Here are some pictures I just got from Mowaffaq Alami, OV Gaza’s Executive Director, of training going on for young people in Gaza to build a civic movement against extremism…
On September 11th, I wrote a piece wondering about Bin Laden’s motives. Could he really believe that his actions would make us surrender?
But as much as we revile him, we must assume he is calculating and smart.
Bin Laden’s goal could not have been to defeat America in one blow or make America retreat from engagement in the Middle East.
Bin Laden’s goal must have been to divide the West from the Muslim world, and to that extent he has succeeded far more than he deserves.
If we are to truly deny him a victory, we must not allow him to define who are the parties in the battlefield: it is NOT Muslims vs. Infidels. It is NOT the West vs. the Arab world; it is those who have a vision of militant absolutism and who will use violence to advance their intolerant visions, vs the vast majority of humans of moderate persuasion who just want to live in peace.
If we are to defeat Bin Laden, we need to recognize that the enemy is NOT a religion or an ethnic group. Bin Laden would like us to think so, to alienate the groups and prey upon these divisions.
If we are to win, we need to reframe the conflict and work TOGETHER, denying him the mantle of representative of a religion.
The overwhelming majority of Muslim religious leaders think Bin Laden a rogue who has no right to speak on behalf of one of the world’s great religions. But they are seldom heard, because for the media this is not interesting.
We must amplify their voice.
Here is another insight from Avraham Infeld:
“First Lesson from the “Shoah” (the Holocaust): Look What Can Happen To People Who Have No Power.”
“Second Lesson from the “Shoah”: Look What Can Happen To People Who Have Power.”
Avraham Infeld, the Chairman Emeritus of Hillel, is known as
a giant in Jewish circles. My friend, mentor and hero Rabbi Brian Lurie
(I’ll tell you about him another time) introduced me to Avraham earlier this summer. I was struck by his passion for Israel, and corollary passion for a Two-State-Solution, with the passion emanating from his enlightened recognition that this is the only way Jews will be able to have a peaceful homeland with Jewish values, and the only way Palestinians and Israelis will be able to achieve peace.
He pointed out that as a South African Jew, he fears for Israel and for the region.
He worries at the dying necessary intersection for the only possible solution to this conflict: a two-state solution:
Currently the majority of Palestinians want a two-state solution, but that majority is decreasing every day we see no progress towards it, even though there is no other alternative that will bring peace to the region.
Israeli Jews increasingly support the imperative of a two-state solution, but will they do so and act on it fast enough before it is too late and we are all doomed to eternal fighting?
A third particularly insightful and counterintuitive thought that Avraham shared:
Arab Israelis increasingly see themselves as Palestinian citizens of Israel and that can be a very good thing for Jewish Israelis. It can help heal Israeli Jewish identity.
But it needs a Palestinian culture that can flourish and not be feared, so that Palestinian citizens of Israel will be a healthy minority, proud of their heritage and able to thrive in their culture without feeling disloyal, while Israeli Jews would also be happy that their fellow citizens can be proud of their ethnicity, religion and nationality, without a necessary
inconsistency – or less of one than if there wasn’t this healthy parallel.
Both Palestinians and Jews need to each have their own State for them to develop this healthy culture that each can be tied to, and then Palestinian citizens of Israel will ideally be both proud Palestinians and model contributors to Israeli society in the very same way that Jewish Americans can be proudly connected to both Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people and to the their nation as patriotic Americans.
When fighting nihilistic, authoritarian, repressive, totalitarian and/
or fundamentalist movements or governments, those on the side of
freedom need to keep in mind the big picture: no such negative
structure has ever withstood the test of time or can compete in a
clean race against liberty of thought and expression.
Acts of terrorism and sabotage as such do not pose an existentialist
threat and cannot be allowed to hijack the mind with fear, which is
their only real threat.
And States built on fear will eventually self-destruct if left to
their own devices.
But two questions remain:
• Is it moral not to aim to liberate or at least support citizens
suppressed within such a system? For children of Holocaust survivors
this is a difficult proposition.
• Is there an existentialist threat from regimes lead by apocalyptic
ideologies and working to develop weapons of mass destruction? Even
if those systems would eventually implode on their own, can you afford
to wait and see if they don’t seriously harm you first?
Tom Friedman has turned into a global icon by taking complex matters, synthesizing them, and explaining them in easily understood sound-bites that everyone can relate to. He is excellent at creating clear contrasting images and analogies to our daily experience. While in the process he often over-simplifies an issue and turns it into pop, this is sometimes precisely what society needs to absorb and popularize a vision or mission. He also for the most part REALLY gets it. And he tends to be way ahead of the pack in anticipating trends and understanding recent developments.
That is why it is regrettable that he has stopped talking about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
At a talk in Dalian, Tom Friedman reminded the audience of some of his insights:
* Steve Jobs dropped out of college, but not without first taking a calligraphy course that influenced his sense of style and contributed to his creation of APPLE; inference: Liberal Arts are an integral component of education; engineering and sciences are important; but creativity, curiosity and design are even more important to the process of innovation.
* CQ (Curiosity Quotient) and PQ (Passion Quotient) will beat IQ (Intelligence Quotient) anytime
* China is like a beautifully paved super-highway, orderly and efficient, but with a huge speedway bump ahead – called political transition; it could end up being a smooth ride, or the wheels could fall off; India is like a messy dirty and pot-hole ridden super-highway, but with a flat road ahead that looks almost like an oasis or a mirage; who will win? Only time will tell…
* Grandma Friedman says ‘don’t assume the 21st century will belong to a country that censors google’s flow of information.”
I approached Tom after the talk and asked why he had been silent on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for such a long time.
“I don’t know what to say anymore,” he replied with stunning and depressing honesty.
He, and many others, are starting to tune-out, as they are just turned-off by the lock that fundamentalism and violent extremism have placed on the region. The whole world will soon tune out the entire Middle East, if the Middle East doesn’t get its act together.
Israelis, Palestinians, Middle Easterners, and the Jewish and Muslim worlds should take seriously the fact that most people are just fed up with the Middle East, with Islamic Fundamentalism, and with the lack of resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
If the people on the ground don’t start taking action to take their lives back from the fringe of active and passionate militant absolutists that have hijacked the region, the world will just close its doors to them and will just contain and bypass them.
It is starting to happen. People are just shutting-out the region, and I often hear people say “let them kill each other.”
It is high time that THE PEOPLE STAND UP and inspire the world to get back behind them.
Thomas Friedman, where are you? And will you come back to speak for the moderates that are fed up with violent extremism?
Only if the moderates start showing they’ve got what it takes to do their part.
Then they will inspire Friedman and armies of others to rally behind them.
But the people on the ground have to lead.
On October 18th the people of the region have a historic chance to stand up and speak up!
It is not PC to admit that Anglo-Americans often have problems distinguishing Asian faces (or for that matter, any other ethnicity).
But from China Southern Air comes some comforting confirmation that for the Chinese, the opposite is true – Americans (or Westerners) all seem to look alike to them.
On the plane on the way back from Dalian to Beijing, I caught this hilarious variety news item where an intrepid reporter had paired Western soccer players and Hollywood celebrities that, apparently to Chinese eyes, looked fantastically alike – at least fantastic enough to be tv-worthy.
What is hilarious is how far these people look alike!
Here are some of the editors’ wise matches: (click on any of them to enlarge and see it closer – and click again to expand)
Will Smith -with some black soccer player:
The only thing these have in common is that they are both black!
Ben Stiller with some white soccer player:
The only thing these two have in common is that they are both white!
Here are close ups of the twins:
Ok, they did get a couple slight similarities, not sure they are worthy of a tv story, but here is Matt Damon’s soccer alter-ego…
But Brad Pitt’s?!
And the Dude from Dude Where is My Car’s alter-ego?
And Mel Gibson’s nephew?!
But the punch line is that their long-lost twin matches included some 23-year old soccer player with 80+ year-old Clint Eastwood!
Here are the close ups confirming how much they look alike (not!)
One of the most stimulating meetings I had at the YGL conference was with Arthur Mutambara. I had not gotten the chance to connect with him during the conference, until I heard him ask a question at a session with the CEO of China Mobile, Wang Jianzhou.
China Mobile is the world’s largest and fastest-growing cell phone company, and we were wowed at the enormity of their growth: 330 million subscribers, and 90 million more anticipated within the next 12 months.
Arthur was not awed or intimidated, and yet was very elegant and logical in the way he asked Mr. Jianzhou a question. He basically asked him, as an engineer and business executive, how he could reconcile technological growth and innovation with a closed political system and whether he felt that in the end China would be able to competitively innovate (as opposed to just emulate) and create new products, if it continued to censor the web and block political development.
Mr. Jianzhou’s reply was that these matters are very complicated.
I was struck that Arthur’s question was particularly gutsy, given an otherwise artificial atmosphere of total adulation that ignored the big elephant in the room. It takes strength of character to be able to ask tough questions that could be controversial but important, and it takes elegance and sophistication to do so in a professional way.
Later that night I got to learn where this passion and eloquence emanated from.
Arthur leads a political party of the opposition in Zimbabwe, the Movement for Democratic Change. Leading an opposition party in Zimbabwe is not an easy proposition: the ruler is an authoritarian dictator whose government has jailed, tortured and decimated opponents, and brought Zimbabwe down to shambles.
Arthur actually felt he had not done enough. “I live in a country where people may be jailed. Where I may be jailed when I come back to my country. I could be tortured. I don’t know how many civil rights leaders or activists are being kept inside dark rooms here in China. But I feel a duty to stand up and call for freedom. If something happens to me, will others stand up?” [I am paraphrasing to the best of my ability]
Arthur reminded a group of YGLs that leadership is about “taking risks, self-sacrifice, and rebelling for justice” where necessary.
Gutsy guy.
At the concluding session of the Young Global Leaders, a group of YGLs
from all over the world provided a very powerful paradigm contrast as
to leadership styles and life styles: of love vs fear.
“There are only 2 things in the world: love and fear. If you don’t
love it, you fear it.”
“Fear = Exclusion.”
“Love = Inclusion.”
I will try to get the full text to the Fear vs. Love Model. It is
very powerful.