Two events in June -in London UK - dealt with national identity and Britishness in light of the beginning 21st century.

The United Kingdom with the rich and strong past as Commonwealth and recently as "Cool Britannia in Tony Blair Time always fascinated me as German too. I am working on a challenging Germany Special Issue for Integral Leadership Review. And the theme of national identity in the midst of global, regional and other shifts has always been relevant for me.

No galactic fantasies and/or global oneness mantras can adress it. The global space in Gaia is stratified. And the tectonic shifts need to be adressed very specifically. No magic formula will do it.

The more thrilled I am that in June 2009 2 events happened in London which refer to it in an excellent integral and evolutionary way.

Last weekend in London the SDi event "From rule Britannia to cool Britannia to Integral Britannia". Here is the comprehensive report from Keith Rice, British Center for Human Emergence:

Britishness at the Regents College Summit

The second event was at EnlightenNext London Center. A Meetup with the theme: Cynicism the British disease"

Chris Parish, the Director for the Center blogged these fascinating and insightful statements he opened up the event with:

Evolution, History, Culture and Me

My best wishes for my British friends from allover the world,

Albert

  The Economist is once again weighing the quality of German Poltical Leadership. This time in the person of chancellor Angela Merkel. These observations are basically true miss however the understanding of the German mystery itself.

Points 1 and 4 of Economist analysis refer to inside realties.

1.Cautious by temperament" isnt bad in the light of german history. However its bad perception in case of Angela Merkel. She has had a bold way to the corridors of power. And shown qualties pirates ususally have. She isnt just as emotional and extraverted as others. Protestant education seems to be barrier per se:) Maybe a look to US Wasps could give more clarity.

4. Mood of the country: Germany is build on consensus only for superficial observers. In fact deep conflict and tensions are to be found in deeper layers of consciousness. Old ideological contrasts as much as clashs between inner identities and outer roles.An unpleasant relationship to its own national identity.
And a collective memory culture to much in the shadow of Post WW 2 history.
Instead re-conecting the roots to great 250 years of postive change, progress and thriving in many areas.

3. The great coalition: Well, this constellation only mirrors some of the roadblocks towards innovative thinking and expanded and evolutionary. perspectives . The total potential of Germany Genius is splitted in the landscape of poltical groups. And even not really represented there. The group of people are have turned their back to politics is growing.

Unlike the Netherlands, Denmark or parts of the Nordic Region the connectivity between innovative networks and initiatives is underdeveloped. There is a great potential collective power in the country. A possible We space which can create eruptions and powerful shifts. However it needs a construction plan or a design.

This "masterplan" isnt the job of the Chancellor. Its the job for the creative elite and fresh perspectives for innovative, even globally oriented leadership in Germany.

Thats at the core of the German mystery. Thanks Economist for labeling the right word at the right time:):)
  
Germany's inscrutable chancellor

The mystery of Ms Merkel

Jun 25th 2009
From The Economist print edition


Europe’s canniest politician needs to be bolder about reform if she is to be seen as an historic chancellor

Reuters



SHE is the first female leader of Germany and the first since the war tohail from the east. She has had the job for three-and-a-half years andlooks likely to keep it after the federal election in September. Yet as Angela Merkel prepared to meet Barack Obama in Washington this week, acertain mystery still hung over her. Who is she and where might shetake her country?

Mrs Merkel’s character is best summed up by what she is not. Unlike other Europeanleaders, she is neither charismatic, nor flashily intellectual, nordomineering. Yet nobody could deny that she is a highly effectivepolitician. She has swatted aside all challengers inside her ChristianDemocratic Union (CDU), despite coming from outside the party’straditional base. She has grabbed any credit going for her “grandcoalition” with the Social Democratic Party (SPD), leaving her SPD rival for the chancellorship floundering. She won kudos for her presidencies of the European Union and the G8 club of rich countries in2007. Were she to express interest in the job of EU president that willbe created if the EU’s Lisbon treaty is ratified this autumn, it would be given to her on a plate.

Above all,Mrs Merkel has stayed popular—more consistently so than any chancellor since Konrad Adenauer. And she has accomplished this in the teeth ofGermany’s worst recession since the war. GDP shrank by 7% in the yearto the first quarter. Industrial production has fallen by over a fifth.Unemployment has been masked by job subsidies and make-work schemes,but it is likely to climb back above 4m next year. That Mrs Merkel isstill favourite to win re-election as chancellor, whether in anothergrand coalition or with the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP), is atribute to her political skill.


But is she a reformer?
The questionis not whether Mrs Merkel will keep power, but whether she is ready touse it. She has an unusual background for a CDU leader: daughter of aProtestant pastor, raised in communist East Germany, she was a physicist before turning to politics (see article).That ought to bode well in a party that is fonder of consensus than of radical change. She seems intellectually to accept the case for greater liberalisation, smaller government and freer markets. But she has shrunk from more substantial reform, for four reasons.

First, she is cautious by temperament. The opposite of France’s Nicolas Sarkozy, sheis more of a methodical scientist than a mercurial revolutionary. Those who once hoped that she might be a Thatcherite reformer, a Maggie fromMecklenburg, were always going to be disappointed. Moreover, her instinctive caution was reinforced by a second factor: her experience in the 2005 election campaign. When her then economic adviser started talking of big tax cuts and radical welfare reforms, her support dropped sharply—and even after she dumped him and tacked back to the centre, she almost lost.

That led to the third and most obvious reason why Mrs Merkel has been unable to be radical: her narrow victory forced her into a grand coalition. Such an alliance operates by the lowest common denominator. Mrs Merkel has held it together, but at the cost of putting off serious talk of most further reforms to the labour market, the welfare state, health-carefinancing and a hugely complex tax system. The only substantive measure her government has adopted is a rise in the retirement age. Her SPD partners have even managed to roll back some of the Agenda 2010 reforms they made when they were previously in coalition with the Greens in2003-04.

That also reflects a fourth explanation for Mrs Merkel’s lack of reformist zeal,which is the mood of her country. Germany is a place built onconsensus—in the workplace, in society and in politics. It is also successful. It is still (just) the world’s biggest exporter; thanks to impressive discipline over wages, its companies have regained competitiveness; and its public finances are in better shape than most.The angst of a decade ago, when it seemed that Germany might be the new sick man of Europe, has largely gone. Instead, the global economic crash is seen in Germany as something that came entirely from outside because of Anglo-Saxon free-market zealots—and that has not made Germans any keener on further liberalisation.

Yet all this betrays a dangerous complacency. Even if the economic crisis was not made in Germany, it has changed the world: Germany will suffer unlessit responds. The old reliance on manufacturing exports looks broken.Consumers, chary of spending, are hobbling domestic demand. Services,the backbone of all modern economies, are underdeveloped. Germany suffers from deeper weakness too. The demographic outlook is grim,threatening Germany’s public finances. Education, once the envy of theworld, is now mediocre—especially when it comes to universities, wherethe government is only just starting on reform (see article).

Admittedly,many other European countries have even bigger immediate problems thanGermany. But the truth is that all of Europe needs reform: to shiftaway from high taxes, generous and wasteful welfare states, and, mostof all, overly regulated and inflexible product and labour markets. If Mrs Merkel’s Germany were to lead the way, it would be not justEurope’s biggest economy but also its intellectual leader.


Smarter than Nicolas (let alone Silvio); but not Konrad
By that exalted measure, the CDU programme that Mrs Merkel will launch this weekend is likely to be disappointing. It will offer little more than promises of continuity, bolstered by the appeal of Mrs Merkel herself.That may be enough to win her re-election—Germans seem content withsomeone to reassure rather than inspire them. Yet Mrs Merkel ought tothink about why she wants to be chancellor at all. If she does not setout plans for health-care reform, for more liberalisation of labour andproduct markets, for privatisation and for tax and spending cuts, shewill have little chance of getting these through in office, whateverthe make-up of her coalition.

Mrs Merkel will go down in history as Germany’s first female leader—no mean feat.But if she wants to measure up to Adenauer or Helmut Kohl, she mustpersuade Germans of the case for change. And for that she needs to be far bolder.

This is a report from Jim Clifton, CEO of Gallup. Highly revealing and underscoring the importance of life conditions. Worldwide. Gallup did not speculate about these patterns but created a world poll. The big discovery Jim is describing isnt a surprise for me.

The whole poll is a big evidence for the truth of spiral insights into the global memetic patterns and how closely personal dreams reflect it.

Global Migration Patterns and Job Creation

 by Jim Clifton
Chairman and CEO of Gallup
More and more often, global leaders are asking us the same simple, yet colossal, question: "Does anyone know for sure what the world is thinking?"

There is a great deal of classic economic data that records an infinite amount of human transactions, from GDP to unemployment to birth and death rates, that indicate what man and woman are doing, but there is no ongoing, infinite, systematic account of what man and woman are thinking.


Global leaders are right to wonder. To know what the whole world is thinking -- not just what people in their own countries are thinking -- on almost all issues all the time would certainly make their jobs a lot easier at the very least. At most, knowing what the world is thinking would create newfound precision in world leadership. Leaders wouldn't make mistakes and miss opportunities because they misjudge the hearts and minds of their constituencies and the other 6 billion with whom those constituencies interact.

We think we have found a very good answer to that very good question. We created a new body of behavioral economic data for world leaders that represents the opinion of all 6 billion inhabitants, reported by country and almost all demographics and sociographics imaginable.

We call it the World Poll. We've committed to doing it for 100 years.

The World Poll

We knew going in it was a monumental challenge, but creating the World Poll was even harder than we thought. To start, Gallup scientists combed the best public opinion archives, academic institutions, the United Nations, the World Bank, the European Union archives, the State Department, everything and everywhere we thought we might find existing information of this type.

We couldn't find it. There was no world poll. So we made one.

We knew the whole project hung on the questionnaire. It needed to cover almost every issue in the world, be translated accurately into dozens of languages, and be meaningful in every culture. Even more difficult was engineering consistent sampling frames in more than 100 countries from Ecuador to Rwanda, Iran, Russia, Afghanistan, Ireland, Cuba, Lebanon, Kazakhstan, Venezuela, Honduras, China . . . You get the picture.

Having constructed the questionnaire, our team of experts found its next biggest challenge was choosing a methodology to ensure consistent data collection so the whole set is comparable. For instance, when we ask about life satisfaction, everyone from a Manhattan socialite to a Masai mother has to be asked the same question every time in the same way with the same meaning and in their own languages so the answers could be statistically comparable. If the meaning of the questions isn't identical from language to language, culture to culture, year to year, the data are useless.

Furthermore, we needed to create the first-ever reliable and consistent benchmarks so leaders can see the trends and patterns. So we benchmarked well-being, war and peace, law and order, hopes and dreams, healthcare, suffering and striving, personal economics, poverty, environmental issues, workplaces, and on and on.

We have now completed the design, engineering, and first year of global data collection. The first-ever world poll on almost everything is done.

Then our Gallup scientists, affiliated academics, and colleagues from around the world who helped us make the poll got busy. They counted and sorted and used every known statistical technique to analyze exactly what the world is thinking. The conclusions are complex. This may be the great understatement in Gallup's history, but it's true.

For instance, when you dig deeply into the hopes, fears, motivations, and satisfactions of 1 billion Muslims, the more you learn, the more you realize how little the world knows, how wrong people are, and how much more complicated Muslim attitudes and opinions are than conventional wisdom would lead us to believe. Western leaders tell us religion drives Muslims to war. But Muslim extremists tell the World Poll that their anger is not about religion, it's about politics.

It's the same with the 3 billion people who live on $2 a day or less -- the hungry half of the world's population. What they're thinking is very different from what most government agencies and NGOs understand and report. While we're rushing them food and medicine, most of them feel the only real solution is jobs.

Another example: One of the most important questions in the world is "What do Muslim women want?" Discovering what Muslim women want has been as big a surprise to us as anything we have ever seen. Muslim women want all the freedoms that their counterparts in the Western world have -- they want the right to vote, to have the same rights that men do, and to hold leadership positions in government. The big surprise is that most Muslim men think Muslim women should have these too. And because women are half of the population, it's difficult to win in the new world unless they, their hopes and dreams, and their talents are integrated into the leadership of every organization, economy, and government in the world.

And those are just three demographics. Christians, Jews, Buddhists, old people, young people, black people, white people, communists, capitalists, Easterners, Westerners . . . These data are overwhelming because, while they offer answers to many questions that could never be answered before, they make us intensely aware of how little we know about what is in the hearts and minds of 6 billion people.


The great global goal

Gallup is committed to conducting the World Poll for 100 years, but we may have already found the single most searing, clarifying, helpful, world-altering fact. If used appropriately, it may change how every leader runs his or her country. But at the very least, it needs to be considered in every policy, every law, and every social initiative. All leaders -- policy and law makers, presidents and prime ministers, parents, judges, priests, pastors, imams, teachers, managers, and CEOs -- need to consider it every day in everything they do.

What the whole world wants is a good job.


That is one of the single biggest discoveries Gallup has ever made.

read more..

SPIEGEL ONLINE describes a dilemma for the German Ministry on Foreign Relation and Governement. How to communicate with the Iranian regime? Similar tensions can certainly be spotted in all Europeans governments and the US adminstration or the one in Canada too.

Its revealing when either or dilemmata are emerging. Always the case as much and in so far the underlying dynamics are not understood. The tectonic vertical shifts in geopoltical orbits.

The Center for Human Emergence Middlle East is providing a crystal clear approach and action on the ground now for years. Elza Maalouf is Blogging about perspectives for Integral Poltics.

No package of interventions on level of governments can be sustainable as far as these dimensions are not understood. Governments are generaly fearfully when they do have to admit they know nothing or only a bit.

Yesterday Fareed Zakaria interviewed  EX CIA man Robert Baer. The man was honest and confessed nearly nothing is really known about Iran.

However we know the dynamics in mideast. Its high time to bring especially here integral perspectives into real field testing and solution sequences.

Heres to the SPIEGEL article:


Election Violence Upsets Berlin?s Stance on Iran



CARROT OR STICK?



Election Violence Upsets Berlin's Stance on Iran

By Ralf Beste

The German government is divided over how to react to the brutal suppression of protests by the regime in Tehran. Some officials want to continue with a dialogue-centered approach, while others are calling for tougher sanctions.


The German Foreign Ministry is a tightly run institution. The ministry's press office, known as "Department 013," monitors contacts between diplomats and the media. With its roughly 30 employees, the department is one of the largest units within the venerable organization. Its mission is to ensure that all communication to the public remains on message and reflects the views of the foreign minister.




Last week, however, the Foreign Ministry exhibited an unexpected range of opinions on the question of how Germany and the West should interact with Iran following its brutal suppression of the protest movement there. Initially, the German government's human rights commissioner, Günter Nooke, made a thinly veiled call for a coup in Iran. "Our policy is far too soft-footed," Nooke, a member of Angela Merkel's center-right Christian Democratic Union, wrote in an op-ed for the respected Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Germany should "openly encourage those who are calling for an end to the Islamic Republic," Nooke continued.

Two days later, a senior official from the Foreign Ministry voiced an opinion pointing in precisely the opposite direction. In remarks to the Berlin daily Tagesspiegel, Gernot Erler, a member of the center-left Social Democrats, warned against seeking conflict. On the contrary, he said, it would be a serious mistake to allow the crisis in Iran to jeopardize negotiations with Tehran over its controversial nuclear program. "There is no realistic alternative to continuing to negotiate with Iran and to convince it of the benefits of cooperative behavior," he said. Any other approach, according to Erler, would go against "our own security interests."

Cooperation or confrontation? It is a contradiction that has defined the foreign policy of Berlin's "grand coalition" government of the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats for almost four years, and now it is back on the agenda. China, Russia, Syria and even Cuba have served as theaters in the struggle to define the correct diplomatic approach to authoritarian regimes.

read more..

This is forewarded from Nancy Roof, Editor in Chief and founder of Kosmos Journal. I mentioned Kosmos Journal with highest appreciation here . For all who might be inteested and live near Lenox.

Part-time opportunity - Kosmos Journal


Hi Everyone,

We are looking for a part-time administrator for Kosmos Journal with the possibility of growth.
We are an integral journal that has published many articles by Don Beck, who is on our advisory board.

If you know of anyone who might be interested please pass this job description attachment along.

Warm regards to all,

Nancy Roof
Founding Editor, Kosmos Journal
PO Box 2102
Lenox, MA 01240
Www.kosmosjournal.org

Job Opportunity for a Special Person.doc

As new and old troublespots worldwide do not simply cease to exist, despite of all crisis management, mediation, meditation and diplomacy I found the analysis of US Colonel Fred Krawchuk enlightening.

Equipped with insights from Spiral Dynamics Integral and systemic understanding he has profound operational and analytical experiences and background. While strategy gurus like Thomas Barnett are focusing on strategic blueprints and patterns of connectivity, the COCOMS (Combatant Commands) need traction and effective action on the ground.

Its highly relevant in my eyes to bring together civilian and military thinking again. Anthropology and the ability of a country and transnational organizations to create results with a minimum of damage.

I appreciate the work of Colonel Krawchuk and wish it attention of German polticians too who are right now communicate the Afhganistan conflict in often confusing ways. Recently SPIEGEL ONLINE reported about Afghanistan and some voices of German soldiers here.

Not Calling Afghanistan a war is a Semantic Farce

Boulder Integral Info about Fred Krawchuk
 
Colonel Fred T. Krawchuk is a U.S. Army Special Forces officer with twenty one years of service currently assigned to General Petraeus’s staff as a member of the Multinational Force - Iraq.  He has led soldiers in a variety of assignments in the United States, Europe, Asia, Middle East and Latin America.  Colonel Krawchuk served as an Olmsted Scholar in Spain and as an Army Senior Fellow with the U.S. Department of State.  Fred is a General MacArthur Leadership Award Winner and graduate of the United States Military Academy, University of Navarra-IESE, and Harvard University.  He has also attended courses at Strozzi Institute, Integral Institute, Spirit Rock Mediation Center, and Esalen Institute.  Fred has served as a term member with the Council on Foreign Relations, the French American Foundation’s Young Leaders Program, and the Council for Emerging National Security Affairs.  Fred has published articles on the topics of terrorism, leadership, and strategic communication.   One of Fred’s passions is bringing together diverse voices in order to find common ground and align collective action to holistically address complex international relations issues with wisdom and compassion.

Collaborative Strategic
Planning and Action:
A New Approach
FRED T. KRAWCHUK

© 2008 Fred T. Krawchuk
The complexity of the contemporary US security environment demands
a new, comprehensive way of assessing and contending with the ongoing
challenges. The current method can be characterized as a symptomatic
rather than systemic approach. The present interagency and multinational
mechanism consists of reacting to immediate threats and opportunities,
dealing with the conditions of violent extremism, and responding to each
crisis as it arises. Such actions are often slow, isolated, and wholly inadequate.
Government planners and operators focus on immediate response to a
crisis without considering the long-term implications. Academicians and
members of think tanks focus on long-term solutions and potential policy
changes, withoutmeans of testing their proposals or getting the information
to those who would act on it. The private sector pays for forecasts and
data-mining to understand and profile the same areas of concern, yet military
planners do not benefit because they lack adequate access to academic
endeavors or private-sector reports.1
Combatant Commands (COCOMs) need to find methods of integrating
the agility and innovation of the private sector with the foundational
knowledge of academic efforts to meet the emergent needs of military commanders
and planners. With the proper kind of creative thinkers and pragmatic
project managers, COCOMs can forge helpful bonds with willing
partners, while leveraging the knowledge and experience of the private and
Summer 2008 67
public sectors. This integration of resources and expertise will help foment
and nurture the conditions for peace and stability in conflict-prone regions.

Integral Collaboration Teams
The military is taking important steps to close the knowledge gap between
academia and “boots on the ground.” Secretary of Defense Robert
Gates, in a speech to the Association of American Universities, said the military
is beginning to employ human terrain teams “with the assistance of anthropologists
and other experts to get a better sense of the cultures in which
they’re operating. The human terrain program—which also includes economists,
historians, and sociologists—is still in its infancy and has attendant
growing pains. But early results indicate that it is leading to alternative thinking.”
2 To bolster the success the human terrain teams are having at the tactical
level, academic and private-sector resources also need to be integrated at the
operational and strategic levels. The Integral Collaboration Team (ICT) concept
provides an inclusive framework that will incorporate human terrain
teams and other similar initiatives at the COCOMand national level, and connect
them to a broader community of interest.
Given the complexity of conflict-prone areas, ICTs will take a holistic
approach that addresses the social, political, and cultural landscapes; assess
situations in a predictive and anticipatory manner; find common ground; and
enable governments and the private sector to synergize their capacity for planning,
leverage resources, implement thoughtful action, and assess results. The
most critical need, and perhaps the key to all other adaptive change in response
to complex threats and opportunities, is establishing a multidisciplinary and
strategic “think-act-reflect” capability at the COCOM-level. This capability
will employ innovative training, research, monitoring, planning, and assessment
support for developing systems approaches to wicked

Read more...

David Brooks once again offers a thoughtful analysis regarding change. This time for Iran.While a clear definition of whats a core of change isnt possible in the sense of rocket science the artful and effective montage of big dynamic rubic cubes (certainly with at least several dozens elements ) is in demand.

(I was tempted first to comment some of Lexi Neales lengthy piece at kenwilber.com about Introducing the AQAL Cube.

However this piece is highly intellectual and once again fishing with the tier terminology from 1-3. This is problematic as I have explained elsewhere. And the 8 perspectives/zones in Wilbers work. In a very loooong timeline certain trajectories of change may be determined this way. Will be happy following Neales game he is working on.)

Nobody can look into the crystal ball. I remember exactly the year 1989 when very, very, few people -from all professions-sensed what would happen in October and November in Germany and Europe.


So a heightened attention is necessary with cultural, poltical moves as much as from citizen power. For me its not about some  miracle power but focusing as precisley- just in time - and determined all action. Considering the emerging memetic patterns in Middle East as Elza Maalouf described here

Fragile at the Core



By DAVID BROOKS
Most of the time, foreign relations are kind of boring — negotiations, communiqués, soporific speeches. But then there are moments of radical discontinuity—1789, 1917, 1989—when the very logic of history flips.

At these moments — like the one in Iran right now — change is not generated incrementally from the top. Instead, power is radically dispersed. The real action is out on the streets. The future course of events is maximally uncertain.

The fate of nations is determined by glances and chance encounters: by the looks policemen give one another as a protesting crowd approaches down a boulevard; by the presence of a spontaneous leader who sets off a chant or a song and with it an emotional contagion; by a captain who either decides to kill his countrymen or not; by a shy woman who emerges from a throng to throw herself on the thugs who are pummeling a kid prone on the sidewalk.

The most important changes happen invisibly inside peoples’ heads. A nation that had seemed apathetic suddenly mobilizes. People lost in private life suddenly feel their public dignity has been grievously insulted. Webs of authority that had gone unquestioned instantly dissolve, or do not. New social customs spontaneously emerge, like the citizens of Tehran shouting hauntingly from their rooftops at night. Small gestures unify a crowd and symbolize a different future, like the moment when Mir Hussein Moussavi held hands with his wife in public.

At moments like these, policy makers and advisors in the United States government almost always retreat to passivity and caution. Part of this is pure prudence. When you don’t know what’s happening, it’s sensible to do as little as possible because anything you do might cause more harm than good.

Part of it is professional mind-set. Foreign policy experts are trained in the art of analysis, extrapolation and linear thinking. They simply have no tools to analyze moments that are non-linear, paradigm-shifting and involve radical shifts in consciousness. As a result, they almost invariably underestimate how rapid change might be and how quickly it might come. As Michael McFaul, a democracy expert who serves on the National Security Council, once wrote: “In retrospect, all revolutions seem inevitable. Beforehand, all revolutions seem impossible.”

read more..

As I am engaging now in the 5th year with Mideast (triggered by a professional project in UAE) and training my perception for development and systemic growth for large scale systems change) I found- once again- that the voice of the CEO of Center for Human Emergence in Mideast, Elza Maalouf is the most powerful and clarifying one.  As Elza was born herself in Lebanon and grew up there.

Seen from Europe I appreciate her straight talk about this Mega Challenge for Integral Poltics in Mideast. its in fact an integral flagship project for me. And with the same intensity I am pursuing the opportunties for European Integration and growth -with developmental lenses -I applaude her master analysis for Mideast.

Nothing better in the planetary media spheres exists. This is what I am convinced about. In a very down to earth attitude. Thats what integral poltics for and in Mideast should be about:

I am mirroring directly her recent blog entry:

Emerging Patterns in the Middle East: Lebanon and Iran's Thirty Year Itch

Elza S. Maalouf

On March 14th, 2005, one Million Lebanese gathered in Martyr Square ,the symbol of Lebanon's 1943 Independence from France, protesting against the presence of Syrian forces in Lebanon. The Cedar Revolution ended the 30 year Syrian occupation of Lebanon. In 1975/76 Syrian Forces entered Lebanon as peacekeeping forces to protect the Christians, and to squelch the Palestinian dominance in Beirut. Two years later, the Syrian managed to reignite the sectarian civil war siding with the Palestinians when it served their regional interests and dominance and bombing them when they felt the PLO was out of control. The one Million Lebanese of March 14th Movement as it was called later, were not only rejecting the Syrian occupation of their country, but also a dire financial situation and one of the highest levels of corruption in the world orchestrated by Lebanese pro-Syrian power lords and their masters in Damascus.

In Iran, one Million Iranians gathered this week in Freedom Square in Tehran protesting the 'sham' elections and demanding their voices be heard. "Tehran Rising" is happening 30 years after Ayatollah Khumeini led the Islamic revolution along with young intelligent young Iranians, establishing the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979. Mir Ali Mousavi had a role to play in the revolution, and a bloody one I might add. His supporters, more so then Mousavi himself, are not fighting the principles of the revolution, they are fighting the collapsing economy in Iran, corruption and incompetency.

As I looked, through my developmental lenses, at both events and the cultures that produced them, the patterns of emergence that are unique to that part of the world in the 21st century were becoming clear. Beirut, Tehran, Baghdad, Kabul, and Cairo were some of the most progressive capital cities in the region at the dawn of the 2oth Century. Those cities were compared to Paris in culture, modernity and uniqueness. However, such notions of freedom and progress were almost exclusive to the capital cities, and rarely spread to the rest of the country. Inhabitants of these capitals had access to Western education and progressive schools of thought while their compatriots lagged behind in the darkness of tribal norms and feudal dominance. A split cultural personality we may say. That tension between modernity centered in the capitals, and a strong hold for tribalism, poverty and illiteracy in the rest of the country created a large gap that eventually ended up being the primary cause of each culture's downshift.

In Clare W. Graves' "Emergent Cyclic Double-Helix Model of Adult Biopsychosocial Systems" theory that forms the basis to Spiral Dynamics, the Double Helix gives us the key to evolution in cultures; as life conditions change, biopsychosocial systems within people and cultures have the potential to change to find solutions to their existential problems. Naturally, when people find solutions to their problems they create new ones, a process Graves elegantly called "the never ending quest."

Let's explore the particular case study of Lebanon and Iran.

Read more...

His Royal Highness Prince Hassan Bin Talal about a new global Mega Project:

"More than 40 years ago the Apollo Space Program was launched to fulfill the old dream of taking man into outer space. Today, we have a bigger dream, to restore balance between man and his home planet, Earth. With the political will, EUMENA countries could now launch an Apollo-like “EUMENA-DESERTEC” Program, to bring humankind back into balance with its environment, by putting deserts and technology into service for energy, water and climate security. This would be an important step towards creating a truly sustainable civilization."

Summary of the Desertec Concept up to 2050

About intention of desertec.org:


We want to act as “awareness raiser”, “catalyst” and “barrier remover” to pave the way for DESERTEC developments. One of the most useful things we can do is to work with national governments and political bodies like the EU and similar bodies all over the world, to create the right framework of laws and regulations, and to ensure that there is a good framework of incentives for DESERTEC developments.

Since the DESERTEC Concept can serve as key part of any scenario for sustainable development in a world with 10 billion people, it will be of interest to a wide range of stakeholders. An important function of the DESERTEC Foundation will be to serve as a think tank and forum for the exchange of ideas and for discussion of relevant issues.

Marhaba Africa!

CNN trailer about the vision of Dr. Gerhard Knies and the science network TREC who developed the DESERTEC Concept for energy, climate and human security.



www.desertec.org

As there were elections in Iran some days ago the Gulf Region in mideast is again in the media spotlights of the West. This portal gives some helpful basic info. Some interesting distinctions start already when its about the description of the Gulf. The GCC countries call it Arab Gulf while from Iran its called the Persian Gulf.







Check it out:

Change, Communication and Cooperation in the Persian/Arab Gulf


This site was developed by the Gulf/2000 Project at the School of International and Public Affairs of Columbia University in New York City. It is designed to make available in a single location a wealth of information on the eight countries of the Persian Gulf region--Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Click on a flag above to visit one of these countries. The Persian Gulf sits on top of the greatest pool of oil reserves in the world. Over the past few decades, it has been the site of two major wars, an Islamic revolution, and political and economic developments that have affected every country in the world. It is also the home of more than 118 million people, whose cultures extend back to the origins of recorded history.

Nevertheless, for most non-specialists the Gulf remains a mysterious and even forbidding part of the world. This site hopes to remove some of the mystery. With a few clicks of your mouse, you can visit any of these countries, read their local newspapers, check the latest news from the region, and find information about every aspect of their history, geography, politics, economics, military forces and much more.

We have identified what we believe are the most informative and reliable sources of information about the Persian Gulf. We cannot guarantee the accuracy of every item of information that you may find in the many sources collected here, but we have made it as easy as possible to cross-check facts between data collections located throughout the world.

To learn more about the Gulf/2000 Project click here.