Alternatively, a pattern of clashes between civilizations can well become the norm if relations between them are left to drift by inertia on a collision course without a serious attempt in the present to open up proper channels of communication and dialogue.
Some Basic Remarks about Values of Progress.
(A)

Towards the end of 2000, the American University in Cairo invited me to speak on the nature of the educational reforms I wanted to see introduced in Egypt. In my lecture, which I delivered in the university's Greek Campus, I spoke extensively about the difference between a 'qualitative' change in an educational system and a 'quantitative' change. I said we had paid scant attention to the former because our educational philosophy continues to be based on the rote system and memory tests rather than on promoting creativity and dialogue [as opposed to monologue]. Education is not seen as an interactive process, but as a one-way street in which the teacher is a 'transmitter' of knowledge and the student a passive 'receiver' of that knowledge.

In the first quarter of 2001, I was invited by Princeton and Colombia universities on the East Coast of the US and the University of California at Berkeley on the West Coast, to deliver a series of lectures to postgraduate students in Middle Eastern studies. In my lectures, I stressed the need for an educational revolution in the region if we want a scenario of peace (real peace based on international legitimacy and the principles of international law) and comprehensive development (economic, cultural, and social) to prevail. For all its complexity, such a revolution would be based essentially on a simple philosophy of instilling in students a set of values that I call 'values of progress'.

Since August 2001, I have devoted much of my time to developing this idea further. In a way, my interest in promoting the notion of values of progress provided an outlet for the frustration I felt at the way public debate in our society tends to degenerate into private squabbles. Any topic can spark off a furious controversy: Mohamed Ali, Taha Hussein, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Anwar Sadat, secularism, enlightenment, modernity, globalization or peace in the Middle East are equally divisive, splitting people across seemingly unbridgeable ideological chasms and entrenching them still further in their respective closed systems. The rules of rational and objective debate are spurned in favour of a dialogue of the deaf, in which the protagonists engage in mutual recriminations and insults, heaping abuse and accusations against one another.

When I began looking for a subject that would not polarize society, or at least polarize it less sharply than has been the case with most topics, the only one that seemed to fit the bill was the notion of values of progress that I had touched upon earlier in several articles and lectures. Not a subject that can split society into opposing camps - Islamists versus non-Islamists, socialists versus capitalists - it is to a large extent non-ideological and, as such, lends itself to an objective and neutral debate that need not descend into the usual pattern of dogmatic intransigence.

Perhaps this was wishful thinking on my part, a scenario that is closer to fantasy than to reality. But rigid patterns can only be broken by those who have the capacity to dream and the gift of imagination. With this in mind, some schools of modern management require senior managers to exhibit two concomitant characteristics which at first glance may seem contradictory: power of imagination on the one hand and a sense of reality on the other. In actual fact, however, these characteristics are not mutually exclusive and are often present at one and the same time in ordinary people. It is these individuals who make successful senior managers. I hope my dream that intellectuals and public opinion in Egypt today can deal with the subject of values of progress in a manner free of factionalism and preconception will see the light day. I hope it strikes the proper balance between power of imagination and a sense of reality, otherwise it will be nothing more than an exercise in escapism, a mirage to which I turned out of a deep sense of despair at the inhospitable climate for any reasoned and objective debate in our society today, where name-calling and stone-throwing have replaced logical argumentation.

(B)

An essay entitled The Values of Progress must at the outset address a problematic that no intellectual can afford to ignore, namely, will democracy lead to the spread of the values of progress as defined in this essay, or can these values, even in an environment with a modest margin of democracy, create a general climate that could gradually expand this margin and transform it into full-fledged democracy? I asked myself whether it was possible to come forward with an essay entitled The Values of Progress when some could justifiably question the feasibility of disseminating such values in the context of a margin of democracy that may be growing but is still extremely narrow. These concerns nearly made me discard the manuscript of this essay and place it in the file of other writings whose publication is indefinitely postponed. This file is more voluminous than the file of my published works, although the latter comprises thousands of pages. But I decided to push ahead with publication when, purely by chance, I came across a number of studies on the experiences of ten countries in Southeast Asia and Latin America. Although as recently as ten years ago, these countries had not made their economic breakthrough, did not enjoy democracy and had not adopted the values of progress, in the last decade they have become relatively rich in all three elements.

Like many others, I was familiar with the amazing progress achieved by all ten countries in a relatively short period, but finding these in-depth studies explaining the process was a timely eye-opener. According to the studies, while certain societies had made their breakthroughs in the context of open democracy, which served as the framework in which their economic, scientific, educational, cultural and social development unfolded, others, like the case models addressed by the study, had made theirs in a different context. Instead of a slow and gradual development achieved over centuries, as was the case of Europe, the countries of Southeast Asia and Latin America took a short cut to development, making their great leap forward on the backs of two engines. The first was a human cadre of executive leaders who both embodied the values of progress and imposed them on society at large. The second was a radical reform of the educational system and the establishment of a new system based on the values of progress. The first engine served the requirements of development in the short and medium terms, the second in the long term. This two-pronged approach, based on leadership, example and creative education, laid the groundwork for the spread of the values of progress and created a general climate conducive to a dynamic and fruitful social mobility, leading to the emergence of a broad-based middle class standing on a solid cultural and economic foundation.
Parallel with this was a determined effort by the thriving countries of Southeast Asia and Latin America to expand the margin of democracy. Their experience stands as an eloquent rebuttal of the argument that democracy takes centuries to develop and that some countries are simply not equipped to live by the rules of real and open democracy. This argument can only be accepted by the advocates – and beneficiaries – of oppression. Those who believe in democracy as the greatest achievement of humanity must constantly strive to find formulas by which it can be established within the shortest possible time frame, while at the same time laying down frameworks and mechanisms to ensure that the democratic process is not abused by the enemies of democracy and used as a means of acquiring, and hanging indefinitely on to, power. The successful experiments of the ten countries in Southeast Asia and Latin America prove that we must not allow ourselves to be discouraged from planting the values of progress in our soil under the pretext that it is not ready to receive them.

Finally, despite its title, this essay does not purport to cover all the values of progress but only those the author believes to be the most important among them. The list is far from exhaustive, and others may wish to add values they consider have been overlooked. In the final analysis, the purpose of the essay is to open a debate around the values that can bring about development and progress, not to claim that it is the ultimate authority on what those values are.

The Most Important Values of Progress

(1) Time.

An issue that has sparked an animated debate in our part of the world is the discrepancy between the value attached to time by citizens of advanced societies and its value for our citizens. Commentators offer different explanations for the phenomenon, the majority attributing the importance of time in advanced societies to the higher levels of discipline and organization displayed by the citizens of those societies. But this superficial view only skims the surface of a much deeper problem. The more discerning and insightful commentators realize that the issue is symptomatic of a more complex problem in which discipline, organization and punctuality are but manifestations of a profound difference in understanding, evaluating and appreciating time itself. In the more advanced societies, time is the framework in which plans are made and executed, projects are designed and launched – in fact, it is the framework for everything: ideas, projects, plans, programmes and reform movements as well as for economic, scientific, educational, cultural and social development. Anyone who is not aware of the value of the framework is necessarily unaware of the value of anything which that framework can encompass

Strangely enough, there is a widespread belief in our society that venerating time, meeting deadlines and showing up for meetings at the appointed time is a question of temperament, an innate quality that one is either born with or not. This is a totally erroneous assumption. A well developed sense that time must be respected, appointments punctiliously observed and deadlines met, that all ideas, projects, plans and programmes must be set within specific time-frames and that a cavalier attitude towards time and appointments detracts from a person's credibility, authority and, ultimately, his effectiveness, has nothing to do with temperament. It is not an individual's genetic makeup that determines his attitude to time, but the general cultural climate prevailing in the society to which he belongs.

Unfortunately, promptness and punctuality are regarded in our society as idiosyncrasies displayed by an eccentric few who just happened to be born with a natural disposition to stick to schedules, in contradistinction to the laid-back attitude displayed by the vast majority of their fellow countrymen.

And here we come to the crux of the matter. The measure of any society's development and progress does not lie in the wealth of which it disposes or the natural resources that it harbours but in the value system to which its citizens subscribe, the mores by which the entire community, from the base to the summit, are governed. The most important of these values are a respect for time, a strong work ethic, a belief in the effectiveness of teamwork, an emphasis on developing human resources, the adoption of an educational system based on promoting initiative and creativity rather than on teaching by rote, fostering a spirit of perseverance and encouraging people to strive for excellence, instilling the notion of universality of knowledge in young minds, and, finally, promoting a spirit of healthy competition from the very start of the educational process.

Once this value system is in place, progress can be made. In its absence, or in the context of a value system that runs counter to these basic principles, a society is doomed to remain locked in backwardness. Rather than admit their own responsibility for the rut in which they find themselves, these societies tend to attribute their inability to move forward either to factors beyond their control, such as a lack of resources, or to external factors, such as a conspiracy hatched against them by foreign interests. Such self-delusion only serves to reinforce the negative features of their society, for it is only by admitting to themselves that what holds them back is their own crippling inertia, their own lack of drive, that they can hope to break the vicious cycle of backwardness.

Venerating time and placing all human, institutional and social activities within its framework is not simply a personal idiosyncrasy or an innate virtue enjoyed by some and not others; it is what distinguishes between two value systems: one that responds to the requirements of the age and another that derives either from the antiquated cultural traditions of a primitive agricultural society or from a Bedouin culture. Students of the development of values in general and the values of progress in particular know that time did not acquire its high value, its status as the dividing line between progress and underdevelopment, until the advent of the Industrial Revolution. It was this watershed event which imposed a new understanding and appreciation of the importance and value of time and the need to observe it rigorously. Nowhere is the respect for time more graphically illustrated than in Switzerland, where trains run on schedules measured not in hours, or even minutes, but in seconds, in what is surely the highest possible expression of industrial values and the values of a service society. The Information Revolution and the requirements of the age of technology have further enhanced the value of time, which has come to be venerated with an almost religious fervour by those who believe it is the key to progress.

The value system of any society can be enriched with progressive values inculcated in the collective conscience by examples set by those at the summit of the societal pyramid. Conversely, if those expected to set an example fail to uphold the required values, including a respect for time, then it is virtually impossible for those at the base of the pyramid to take on such values as part of their cultural baggage. The influence of the upper echelons of society on the behavioural patterns of that society is recognized by the folk wisdom of all cultures. It is a theme that appears in several Arabic proverbs, such as "people follow the religion of their king", "a fish begins to putrefy at its head", "it is the shepherd who guides the flock", and many more. In other words, if the values conducive to progress, including, of course, a well-developed sense of time, are not promoted by those holding positions of authority, such as senior public officials, cabinet ministers and economic and business leaders, they will never become part of the reference system of society. These values can only be disseminated from the top of the societal pyramid to its base and not the other way round, as those at the base have neither the clout nor the channels through which to impose their values as examples to be followed by society at large.

In the decade during which I served as CEO of one of the largest economic corporations in the world, with thousands of highly qualified employees drawn from some twenty countries working under my direction, I was able to ascertain at first hand the existence of a direct link between high levels of performance and a strict observance of time, an almost mystical belief in the importance of punctuality and of completing work assignments within the designated time-frame. Nor did this apply only to staff members. It was also true of the thousands of high-ranking political and economic personalities I met by virtue of my office: the more punctilious they were about keeping appointments and adhering strictly to schedule, the higher their level of competence and performance – and the more intolerant they were of those who did not attach the same high priority to the time factor.

The nature of my job, which entailed doing business with people from different cultural backgrounds, made me realize that the whole concept of time varied from one culture to another. There were occasions, for example, when I had to terminate a contract for hundreds of millions of dollars because the other party had defaulted on its obligation to complete execution within an agreed deadline. If the defaulting party happened to be from the Third World, the decision would be derisively dismissed as an over-reaction to a trivial matter, and accepted with resignation, if not good grace, when the other party happened to be from the West or from Southeast Asia, where termination is seen as the only possible response to a failure to meet agreed deadlines.

The different reactions to the example I have chosen to give reflect the very different appreciations of time between one culture and another. For Third World societies, time is of such little value that taking a person to task for being late for an appointment or penalizing a contractor for failing to deliver works by an agreed date is regarded with genuine surprise. In fact, being late has become a symbol of personal worth, a validation of one's importance in the scheme of things. After all, important people are so busy that they are entitled to be late, and whoever is lucky enough to be granted a slice of their valuable time must understand that waiting is par for the course. This phenomenon is turned on its head in advanced societies, where people running huge enterprises with budgets greater than the combined economies of all the Arab countries pride themselves on never being late for an appointment or running over schedule. In fact, they consider themselves in a constant race against time, often striving not only to meet agreed deadlines, but to beat them.

I have learnt from experience that a lack of respect for time, whether it takes the form of showing up late for appointments or not completing assignments and projects within the agreed time-frames, condemns the individual, company or institution displaying this aberrant form of behaviour to failure, not only in the sphere of business but in all aspects of life. Any exception or willingness to condone exceptions is seen as running counter to science, progress and the movement of history in advanced societies. There is a big difference between punctuality motivated by fear, which is sometimes the case in Third World countries, and punctuality as a way of life, the natural expression of an ingrained sense of the importance of time and a recognition that unless schedules are rigorously observed and time-frames respected, there can be no progress, which is the case in advanced societies.

In Third World countries, members of parliament are invariably late for meetings of the legislative assembly, which are usually chaotic affairs with members chatting among themselves, talking on their cell phones, using the time to catch up on their private businesses or engaging in side conversations with officials. However, when they are invited to a meeting attended by the head of state, these same parliamentarians show up well ahead of time, sit quietly in their seats and refrain from engaging in side conversations. Such uncharacteristic punctuality and discipline are not motivated by a respect for time as such or by a sense of occasion, but by entirely different considerations that will not be lost on the reader. The problem is that obsequiousness and fear cannot drive the wheel of progress and development forward.

A main reason for the lack of respect in Third World societies for the value of time, the failure to recognize its importance as one of the cornerstones of civilized behaviour and progress, is the emergence of a new moneyed class in many of these societies. The members of this new class are for the most part poorly educated and largely uncultured, having built up their fortunes through political patronage and cronyism rather than by virtue of any special business, economic or scientific skills.

As their numbers grew and their political and economic clout increased, they became social trend-setters, a new source for the dissemination of negative values in society, including a lack of respect for time. The notion that time is one of the principal values of civilization and progress is totally lost on the members of this new parasitical class, who acquired unimaginable wealth suddenly and in the complete absence of any cultural background. Moreover, the often dubious way they made their fortunes hardly qualifies them to serve as examples to be followed or role models to be emulated. How can we ask our young people to follow the example of the leaders of economic life in the country, the so-called businessmen, when they are the living embodiment of negative values in general and a disdain for time in particular? There is also the fact that in a number of Third World countries the class of businessmen and new rich has been infiltrated by the Mafia – how then can we expect them to serve as examples or to uphold positive values, including a respect for time? I have dealt closely with many of those who pass themselves off as business leaders in our society. Unlike their international counterparts, the vast majority are characterized by a complete absence of managerial talent, astounding cultural poverty, blatant political opportunism and a lack of leadership qualities. Most had established their institutions and businesses on a basis of personal relationships rather than on management skills, proper economic use of state-of-the-art technology or ability to administer services. In other words, they are totally unfit to fill the leadership role into which they have been thrust or to serve as role models for new generations of young people.

Of all the points made in this essay, the one that cannot be repeated often enough is that the top management of any enterprise cannot hope to run a successful and efficient business unless a respect for time is a basic feature of its makeup. That is not to say that a respect for time is a sufficient condition for efficient management, but it is certainly a necessary condition. Although a respect for time is perhaps the most important prerequisite for successful management, other features must also be present. As matters now stand, we do not have a cadre of executive managers capable of achieving what to many may appear to be an impossible task but which I believe is a goal well within our reach, namely, attaining a degree of economic and educational development similar to the countries of South Europe. This should proceed parallel with the development of a rich cultural life and the social peace that can guarantee for all of us the society to which we aspire: a stable, safe and thriving Egypt in which Egyptians will once again come to display the characteristics for which they have been famous throughout history: humanity, tolerance, kindness, patience, geniality and respect for others, far away from the violence, hatred and daily clashes between people, classes and the various component elements of society.

(2) Culture of Systems Not Individuals.

Some time ago, I was reading an article by a well-known writer when I was struck by his remarks about an Egyptian ambassador who had just been recalled from one of our larger embassies abroad. After heaping some probably well-earned praise on the ambassador, he quoted a highly placed personality as saying that if it were up to him, he would have kept the ambassador in question on at the same embassy, regardless of the rotation system in force at the foreign ministry, because it was a shame to let the many contacts he had built up go to waste and have his replacement start from scratch. As a man interested in management and culture at one and the same time, I was shocked at this logic, not because it was wrong – indeed, it made sense from a practical point of view – but because it revealed a dangerous facet of the Egyptian mind-set that has been forged over centuries under specific historical and cultural circumstances. The case of the ambassador is far from being an isolated incident. The same logic is invoked whenever a public official shines at his job, the same voices are raised to call for exceptions in the system to accommodate that particular individual. This graphically illustrates that we believe far more profoundly in the role of the individual than we do in the effectiveness of systems in which the individual is only one cog in a complex wheel of interactive and interdependent elements.

Having lived until the age of twenty-five in a purely Egyptian environment, it was not until I was exposed to different cultures that I realized how vast a difference separated our perception of the respective roles of the individual and the system from that of other societies, most notably those of northern Europe, where the exact opposite logic prevails. While placing a high value on the individual and devoting huge resources to ensuring his formation in the best possible manner, these societies place an even higher value on the system.

It is hard for most people in our society, who tend to attribute success, efficiency and the achievement of goals to the fortuitous presence of an outstanding individual in a specific post, to realize the disastrous consequences that can flow from such a logic. To count on chance is to suspend all the rules of rationality, while to believe that an outstanding individual must remain in his post because his replacement will have to start from scratch is to give in to a problem rather than attempt to resolve it. Our approach to the issue is a reflection of the discontinuity of our organizational structures and the lack of a coherent strategy governing trends and endeavours in our society. It also works against the social mobility that is essential not only for the promotion of the middle class but for the promotion of society as a whole. Moreover, the approach carries within it the seeds of deeper problems, in that it proceeds from the premise that we are ready not only to pay the high price of dealing with the laws of chance, but to accept whatever results come our way. This is in direct opposition to the rationale governing modern management sciences which, while believing in personal abilities and talents, believes more strongly in systems than in individuals.

The implication of linking achievements to the fortuitous presence of an outstanding individual in a specific post is that we allow the reins of our lives and future to be controlled by random chance which operates outside the realm of any rational laws. This approach is the exact opposite of that advocated by the French philosopher Jean Paul Sartre, who believed the future did not exist as such but was the product of our actions in the present. Stressing the importance of existence and the freedom and responsibility of the individual, he believed the future begins in the here and now, more precisely, that what we do today will determine the features of tomorrow. We, on the contrary, make no attempt to shape the features of our future through planning today. Rather, we count on the laws of chance to occasionally throw a few outstanding individuals our way – laws that are the direct antipode of the notions of system and planning.

This keenness to keep outstanding individuals at their posts indefinitely is a result of one of our main defects, which is the virtual absence of continuity and methodology in our development drive. For development to proceed as a consistent process rather than in fits and starts, mechanisms must be set in place to ensure continuity regardless of changes in names and faces. The argument invoked to justify keeping efficient functionaries at their posts beyond the prescribed period, which is that whoever replaces them will have to begin from square one, is a painful admission of the lack of continuity between generations of individuals. Adding impetus to this argument is the fact that in our society no public official leaving his post will ever praise his successor, unlike his counterparts in the political, economic, cultural, educational and media institutions in advanced societies. Another disadvantage of keeping the same individual at his post indefinitely, however outstanding that individual may be, is that it is not conducive to the social mobility that is the basis for positive interaction in and the progress of any society, as well as a prerequisite for the growth of a strong and broad-based middle class that can lead that society. Moreover, the tendency to believe more in individuals than in the system exposes society to another, even greater, danger. While a culture of systems can keep destructive elements from occupying prominent positions, the same is not true in societies where a culture of individuals prevails. To the same extent that such a culture can promote outstanding individuals to positions of influence, it can also promote destructive and dangerous individuals. In the absence of an effective mechanism to prevent them from reaching a position of influence in time – and time is of the essence here – these negative elements can wreak havoc.

In addition, our infatuation with a culture of individuals is in direct contradiction with the basic premises of modern management sciences which, while drawing on the best qualities of the individual, give precedence to the big picture, that is, to the framework in which the individual operates, in other words, to the system. In advanced societies, the basic building stone for progress and success is the system, and not, as in the case of underdeveloped societies, a few, albeit exceptionally talented, individuals.

There is thus a clear dichotomy between the culture of individuals that has been all too manifest in our society for tens of centuries and the culture of systems which developed and put down deep roots in the West before moving on to many other societies that do not belong to western civilization, like Japan and other countries in Southeast Asia, as well as to various societies in Central and Latin America. It is pointless at this stage to make value judgments or to address the issue from an accusatory perspective. Rather, it should be placed in a historical perspective, and seen as the natural result of specific historical and cultural conditions. The question is whether a society governed by a culture of individuals can gradually transform itself into a society of systems. Judging from the experience of many societies, the answer is a resounding yes. These societies transformed themselves through a two-pronged approach, one that set its sights on short-term results and another that aimed at effecting a radical long-term transformation. The first can be summed up in one word, 'leadership', or leading by example, which succeeded to a great extent in imposing a culture of systems on society. The greater achievement, however, was to entrench this culture deep into the collective psyche of society, a feat accomplished through the medium of education. Only education is capable of bringing about a real transformation through curricula designed to minimize the dimensions of subjectivity and promote those of objectivity, the basis of any system or systems.

Once a culture of systems takes root in society, the issue of specific individuals staying on at their posts is no longer a do-or-die proposition that takes on the dimensions of a military campaign as careerists scheme and manoeuver to remain in place. In a culture of individuals, one of the main concerns of public officials is to fight off potential successors, making for an ugly relationship between incumbents and those they fear will replace them. That is the case in a society like ours, where rivalry for a position often degenerates into smear campaigns in which the predecessor and his successor are intent on blackening each other's reputation and are not above resorting to slander and character assassination to achieve their end. This pattern of behaviour is symptomatic of a general cultural climate in which each official seeks out those who are qualified to step into his shoes at some point down the road and goes all out to undercut their chances of succeeding.

As a result, we are left with a static situation in which genuine social mobility is replaced by what some call the rotation of elites, a process that is, by definition, opposed to change.

(3) Implementing a Quality Culture.

The idea of setting quality standards has become an independent field of study known as Quality Management (QM), which was added over the last four decades to the system of social sciences. Today there are academies offering Quality Management as their only course of study. Although there is a great deal of literature on QM, the most famous being the works of Dr. W. Edwards Deming, who is widely regarded as the father of this new discipline, I do not want to go to deeply into the details and definitions of QM and its subject headings, which are quality management and control at the planning stage, quality management and control at the stage of execution, then a careful check of quality at the final stage. The application of the science of Quality Management and the spread of a quality culture are no more than reflections of a more fundamental issue, namely, the presence of an effective process of social mobility that allows the best elements in society to reach the top of the societal pyramid. It is these elements who can spread quality consciousness throughout society and, eventually, lead it to adopt a culture of quality.

A society that does not allow for a process of social mobility which favours its best human elements and propels them into prominence will never be governed by a culture of quality. In the absence of such a process, a culture of randomness and slipshod performance takes over and the fickle hand of chance is left to determine the course of events, usually with disastrous consequences far removed from any notion of quality control.

As I mentioned in an earlier work, entitled Egyptian Transformation, untrammeled social mobility and the chain reactions it sets in motion are what allow the most able elements in society to occupy the leading positions in all walks of life. This creates a solid social pyramid that is developed over time by what some social scientists call social Darwinism and others (particularly those of a socialist formation) attribute to social mobility and the opportunity it provides for the best elements to reach the upper layers of the societal pyramid and contribute effectively to shaping society's present and future. Whatever the mechanism by which such a dynamic social pyramid is built up, at the end of the day it remains the only way to propagate a culture of quality in society.

Conversely, a society whose composition does not allow for free social mobility leaves the door wide open for inept and mediocre elements to make their way to top positions in its organizations and institutions, thereby dealing a death blow to any prospect of a culture of quality and creating a totally different cultural environment in which mediocrity holds sway, quality disappears and virulent campaigns are unleashed against talented individuals by those with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. They know that unless they work relentlessly to keep the rules of the game from changing, they are doomed to topple from the leading positions they occupy to positions more in keeping with their limited talents and abilities.

The question of the culture propagated by mediocre people in high places and the general climate they create should be a matter of grave concern for intellectuals and scholars who, more than anyone, are capable of seeing the big picture and understanding the negative implications of this phenomenon for society at large. There is no question but that our social and political structures suffer from the ascendancy of mediocrity and the mechanisms set in place by its beneficiaries to keep themselves and others of their ilk in influential positions. The fallout from this phenomenon is reflected in the decline of values, ideals and ethics as well as in a shocking drop in our political, economic, cultural and educational standards.

A point worth making in connection with the notion of quality is that it is not linked to technological development, but to an abstract notion that perfection is a goal one strives to attain using whatever resources are available. This was the theme of a lecture I delivered at the Juran Institute for Quality Management in the United States, in which I elaborated further on the idea that quality was a notion in the minds of certain outstanding individuals and not the fruit of technology, itself the fruit of the intellectual prowess of outstanding individuals. To illustrate my point, I reminded my audience that quality control was a feature of the Ancient Egyptians, which found its most salient expression in the Great Pyramid of the Pharaoh Khufu. The amazing precision and unequaled grace of this remarkable monument to human ingenuity graphically illustrate that quality and high standards of performance have nothing to do with the stage of a society’s technological development. Commenting on my lecture, the head of the Juran Institute remarked that I had chosen the best possible example to prove my point, as the logo of the Institute depicts an Ancient Egyptian worker chiselling in stone! Thus the biggest quality management institute in the world did not link quality to high technology, but chose to depict the notion with the image of an Ancient Egyptian craftsman using the most primitive technology to create perfection that defies time itself. In fact, the history of Ancient Egypt is filled with evidence that quality is a notion rather than anything else. A comparison between the pyramid built by Khufu and the two built by his father, the Pharaoh Snefru, shows how an enormous leap in the level of quality can be achieved in just a few years, which, in the absence of any significant technological breakthrough, can only be explained in terms of a human cadre that took the vigorous pursuit of quality to a higher level.

As to the notion of quality in Egypt today, it is practically non-existent. No one can argue with the fact that standards have dropped alarmingly in this country over the last half century. The only explanation is that it is no longer people of distinction who stand at the top of the societal pyramid but mediocre elements intent on keeping those who can expose their mediocrity as far away as possible from any position of influence. To that end, they work actively to downgrade the notion of quality, a notion that is completely alien to them. The spread of the values, culture and standards of the mediocre elements now holding leading positions in this country makes the words of Psalm 12 come to life before our eyes every day:
“The wicked walk on every side when the violent men are exalted”.

(4) Planting the Value of Pluralism.

If it is true that democracy is the greatest achievement of the human race since the march of civilization began, it is equally true that one of the wellsprings of democracy is pluralism. When people came to realize that diversity of creeds, opinions, viewpoints and tastes was one of the most important features of humanity, it was natural for political systems to incorporate and respect different trends without allowing any one of them, even if it enjoyed a strong or even absolute majority, to deprive the others of the right to differ from the majority view and to believe in other programmes, ideas, systems and theories.

Indeed, as the march of civilization progressed, the realization that pluralism was a basic feature of humanity evolved into a conviction that pluralism was a source for the enrichment of human life as it expanded the horizons of creativity, innovation and renewal.

Although most members of the community of nations subscribe to the notion of pluralism as a basic component of their political systems, below the surface is a different reality in which the vast majority of people remain at a very primitive stage when it comes to really embracing this notion and fully understanding and appreciating its meaning and benefits. This is as true of the most advanced societies (led by the United States) as it is of the less developed societies, including those of the Third World. There is a mutual lack of understanding and mistrust between different civilizations that render the benefits and potential advantages of pluralism far fewer than they might otherwise have been. Some see the way out of this dilemma as the 'standardization' of the world, i.e., the replacement of diversity by a uniform model of civilization. Not only is this an unattainable goal, it is the direct antithesis of the notion of pluralism. Moreover, any attempt to impose a universal norm would lay the ground for the spread of conflicts and clashes between civilizations to the detriment of humanity as a whole.

Evidence of the vast legacy of mutual misunderstanding, mistrust and misconceptions between civilizations can be found in western civilization's view of most eastern civilizations, which is often based on fanciful notions totally divorced from reality. It can also be found in the often distorted perceptions ancient civilizations have of the West, which tend to focus on the negative aspects of western civilization while disregarding its positive aspects, even those which have benefited the whole of humanity.

In recent years, the traditional mistrust between Orient and Occident was given new impetus with the emergence of a school of thought in the West in general and in the United States in particular which believes future relations between civilizations will be marked by clashes and conflicts, particularly the relationship between the West and Islam. The literature put out by this school of thought reveals a startling lack of understanding. Samuel P. Huntington's seminal book, The Clash of Civilizations, and other similar works by authors such as Paul Kennedy and Francis Fukoyama, are closer to journalistic articles than they are to scholarly works based on a sound knowledge of the subject matter. In fact, Huntington's book is an expanded version of an article he wrote originally for the American quarterly, Foreign Affairs. Moreover, the authors of these works lack the vision that would enable them to see a mechanism which could replace the scenario of inter-civilizational clashes with a scenario of dialogue between civilizations. That is not to say that the scenario of a clash of civilizations can be altogether excluded, only that dialogue is possible if the vision exists and if serious efforts are made to transform it into reality.

Contemporary political discourse is peppered with references to democracy, human rights, general freedoms and pluralism. But raising these slogans is one thing, applying them is another. While nobody denies that these are noble values representing the highest stage yet in the march of civilization, the fact is that the way they are translated into reality leaves much to be desired. This is particularly true of the value of pluralism. For example, the West raises the banner of pluralism with one hand while some of its citizens raise the banner of standardization with the other. This confusion leaves a bewildered world convinced that humanity has a long way to go before it can claim to have genuinely adopted these values.

If pluralism means that a diversity of trends, creeds, cultures, tastes, opinions and lifestyles is a basic feature of human life and a source of its enrichment, it follows that we should strive for 'unity through diversity'. This entails expanding a culture of respecting Otherness, provided this applies to all parties simultaneously and on a basis of parity. Respecting Otherness is in direct contradiction with the idea of standardizing the world. Fortunately, this idea is not advocated by the West as a whole and has not been taken up by western Europe. It is an exclusively American notion based on nothing but America's cultural poverty.

(5) Self Criticism & Constant Self Improvement.

I have for long believed Immanuel Kant's famous statement that "criticism is the most important building tool devised by the human mind" to be the cornerstone of a healthy and dynamic educational/cultural environment. The analogy of the German philosopher's aphorism in eastern literature is Omar Ibn el Khattab's statement, "Blessed is he who shows us our defects", by which he calls on God to bless those who open our eyes to our defects through the medium of criticism.

After I had embraced the notion that a cultural climate which promotes critical faculties and celebrates critical minds is a prerequisite for a society's development and progress, I had the opportunity to work for twenty years in one of the ten largest economic corporations in the world. The experience allowed me to see this notion put into practice every day. With a history going back over a century, the corporation I worked for had its own internal culture, and it never ceased to amaze me that every single meeting, discussion and seminar I participated in during the twenty years of my tenure embodied the axiom that criticism is the most important building tool devised by man. It did not occur to anyone to hold back from criticizing ideas, plans, programmes and projects, not only before, but during and even after their execution, in order to minimize the negative and maximize the positive aspects of performance in future. Nor was the right to criticize vested exclusively in the upper echelons of the organizational structure; it was a right available to and actively exercised by every thinking person in the firm. And it is from the collective efforts of critical minds that success and distinction are achieved.

For criticism to become an effective mechanism deployed in a constant quest for excellence by pinpointing whatever is negative as a prerequisite for minimizing it in future and identifying the positive aspects of any idea, process or performance with a view to maximizing them, it must operate in a general climate in which every member of society is familiar with the notion of objective, and hence constructive, criticism. It is a type of criticism which differs in spirit, motivations and aims from the subjective criticism found in some cultures, where criticism is often used as a weapon of attack, revenge, and defamation to further personal agendas or settle old scores. The blame for this aberration lies squarely on the shoulders of a general cultural and educational climate which fails to develop the critical faculty in young minds or to promote the notion that criticism should be used as a rational, objective tool to serve the general interest and not private interests.

It is not surprising that societies governed by a general cultural climate in which pluralism is accepted and respected should be better equipped to use objective criticism as a means of optimizing all aspects of life than societies which do not tolerate any dissenting opinion or any departure from the norm. In such a monistic climate there is no room for the sort of constructive and objective criticism that targets subjects and not individuals. Nor is it surprising that societies which I have called in a previous essay societies of systems not individuals should also be better equipped to deploy constructive criticism as a weapon against objective shortcomings.

There is a strong link between a culture of constructive criticism on the one hand and social mobility on the other. In a society marked by an active process of social mobility which allows for a dynamic process of job rotation in general and among elites in particular, there is a wider scope for planting the seeds of a culture of constructive criticism. The opposite holds true in a closed society where, in the absence of real social mobility, hanging on to the job becomes a do-or-die proposition. This blurs the distinction between what is objective and what is subjective and creates a climate that is inimical to objective criticism.

I also believe in a strong link between the values of mediocrity referred to in the essay on Quality on the one hand and the difficulty of propagating a culture of constructive criticism on the other. People of mediocre abilities are aware that they cannot survive in a climate of constructive criticism that would expose their limited skills and talents. And so they ferociously oppose the introduction of a system of performance evaluation based on objective criteria by working actively against the dissemination of a culture of constructive criticism.

In the final analysis, the diffusion of a general cultural climate which welcomes and encourages constructive criticism and educates people on the merits of developing their critical faculties and the enormous benefits this will bring to society as a whole is one of the most important values of progress. And, like all the other values of progress, it can only become generalized throughout society in the immediate term by a determined effort on the part of those in positions of leadership to set an example and, in the long term, by means of educational curricula designed to inculcate its importance in people's minds.

(6) Universality of Knowledge.

One of the most salient features of the globalization process has been the unrestricted flow of information between the various sectors of the global community, not least in the domain of science. Even those who reject some of the aspects of globalization cannot deny the positive effect it has had in opening up channels of communication between the many institutions working in every branch of science and scientific research. This is particularly true in the field of applied science and technology, where universality of knowledge has become an established feature. The main reason why this feature has acquired such importance is the strong relationship in advanced societies between scientific research on the one hand and life in general and economic life in particular on the other. It is also the reason why the field of Research and Development, or R & D as it is known, which is concerned primarily with the practical application of scientific findings, has come to eclipse in importance the field of scientific research proper which, in the traditional meaning of the word, is almost totally divorced from life functions.

As advanced societies removed science from behind the high enclosures of universities and research centres, and put many of its branches to work in the service of their life/economic/social functions, universality of knowledge in the service of life functions became an inescapable fact of life in the world of applied sciences. The importance of R & D is reflected in the size of the budgets it commands, which far exceed those allocated to pure scientific research. And, while the latter is subsidized for the most part by states and academic institutions, most R & D is funded by private economic institutions driven by the need to stay ahead of the competition. Anyone working in an industrial, commercial or services sector today must seek out the latest technology in that sector, wherever it may have been developed, and put it to use in enhancing performance, expanding activities and maximizing returns. Hence the growing relevance of the notion of universality of knowledge.

It would be no exaggeration to attribute much of the credit for promoting the notion of universality of knowledge to the unique experience of post-war Japan. Like the fabled phoenix, Japan rose from the ashes of its crushing defeat in World War II to assert itself as an economic giant on the world stage, largely thanks to its determination to seek out the latest achievements in science and technology in every part of the world, thoroughly assimilate their inner workings and put them to use in remarkable ways. Things are not quite so simple in the field of social science, where outlooks are conditioned by cultural factors and considerations. And yet the notion of universality of knowledge is gaining ground in certain branches of social science, albeit not at the same pace as in the domain of applied science. For example, modern management, human resources and marketing sciences and many other economic disciplines have managed to cross borders and apply the notion of universality of knowledge in practice. This may be due to the fact that they are largely culture-free. But even those branches of social science with a strong cultural dimension are being infiltrated to one degree or another by the notion of universality of knowledge.

Resisting the notion may appear to some, particularly in the Arab world, as a natural feature of ancient civilizations. Not so. Consider the case of China, one of the oldest civilizations in the world. Among the most passionate adherents to the values of progress in general and the notion of universality of knowledge in particular are the Chinese communities of Southeast Asia, and it was this which allowed them to play an instrumental role in the remarkable progress achieved by the region. Then there is the case of Japan, another ancient civilization which stands as one of the foremost examples of the values of progress in action, most notably the universality of knowledge. There is also India, an ancient civilization which, despite its many social problems, is one of the few Third World countries whose scientific institutions can hold their own with the best in the world. By keeping the bridges of scientific and technological research open between it and the rest of the world, India was able to score impressive achievements in many fields, notably in the arms industry and in computers and information technology. These examples attest to the ability of ancient civilizations to adopt the notion of universality of knowledge without threatening their own cultural specificity.

How then to explain the reluctance of Arab societies to partake of the benefits of universality of knowledge? I believe it is due to the lamentable deterioration of their educational institutions and scientific research centres as a result of the subjugation of education and science in these societies to political life. This has, not surprisingly, cut them off from scientific progress in the rest of the world, smothered the spirit of creativity and turned them into stagnant entities totally cut off from scientific research in all branches of applied and social sciences. As a result, there is a near total Arab absence in the domain of scientific achievements and creative research in these fields.

Contemporary Values of Work.
(Or Modern Management Concepts).

If the previous six values are among the values of progress in general which must be firmly planted in a society's general cultural and educational environment as a prerequisite for that society's development, they are also among the most important values on which modern management concepts are based. Thus the five values addressed by this essay should not be seen in isolation from the values of progress addressed earlier in the essay, as the eleven values together constitute the conceptual framework governing work in the modern workplace.

A. Teamwork:

In the course of the many years I spent working in an environment that was international in the real sense of the word, bringing together as it did thousands of people from different countries and with widely divergent cultural backgrounds, I had many occasions to see how the concept of teamwork is totally alien to most Egyptians. Unlike their colleagues from Asia, notably those from Japan or China, where the spirit of teamwork is particularly vibrant, or from other parts of the world, like Europe, which also has a tradition of teamwork, the majority of Egyptians I worked with found it extremely difficult to subsume their individuality in collective endeavours as members of a team. The ego issue often led to clashes, as each individual sought to ensure that he would get the credit for any success and others the blame for any failure. None was prepared to have his contribution regarded as just one component element in a collective endeavour. In hundreds of cases, this attitude led to crisis situations, with a disgruntled employee demanding that either he be taken off the team or that so and so be dropped – or else! This was in stark contrast to the attitude displayed by others belonging to different cultural backgrounds, such as the British, Asians and Germans with whom I worked, and only served to confirm how hard most Egyptians find it to put their egos aside and accept thanks for a job well done when they are not singled out for praise.

Given that modern management sciences are based on a set of fundamental values, among the most important being teamwork, applying modern management techniques to large numbers of Egyptians is a difficult proposition – unless they happen to be working abroad, in which case they have no choice but to submit docilely to the prevailing system of work or lose their jobs. Many expatriate Egyptians succeed brilliantly in their chosen field of expertise. All too often, however, their individualistic streak takes over, and they attribute their success exclusively to their own innate talents, conveniently forgetting that these talents would not have flourished as they did had it not been for the healthy environment which imposed on them the modern values of work and brought out the best they had to offer.

In this connection, I recall what a professor at the California Institute of Technology said to me at the end of 1999: "Ahmed Zeweil is, by any standards, a prodigious scientist. But we should remember that seventeen people working in the same institute in which he works won Nobel prizes for their contributions to science. The moral to be drawn here is that the 'miracle of the system' is not only equal to but surpasses the 'miracle of the individual', although both must be present at the same time in order for the required result to be achieved." This view has been echoed by Ahmed Zeweil himself, who never tires of praising the 'team' without which he could not have achieved what he did. The Nobel laureate has also praised the 'working environment' in his Institute, which he says deserves much of the credit for his 1999 Chemistry Prize. But as members of a culture of individuals we tend to forget all aspects of the story and focus on the individual, because for over fifty centuries, from the time of the Pharaohs on, the Egyptian mind-set has been conditioned by the cult of the individual. The system has no place in our scheme of things, even though it is the primary engine for progress and human achievement. The only mechanisms by which this defect in our makeup can be cured are those referred to in earlier parts of this essays, namely, leadership (as a tool of development in the short term), and modern education (as a tool of development in the medium and long term).

The word leadership here is not just a vague and abstract term, but denotes a modern manager formed in accordance with the requirements and culture of modern management sciences, which make every top executive responsible for managing work in his enterprise according to a system that groups employees into harmonious teams whose members complement one another, as opposed to the top executive who promotes individualism and factionalism by requiring each person in the establishment to owe allegiance to him personally. One of the most important tasks of a manager formed and trained according to the spirit, culture, requirements and techniques of modern management sciences is to foster a team spirit in his establishment. Unfortunately, most executives in our part of the world tend to promote a very different spirit in which employees are islands isolated from one another and in communication only with the employer. This is a source of personal power for the top man, but it comes at the expense of the collective good and does nothing to promote the spirit of teamwork that is one of the fundamental values of modern management science.

The negative culture which prevails in our workplace derives in large part from the virtual absence of management education, in addition to the fact that most businesses are run by 'bosses' rather than by contemporary executive managers. It is further encouraged and conditioned by the culture of the Egyptian village, where for decades the 'omda', or village headman, has maintained his grip over village affairs by ensuring that the only channels of communication are between his constituents and himself. Any other pattern is frowned upon as a violation of the personal loyalty they owe to his person and a direct challenge to his authority. All these factors conspire against the adoption of the values of modern management, including the important role assigned by contemporary management sciences to the executive manager. Indeed, most people find it difficult to understand just what the function of an executive manager is. On the surface, he does not appear to do much but the truth is very different. An executive manager can be likened to an orchestra conductor who is required to ensure, at one and the same time, the high performance capability of each orchestra member taken separately, and the high quality of their collective performance as one team.

Thus in the ten years I was responsible for projects worth billions of dollars, my days were not crowded with appointments and meetings and my desk was not covered in paperwork, even though I was handling a daily volume of work running into well over a hundred million dollars, while others who were running businesses and projects amounting to less than one percent of the volume and value of the projects for which I was responsible were drowning in meetings, paperwork and files. I believe this was because they spent much of their time doing work that should have been done by others. Because they believed neither in teamwork nor in delegating authority, they ended up spending three quarters of their time wading through mountains of unnecessary paperwork. Despite these strenuous efforts, however, the final results they achieved were at best mediocre and, more often than not, disgraceful.

Disseminating a culture which values teamwork begins with the formation of a human cadre of contemporary executive managers who understand what being a boss entails in the modern sense of the word, not in its Pharaonic or medieval sense, when the top man was everything and his assistants nothing. Without an administrative revolution in this field, any attempts to reform the working environment in our country and make it more amenable to the notion of collective work and the spirit of teamwork are doomed to fail, because the heads of administrative organizations have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo so that they can continue to keep all the reins of authority in their hands and take full credit for whatever success is achieved.

If the development of a high-caliber human cadre of executive managers capable of leading by example is an essential condition for development in the short term, what is required in the medium and long term is an educational revolution that will develop a strong work ethic in future generations, educate them in the importance of collective work and promote the spirit of teamwork at every stage of the educational process. Both targets must be achieved if we are ever to move from the culture of individualistic work inherited from Pharaonic times to the work culture prevailing today, in which teamwork is used as a mechanism to maximize output by drawing on the collective minds, abilities and experience of the members making up the team.

Over two decades ago, I went to Switzerland to study the latest modern management techniques at the International Management Institute of Geneva University, the largest specialized institute of its kind in Europe. The experience was a culture shock, as I found myself having to adjust to a system of learning very different from the one I was used to. Indeed, at first I thought I had made a mistake in registering for the course, which cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and that I had been misinformed about how good the Institute was. In the academic environment where I obtained my graduate and postgraduate degrees from an Egyptian university, the professor was the transmitter of knowledge and the students passive receivers. The situation was very different at the Institute, where the professor would begin each class by bringing up a particular theme or problem that was to be addressed by the students. These would then be divided into working groups and each sent off to a separate room. The groups were given a set time to study the problem, use the library for research and come up with a report representing the collective views of their members. All the members of the group contributed equally to the report and then chose one amongst themselves to present it on their behalf.

It was a technique of teaching that at first filled me with dismay, and I wondered why we were spending so much to receive such a meager education. But over the following weeks and months, I gradually came to realize that it was in fact a highly sophisticated technique designed to develop leadership qualities and produce a human cadre capable of leading the world in every field. Contrary to the educational technique with which we are all too familiar, and which produces submissive followers trained to suppress their creative impulses while indulging their streak of destructive individualism, the technique employed at the Institute produced innovators and believers who displayed a highly developed esprit de corps. This educational environment is what produces the best elements in any working environment. After all, what is work but a continuation of the early stages of education? The workplace is where the final output of the educational system, the individual, eventually ends up, and his performance in the workplace is as negative or positive as the education he received.

Accordingly, collective work or teamwork is a phenomenon linked to a society's cultural values, and some societies show a greater inclination for teamwork than others. Two of the leading examples are China and Japan. According to management and QM scientists, these societies show a marked propensity for teamwork. However, it is an acquired characteristic not a natural one, built up through their cumulative cultural experience. A yardstick that can be used to measure the extent to which a society has adopted the value of teamwork is the management techniques followed by that society's governmental and economic institutions. Another is the philosophy and technique of its educational system. The example set by the executive leaders in society can be instrumental in developing the spirit of teamwork. There is also a link between teamwork and the level of democracy in society. The greater the margin of democracy, the better the prospects of making teamwork an essential component of a society's work ethic. In an undemocratic society, the opportunity for advancement is restricted, and upward mobility in an organization is either slow or nonexistent. This does not create a favourable climate for the development of a team spirit.

What we have here is a problem for which there is no one reason and no one cure, a multidimensional problem entailing a multilateral approach. As the German-born American political sociologist Herbert Marcuse pointed out thirty years ago, the theory of the unidimensionality of cause has collapsed in all spheres of human thinking.

B. Human Resources:

If management is the nerve centre of success in all the institutions of advanced societies, the optimal use of human resources is the backbone on which the success or failure of management rests. Human resource sciences have branched out to cover many areas, such as employee recruitment, selection, and training, performance appraisal, human resources and organization, discovering leadership qualities and other areas related to one of the most important fields of modern management, namely, human resource management.

Modern human resource sciences proceed from a number of fundamental premises, such as the belief that in every person on earth there exists a 'gap' between his actual performance and his potential performance, and that it is one of the main tasks of management to discover that gap and work to overcome it by placing an individual in the position best suited to his abilities, temperament and personality within the organizational structure on the one hand, and through constant training on the other.

Another fundamental premise is that any individual belongs to one of two basic groups made up respectively of specialists and generalists. Both groups are equally important and both must be present in any successful and thriving organization.

Yet another is the need to make a basic distinction between potential and performance. While standards and rates of performance can be raised, all that can be done in respect of potential is to discover whether or not it exists. One of the principal tasks of top management in modern organizations is to discover those with a high potential early on in order to elevate them to leading positions and to devise the required training programmes to hone their potential and imbue it with professionalism. Human resource sciences also attach a great deal of importance to the issue of motivation, whether in the material or moral sense.

The role of the 'chief' in a modern establishment differs from his role in a traditional bureaucracy, where he concentrates most of the centralized power in his hands and, over the years, transforms his fellow workers into an army of followers. In enterprises applying the techniques of modern management science, which are based on delegation, he does not involve himself in the day to day workings of the enterprise, leaving himself free to focus on strategic planning. In a sense, his role is closer to that of an orchestra conductor than a military leader.

While traditional bureaucracies create followers, modern management seeks to create a cadre of human resources whose members are believers in the mission and aims of the establishment in which they are working. The sense of identification with the work organization is reflected in the quality of the on-the-job performance of the true believer, who sees the job not simply as a duty but as a medium of self-expression and a source of personal gratification. In modern management terminology, this phenomenon is known as "ownership", i.e. ownership of the moral returns of success at work.

In short, modern management does not regard human resources as machines but as the key to success or failure. As such, they are entitled to enjoy the benefits and glory of the success they were instrumental in achieving. According to this view, there is no more effective engine for the advancement and success of an organization than the people working in it. This view is not the prevailing one in underdeveloped societies, where little attention is paid to creating an environment that encourages people to work and give of their best. The opposite holds true in advanced societies, where the importance of the human element in moving the wheel of progress forward is widely recognized. The wealth of nations is not measured in terms of their natural resources or the riches they have amassed in the past but in the quality of their human resources. This asset is built up through a process of planning and meticulous application of systems designed to discover the best in people, develop their potentialities to the full, and provide them with motivation.

C. Delegation:

Modern management science tries to utilize each person in the best possible way. To that end, it attaches great importance to discovering latent abilities, training and motivation, in the belief that enabling each individual to realize his full potential and allowing the free interplay of ideas is a source of enrichment not only for work but for life in general. Advanced societies discarded the model of centralized management applied for long decades in the work establishment, which some believe they imported from the military establishment, when experience proved that it hindered the development of individual potential. That is why delegation has become one of the most important instruments of successful management today. Delegation is a reflection of the values I mentioned earlier, which lead to transforming work groups from armies of followers to teams of believers and create an environment conducive to innovation and creativity.

In a modern management system where top managers delegate their authority to others, the role of the manager can be likened to that of an orchestra leader who does not play each instrument himself but directs others to play their best as an ensemble. In some modern establishments, the degree of delegation is such that the manager appears to have no work at all. This is, of course, a fallacy, as he is responsible for strategic planning not for carrying out work that others can do as well as, and usually better than, he can. It would be safe to say that an establishment run according to all the values of modern management except for delegation is doomed to fail, because delegation is the translation of all these values into practice. However, delegation and training must go hand in hand: delegation without training cannot hope to succeed.

D. Marketing in the driver's seat:

The difference between countries which achieved remarkable progress in the economic field (through manufacturing a product or providing a service then, at a later stage, through information technology) and those which spent billions on 'industrial arsenals' at the expense of real economic development is that the activities of the former were focused on the end product, i.e. on 'marketing', while the latter's activities were focused on the initial process, i.e. on 'production'. Modern management science recognizes that a production-driven approach can only lead to failure and bankruptcy, while an approach that is marketing-driven is the best guarantee of success and growth. The truth of this axiom is corroborated by the huge discrepancy between the economies of the East European countries (before the collapse of the eastern bloc in the nineteen eighties), which were production-driven, and those of western Europe, which are marketing-driven.

If management is the secret for the success (or failure) of societies in general and economies in particular, marketing is the brains of management, in the sense that a successful management is one whose strategic thinking, business philosophy and internal mechanisms are marketing-driven.

While the importance of marketing as an essential value for the
successful management of any enterprise cannot be overstated, its own success is contingent on the adoption of other values of progress. One such value is universality of knowledge. There can be no successful marketing in a closed environment shut off from the outside world. How can anyone hope to successfully market anything on a wide scale if he does not know enough about his competitors, international markets, the demands of those markets and the cultures of the prospective buyers of his products or services? Another value that goes hand in hand with marketing is pluralism. How can we have one unique model for everything (the opposite of pluralism) and succeed in marketing, which is based on the highest objective of quality management science, which is to meet the expectations and satisfy the needs of the recipient of a product or service?

E. Absolute Belief in the Effectiveness of Management:

Many are the truthful statements repeated by people without realizing their real meaning and significance. A statement one hears very often these days is that Egypt's main problem today is 'management'. Although this is absolutely true, any attempt to elicit an explanation from people who utter the statement with a great deal of assurance reveals that, more often than not, they have no clear idea what they are talking about and that, moreover, the word management means different things to different people.

Still, even if they are not clear on the details, they are right in their diagnosis: the main problem in our lives in general and our economic life in particular is that the methods and techniques of modern management sciences and modern marketing sciences are virtually absent from government departments, the public sector, the private sector and all the service sectors.

I have no doubt whatsoever that the eastern bloc, made up of the Soviet Union and its legion of followers, collapsed at the end of the nineteen eighties because of the absence of effective management in all sectors of the socialist world, particularly in the economic sector, where the absence of management led to a state of bankruptcy which brought the whole temple of socialism crashing down.

If the collapse of the eastern bloc can be blamed in large part on poor economic management, much of the credit for the flourishing economies of the western world and the Asian tigers, which led to the growth of a prosperous and dynamic middle class, can be attributed to the application of modern and efficient management and marketing systems. It is worth noting in this connection that efficient management is capable not only of steering a country on the path of economic prosperity and allowing it to reap the positive social benefits that accrue, but also of dealing with crises and reversals. It was thanks only to sound management that the countries of Southeast Asia and, before them, Mexico, succeeded in overcoming their financial crises in record time, confounding the expectations of some of our pundits who were patting themselves on the back for having adopted a more cautious approach. The swift recovery of the Southeast Asian and Mexican economies proves that a country with a clear vision of where it is heading and which proceeds to implement that vision by means of a scientific methodological approach can, when exposed to a crisis situation that causes it to slip backwards on its chosen path, regain its footing as long as the methodology is still in place.

Before going any further, it might be useful here to define exactly what success means when applied to an economic venture. This entails first clearing up a certain ambiguity which arises from the absence of any distinction in the Arabic language between the two notions of administration and management, both of which are translated as 'idara' in Arabic. In fact, the two notions are quite distinct in English. While administration means the set of rules governing work in the workplace, such as personnel regulations, working hours, disciplinary measures and the like, the word management denotes something altogether different. In essence, it is the mechanism by which an enterprise achieves its desired goals which are, specifically realizing given economic returns, parallel with a process of growth, by using the tools of modern marketing sciences.

Thus the economic enterprises established in countries which adopted a system of centralized planning, the so-called command economies, could impress us with their massive size, machinery, equipment and huge workforce only if we look upon them from the perspective of administration. But however impressive these factors may be, they mean absolutely nothing from the viewpoint of modern management, where the only criterion for success is an enterprise's ability to deploy its resources, machinery and workforce efficiently to realize economic returns which must not be less than the interest accruing on bank deposits.

A project which does not yield a return on investment greater than the interest on bank deposits will inevitably reach a state of bankruptcy that renders it incapable of performing its economic and other functions, the most important of which is employment and the creation of new job opportunities.

The pride with which some people continue to regard the huge enterprises which once dominated our economic landscape and which, because of the absence of effective management, failed to realize economic returns greater than the interest on bank deposits, is both strange and misplaced. What they are proud of in the final analysis is the money spent rather than the returns on expenditure, which were in most cases extremely modest and led to the failure of the entire experiment.

Societies which confuse the notion of management in the sense we have explained and that of administration as the system of checks and balances governing the workplace should understand that, for all its importance, administration cannot be a vehicle for economic prosperity. The only way this can be achieved is through the application of the principles, techniques and procedures of modern management and marketing sciences.

Management, like medicine or architecture, is a profession for which special skills and training are required. Like a doctor or architect, the modern manager chooses his career path on the basis of personal inclination and aptitude and then undergoes an extensive course of study and training. Promotion to a higher rung on the administrative ladder does not in and of itself create a modern executive manager capable of leading and planning in order to achieve the desired targets in terms of profitability and growth, while at the same time giving high priority to the development of the most important element in the success of any enterprise, its human resources.

As anyone who has had the nightmarish experience of dealing with our bureaucracy can testify, the concept of modern management is a totally alien one as far as all government departments are concerned. Unfortunately, this is equally true for the economic units of both the public and private sectors, which are run according to a bazaar mentality having nothing to do with the spirit and mechanisms of private economic institutions operated in accordance with the principles of modern management, human resources and marketing sciences. Scientists in these fields are well aware that the vast majority of private economic establishments in Egypt today are almost totally dependent on public relations rather than on management in the modern sense of the word. Operating as they do in a general climate in which public relations reign supreme, they have spared themselves the trouble of building modern institutional systems and recruiting efficient human elements capable of running them in accordance with the principles of sound management. On the one hand, building such a system is a costly business; on the other, simple minds cannot grasp its merits, especially in the context of a business culture that venerates public relations as a short cut to power and influence.

Unless we create a general climate that is conducive to the introduction of modern management practices in government departments, public sector units and the manufacturing and service establishments of the private sector, we cannot hope to attract a significant flow of direct foreign investments. Investors are wary of pouring money into an environment that does not allow them to function in accordance with the mechanisms and techniques of modern management, human resources and marketing sciences, and it is precisely the absence of those mechanisms that stands at the root of our deteriorating economic situation. True, we began to address the problem ten years ago, but we need to adopt a far more forceful approach if we are ever to transform the business environment in this country into an investor-friendly environment governed by the principles of modern management in all spheres of life.
Until then, repeating the slogan "Egypt's main problem is management" without fully understanding the real significance and implications of this diagnosis will remain nothing more than a meaningless mantra.

The Values of Progress: Source & Identity.

A closer look at the values of progress presented in Part Two shows that, despite the different characteristics of human civilizations, ancient and new, they are values that belong to the whole of humanity, to the march of human civilization in general, rather than to any specific civilization. As civilizations rose and fell, humanity was moving steadily ahead on a course that transcended the fortunes of this or that civilization. Thus human history proceeded along two parallel courses simultaneously: the march of civilization and the evolution of humanity, and the values of progress owe their existence more to the latter than to the former. The failure to recognize that humanity is higher and more sublime than any civilization can only lead to racism and fanaticism. There is no disputing the fact that every civilization has drawn on the cumulative experiences of other contemporary or earlier civilizations and weaved them into the fabric of its own culture complex.

Given the undeniable existence of a common fund of human experience, a “cumulative legacy” as it were, built up through the ages in such fields as mathematics and other applied sciences, how is this common legacy assimilated into human consciousness, which is the repository of values? If we admit that much of modern mathematics came from Ancient Greece, that modern music owes much to Aristotle, that the Latin-Germanic lawmakers based their codification on the principles propounded in the Roman Justinian Code, and if a great Egyptologist like James Henry Breasted found an undeniable link between the highest contemporary value systems and those in force in Ancient Egypt, which he called the 'Dawn of Conscience', we cannot fail to see that as culture ranks below civilization, civilization ranks below humanity.

Students of history will find that all civilizations, whether ancient or modern, were based on the values referred to in Part Two. They will also find that when these values move from one civilization to another, they undergo a process of development and refinement which, on the one hand, represents the contribution of the host civilization to humanity and, on the other, way stations on the road to developing these values further by elevating them to a higher plane and opening new vistas before them. This does not negate the fact that the contribution of some civilizations to this refining process has been greater than others. For example, by far the largest contribution to developing the contemporary values of work has been made by western civilization which, as the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, provided a favourable climate for the refinement and consecration of these values. Still, the values of progress in general and the values of work (including modern management concepts) in particular have been developed over the ages by humanity at large and not by any specific civilization, even if the ability of the West to put them to optimal use makes them appear to be products of western civilization.

The “humanistic” nature of these values is borne out by the fact that in the course of only one century, the twentieth, they passed over from an environment that was purely western to others which followed altogether different models of civilization, such as Japan and tens of countries in Asia and Latin America, which adopted these values as part of their culture complex and put them to use in fueling the engine of their remarkable economic growth. This proves that even if at one stage they took root and flourished in a western environment, they are, in the final analysis, human, not western values.

Values of Progress & Cultural Specificity.

In the last forty years, fears of a cultural invasion have dominated the thinking of many in our part of the world. When the bipolar world order collapsed at the end of the nineteen eighties and the world began to talk of an emerging phenomenon that is now widely known as globalization, the proponents of the cultural invasion theory adapted their language to the new terminology and began to talk of the globalization of cultures as a dangerous development which threatened to erode our cultural specificity.

I have addressed this issue in many of my writings, and came to the conclusion that only those with a meager fund of cultural specificity have anything to fear from the globalization of culture. Those standing on a solid foundation of cultural identity, with a cultural specificity derived from factors related to history and geography, like Japan, need not fear the loss of their cultural identity under any circumstances. The examples some people give of the effects the winds of change coming from abroad have had on Japan's cultural construct can all be classified as "secondary issues" like eating fast food, wearing American clothes and the like. But when it comes to human relations, the high esteem in which old people are held, family values and other intrinsically Japanese values, such as the Japanese understanding of work, Japan has not surrendered one iota of its cultural specificity despite the fact that for the last sixty years it has been dealing extensively with the outside world.

But while there might be some justification to fear that our cultural specificity will be unable to stand up to the onslaught of cultural globalization, this does not apply in respect of the values of progress, all of which find much to support them in the models of civilization from which we derive our specific cultural straits. There is nothing in any of these models, the Egyptian, Arab, Islamic or Christian, that can be construed as running counter to values like a respect for time, quality, universality of knowledge, teamwork, a culture of systems rather than a culture of individuals, or a belief that management is one of the most important instruments of success. Indeed, I would go as far as to say that these values were upheld and applied in our history hundreds of years before another essay in humanity's civilizing process took them over and used them in creating a better life. There are those who would agree with me save when it comes to the value of pluralism, on the grounds that Islamic religious thinking is based on a 'a unique model of righteousness'. This is an erroneous assumption which is belied by numerous Qur'ânic texts, perhaps the most important of which reads as follows: "And if thy Lord willed, all who are in the earth would have believed together", (Surah of Jonah, Verse 99). There are also many texts in the Sunna, (the rules of life according to the hadith, or teachings of the Prophet), extolling pluralism as one of the sublime values which all Muslims should strive to uphold.

How then can anyone allege that values of progress like time, quality and, even, pluralism, threaten our cultural specificity? And yet that is the theme of an ongoing debate in our society which is both bizarre and humiliating. Those who argue against the adoption of values of progress on the grounds that they run counter to our value system and cultural identity expect us instead to embrace values that can only drag society on the road to backwardness and underdevelopment. This regressive trend is a relatively recent phenomenon in Egypt's modern history. For additional proof that the values of progress are compatible with our cultural specificity we need only look at the last hundred years of our history. These were marked by periods of enlightenment during which most of the values of progress were far more present in our lives than they became after what has been termed by some as a process of 'dismantling' Egyptian society began.

The debate over cultural specificity versus values of progress takes me back to a period I spent in the eighties working in one of the fastest developing countries in Southeast Asia, where the two largest ethnic communities, and hence the main sources of labour, were the Chinese and the Malay. The prevailing view at the time was that any economic establishment wishing to run an efficient and successful business had to recruit its staff from the Chinese community, whose members were diligent and hard-working and who, moreover, displayed a natural propensity for teamwork, as opposed to the Malays, who were generally regarded as lazy, slipshod and highly individualistic. This negative image of the Malay worker remained in place until one man came to lead a country 90% of whose inhabitants belong to the ethnic group once maligned in the international labour market, the predominantly Muslim Malays, towards a miraculous recovery. In less than twenty years, Malaysia, whose people were mired in backwardness and stigmatized as lazy and inefficient, broke through the barriers of underdevelopment to gain world-wide recognition for the high quality of its products and services. With one of the fastest growing economies in the world, Malaysia has come to embody all the values of progress, breaking the stereotype of the ‘lazy Malay’ and opening the eyes of the world to two inescapable truths:

• First, that backwardness is not the result of a biological fatality but of circumstances, and that, to the same extent that circumstances can change, backwardness can be overcome.

• Second, that the values of progress can take root and flourish in any environment, Christian, Buddhist, Islamic or otherwise, and that they are by no means exclusive to any specific environment.

The Malaysian experience can also be used to illustrate another truth, namely, that progress can go hand in hand with cultural specificity. Malaysia’s strong cultural traditions relating to human relations, family relations and religious values have remained as constant since its economic takeoff as they were when it was a struggling underdeveloped country. The credit for Malaysia’s economic miracle is sometimes attributed to its Chinese minority. Even if this were true, it means that progress can come about by ‘contagion’, which is not a bad thing. But this is an overly simplistic explanation for the Malaysian miracle. After all, the Chinese minority has always been around. The only new factor is the emergence of Mahathir bin Mohamed, the man who wrought this amazing change in Malaysia’s fortunes through visionary and efficient leadership.

Values of Progress & Building a Strong Society.

Every political thinker has a list of priorities which he tries to serve through his writings. My main priority is building an internally strong Egypt, that is, a healthy society characterized by a broad-based and dynamic middle class, economic stability, modern education and a general cultural climate in synch with the age. Of course, moving with the times should never be at the expense of an awareness of and pride in our history, but a sense of history must not be allowed to degenerate into a love affair with the past. Those who have different priorities on their list, be they pan-Arab or otherwise, should realize that none of their priorities stands a chance except in the context of an internally strong, stable and flourishing Egypt. This applies just as much to those who dream of a successful pan-Arab project as it does to those who aspire to see Egypt play a prominent role on the regional or intemational stage. These are dreams that can only come true if Egypt is stable and strong on the domestic front. In fact, building a strong and stable society is a prerequisite for the attainment of any of Egypt’s aspirations and ambitions, whatever they may be.

Despite my boundless admiration for Mohamed Ali, who is generally recognized by scholars and historians to be the founder of modern Egypt, I have no doubt that his preoccupation with matters that distracted him from his main project, which was to build a strong Egypt, led to a series of disastrous setbacks that were to have long-term ramifications. Had Mohamed Ali focused his main efforts on building a strong and stable society, Egypt would have been in a position to play the pivotal role for which it is uniquely qualified by the factors of history and geography. Unfortunately, the pattern of squandering our efforts in other than what should be our main priority, which is to deploy all our resources to build the strong foundations of a modem society, has been repeated in Egypt’s recent history with equally disastrous consequences.

Many factors tempt Egypt to play a role beyond its own borders. The real problem is not that it succumbs to the temptation but that it does so before completing its sacred mission to build itself up as a strong, stable and thriving society. It is not by casting its eyes outside its borders that Egypt, or any country for that matter, can hope to take a short cut to development. External ventures undertaken in the absence of a solid internal structure can only result first, in the failure of such ventures and, second, in slowing down the process of building a strong and stable internal front.

My view has always been that our primary mission and the main task confronting us is to mobilize all our resources and focus all our efforts in the direction of building a country that is internally strong, modern, successful, thriving and stable, and that is, furthermore, at peace with its past and its present. The only way this can be done is through a campaign to instill, cultivate, diffuse and propagate the values of progress in society, at the level of the leadership and by means of an educational institution whose primary task will be to instill those values in the minds and consciences of our young people. Parallel with this, there must be a radical change in the religious discourse of this country, whether Muslim or Christian, which is one of the two main elements by which public opinion in Egypt is formed, the other being the mass media.

In the meantime, many of us are wallowing in nostalgia. Some dream of pre-1952 Egypt as an ideal to strive for, others of Egypt as it was under Nasser and others still of what it was in the days of Sadat. But while we certainly want a middle class of the quality that existed in pre¬-revolutionary Egypt, we certainly do not want it to be the same in terms of quantity. Before 1952, only a tiny minority of Egyptians belonged to the middle class; the vast majority belonged to a downtrodden lower class that lived in conditions of abject poverty and squalor. From Egypt of the fifties and sixties we want to recapture the “big dream” which saw the emergence of a broad middle class but we want a middle class standing on solid economic and cultural foundations. From the Sadat years, we want to recapture a climate in which rationality and debate prevailed most, if not all, of the time. I write these words in the conviction that condemning others is an extremely negative process that can only further polarize society rather than bring about the desired reconciliation between the different trends which make it up. Such a reconciliation can only be effected through a comprehensive project to propagate the values of progress in society. This is the only way we can look objectively to the era of Mohamed Ali and see its positive and negative aspects. It is also the only way we can objectively assess the eras which followed it, without downplaying or exaggerating their negative or positive aspects to serve whatever viewpoint we wish to advocate. Only in a cultural and educational climate that succeeds in planting the values of progress can this be possible.

The biggest challenge facing Egypt is its middle class, which is undergoing such structural economic, educational and cultural changes as to make it difficult for anyone to try and define what the middle class means in Egypt today. The progress of any society depends not on the existence of an upper class but on the quality, type, size and level of its middle class, which depend in turn on the extent to which that class subscribes to the values of progress.

In short, Egypt’s economic and social problems can only be solved in a general climate governed by the values of progress. Then and only then can Egypt embark on a role beyond its borders, a role no one can stop it from playing because all the givens of history, geography and culture attest that Egypt is the only Arab and Middle Eastern country that is qualified for the role of 'regional leader' But before aspiring to any such role, Egypt must first put its own house in order.