Better than Sex - Good Works

Having indirectly covered two subjects that you are not supposed to discuss at polite dinner parties, politics on April 6th and religion on March 16th, I had thought that it might be good to go for the big one - sex.  But something more important turned up last night.

Well, let's get the sex out of the way.  I was going to recommend a book: Esther Perel's Mating in Captivity: Sex, Lies, and Domestic Bliss, published by Hodder as a paperback in the UK but available in the US.  In barest summary, it is by far the most intelligent account of what is wrong with attitudes to sex in Anglo-Saxon culture and it should be read before you go into a long term relationship, within five years of the first kid coming and then, once again, when the last kid is becoming a teenager.  Above all, it oozes with positive energy but make sure that, if you read it, your partner reads it too or the point will be lost.  Sorry to be mysterious.  I would love to give you a short review but there is a more important story to be told.  I can come back to Perel some other day.

Last night, I was invited to the Karim Rida Said Foundation Dinner in London.  I know a couple of the Trustees but I generally get overwhelmed by the NGO and charitable circuit in London. A certain compassion-lag can set in.  Sometimes NGO people think that they can get away with sloppy thinking and incompetence just because they are 'doing good'.  This irritates not only me but others from a business background.  One of our own companies does what it can to support International Health Partners (UK) precisely because it is so well run and disciplined - http://www.ihpuk.org

But last night was an inspiration.  The Foundation arose from the reaction of two parents to the death of their son many years ago.  The Chairman is Wafic Said, a European-based businessman of Syrian origin, who has had his moments of controversy in the UK Press but, in my view, is a perfect example of how a business mind of undoubted intelligence can effectively contribute to the resolution of social issues through charitable works - and let me make it clear that neither I nor my businesses have knowingly taken one penny from this gentleman.

The charity can be viewed at http://www.krsf.org and the facts are there.  I am used to 'big men' from the Arab world employing charity to enhance reputation and I am aware of the role of 'zakat' (charitable giving) in Muslim culture - a tradition that often produces social welfare results closer to the European Social Democrat tradition than the free-booting charitable ways of North America.  But, listening to Wafic Said speak last night, I was convinced that I was observing something more strategic in play that might offer us Westerners a lesson in avoiding the utter silliness of a 'clash of cultures'.

The bulk of the charity's work is directed at support for disadvantaged children in the Middle East, but a scholars programme brings around 30 middle class post-graduates to the West for further education.  And this is where it gets interesting.  I met an environmental designer, a performance artist, a media and communications specialist and an IT consultant - all skill sets associated with the more advanced components of Western service culture.  This was not a set of mechanics and managers being set up to handle the outsourcing of Western industry while the West got on with the interesting bits of the global economy.  These students were at the cutting edge of key creative sectors.

Each of these students easily matched the abilities of any American or European counterpart and, frankly, they had levels of personal motivation far higher than those counterparts.  This 'will to do' is a phenomenon I have seen in South Asian students.  I think we can assume that Chinese students in the West are not much different.

Wafic Said, as he gave awards of seed corn money to the top three scholars of the year (one of whom, a woman, wore full Islamic dress), made the telling point that the Foundation wanted students to get involved in Western culture not in order to lose their own culture but to understand the West better and then take from it what might enhance the prosperity and self-respect of their own world.  It was a moment of revelation. These are only 30 or so students a year but there are other such Foundations and a whole new cadre of bright youngsters in the emerging world may be emerging.  It was once reckoned that a revolution can be effected if there are just 500 people with a common ideology prepared to make change happen.  

Such students are not the same as the rich kids who get an MBA from the West, live in London and Dubai, rely on Daddy's friends for contacts and just make the Western system work better.  Getting a woman or an Asian into the top job at some private equity house may seem like progress (certainly to the sad old '68 generation), but it is mere tokenism if the global balance of power remains as it is.  Instead, bright working and middle class young people should be learning new skill sets from the West and re-applying them to their own communities from within.  In short, after learning, they must go home and practice and not simply be employed pawns in the great game of international capitalism. If they get it right at home, then they can export their creativity but as principals and entrepreneurs and not as agents and managers.

This is what the Foundation appears to be encouraging.  Other aspects of the Foundation's work concentrate on practical help for the weakest in society and in raising awareness of social issues such as, say, child abuse.  This is the other side of the coin - social welfare and cohesion alongside wealth creation.  This is a balance that the West never seems to get right, lurching back and forth from the worst sort of military-industrial or socialist planning to a libertarian anarchy that leaves thousands scared, homeless, obese, sick and exhausted.

It would be sad if the wealthy founders of these and other projects were left alone to pursue their dreams.  They have set up the seed corn funds, often substantial, to fund a corner of a better society but their programmes still need other donors and the co-operation of Governments.  But does the West really want a stable Middle East?  If so, then it will stop prescribing universal solutions imposed from outside and it will certainly stop instant moralising about those private individuals who are trying to move things forward.  Above all, it will encourage reformers and philantropists from the emerging world to 'do it their way'. 

You can perhaps understand now why dinner last night seemed more important than sex. (well, on that Saturday night in London, anyway).  Good things were being done, unknown to much of the wider world.  It seemed the least that I could do would be to draw Zaadsters attention to a small bright star peeking through the fog that is the Middle East.