|
|
Latest
Column:
From “Crossing
the Bar” to Crossing a Line
The Netherlands’ Groningen Protocols Are a Grisly
Human Nightmare
..........
CaliforniaRepublic.org
opinon in
Reagan country
..........
Michael Ramirez
editorial cartoon
@LA Times
..........
tOR
Talk Radio
Contributor Sites
Laura
Ingraham
Hugh Hewitt
Eric
Hogue
Sharon
Hughes
[Radio Home]
..........
Wounded
Warrior
Please
Help Today
..........
Current
Headlines
..........
|
|
Contributors
M.T. Janke - Contributor
M.T. Janke
is a business consultant, native Northern Californian, and
author of the weblog "Shaking
Spears." He graduated
from U.C. Berkeley with a degree in Political Science, and
holds a Masters in Business Administration from Golden Gate
University. He, his wife, and two children reside in the San
Francisco Bay Area. [Janke site]
[Janke index]
 Remembering
Dhaka
The lifeline of economic globalization...
[M.T. Janke] 12/1/04
The early ‘90s
were heady times; after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the
conclusion of the Gulf War governments raced
to cash in the peace dividend while riding an economic recovery
powered by the technology boom and steered by the winds of globalization.
Buoyed by these forces of prosperity, U.S. companies aggressively
reached across borders, continents, and cultures to seek new
markets, chase cheaper labor, and expand their economies of scale.
This resurgent economic dynamism in the U.S. had a democratizing
effect on the conduct of business: global travel trickled down
from the executive suite to the lower ranks, creating a new cadre
of international corporate emissaries. Middle managers, engineers,
technicians, and support staff were routinely dispatched overseas
to assess suppliers, outfit factories, secure logistics channels,
and orient new business units, all with only a cursory nod to
corporate travel budgets.
Trans-Pacific jaunts became as common and as routine as an overnight
stay at the Ramada for the regional sales meeting.
My colleagues and I rode this wave with vigor. As mid-level
managers in a global shipping firm, we eagerly hop-scotched across
the Pacific Rim, throughout Southeast Asia, the Middle East,
Central and South America, soaking up the hyperactive buzz of
global business, and culturally channel-surfing through our frenetic
itineraries.
We were the foot soldiers
of corporate America’s outsourcing
explosion. And we were first-hand witnesses to the socio-economic
implications of this burst of global investment.
But, like the rising
stock market, we were lulled into believing that these forces
were inexorable and accelerating, and we didn’t
foresee the cultural fractures and domestic resistance that have
come to characterize international trade today.
Global business investment continues apace, but its blinkered
innocence of that time is lost in the wake of Islamist terror,
the sneering fashion of anti-Americanism, and the grudges of
tribal geo-politics.
Puffed up by the deference
undeservingly bestowed upon our arrival in-country (back home
we were only “staff”), our
role as the American corporate representative being hosted by
the agent in the developing country was intoxicating, and we
adopted an air of authority and a patina of worldly sophistication
that allowed us to make decisions and to recommend changes that
were informed by our American habits - changes which of course
lasted only for the time that we there.
Always tipping a hat to the local culture, but not overly solicitous,
we raced from site tours to conference rooms to customer dinners,
never thinking that our personal security was ever in doubt or
that our American-ness was begrudged.
In reality we were only doing the necessary drudgework of checking
up on the field offices, which just happened to require a passport
to visit. But our vantage point would be invaluable in drawing
some conclusions as to what this global business phenomenon was
all about.
The seeds of globalization
had taken root and were branching in many directions, and my
assignments left me with vivid memories
of its power: from the remote Franklin Mint plant in Malaysia
where shrouded Muslim women hand-painted the lips on Marilyn
Monroe dolls and polished Spaceship Enterprise models, to the
jungles of Manaus, Brazil where this tax oasis for Korean consumer
electronics companies churns out stereos and television sets,
sending them down the Amazon for the Mercosur countries and providing
the only “employment” for jungle inhabitants within
hundreds of miles.
And from the Orthodox Jew shopkeepers and traders in the streets
of Colon, Panama to the resort-palaces on the Persian Gulf where
spoiled oil-princes strutted their wealth, the mechanics of trade
and commerce mixed cultures as easily as it exchanged currencies.
But it was Dhaka, Bangladesh that brought the limits and promise
of globalization into stark contrast. And my visit to that 83%
Muslim, 17% Hindu country resonates today for me in our post-9/11
world in ways that one might not expect.
I’d seen the juxtaposition of shanty towns and five star
hotels that were so common in developing cities such as Jakarta
and Manila, and I was familiar with the working conditions of
the South China garment factory. But there is an oppressive weight
in this capital city that strikes you as soon as you arrive,
and permeates everyone who lives there. It’s immediately
evident upon arrival that those who can get out have already
left.
At the northern end of the Bay of Bengal, this Iowa-sized country
of 141 million souls is routinely battered by monsoons that tear
across the coastal flatlands and deep into the interior, indiscriminately
destroying lives, livestock, and crops. With a per capita annual
GDP of $1,900, Bangladesh ranks well below its neighbor India
and is chronically at the bottom end of global development. The
cotton textile and jute industries are its principle exports,
and the vast majority of its inhabitants are tied to subsistence
agriculture. The famines of the 70s may be in the past but the
scarcity remains.
We arrived with the
goal of helping our agent obtain more business from the growing
textile export trade. And for three days we
lived out of the Sonargaon hotel, the preferred hotel in Dhaka
for the garment buyers. Taking brief trips across town to visit
our agent’s offices, we would be immediately surrounded
by a frantic crush of bodies, adult and child, pounding the windows
and pressing their infirmities into our field of vision to receive
handouts. Maimed children, some intentionally so, are held up
for favor in the competition. The street scenes became so overwhelming,
and heart-breaking, that our traveling party began a running
series of jokes and sarcastic comments at the locals’ expense
- cruel words became the only way to disassociate from the human
tragedy that engulfed us.
Meeting with the local team of managers in their offices, which
required stepping over slaughtered chickens on their building’s
front steps, we worked hard brainstorming solutions to a competitors’ service
advantage, ran some numbers on alternative pricing scenarios,
role-played sales presentations of our newly designed service,
and we drew up more flexible contract language for our customers.
Our visiting party and the local team both contributed and
brought value to the lengthy discussions, and we learned from
each other.
In the midst of this deprived environment, a virtual galaxy
removed from the office parks of America, we conducted business.
In retrospect this
visit wasn’t about providing a specific
good, or service, or even money. It was, as trite as it might
sound, about disparate people working toward a common goal. Business
has a leveling property that helps cut through the cultural differences
and focus on the mechanics of daily life: we were on the same
team, working to improve both of our lots (however incongruently),
and race, religion, socio-economic status, or nationality did
not inhibit our interaction. There was a bond developed based
on common interest. The end of our three-day visit came surprisingly
quickly.
Most international
flights depart Bangladesh in the early hours of the morning,
and driving through Dhaka well after midnight
you see motionless, prone bodies asleep on the street sidewalks.
At the air terminal, locals mill about, pressing their faces
against the windows to see the strange activities of foreigners
coming and going. On the tarmac, as the sun begins to rise, a
languorous line forms outside the fence to watch the novelty
of a large plane up close. That line also expects that it won’t
ever ride in the plane.
Businesses and governments
may have gotten too far out front during the early ‘90s in their pursuit of profit and advantage,
but a process of economic “globalization,” despite
its pejorative implications, is the only lifeline for those on
the Dhaka tarmac to rise out of their current conditions. It
also, if delivered fairly and humanely, can be the bridge across
the economic divides and cultural rifts that are making our shrinking
world less livable. We need to remember Dhaka, and other countries
like Bangladesh, when we consider the implications and opportunities
of global markets. tOR
copyright
2004 M.T. Janke
§
|
|
