Friday, March 28, 2003

Can we win the hearts and Minds? I have just skimmed though Milton Viorst's Book "In the Shadow of the Prophet - The Struggle for the Soul of Islam". My questions about whether we can ever win the hearts and minds of the Arabs have deepened and I also question whether democracy can be inserted into a culture that has experienced the history and culture of Iraq. MV's basic view is that Islam defaults to orthodoxy which in modern times has become Fundamentalist. It is not survivable for a Muslim leader to espouse a secular state. So, Muslim states are locked in a stasis. Orthodoxy precludes innovation. It precludes Representative government. The result: Income in the Arab world has fallen more than 20% since 1980 GDP has increased at around 1% annually since 1980 while population has increased from 165 million to 245 million. In oil states, there has been a cushion but in the rest a fall in living standards. There are 5 million arabs in France many of whom are young male and unemployed - that is 10% of the French population. That would be the equivalent of 20 million in the US and 3 million in Canada - now maybe we can sense why France is nervous about a conflict that could become religious. The way out, if there is one, can only be found inside the Arab world. As assassination is the fate of reformers, I can't see how this can occur. So the Arab world most of whom are male and young and angry have no choice but to vent their anger at us.. My second point is about our hopes for democracy. Surely Iraq, like Ukraine, is like a battered family with a long habit of abuse. Abusers come from the ranks of the abused. There is no trust in this type of society. Putnam has shown how this affects economics and society in his work on Italy. In the South, Mafia land, the culture is top down patriarchal and the economy is stagnant. In the North where there are many horizontal links and high trust, the economy booms. Sicily looks like a dream world compared to what the Iraqis have  been through for hundreds of years. Remember before Saddam there were the Hashemites supported by the British and before that hundreds of years of Turkish rule. Like Ukraine there is not even the myth of freedom to recall. If we are honest we can admit that there is no chance of having a Democratic state - it is not culturally possible until there have been generations of no abuse. My main point -  Let's drop the illusions  The war in Iraq may be only a campaign in a long and deadly struggle between Islam and the secular world. Currently there is no possibility of reconciliation. We are in reality locked in a lifetime of increasing conflict. Let's take off the blinkers and see our situation for what it is. I have no idea what to do but is not the first step of finding a solution to find out what is relay going on? 2:56:10 PM    comment []

Airlines - The End Game - The Death of the Efficiency Model? It looks like AMR will go into bankruptcy protection soon as will most of the traditional airlines. I think that we are at the end of an era when we thought that there was no impediment to travel. The traditional setup just cannot cope. It is based on the industrial model of efficiency. The new world will be based on an ecosystem of effectiveness. It is therefore likely that we will endure a considerable interim period where not only the cost of travel will rise, the hassle of security will rise and there will be fewer flights. What are our alternatives? Video for business? I suspect that video will become huge. The train - I have started to take the overnight train from Moncton to Montreal and have to say that it is very nice. The train between Toronto and Montreal is very convenient - downtown stations, club car, internet access, meals. Really a better way. But for many of you in the US there is not much of a train alternative. Driving - the distances are too big in most cases. Bus? oooh no. I hope that the big airlines are not rescued however. This will mean that we preserve a failed model for longer. For me the ah ha is that what is killing the airlines is that most of them have built their business on the industrial model of efficiency and that this is too rigid a model to survive a lot of change such as we live through. It will be better to let the dinosaurs go and see a new type of air ecosystem emerge. What might it be like? I see the possibility of local air jitneys. If you go to Bangkok or even Kiev, you will not see a traditional bus system but a much more chaotic insect type of world where masses of small operators run 15 seater vans which you hail like  a taxi. The system works very well for all. You get from a- b. It is cheap. There is always a van. The van operator make a good living. I can see this type of jitney of the air where I live on PEI. A shuttle running to Halifax and to Moncton where the trunk routes pick up. What does this mean for equipment? Paradoxically I see the market for smaller equipment being the key. The Southwest model suggests keeping with one model and not too big so you get good loads. The Jumbo model is based on the efficiency model which is the model which is dying. The efficiency model is based on making a huge investment  up front in the process and then trying to fill your process. This model is being destroyed in every field. Wal-Mart's inventory system, Dells' manufacturing system, Southwest's system even eBay are all responsive system that adjust to the world rather that try and predict it and create efficiencies. This is another reason I think that MCD will die too. Ray Kroc added the Ford production line to the Mom and Pop hamburger joint and made a great business out of this for 45 years. It is now too rigid to cope. What times we live in! 7:47:25 AM    comment []