importance. Individualism, independence and autonomy, which are considered virtues and values to be aimed for in the West, are frowned upon in India. Independent behaviour has always been considered ‘selfish’ and ‘bad’.

An outcome of the family networks was the tradition of arranged marriages, which worked in the interest of the family as a unit. Spouses for children came from a background and culture that were aligned to one’s own. This helped adjustment and nurtured the interdependence that is a keystone of Indian families. Divorces were extremely rare and parents and children were taken care of. This has changed dramatically. There are many ‘love marriages’ between young people who work together and unfortunately, the rate of divorce is extremely high too. The glue of common backgrounds, which helped pull individuals together by creating the magic ingredient of ‘adjustment’ to each other and the family seems to be missing. Many relationships seem to be breaking up on flimsy grounds, too – disagreements about the brand of car to be purchased, or destination for a holiday, can trigger a divorce. The facts that bring the couple together – physical proximity and easy access to each other, seem to not be deep enough to hold them together. And the social stigma that used to come with a break-up doesn’t seem to matter. All this impacts the value of extended families too. The cohesive nature of the family seems to be fraying. Indian culture has always been relationship-oriented; that too seems to be changing. Loyalties and unconditional caring for members in one’s ingroup seem to have become diluted.

Hierarchy has always been an inescapable fact of Indian society – within the family and in society. Everything and everyone is sized up and ranked in relation to everything and everyone else. Roles, responsibilities and expectations depended upon where one stood in the hierarchy. Parents were awarded respect, and sons and daughters each had their role cut out for them. Sons provided for parents once they started earning, daughters were married off when and to whom the parents chose. Girls today are choosing careers over marriage, preferring to marry much later than before and to find their own life partners. They may choose to move out of their parental home or may stay at home and financially support the family. These things change the socio-dynamics within the family unit. Yes, the additional and generous income is usually welcome, but the accompanying change in values, expectations, attitude and behaviour causes a lot of tension and strife in most homes.

Controlling and withholding finances was one way parents were able to ‘control’ their children in the past, to make them conform to values and behaviours which were considered socially acceptable. Family honour was placed at a premium and protecting it was the responsibility of all family members. This honour was very closely linked to acceptable behaviours. The financial independence of children today seems to have reduced the ability of parents to curb and control the behaviour of their children.

There also seems to be a difference in the pace of change between young men and women. The women seem to have become more empowered, independent and vocal than the men. They are unwilling to be passive players in their own lives. I recently met a young professional woman in Hyderabad and asked her what it was like to be a woman in modern India, and she answered, “The men are not ready for us. They like girlfriends who are westernized but want wives who are traditional like their mothers.” I do believe the women have moved ahead in bigger strides, but that was mainly because for decades they were relegated to secondary status.

Changes at other levels which stand out are the adoption of Western behaviours such as smoking, drinking alcohol, ‘baring of skin’, getting tattoos and piercings – all of which are considered ‘cool’ by this younger generation as they try to live their western identities. I believe these are linked to all the changes which are happening at a deeper level and connected to and fueled by growing financial independence. Family honour and taboos cannot matter if the family bonds are unravelling.

Western countries have developed social and legal systems geared towards an individualist society and all that comes with it. Indian society is in a state of transition and we do not have those safeguards and safety nets in place yet. I wonder how long it will take to acknowledge these deep social changes and recognize the impact they will have in the long term.

It would be interesting to see whether similar social changes are visible in other countries where the call centre industry has flourished.

Anita Punamiya

CompreCultures Ltd.

www.comprecultures.com

 

 

Accidental Diplomacy: Australian-Japanese Relations

Disasters create strange bedfellows. What good could anyone imagine would come from the horrors of the earthquake/tsunami/nuclear leak that hit the Japanese coast last year? Let me suggest one, a profound one – Japan for the first time since WWII felt cared for by foreigners. Foreigners, the “barbarians” of Perry’s black ships, the crazy, arrogant, unfathomable gaijins who had turned up in their thousands to get a bit of the action when Japan was in bubble economy mode.

Australia has been a major trading partner of Japan since WWII, exporting raw materials and getting them back in the form of cars, trucks, computers, anything. On the softer side Australia has also been seduced by wide-eyed anime characters like Astroboy, introduced business cards into its business etiquette and sushi, sashimi and tempura have become aussie standards. But where was the love? This was pure business and the usual cultural flow-on that always accompanies high levels of trade between countries.

Immediately after WWII Japan was single minded in rebuilding domestically, protecting itself against a China that was not only its traditional enemy but now communist and still expansionist. It was deep in the throws of American occupation and needing to find a dignified and profitable relationship with its victors, which included Australia. An Australia that had come surprisingly close to invasion with bombing attacks on its northern city of Darwin which rivaled the attack on Pearl Harbour for sheer quantity of bombs; the sinking of a ferry in Sydney Harbor with considerable loss of life by a squadron of mini subs; vicious and deadly encounters in Singapore and Papua New Guinea..

This very raw period presented complex and deep feelings on both sides of the Australian-Japan relationship, which prior to WWII, had been excellent. Remember we were on the same side in WWI.

A fact not generally known is that Australia was very keen on punishing the Japanese through the war crimes trials and clamoured successfully to have their judges appointed to the tribunals. The Japanese saw Australia simply as the victor seeking revenge through the tribunals and Australia saw the Japanese as still very much a cruel and inhuman enemy.  Culturally however there is a lot of evidence of the Japanese adopting what they believed to be western  (American) ways and dropping some of theirs. The process of omiai (arranged marriage) for instance, went into decline after the war. They embraced US ideas of capitalism and some management theory although they were in the end very Japanese in application.

When the Japanese started to see the rewards of their hard won reconstruction they became less enamored with western (American) culture and management methods and economic models. At times Japan even expressed this much to everyone’s embarrassment. For instance, a Minister of the Tanaka government in the mid 70s, flush with Japan’s economic success, jeeringly told the Americans, whose economy was languishing, that they didn’t know how to run their country. They had moved from obsequious defeat to the hubris of economic and ipso facto cultural superiority. The Japanese felt they had the right combination of government involvement in private enterprise through organisations such as the all powerful MITI, appropriate control of workers’ unions and a united population happy to be part of the post war miracle.

At the same time the West was starting to quote, or misquote, Japan as “the way to go “ regarding manufacturing methods, union control, “jobs for life”, the value and rewards of having a compliant society depending on who you were and what point you were trying to make. The tide had turned for both the Japanese and us Westerners. The not so funny joke of “who really won the war?” was extant when describing the Japanese’s recovery and the languishing of our economies.

Underlying all this change and ambiguity in the relationship was a raging commodities/manufactured goods trade between Australia and Japan; they needed each other profoundly.

Then came 1990, the bubble burst and has never been re-blown. Suddenly, the hubris that had started to characterize Japanese relations with foreigners was disappearing, rather there was a return to an embarrassed stance of a nation that was meant to be poor. Indeed, one of the best selling books of the era in Japan extolled the traditional virtues of poverty.

In a way we have come full circle with Australia and its main western ally, America, wondering, along with Japan, what to do with China. There is pressure for Japan to drop its pacifist position and convert its “Self Defense Force” into something more assertive. An interesting bit of byplay on this theme was the role Australian troops played in Iraq as protectors of the “strictly defensive”, Japanese.

The relationship appeared to have moved from one of hatred and distrust to something more ambiguous based on mutual benefit.

The recent tsunami revealed the new closer human aspect of the relationship in two ways:

One: a group of Australian haiku and tanka poets put together a collection of their poems that offered sympathy and support. This was sent to various groups and individuals. A common theme in the response was that the Japanese felt, for the first time since WWII, that non Japanese actually cared for them. To quote one Japanese Law Professor:

We had a lot of sympathy and condolences from the world this time as well, which might be the first time, in the past 60 years, to know we Japanese are liked by so many people in the world.

Two: With typical love of language the Japanese  coined a word to describe gaijins (foreigners) who fled Japan after the tsunami - it was “gojins”. This is not just amusing but suggests that the Japanese feel more part of the world and other people. There is a suggestion here that we foreigners are really one of them and should join them in this tragedy, not flee.

A very similar sense of redemption and oneness occurred under much lighter circumstances for Germany when they hosted the FIFA world cup in 2006. For the first time since WWII they publicly expressed an acceptable patriotism, which was seen as simply national pride not threatening jingoism. This was important to post war generations who had been brought up on a diet of lectures at home, in school and society in general not to publicly express national pride or indulge in triumphalism in victory. Like the Japanese they felt that for the first time in 60 years their neighbours had put the past behind them and normal relations had resumed. In the case of Japan; that normal relations had begun.

by Philip Porter

As the Dragon Leads...

I began my “romance” with China in the early 1990s. I was a member of the negotiating team my European employer put together for a joint venture with a Chinese enterprise located in Shanghai. Since then, I have trained hundreds of Chinese managers and hi-potential graduates from state-owned companies as well as multinationals in leadership.

What strikes me as rather unique in terms of Chinese talent is how competitive everyone is: individuals do all that they can to stand out from the “crowd”. Few shy away from stating openly their career aspirations. This contrasts interestingly with the common belief that socialistic societies are largely collective in most things people do.

With increasing opportunities in the country though, Chinese managers are displaying individualistic behaviour, pursuing their own careers and dreams with much fervour, almost as if to catch up on lost time.

Measuring such behaviour along the dichotomy of quantity versus quality, one can quite easily conclude that the former takes the front seat at this point.

It’s therefore not surprising when my clients operating in China come to me for team-development solutions. The notion of sustaining the organisation’s competitiveness through developing others is still quite foreign to most Chinese managers. Coaching the young, once a fundamental Confucian value, appears to have been relegated to a lower priority. Such a tendency puzzles the many Japanese companies located in China, for example. While the Japanese are conditioned from young as members of various groups and trained to accord due consideration to others depending on the situation, the Chinese, at least those living in the cities, have replaced collectivism with individualism. Material comfort has also overtaken the pursuit of spirituality.

This in part is due to the one-child policy the Chinese government adopted several decades ago. It has worked miracles in terms of controlling population. At the same time, it breeds generations of young people who are used to being served promptly whatever they want. Failure is therefore not an easy option for these dragon sons and daughters; they try their best to “win” at work. I suspect that admitting mistakes will be equally hard. From a learning perspective though, failures early in one’s career and the admission that one can do better is perceived by many in the West as beneficial. These “lessons” are supposed to stick with the person for a lifetime and the individual will grow faster than those who did not tumble and fall a little early in life.

Just a month ago, I was in Hong Kong, training a group of managers from Hong Kong and China. In a simulation where participants were divided into small groups responsible for manufacturing a specific part of the paper plane, someone approached a fellow participant a step ahead in the manufacturing process, wanting to learn more about his tasks, but he was quickly “shooed” away. In the end, the participants didn’t do so well as a team, manufacturing few planes that were sub-standard. The Chinese are fast learners, especially in the areas of languages and technology. However, the mentality of perfecting what one is doing and expecting others to fend for themselves is not uncommon in China. Those multinationals which take steps early to help Chinese managers learn how to work together for the ultimate satisfaction of their customers will have a competitive advantage in the market.

The strong inclination towards scholastic knowledge and formal education remains in today’s China; so does the long-term perspective about relationships, which is “high context” behaviour in Edward Hall’s terminology.

One might ask - if the Chinese are indeed high-context, how do we explain the job-hopping behaviour that we have seen in the market? Is this not an indication of short-term focus? One plausible explanation is that changing job is perceived as a step closer to a longer term career goal.

So...are we saying that cultural characteristics like “reactive” and “collective” are being replaced in modern China? Will we one day wake up to a genre of Chinese leaders who resemble more their American counterparts? Well, one thing for sure is that culture is not static, it evolves, though often at a glacial pace. Much depends on the country’s national leadership, economic policies and rate of growth, I suppose...

As the world awaits the making of an economic giant, the dragon sons and daughters march on!

by Maria Chow

Founder, Spark Asia Leadership Practice

www.sparkasia-leaders.com

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

Letter from Aotearoa New Zealand

Kia Ora and warm greetings from the South Pacific.

Welcome to Aotearoa New Zealand. Let us introduce you to our country, the land of the long white cloud, the land of milk and honey and the quarter acre section, land of the Māori people, the anchor of the Polynesian triangle in the South Pacific and part of the Pacific rim’s ring of fire.

Ours is a modern and relatively isolated country; approximately 3 hours 15 mins flying time from Australia, 10 hours 40 mins from Singapore, 11 hours 36 mins from Hong Kong, 12 hours from Los Angeles and 28 hours from London.

New Zealand is a land of great natural beauty with a land area similar to the UK but with a population of almost 4.5 million people.  Our people, from all cultures, share a common pioneering spirit that brought our forebears to this young land with the desire to build a new way of life and a brighter future for their children. This process continues today with newcomers to our airports and shores.

We are uniquely placed in the world. Ours is a bi-cultural country based around the Treaty of Waitangi signed by the British Crown with the Māori, New Zealand’s tāngata whenua, the people of the land, or indigenous people, in 1840.  And we have a growing culturally diverse population from all parts of the globe.

Ours is a strongly egalitarian society that values independence, self-reliance, hard work, resourcefulness, a “can do” attitude and individualism.  We pride ourselves on ‘Kiwi’ ingenuity and an ability to ‘punch above our weight,’ especially in the sports arena.

This is derived from our distance from the rest of the world and relatively low population which has forced us to become more resourceful and multi-skilled. Our low population density, temperate climate, spectacular scenery and topography give us a relaxed outdoor lifestyle with easy access to beaches, rivers, mountains and the bush.

In small societies, you make your own fun. We have high participation rates in many sports and a wide range of outdoor recreation activities including hiking, mountaineering, skiing, boating, fishing, diving and kayaking, rowing, equestrian, golf, cricket, football, rugby, tennis and netball, to name a few.

Our egalitarianism is reflected in New Zealand’s relatively flat social structure and low power-distance relationship with our social, political and business leaders.  We have a reputation for being friendly and have an ability to form relationships with a wide cross-section of people when living and working in other countries.

Recently, as a family, we hosted visitors from a French cooking school with which we had helped to establish a sister-school relationship with a NZ cooking school. We invited the group around for our usual relaxed Friday night meal with other friends, i.e. Chinese takeaways, Fish and Chips and a bottle of wine or two.  It was a Kiwi family experience for them. Our French friend who was part of the group later shared with us how much they had enjoyed the evening as it was not usual for the CEO and his staff to socialise together like this in someone’s home, whereas in New Zealand it is reasonably common.

It is experiences like this that the ‘New Zealand 2011’ organisers are aiming to facilitate around the country as part of building business connections for visitors coming to New Zealand to enjoy the Rugby World Cup in September.

As a people, we believe New Zealanders are generally confident, tolerant, welcoming and friendly. These traits may also be contributing factors to the number of our countrymen and women in leadership and management positions in businesses and organisations around the globe.

We are a well-educated society with world-class expertise in a wide variety of fields including the sciences, agriculture and horticulture (our main export earners), the performing arts and creative industries - computer software builders, film-makers (Lord of the Rings), opera (Dame Kiri Te Kanawa), yachting (America’s Cup) and fashion design.

We are generally flexible and adaptable and like to get things done. We have a strong work ethic.

As a relatively new nation, our country has always been a mixing pot of people from different backgrounds, ethnicities and religions. Early settlers came from European countries and in particular, Great Britain, Ireland as well as Germany and Dalmatia then following World War II, the Netherlands, Greece, Italy, Poland, the former Yugoslavia and other European countries.

However our cultural make-up is changing. In recent years there has been increased migration from Asia, the Pacific region, parts of Africa, South Africa and the UK. This is partly a reflection of an increasingly mobile international workforce, assisted migration and humanitarian considerations. Intercultural marriage is common and is adding a new dimension to our evolving cultural identity.

This is evident in population statistics.  The official government 2011 census was cancelled as a consequence of the disastrous earthquake which hit Christchurch on 22 February 2011; however there is interesting data from the 2006 national census which show that the largest ethnic group is European, comprising some 67.6% of the population, Māori 14.6%, Asian 9.2% and Pacific 6.5%.  The five largest European groups were New Zealand European, English, Dutch, British and Australian. Within the Asian communities, the main groups are Chinese, Indian, Korean, Filipino, Japanese, Sri Lankan and Cambodian. As for Pacific communities, the main island groups are Samoan, Cook Islands Māori, Tongan, Niuean, Fijian, Tokelauan and Tuvaluan. Middle Eastern, Latin and American and African groups make up just under 1% of the population.

Cultural and ethnic identity for census purposes is self-identified. Most of us tend to identify ourselves as New Zealanders and by our cultural heritage.  For example as a New Zealand-born Niuean and a New Zealander with Irish-Scottish ancestry.

By 2021, current population projections suggest that Māori will comprise 17% of our population, Pacific 9%, 18% Asian and other cultures with the remainder made up of the many European cultures.

Part of the exciting challenge that we face as a country is how we tap into the richness and talent that our increasingly culturally diverse population offers and how we welcome newcomers to our shores. This is a relatively new and growing conversation in New Zealand. We have a unique opportunity as a country to incorporate managing cultural diversity as a conscious strategy and as an integral part of New Zealand society and New Zealand business management practices.

Ngā mihinui – Best wishes

by Holona and Trish Lui

The English – in a class of their own

Cecily:  When I see a spade, I call it a spade.

Gwendolen:  I am glad to say I have never seen a spade. It is obvious that our social spheres have been widely different.

Oscar Wilde – The Importance of Being Earnest

It is fitting that one of the best-known examples of the English class system in action in literature should have been written by an Irishman.

For the English, ‘class’ is what Richard D. Lewis describes as a ‘cultural black hole’: an aspect of a culture so powerful that it sucks everything else in. The problem is that when you are in a black hole, it is hard to see clearly what is going on around you. An outsider may have a clearer perspective.

The current argument about social mobility that recently dominated the headlines in the UK goes to the heart of an inescapable part of understanding the English that is complex, and one of the biggest sources of both our angst and our humour.

When Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, declared that access to the most selective universities is too restricted to those from the most privileged backgrounds, and that internships at companies would in future have to be based on ‘what you know rather than who you know’, the reaction was fast and furious. One of the most cutting comments was from Charles Moore, former editor of The Daily Telegraph. He remarked that Clegg ought to have known that the phrase should have been ‘whom you know.’ Clegg’s Dutch mother may have given him a certain scepticism about class segregation, but woe betide anyone who tries to do something logical about it. It is beyond logic.

One fatal error is to assume that class is based on wealth. That may be the case in the USA, but in England the self-made man or woman can never really escape his or her roots. And in many cases may not want to. Though class may still be an irritant. The richest person I know – a multi-, multi-millionaire by his mid-thirties – told me that his working-class background means that there are still people who ‘cut him dead’ socially. And I will never forget my first seminar at Oxford University, when a class-mate (in more ways than one) from Lancashire was asked to read out his brilliant essay on the Victorian poets Tennyson and Browning. One of the girls suddenly walked out and never came back. Afterwards she told us she ‘had to go and vomit, as she couldn’t stand listening to that Northern, working-class accent.’

Accents, and the words you use, are the first indicator of class. Even the way the word ‘class’ is pronounced is an immediate give-away. A short ‘a’ rather than a long one, and you are immediately relegated to the lower rankings.  Use the word ‘toilet’ rather than ‘lavatory’ or ‘loo’, as Kate Middleton’s mother apparently did, and you could nearly cost your daughter the throne.

This language question is a source of great anxiety to politicians. Harold Wilson, former Labour Prime Minister, was famous for his strong Yorkshire accent and his cunning. However, as a student and later teacher of politics at Oxford, he assumed a clipped upper middle-class pronunciation. You can’t blame him. At that time, he would have had difficulty getting his students to trust his intellect otherwise. But on moving into politics, he reverted to his Yorkshire vowels. There is no way Labour’s traditional voters would have trusted his beliefs if he hadn’t. I am sure that David Cameron’s ‘posh’ voice, and appearance (a small chin is considered a sign of the upper classes in England) are at least partly to blame for the Conservative Party’s poor showing in the North of England, resulting in a Coalition Government.

A sort of reverse snobbery has emerged in the past 20 years or so, with some politicians – no names mentioned – deliberately making their naturally polished tones sound more like the man on the street, especially the streets of Essex: a county whose accent has become synonymous with the median voter.

Tony Blair also got into hot water for trying to play to all classes in other ways. He was ridiculed for two consecutive interviews where he was asked what his favourite food was.  In his Sedgefield constituency (a traditional mining community in the North East of England), he answered ‘fish and chips’ and in a trendy area of London ‘pasta and sun-dried tomatoes’.

Observing which foods people eat is a sure-fire indicator of class. Fish and chips, sausages (bangers) and mashed potatoes, frozen food, etc. for the working-class; foreign food – especially Italian – for the middle-class, and bangers and mash and English ‘nursery food’ for the upper-class.

Which brings me to my final point that the working-class and upper-class tend to have far more in common with each other, as D.H. Lawrence frequently observed, than either of them does with the middle class.

As well as a preference for plain, English food, the working-class and upper-class tend to have similar interests in sports (rugby, horse-racing, sports involving dogs); cars (tend to be older, and they are not so fussy about keeping them clean) and in many other areas beyond the scope of this blog, but described well in social anthropologist Kate Fox’s book ‘Watching the English’.

Above all, both working and upper-classes seem to be easier in their own skins than the middle-classes, who tend to be pre-occupied with what others think about them. Though the middle-class is essential to progress and, as Aristotle recognised, the basis of a successful society:

‘The most perfect political community must be amongst those who are in the middle rank, and those states are best instituted wherein these are a larger and more respectable part, if possible, than both the other; or, if that cannot be, at least than either of them separate.’

If you are not English, you have the luxury of by-passing the class issue in your dealings with us. You are not part of a game which is even more complicated than cricket. Yet to understand us, it is still relevant and important to get beneath the surface of this English obsession with where people are from and whom they know, not just what they know. But please do it in secret, and never ever mention it!

I am his Highness’ dog at Kew; pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?

Alexander Pope (1688-1744) English poet and satirist

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