Has Our Civilisation The Capacity For Sustainable Progress? – 7th Annual FutureGov Summit

Bismillaahir rahmaanir rahim

Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakaatuh, Salam Sejahtera dan Salam 1Malaysia.

Distinguished Guests and Speakers,

Representatives of Government Departments and Agencies,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

A very good morning.

BEATING THE MAINSTREAM

Sabha (سبها‎ Sabhā) is a city in south western Libya with a population of 130,000. Zawiya (الزاوية‎), is a city in north western Libya, about 50 km (31 mi) west of Tripoli with a population of about 200,000 people. On the 17th of February 2011 the people of Libya raised a revolution. There was immediate internet blackout. No foreign media was allowed to cover the uprising in Zawiyah or Sabha or Misrata, yet the uprising was known to all globally.

2. Footages of clashes filtered out on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, with users across the globe following minute-by-minute accounts of the latest events. Websites inspired by uprising group “#Feb17” began the RNN Libya site where videos were uploaded. English website (17FebLibya) was also created for a wider global audience.

3. Through the RNN network and websites like “17FebLibya” the uprising posted their version of the uprising. Foreign media, CNN to AlJazeera, which has all the resources had to rely on this mom-pop set up for their coverage of what was going on in Libya in the early days of the uprising. It probably only cost RNN a few dollars to start up this site, but the impact on the brand of a government was monumental to say the least. I might be over dramatising, but the examples quoted are but mere illustrations of perceived reality or perception becoming reality.

4. Switch on your TV or surf the net today, one can’t help concluding that we are living in an exceptionally dangerous world. Unrest ravaging parts of the Middle East and North Africa, economic crises across many of the world’s most developed countries, typhoons and flood across South Asia, rising crime in the Americas. This said, Ted Gurr from University of Maryland and his team from the Centre for International Development and Conflict Management did a ground-breaking research on civil conflict and political violence and concluded the following – since mid 1980s the magnitude of global warfare has reduced by over 60%, falling to its lowest in 2004 since the late 1950s. We are probably living in the safest period of human history, they concluded. The mismatch between perception and reality has to do with our access to information; our real time news through the 24-7 Breaking News, our unlimited access to internet.

THE ACCESS TO FUTURE

5. In 2010 there were 5 billion cell phone subscriptions. This has today gone up to 5.8 billion subscribers on a planet of about 6.8 billion. Analysts at Wireless Intelligence predict six billion connections worldwide by the middle of 2012. “Even during an economic crisis, we have seen no drop in the demand for communications services,” said International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Secretary-General Dr. Hamadoun Toure.

6. Ben Wood, mobile phone analyst at CCS Insight said in a BBC World Report that the Asia-Pacific region including India and China is the main source of growth, accounting for 47% of global mobile connections at the end of June 2010. This device has become part of the fabric of society, whether a teenage girl taking a Blackberry to bed with her, or a farmer in an African village trying to find out the latest crop prices said the report.

7. With such mind bending speed of information travel in a world that has fast moved from being connected to hyper connected, the question no longer is, “Are we tech-ed up enough?” Rather the question is which information is relevant, what do we do with this cacophonous of information.
Ladies and Gentlemen,

THE CONSEQUENCES OF SUCCESS

8. In his latest book “That Used To Be Us” Thomas Friedman laments by helping destroy communism the USA helped two billion more people to live like it. It dramatically accelerated globalisation and did not realise it. What Americans were not prepared for with the end of one problem, i.e. communism, fall of Berlin wall and cold war, are the challenges of this new world order.

9. As barriers to economy and trade were lifted, jobs were moving out of America to other parts of the world which they did not do business with once. He wrote in economic terms this meant Americans had to run even faster, work harder just to stay in place. It is like winning a national competition year on year and then suddenly you are told the competition this year is no longer national, but it’s Olympics. Your stamina needs to be amplified, your game needs to change, your techniques needs to be different to win the race. The players are no longer the same. The environment doesn’t resemble the national championship anymore.

MORE GOVERNMENT WITH MORE GLOBALISATION

10. On a similar argument, Jeffrey D. Sachs of Columbia University, also the Special Adviser to United Nations Secretary-General wrote in his book titled the Price of Civilisation – economic globalisation has, produced some large benefits for the world, including the rapid spread of advanced technologies. Yet globalisation has also created major problems that need to be addressed. It has increased tax evasions, and tax havens. In developed high-income countries, workers who lack the education are competing with low-paid workers in developing countries.

11. Sachs wrote in a recent article on Al Jazeera and I quote, “..we need more government nowadays, not less. Yet the role of government also needs to be modernised, in line with the specific challenges posed by an interconnected world economy. The world’s most successful economies today are in Scandinavia. By using high taxes to finance a high level of government services, these countries have balanced high prosperity with social justice and environmental sustainability. This is the key to well-being in today’s globalised economy.” (end quote)

12. Market constituents must challenge the parameters by which markets and economies are run. We need to reflect the role and need of technology in our own spheres. What world are we living in? How can technology help us adjust to this new world? Which technology will strive towards balanced growth in our societies?

13. Whilst Europe is debating austerity measures, and America reflecting whether greater government stimulus is the fuel to reviving its economy, these continents are struggling to create new jobs and maintaining the existing ones. They are losing pace and competitiveness to new entrants, new parameters, and new players.

Ladies and Gentlemen

LOSING JOBS TO WHO?

14. Every job is facing the threat of replacement. The former education adviser of Prime Minister Tony Blair, Michael Barber is said to always share this story at the start of his lectures. When taking a walk up the nearby hills with a guest the day after his friend’s 50th birthday party, in Wales, he asks this guest what he did for a living. When the guest said he was a gravestone maker, Michael said, “It must be great to be in a line not affected by globalisation”. The guest replied, “What do you mean? If I didn’t buy my stone over the Internet from India, I’d be out of business” (end quote)

15. As the access to and usage of cell phones increase, the penetration of broadband deepens into rural areas, technology will soon be like electricity or clean water to us. We’d take it for granted. We wouldn’t even notice it is there. In this world, Joel Cawley of IBM says two things will differentiate countries, companies and individuals. One is their analytical abilities. One’s ability to analyse and apply the information for valuable outcomes in areas of healthcare, education, economy, foreign policy, security, warfare for instance. The other – the country’s fundamentals. Such as how strong is your governance, how good are your teachers, how solid is your healthcare plans, how sound is your economic and political principles.
Ladies and Gentlemen

ACCESS VS RESPONSIBILITY

16. India launched the world’s cheapest tablet computer last week which cost only $45. The tablet called “Akash” or “Sky” in Hindi will be distributed to students at select universities over the next few months. In a country where laptops cost $400 to $1,000, the launch of Akash is aimed at enabling the underprivileged young greater access to technology. But the launch of Akash has started the debate on the role of computers and quality of education on many news networks. Is a tablet like Akash, or even iPad, synonymous to a one-to-one teacher – student education access? Who moderates the quality and the content of delivery?

17. On a similar argument, there was a time when you would walk into call centres and see supervisors checking if the employees are sticking to a script when addressing customer complaints. But today we no longer need supervisors walking round a room. Computer programmes can track conversations and responses at a call centre. The greater challenge today, though, can our computerised call centres detect new issues that customers have and provide those solutions even before this non-traditional issues appear without human intervention.

18. General Martin Dempsey the Joint Chiefs of Staff returned from Afghanistan to Central Command and said we have empowered our soldiers to be effective in this new kind of battle. We have given them the capability and authority and responsibility to function, but we have not trained them to accept this responsibility wrote Thomas Friedman in his writings.

19. Dempsey also added 30 years ago we would have said we needed men who were fit, educated and discipline. Today we need them to belong to a value based group, able to communicate and are inquisitive and who have the instinct to collaborate.

LOSING THE HUMAN TOUCH ARE WE?

20. We no longer live in nation state monopolies. This much is fact. We live in a changing yet competitive knowledge based environment. Yet the question isn’t so much lack of access to this knowledge as much as do we know which component of the knowledge is meant to bring good for our society? The riots in London spread through messages sent through BlackBerry messenger literally at zero cost. Today we have key market constituents questioning if social media is being utilised for good use. And indeed does humanity the capacity to decipher which events are “good” and otherwise with the rate of progress of technology?

21. Many here would have watched the movie or read the book, “Up In The Air”. It tells the story of Ryan Bingham (George Clooney), who makes his living firing people in a traditional way. He meets them. Tells them their jobs are replaced by a machine, he hands them their pink slips and helps them through the ensuing emotional turmoil on being fired. The story has many facets to it but one revolves around Ryan meeting a twenty-something Natalie Keener, a fast-rising up-and-comer who wants to change the company’s practices and save millions by having the staff fire people remotely via webcams.

22. Ryan convinces his boss to let him take Natalie on a few trips so that she can learn what it’s really like to fire someone face to face. She soon finds out facing the emotions that comes with losing all that one has strived and struggled for over a life time is not as mechanical as she had presumed. She would soon quit her job. A computer programme, a Skype conversation, a Facebook message, a Twitter following cannot and will not make any pain that much simpler, especially of a loss.

23. One of the best lines in the movie is when Ryan speaks about his job at a workshop, I quote “How much does your life weigh? Imagine for a second that you’re carrying a backpack. I want you to pack it with all the stuff that you have in your life… you start with the little things. The shelves, the drawers, the knickknacks, then you start adding larger stuff. Clothes, tabletop appliances, lamps, your TV… Your couch, your car, your home… Now I want you to fill it with people. Start with casual acquaintances, friends of friends, folks around the office… and then the people you trust with your most intimate secrets. Your brothers, your sisters, your children, your parents and finally your husband, your wife, your boyfriend, your girlfriend. Make no mistake your relationships are the heaviest components in your life.”

24. In our age of modern civilisation when an artificial intelligence is said to be waiting in the wings to make our jobs redundant, we need to every so often take a step back from the clouds of progress and ask, “What world need we leave behind for our next generation?”

25. With such speed of progress in technology why are we still witnessing rallies in the heart of Wall Street seeking justice and protestors on the streets of Jerusalem carrying signs which read: “Walk Like an Egyptian” demanding for their standards of living to change? From mob like riots in London, to peace rallies in other parts of the world, the common theme mooted by these events is simply this – Has civilisation and progress truly brought prosperity? Has it enhanced moral values and ethics or have we done so at the expense of our civilisation?

26. I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate and thank the Organisers, Alphabet Media, for inviting me to speak today. My congratulation to the Organisers for bringing this Event to Putrajaya this year. I would like to welcome the representatives of 20 nations to Malaysia. If this is your first trip to Malaysia, please make time to visit the many sights and scenes we have here. And for the rest, do as you always do – – enjoy Malaysia. I hope your deliberations will bring forth sound outcomes. I would be keen to see these outcomes and understand how Malaysia can progress further as a result.
Ladies and Gentlemen,

27. Permit me to leave you with some of these thoughts today. Freidman wrote in his latest New York Times article this weekend, “ He (Steve Jobs) was someone who did not read the polls but changed the polls by giving people what he was certain they wanted and needed before they knew it; he was someone who was ready to pursue his vision in the face of long odds over multiple years; and, most of all, he was someone who earned the respect of his colleagues, not by going easy on them but by constantly pushing them out of their comfort zones and, in the process, inspiring ordinary people to do extraordinary things.” (end quote)

28. We can sometimes hear the voice of reason in the noise of news, like riots and rallies. But often the greater voice of reason is embedded in the silence of news, in the stillness of humanity. This silence is seen in the rising poverty, imbalances, inequity, new and rare diseases and desperation and despondence in many parts of our developed and urbanised worlds.

29. As we race towards progress, our civilisation must demand sense in the progress we deliver. We must demand to know the price humanity needs to pay in the name of progress. So that the person in Zawiyah knows why he/she is uploading the next brutality onto the mom-and-pop network site, a man with a family of 13 who loses his job to a robot can find peace when losing his source of income, a maker of gravestone knows why he needs to source for cheaper stones even for the dead.

30. Technology has shown us progress beyond the remits of our imagination. It has enabled us beyond the insights of our forefathers. But have we truly balanced this progress on steroid with the fundamentals of human values? These I hope you will challenge and deliberate in the next 2 days. I will leave you with the words of the greatest philosopher of the 18th-century, Immanuel Kant, from his work the Critique of Practical Reason to ponder. I quote, “Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the more often and steadily we reflect upon them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me. I do not seek or conjecture either of them as if they were veiled obscurities or extravagances beyond the horizon of my vision; I see them before me and connect them immediately with the consciousness of my existence”
I thank you for your patience.

Wabillahittaufik walhidayah
Wassalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakaatuh.