Hiatus

I have returned to this blogging exercise after several months hiatus, which I am told is a cardinal sin in the blogosphere. My excuses are the usual: time constraints, travel, business and family responsibilities, etc. All would be legitimate and all would be lame. The underlying reason for my silence was that I had temporarily run out of something constructive or insightful to say and the time to say it, and I have never intended for this space to be comprised of drivel or borrowed insertions as many blogs seem to be. A number of developments have brought me back to the exercise.

First and foremost is the economic meltdown we are all witnessing. I am not at all surprised by the current state of affairs. Indeed, I privately predicted something like this would eventually take place as a result of the demented neo-imperial military adventures of the neo-con Bush regime fueled by wanton corporate greed. The euphoric leveraging of America right under the noses of a witless and ill-informed electorate carried along by waves of news, commentary and reassuring presidential and congressional pronouncements - that things are going to change, that all is well, that we are winning the war in Iraq, that the economy is good, that America is the greatest country in the world - underscore the urgent need for a change in the way information is communicated. Media organizations have, like everything else in the 'developed' world, become corporatized. News has become info-tainment. Politicians absolutely must manipulate public opinion in the most cynical ways or they won't get elected.

Which brings me to the second reason for re-activating this blog: the U.S. presidential elections. I'll say right now that my vote is for Barack Obama because I firmly believe that Bush and his Republican base have led the country into a catastrophe of unprecedented proportions. Bush has sent thousands of young, innocent American men and women to their deaths and severely damaged the lives of many thousands more, not to mention the horrific depredations inflicted on overwhelmingly innocent Iraqi and Afghan populations in the name of The War on Terror. Because Iraq and Afghanistan are 'Over There' and the public media largely censors the horrors for public consumption, the American electorate pretty much allowed the US administration to keep spinning tales of change, success and an eventual happy ending. However, anyone who reads history knows that the downfall of empires is almost always caused by over-extension; by waging expensive wars on multiple fronts. In another time, the media might have pointed this out but, even if wise commentators have done so, their warnings would have been drowned out in the perpetual nightly news circus that pitches opinion against counter-opinion with the result that all opinions cancel each other out and the hapless viewer is left none the wiser.

I am voting for Obama because the neo-cons have sold America down the river, have destroyed America's reputation in the world, have undermined the Constitution , and have taken away - temporarily, I hope - some of our essential freedoms, all in the name of The War on Terror. This has been accomplished with the complicity of a cowed and compromised media. I am voting for Obama because John McCain is way too old to bear the crushing burdens of the presidency. I have many friends around the same age who are in better health an more energetic than McCain and they are all slowing down. It is a grave mistake to elect a man of advanced age to the presidency. I am voting for Obama because he is a great communicator. In this day and age, the US president has to be able to communicate with the American electorate and the world. The most effective presidents - Jefferson, Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, JFK, Reagan and Clinton, have been great communicators. We need a great communicator now more than ever before and Obama holds out that hope. I am under no illusions that Obama is some Robin Hood who is going to solve all the problems of Republic and restore the purity of America. He is a politician. To achieve his goal he has already made unpalatable and unpublishable compromises; of this I have no doubt. But he does represent change and the best hope to reverse the awful and catastrophic policies perpetrated on America and the world by the existing regime. Also and incidentially, I am voting for Obama because it is high time that a person of color should occupy the White House. It is long overdue.

By nature I am totally apolitical. Politics are anathema to me. But politics are now so intertwined with communications that I see no choice but to weigh in with comment, no matter how little weight my comment will carry.

The communications landscape across the Middle East and North Africa has changed radically since the first Gulf War in 1991 and this pace of change has been accelerated over the last few years with the unprecedented and sustained rise in oil prices (Thank you China! Thank you India!), which has fuelled an economic boom making the first oil boom of the 1970s and ‘80s pale by comparison.

MENA used to be a blank on most corporate site maps. Today this is changing. The sustained prosperity in the region combined with tangible reforms has encouraged more and more businesses to take the leap into the deep end and set up shop. The Dubai paradigm has made Arab governments more business friendly.

An estimated $2.5 trillion dollars of real estate and infrastructure developments are transforming Arab societies from the United Arab Emirates to Morocco. Gargantuan economic and educational developments are under construction, including, in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the vast $26 billion King Abdullah Economic City and the revolutionary $10 billion King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, designed to be the first coeducational academic institution ever established in Saudi Arabia.

Telecommunications is becoming a huge economic and social force across the Arab world and the opening of stock markets and financial catchments like Dubai International Financial Centre have finally convinced the international financial community to put down roots in the region. The travel and tourism sector is thriving as never before with massive resort and mixed-use developments in almost every country in the MENA region.

Even the most introverted and protectionist Arab regimes are now encouraging Foreign Direct Investment. And, conversely, Middle East governments and entrepreneurs are venturing out well beyond the region to invest in Europe, Asia and the Americas. Gulf Sovereign Wealth Funds are going on mega-shopping sprees in Europe, America and Asia. Prince Waleed bin Talal’s global investments are now the stuff of legend. The Kuwaiti retailer Al Shaya Group has recently won the Starbucks franchise IN RUSSIA! And Dubai World’s failed attempt to take over New York Harbour (boy did they have the wrong PR agency) hit headlines around the world.

Not surprisingly, the media environment across the region has experienced a breathtaking transformation. Audiences throughout the Arab world, raised on state-controlled media designed to limit the inflow of information and manipulate public opinion, now have access to a deluge of information and entertainment opportunities that would have been unimaginable 17 years ago.

This region also has an exploding digital environment – some industry experts say it is the fastest growing on earth – in which social media has become the primary form of communications among young people in once isolated and heavily censored societies like Saudi Arabia and everywhere else in the region. Youth is a major driving force in all this change. The Middle East has an alarmingly young population with 40% currently under the age of 20 and 60% under the age of 30.

Impelling all this demonic hyper-activity, either overtly or implicitly, has been the tragic fall-out from 9/11, the rise of Islamic extremism and the equally extreme neo-conservative reaction that led to the awful and endless military misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan. There is now a virulent undercurrent of anti-Americanism (and, by extension, anti-Westernism) raging across the Arab world. What a change from when U.S. troops were seen as heroic liberators during Desert Storm!

The implications of all this for the practice of public relations are staggering. There is a desperate need for cross-cultural communications and interfaith dialogue. The process of privatization of once state-controlled enterprises has opened up a vast range of business opportunities for communicators. As governments become more open and responsive to the outside world and to their own people, there’s a growing need for public affairs expertise. Arab institutional investors and sovereign wealth funds need to allay deep-seated doubts, fears and prejudices as they venture into Europe and the U.S. The entry of new first time companies into the region demands experienced communications counsel. Better financial communications might have prevented or at least mitigated the effects of the 2006 stock market crashes in the Gulf.

For public relations companies to work productively and profitably in this dynamic, troubled and prosperous region, they have to change their approach. Most global public relations companies operate in the Middle East with neo-colonial fear, loathing and arrogance, bringing in pale faced ‘experts’, who are here today and gone tomorrow, to do the heavy lifting and using locals as token account handlers and translators. There has been virtually no genuine investment in PR capacity building. Very few international companies have made any attempt to seriously train local practitioners and build a local PR industry. ‘Think globally, act locally’ is a canard in MENA. Secondly, whereas in the West the practice of public relations evolved out of journalism, in the Middle East public relations emerged directly from advertising and the practice of PR is still perceived as advertising in sheep’s clothing. Most public relations agencies are no more than promotional press release factories. Many are corridor companies and ‘poor relations’ of big advertising conglomerates, living off their largesse. In consequence, few practices have made any attempt to demonstrate the possibilities of this rich and varied profession.

There is a lot of talent in the Arab world but it needs to be tapped and nurtured. Global public relations companies need to behave differently in the Middle East and North Africa, entering the market not only to build business and make money but to contribute to the societies in which they work through education and skills transfers to develop local expertise and capabilities. This takes commitment and a triple bottom line approach to our business. As a home-grown practice with a decade in the field I can tell you that this approach pays dividends and we have found a partner in Fleishman Hillard International Communications that understands this, has made the commitment and is working closely with us to train a generation of young Arab public relations practitioners who will be truly able to meet the growing and diverse demands for communications in this promising and challenging part of the world.

(First published in Frontline)