"A Requiem for the Age of Oil:" Affecting Gen Y & Women in the Muslim World

In their series "Speaking to Futurists," EnlightenNext asked Ray Kurzweil, John Peterson, Patricia Aburdene, Joel Garreau and myself about " The biggest shift or shifts in the next few years."

My topic was the Middle East and the Muslim world. Here's a snippet from the interview posted on EnlightenNext website:

“We’re entering a requiem for the age of oil,” says Lebanon-born cultural development expert Elza Maalouf, “one that will no doubt push oil-rich countries to look for other ways to enrich themselves.” Maalouf, who heads up the Center for Human Emergence—Middle East, has some cutting-edge ideas about just how these nations might go about doing that.

In this interview with EnlightenNext senior editor Elizabeth Debold, Maalouf outlines some of the most promising trends she sees emerging across the Muslim world. Maalouf is not your average international development consultant. A former lawyer and corporate executive with over a decade of experience in depth psychology and consciousness studies, her specialty is finding practical, on-the-ground applications for the theoretical framework of cultural evolution known as Spiral Dynamics. She says that the future of the Middle East will be decided by how much these oil-rich nations support the development of their most valuable resource: their own people. Drawing on her work in countries across the region like Syria, Palestine, and Qatar, she explains why she thinks that expanding the opportunities for women and the rising generation of young people (the vast majority of the population) is the biggest challenge and opportunity for Muslim countries as they transition into the twenty-first-century, globally connected world.

You can hear the whole interview here...

During the early days of the Iran GenY Internet revolution (June, July 09), Joel Pitney quoted my interview on his EnlightenNext blog confirming what I said about Muslim youths read more...

Here's my comment on Joel's blog post:

Dear Joel,

Thank you for initiating this timely debate. What is happening in Iran is a clear manifestation of the sea change taking place in the Muslim world which is triggered by countless Memetic factors that have converged to add complexity to the ‘habitat’ of the culture. This phenomenon is in turn activating more complexity in the “biospychosocial systems” of that culture. In an era where technological complexity is surpassing brain complexity, emergence of cultures is exponentially accelerated. In the case of Iran as you mentioned, Gen Y is maximizing its use of the Internet and IT, and no longer accepts the Mullah’s narrow definition of worldview. Iranian women are maximizing the use of what I call IMT - Innovations in Memetic Technology-. These are the skills that read the cultural DNA and provide the appropriate support through culturally-fit solutions.
My work for the last 20 years in the Muslim world has been to interpret and document these memetic changes, while working in the field as a business consultant and socio-political adviser. This is what allows me to uncover the deeper patterns of emergence rather than just trends and surface changes.
When I mentioned a “Requiem for the Age of Oil,” it was a reference to oil being the currency that rarely contributed to the development of human resources in those countries, and only concentrated the wealth in the hands of the few. The data is clear about peak oil, as most OPEC countries are facing higher costs for extracting every additional barrel, and after 9/11 the West woke up to the reality of the environmental and national security consequences of its dependency on oil . I am talking here about ‘tipping points’ or phenomena that are accelerating change dramatically while keeping in mind that change in the developmental stages of cultures might take decades.
The largest producers of oil like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and UAE are now focused on building their infrastructure; from traditional manufacturing in Saudi Arabia to Ivy League type higher education in UAE, Qatar and Kuwait. Currently the Persian Gulf is the home of the most ambitious government spending programs to fully develop a full range of industrial capacity with a focus on solar farms and green cities.
These measures towards self-reliance will drastically reduce the unemployment rates and offer job opportunities to Gen Y and women in specific. These home grown 1st world type conditions will bring equality and educational standards that fit the unique contours of each culture, rather than a Western projection of what equality ‘should’ mean to emerging cultures.

Since the brief interview in EnlightenNext was subject specific, we couldn’t cover intricate details. You can read my iPolitics blog and a more detailed essay on the patterns of emergence in the Middle East with a comparative study of these patterns in Iran and Lebanon

Hillary Clinton's 100 days in the Muslim World

Secretary Clinton said, "Foreign policy must be based on a marriage of principles and pragmatism, not rigid ideology. …We must use what has been called “smart power”: the full range of tools at our disposal – diplomatic, economic, military, political, legal, and cultural – picking the right tool, or combination of tools, for each situation. With smart power, diplomacy will be the vanguard of foreign policy.”

I salute the Secretary for a well thought out concept of 'Smart Power' vs. hard power or soft power. She has no doubt started a new era of diplomacy that might go beyond what her husband was able to do with foreign policy. My hope is that will be a combination of both soft and hard, plus insightful power. However, Clinton's definition of "smart power" misses the viewing lenses through which we want to design our diplomatic, economic, military....and cultural interventions.

It is not enough to use principles and pragmatism, we need to use stratified strategies that are designed to meet the underlying codes that shaped each culture throughout history and the new elements that are shaping these codes now. This is what we call Integral strategies: WHY do they think or behave this way? How are they incorporating 21st century technology with thousands of years of tribal traditions? It is not enough to use "the tools" that are available to us, but also to know HOW to Fit these tools, to help these people, living in those life conditions.

• How can we help Afghanis and Pakistanis build an educational system that will not collide with the widely accepted Madrassas? (Check my blog tomorrow about this subject)
• What kind of modern indigenous architecture should we encourage NGOs and governments to use in building their new hospitals, schools and living quarters in these emerging countries?
• What is the role of women in these cultures? do we want to liberate them in our Western style? Or listen to the intelligences in the culture and help them design a system that suits their needs? My experience for many years working with bright Palestinian, Syrian and Muslim women from different countries, taught me that these bright women (who might not speak English) know exactly what is needed to move their culture to a better place. They can be the architects of development of their own countries. Here's a example from Build Palestine Initiative, a grassroots movement I have been helping design in Palestine since 2005 that takes into account the integral principles and processes and the importance of starting with the codes that are shaping the culture. In this article and video we show an example of the dangers we face when not designing for the culture, from costing our tax payers million of dollars to prolonging the effect of conflicts and not bearing results: here Palestinian women speak about the clash between USAID's idea of women's abstract empowerment and our Palestinian women's idea of practical and sustainable empowerment Click here for more...
• How can we coalesce the efforts of Gen Y leaders in the region while trying to support their efforts in changing their countries? Why should we help their governments and NGOs design a comprehensive plan to provide a 21st century education, 21st century jobs and encourage innovation. This is the kind of prideful endeavors that these young Muslim men and women are looking for.
  

In an ever increasing "Flat world" where more colliding value systems and mindsets are meeting at airports, in businesses and on the internet than ever before, and underlying clash of cultural memes and codes is rising every minute and everyday, not and epic clash of civilizations. My hope is that Secretary Clinton can widen her definition of 'Smart Power' to include the essential memetic elements that will define the new paradigm of our foreign policy.

Obama's first 100 days in the Muslim World

"United States of America is not at war with Islam" president Obama boldly declared in Ankara, Turkey and went on to visiting the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, one of the largest of its kind outside the Arab Peninsula.

The president's strategy to win the hearts and minds of the Muslim world is off to a good start.

Here's the Good Start:

In his inauguration speech the President stressed the use of"mutual respect," as a key phrase with a culture that has been feeling demonized for many internal and external reasons.

The first interview he gave to and an international TV network, was with Al-Arabiya a moderate network (dare I say pragmatic) that counteracts the sensationalism and inflammatory reporting of Al-Jazeera (however, al-jazeera produces excellent documentaries on the Muslim world). Obama's interview was well received, and promised to "not only promote an American Agenda, but also to help develop the region." Leaders and pundits in the Arab world praised him, but had a wait-and-see attitude. His Nawruz address to Iran was a good conversation starter with the Iranian people, especially the majority that opposes Ahmedinejad's reckless statements and governing style.

Realizing that Pakistan presents more of an explosive problem than Afghanistan, his administration along with the Japanese secured $ 5 Billion in commitments to Pakistan "to bolster the country's economy and help fight terror and Islamic radicalism" within the country.

Closing Guitmo, was not only an ethical decision based on the Geneva convention and that "the US does not torture," but also a winning strategy against Al-Qaeda's propaganda machine.

Here's where more complexity is needed:

His promise to pull out from Iraq in mid 2010 might be a clever message that might appease the fears of Iraqis and the Arab world, but is not a realistic strategy according to many generals in the Pentagon and in view of a weak Iraqi government and an escalating conflict between Iran and Israel. To most Iraqis this government is considered an American puppet and if history of Iraq tells anything, the power lords in Iraq will not rest until they are ruled by an iron fist. My hope is that any autocratic regime that will appear when the US leaves will be one that is more open to the West.

Sending 18 or 20 Thousand more troops to Afghanistan without systemically addressing the complex underlying problem, will never produce the intended results. The build up in troops must be equally and systemically accompanied by efforts to strengthen the government and security forces while building the culturally-fit institutional, educational and economic infrastructure. Short of doing that, we will repeat the same mistakes that the Carter administration committed in that country.

In their testimony on the Hill, four veterans who served in Afghanistan and managed to establish good relationships with the tribes, complained about the rotation issue of the soldiers. Army Reserve Staff Sgt. Genevieve Chase, who served as an intelligence soldier with the 10th Mountain Division in Afghanistan in 2006, said troops should be allowed to extend their tours, if requested.“In a culture where a man’s trust and respect is earned with time, loyalty and devotion to a cause, we rotate out units every six to 12 months,” she said.

The other major issue for that country is that the Afghan security forces' loyalty is to their tribes and clans not to an almost non-existing nation; which makes it harder for our troops to train them.

Obama's administration does not yet have a comprehensive plan on how to address the Swat Valley issue in Pakistan and now the spread of Taliban in the Punjab province - the most economically viable province in Pakistan with half of the Pakistani population living in it. I did not expect our president to find immidiate solutions to such a gynormic problem in the first 100 days of his presidency. However, I did expect to see a systemic framework that includes simultaneous strategies to help resolve this pressing challenge. (I will explain the difference between Systemic, strategic and tactical process in future blogs).