I write this while watching the announcements by Hillary Clinton of George Mitchell and Richard Holbrooke as special envoys for the US to, respectively, the Middle East and Pakistan and Afghanistan. A ‘dream team’ in terms of their combined experience, although Al Jazeera commentators are tonight sounding notes of caution about Clinton’s perceived Zionism. Nonetheless, it is refreshing is to hear a new language coming from the US State Department about peace, and the possibility for peace, and the vital need for intensive processes of diplomacy and development as critical to achieving these goals. The presence of President Obama and Vice President Biden at the event on the second day of the new administration emphasises the momentum and energy behind this new approach.
Without getting starry-eyed about US foreign policy, this marks at least a different articulation from the recent past. A new approach to policy based on diplomacy rather than military strength is consistent with the Open Doors scenario discussed in my recent blogs, and a move away from the more nationalist Flags scenario.
This new wind will hold a mirror to the rest of the world. Can South Africa bring a new and urgent focus to efforts for peace and development in Zimbabwe? Where is our Special Envoy to Harare? We need to be doing much more to address the humanitarian crisis on our northern border.
The inauguration of President Obama leads us to recall the day that Madiba was inaugurated as our first democratic President. The ANC government, in my view, still represents the best continuing hope for peace and development in South Africa. Nonetheless, the ANC needs to retain a sense of humility and humanity in these tasks. It was saddening for me to hear the response of ANC Secretary General Gwede Mantashe to the defection from the ANC of former President Mbeki’s mother to the new COPE political party. He described this as a “non-event”, saying that she had not campaigned for the ANC since the 1950s. The implication is that individuals are not important unless they have power, and that individuals leaving the ANC are of little concern to the party. This is unfortunate for a party that has always been grounded in the people of this country, and I hope does not represent a shift away from the idea that South Africa belongs to all the people who live in it.
Friday, January 23, 2009
Thursday, January 15, 2009
more scenarios, and working through the crunch
In contrast to the Open Doors approach, Shell also offers us the Flags scenario. This is probably the most gloomy prospect, and represents a retreat into nationalism, local community, tribalism and a backtracking on processes of globalisation. It is the opposite of an interconnected world.
And of course, there are examples around us of how this plays out. The conflict in the Middle East, and the particular conflict in Gaza at present, shows how the Flags scenario unfolds. The real tragedy is that the Israeli approach is likely to be counter-productive in the medium to long-term. As Jonathan Freedland has written, the danger of destroying the Hamas leadership is that more sinister forces arise in their place. This has happened before – the intensive and illegal bombing of Cambodia by the US in the 1970s (in an attempt to disrupt the Ho Chi Minh trail – along which weapons were transported into what was then South Vietnam) created fertile conditions for the rise to power of the genocidal Khmer Rouge. Of course, the Khmer Rouge posed no direct threat to the US, whereas Gaza is on the doorstep of Israel.
As Harold Macmilan (not Winston Churchill) once said, “jaw jaw is better than war war”. In South Africa, it is good to see that the Chief Rabbi Dr Warren Goldstein and Muslim Theologian Moulana Ebrahim Bham can sit together and debate Middle Eastern politics in a civilised way on Radio 702. We do not expect them to agree, but the fact that they are able to talk at least keeps alive the prospects for dialogue – this is more consistent with the Open Doors approach and should be welcomed. And, similarly, the talks held between French President Sarcozy and the Syrian President Assad also demonstrate the importance of dialogue, even when people may disagree or not be on the same side.
One of the most outstanding war poets was Wilfred Owen. He wrote many poems about the futility of war, and was killed, aged 25, 7 days before the end of the First World War, shot dead whilst arranging some duckboards at a river crossing. One of his poems Dulce et decorum est scoffs at the idea of finding glory in dying for one’s country. Here he reflects on the smallness of nationalism and imagines a better human purpose:
Oh, Death was never enemy of ours!
We laughed at him, we leagued with him, old chum.
No soldier's paid to kick against His powers.
We laughed, -knowing that better men would come,
And greater wars: when each proud fighter brags
He wars on Death, for lives; not men, for flags.
With looming elections in South Africa, we need to be mindful of the lessons for us. Arguing about flags and symbols leads nowhere. We need real civilised debates about issues, and the forward direction for our country. We have big problems to solve, and need to put aside arguments about party names and logos.
The present global economic climate is one that may not seem conducive to boosting foreign direct investment into South Africa and for stimulating expanding economic activity. But there are opportunities. The approach we take in Kessels & Smit (see our new website) is to support companies to focus on what works and those strengths and core competencies that already exist in the organisation, rather than trying to identify gaps and failings. By leveraging existing capacity, in an appreciative way, we are able to help create real value.
My Dutch colleague, Paul Keursten, puts it like this:
“The current crisis is caused by a search for financial gain without adding value: packaging bonds and loans into big bundles, cutting them into pieces again and selling them on does not add any value, it only creates margins that have to collapse at some point.. A stock market where investors are not shareholders but share speculators, eager to sell shares at a higher prices, where you can win money by gambling on shares going down, and where hedge funds are looking to buy companies to break them up and sell the pieces at a higher prices – this is no longer a useful market in which capital is invested and available for companies to grow and add real value, and where banks exist to provide access to finance and insurance, and to provide financial security.
At Kessels and Smit, we work on the basis what is already there, what is possible (in stead of what is lacking and what is not possible). In these times of limited resources companies need to mobilise what they have to make it and to build on it. They need all their strength and creativity to avoid downsizing or closing as their only option. Our approach is also means less out-of-pocket costs (we work with them and connect with their strengths, which is cheaper and quicker)”.
So we are looking forward to an exciting year, working with existing and new clients. Our work will include supporting personal growth of employees and teams, through coaching, mentoring, team building and creating feedback cultures. We will be supporting strategic processes, for companies, NGOs and government departments. And we will also be creating new partnerships with other organisations that leverage our complementary capacities.
And of course, there are examples around us of how this plays out. The conflict in the Middle East, and the particular conflict in Gaza at present, shows how the Flags scenario unfolds. The real tragedy is that the Israeli approach is likely to be counter-productive in the medium to long-term. As Jonathan Freedland has written, the danger of destroying the Hamas leadership is that more sinister forces arise in their place. This has happened before – the intensive and illegal bombing of Cambodia by the US in the 1970s (in an attempt to disrupt the Ho Chi Minh trail – along which weapons were transported into what was then South Vietnam) created fertile conditions for the rise to power of the genocidal Khmer Rouge. Of course, the Khmer Rouge posed no direct threat to the US, whereas Gaza is on the doorstep of Israel.
As Harold Macmilan (not Winston Churchill) once said, “jaw jaw is better than war war”. In South Africa, it is good to see that the Chief Rabbi Dr Warren Goldstein and Muslim Theologian Moulana Ebrahim Bham can sit together and debate Middle Eastern politics in a civilised way on Radio 702. We do not expect them to agree, but the fact that they are able to talk at least keeps alive the prospects for dialogue – this is more consistent with the Open Doors approach and should be welcomed. And, similarly, the talks held between French President Sarcozy and the Syrian President Assad also demonstrate the importance of dialogue, even when people may disagree or not be on the same side.
One of the most outstanding war poets was Wilfred Owen. He wrote many poems about the futility of war, and was killed, aged 25, 7 days before the end of the First World War, shot dead whilst arranging some duckboards at a river crossing. One of his poems Dulce et decorum est scoffs at the idea of finding glory in dying for one’s country. Here he reflects on the smallness of nationalism and imagines a better human purpose:
Oh, Death was never enemy of ours!
We laughed at him, we leagued with him, old chum.
No soldier's paid to kick against His powers.
We laughed, -knowing that better men would come,
And greater wars: when each proud fighter brags
He wars on Death, for lives; not men, for flags.
from The Next War, Wilfred Owen, 1893-1918
With looming elections in South Africa, we need to be mindful of the lessons for us. Arguing about flags and symbols leads nowhere. We need real civilised debates about issues, and the forward direction for our country. We have big problems to solve, and need to put aside arguments about party names and logos.
The present global economic climate is one that may not seem conducive to boosting foreign direct investment into South Africa and for stimulating expanding economic activity. But there are opportunities. The approach we take in Kessels & Smit (see our new website) is to support companies to focus on what works and those strengths and core competencies that already exist in the organisation, rather than trying to identify gaps and failings. By leveraging existing capacity, in an appreciative way, we are able to help create real value.
My Dutch colleague, Paul Keursten, puts it like this:
“The current crisis is caused by a search for financial gain without adding value: packaging bonds and loans into big bundles, cutting them into pieces again and selling them on does not add any value, it only creates margins that have to collapse at some point.. A stock market where investors are not shareholders but share speculators, eager to sell shares at a higher prices, where you can win money by gambling on shares going down, and where hedge funds are looking to buy companies to break them up and sell the pieces at a higher prices – this is no longer a useful market in which capital is invested and available for companies to grow and add real value, and where banks exist to provide access to finance and insurance, and to provide financial security.
At Kessels and Smit, we work on the basis what is already there, what is possible (in stead of what is lacking and what is not possible). In these times of limited resources companies need to mobilise what they have to make it and to build on it. They need all their strength and creativity to avoid downsizing or closing as their only option. Our approach is also means less out-of-pocket costs (we work with them and connect with their strengths, which is cheaper and quicker)”.
So we are looking forward to an exciting year, working with existing and new clients. Our work will include supporting personal growth of employees and teams, through coaching, mentoring, team building and creating feedback cultures. We will be supporting strategic processes, for companies, NGOs and government departments. And we will also be creating new partnerships with other organisations that leverage our complementary capacities.
Thursday, January 1, 2009
more on Open Doors
The appointment of Justice Edwin Cameron as a judge of the Constitutional Court is very much to be welcomed, and is also an example of an Open Doors approach (see my last blog). Justice Cameron is eminently qualified from a legal perspective, but is also an interesting choice because of his openness about his sexuality and his HIV status – he has been living openly with HIV for some years. This means that he brings an important human rights perspective to his new role, and strengthens confidence in the Constitutional Court as an institution that is able not only to defend the Constitution but also to articulate and stimulate our emerging human rights culture in South Africa.
Beyond the implications for our Constitution, his appointment is also an expression of tolerance and an embracing of diversity in public life that sends a wider message. How many judges, or other high public officials, around the world have ever been able to declare their HIV status, let alone done so in a country where this does not hold back their promotion. We should celebrate his appointment for what it means for South Africa at the start of 2009, and hope that the ANC government in the run up to and beyond the upcoming election can continue to promote diversity, openness and transparency in its governance of the country and its tolerance of differing and even opposing opinions.
Of course, the Open Doors scenario is about much more then political tolerance. It is the Shell scenario that appears to offer the best prospects for enhanced economic growth over the next 15 years. As such, it is useful to think about it as a template for democracy and development, whilst also engaging critically with the insights we gain from the Open Doors perspective in addressing South Africa’s challenges.
We tend to take for granted the idea that economic growth needs to be pursued almost at any cost. We know, from what happened with the power crisis last year, that a growing economy needs to be fuelled with oil, water and electricity, so we immediately need to think about how we create a sustainable growing economy – one that addresses both the demand and supply side of the economic equation. The Open Doors scenario is the one that places the greatest demand on oil reserves as rapid economic growth, particularly in the developing world, means that millions more people buy cars and seek middle class lifestyles.
In consequence, if we seek to create the open and accountable society envisaged in the Open Doors scenario, we need also to focus on issues of sustainability and think creatively about strategies to address energy needs. And the issue of poverty, and the associated consequences, risks falling from the agenda. I will share further thoughts in future posts. Meanwhile, a happy new year!
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