Our Last Best Chance [Book Review]

”Our Last Best Chance”, King Abdullah II’s new book, discusses that the two-state solution in its Arab Peace Initiative formulation should be pushed for during Obama’s current presidential term, urgently. This message is expressed in explicit and sharp terms in the preface to the book, but never fails to show up in virtually every chapter of the 27 that follow, even in the acknowledgment, although in different expressive forms.

The book takes of King Abdullah’s II life a chronologically ordered backbone, and the Arab-Israeli conflict a backdrop. The conflict is also depicted as the mother of all troubles in the Middle East and the Arab and Muslim worlds, with subsequent tremors felt in the West. Actually the book is a selective narration of the memories which pertain to this context, mostly. Although to be fair, I felt there was a higher level of conscious selection within this first one.

Each chapter is written in a way that aims to an arrival, from the side of the reader, at the logical conclusion that by settling this sensitive issue, which can only be achieved through a fair two states solution, extremists on both sides of the conflict equation will be culled, and the region will prosper like never seen before. Failing to do so, according to the King, will only mean dealing with diabolical consequences, the direst of which is an "inevitable" devastating regional war.

However, it does not go without some criticism from my side. First of all, and although the King seems to be extremely furious with the Israelis, accusing them of killing almost every precious chance of peace that came their way in the past few decades, he sounds a bit too apologetic on behalf of the Americans. I mean if a Martian who has no idea about Earth read the book, she will come to conclude that USA is Earth's ultimate superpower, but which is unfortunately plagued by a dysfunctional intelligence agency; USA is claimed to have been easily fooled by Israel during critical previous historical moments.

I am also expecting that the King will draw heavy criticism for his support of the American goals in the region; if not support, he at least seems not to mind them, even though he makes it clear that he is against the Iranian "expansionist policies" in the Arab world. I think King Abdullah's handling of this issue of the Arab states sovereignty (a main generator of vicious previous conflicts in the region) was not given considerable thought.

My third take on is the obvious lack of references, except in two separate instances. It is understandable that the book is not written for an academic audience, and that it is personal in essence and thus expected to have a subjective tone, but when one is intertwining his own memoirs with propounded interpretations of what seems to be one of the most highly pluralistic realities in the history of humanity, it is necessary that these claims be backed up if the book is to be taken seriously.

I will conclude this post with pointing out a factual error in the book by saying that the Late King Hussien's Jubilee school is the first coeducational boarding school for talented students in the Middle East - Not King’s Academy - unless King Abdullah II does not consider Abdoun and Shafa Badran to be part of the region.

The Leader Dilemma

There was a time in my life when I was obsessed with the subject of leadership; an interest that pushed me in the process to consume numerous and diversified accounts and treatise discussing the concept. This had its roots in a full year course I took during my high school. The course main materials were "Animal Farm", a novel, and "Chicken Run" the movie. The common denominator between the two was the depiction of leadership in times of revolutions.

I came to believe, in retrospect, that this classical approach to teaching the subject (i.e. presenting leadership in the context of revolutions) can be attributed to the accentuation of the leader role during such times, the ease of defining the process and the outcomes, and the short time scales, which in combination make such examples more tangible compared to, say, a company stewardship under a CEO for 15 years.

Nevertheless, with a bit of contemplating, one will most likely notice that there are fundamental differences between the characteristics we associate with leadership in the varying contexts (e.g. what is common between a leader of a revolution and another who leads an army?). Also, one might observe that leaders are not necessarily the best we can find around to fit the role. I think these two points were the main generators of my obsession.

And so, I set to collect and read every book I could lay my hands on that tackled the issue. The majority of the books I ended up reading are considered to be the staple references for MBA students (e.g. The Eight Habit, Good to Great, The Art of War,... etc).

But there was something unsettling about all of the theories propounded within the pages of these books. Now aside from the fact that they were rife with baseless platitudes and infested with wishful thinking, or worse, marred by normative approaches to the problem, the most unsatisfying thing was the elusive concept of Charisma, which, to my tasting, seemed to be conjured and interpreted differently, in an inconsistent manner from an author to another, for the sole purpose of concealing the shortcomings of their own theories.

Charisma, unlike entropy for instance (the most elusive concept in the history of physics thus far) does not seem to have a central logical form which can be consulted to resolve contentions resulting from its vagueness. So I gave up and thought that may be this was one subject which refuses to lend itself to theories and books.

However, my interests were recently revived upon a serendipitous landing on one of two separate findings that converged rapidly to give what I feel is a proper starting point in tackling the problem. Regardless of the story order, I decided to see what the anthropology of contemporary hunter gatherer societies (e.g. aboriginal Australians, and bushmen of Africa) has in store for us, and lo and behold! In these societies there are no leaders! What?

In such societies, it seems that anyone, even a kid, is entitled to participate in the process of decision making, but with more weight given to the opinions of the experienced in what is being at stack. What might come as a surprise is the system's stressing on the genuinity of the expertise regardless of any other factor (e.g. age or sex). This is to say that, while someones suggestions might be taken seriously when it comes to hunting rabbits, based on a long record of successful rabbits hunted, hers on warfare might be deemed irrelevant, with no personal offense taken on her side! These people, unlike us in the societies which are largely shielded from selection pressures, don't have the luxury of screwing up or acting irrationally, lest they be ousted from the next round of life at the jungle!

The other finding, which I read a bit about in an unrelated book, was the relationship between specific types of sociopathy and leadership in its vertical paradigms (e.g. the ones you find in our civilized societies). It seems that most of the leaders, who seek authoritative positions are sociopaths. Though they still find very little satisfaction in bonding with others, they think that humans make for good pawns in their grandeur designs.

All of this might lead one to conclude that leadership being delegated to a single powerful entity is an alien concept that humans might not be well equipped to rationally play its roles at both ends, the leader's and the followers'. But at the same time, a pressing question of whether the lack of a distinctive leading role can be imported to our civilized societies or not comes to mind. It might be correct that we need a form of leadership, but this does not necessarily mean that the types we came to adopt are optimal.

But it gets more exciting. The story of Adam and Eve is interpreted by many as a metaphorical documentation of mans' transition from a hunter gatherer style of life to a civilized one. Simultaneously, the Jewish Mythology, talks of a plot carried out by a narcissist and manipulative god called Yahweh, noting that these are two traits of the sociopath, who cunningly and deceptively aimed at overthrowing and stripping other gods of their ranks until he became the only deity around to be worshiped.

So could it be that humans were aware of these shifts from the very beginning?

#B4JO - Green Jordan

With all the turmoils going on around these days, whether on a regional level or a local one, I find it hard to write something positive even though I promised 5hadz last year to write something so about Jordan this time .

So I decided to shed some light on the concept of green architecture by posting a video. Actually, I believe that if the Nile was God's gift to Egypt for real, then passive solar design is definitely his gift to Jordan. By simply positioning the buildings in the right direction, and installing cheap shades, we can save up to 60% of our energy bills. It is that simple. No need for futuristic technologies or piles of money.

For the records, Aramram's green channel has a good collection of green related videos presented in a Jordanian context with a slick digestible style. You will be able to understand what they are talking about regardless of your background, as long as you understand Arabic, the Jordanian colloquial to be more accurate. I hope you enjoy Hina's presentation.

If You Don't Respect Me, Soon You Will Tremble Before Me!

As a "heretic" socialist/leftist who gives the middle finger to classical leftists (i.e. advocates of fake sophistication who perpetuate BS in guise of rigor) I am already aware of May 1968 revolution of the French youth. That was a series of students and wildcat strikes which lasted for about 18 days, challenging and, almost, toppling De Gaulle's government of the time. It stopped short of an ensuing civil war (does this remind you of anything that has been happening for the last three months in a stretch of arid land we call the MENA?).

This event to me was a mere black box, which I did not know much about other than the role it played in the evolution of socialism, and the emergence of new lefts. However, I was recently introduced to a very interesting aspect of this revolution revolving around the youth dissatisfaction with the norms and culture of the French society back then. Regardless of their political affiliations, they just did not want to comply with whatever the society and their parents expected of them, and found it hard to fit into the "pre-tailored" role a young person was supposed to play in that dull state.

They roared and the society took them light no more. 18 days were sufficient to initiate a shift from conservatism to liberalism (freedom and not the liberal ideology). Just another evidence that flies in the face of conventional wisdom. And you know what, we do not need such events to take place in order to understand that real changes in any society are abrupt in nature; they are too transient, the structures of societies, to be changed one step at a time.

Now, as is always the case with fake intellectuals, be those classical left or "celebrity and commercial" intellectuals, many books were written in the aftermath of the 1968 revolution in an attempt to theorize and provide explanations for what happened, something, I am afraid, is already being done to the Tunisian and Egyptian equivalents. Luckily, the French youth produced graffiti and posters during these 18 days which still resonate in our days preserving and capturing the essence of the revolution vividly. Here are the ones I liked the most (you can find many others here):

Meanwhile everyone wants to breathe and nobody can and many say, “We will breathe later.”And most of them don’t die because they are already dead.

We demand the right to contradict ourselves!

Run, comrade, the old world is behind you!

No replastering, the structure is rotten.

Don’t liberate me — I’ll take care of that.

Already ten days of happiness.