Think how crazy that statement is: Egypt has masses of low-wage workers, like China. It sits right next to Europe, on the Suez Canal. It could be and should be the Taiwan of the eastern Mediterranean, but instead it is throwing in the towel to atheistic China on the manufacture of one of Muslim Egypt's most cherished cultural artifacts. Ibrahim El Esway, one of the main importers from China of fawanis, gave The Business Monthly a tour of his warehouse in the Egyptian town of Muski: He had imported sixteen different models of Ramadan lanterns from China in 2004. “Amid the crowds at Muski, [El Esway] gestured to one of his employees, who promptly opened a dust-covered box and pulled out a plastic fawanis shaped like the head of Simba, from The Lion King. 'This is the first model we imported back in 1994,' he said. He switched it on. As the blue-colored lion's head lit up, the song 'It's a Small World' rang out.”
Introspection
The previous section of this book looked at how individuals, particularly Americans, should think about meeting the challenge posed by the flattening of the world. This chapter focuses on what sort of policies developing countries need to undertake in order to create the right environment for their companies and entrepreneurs to thrive in a flat world, although many of the things I am about to say apply to many developed countries as well.
When developing countries start thinking about the challenge of flatism, the first thing they need to do is engage in some brutally honest introspection. A country, its people and leaders alike, has to be honest with itself and look clearly at exactly where it stands in relation to other countries and in relation to the ten flatteners. It has to ask itself, “To what extent is my country advancing or being left behind by the flattening of the world, and to what extent is it adapting to and taking advantage of all the new platforms for collaboration and competition?” As that Chinese banking official boasted to my Mexican colleague, China is the wolf. Of all the ten flatteners, the entry of China into the world market is the most important for developing countries, and for many developed countries. China can do high-quality low-cost manufacturing better than any other country, and increasingly, it also can do high-quality higher-cost manufacturing. With China and the other nine flatteners coming on so strong, no country today can afford to be anything less than brutally honest with itself.
To that end, I believe that what the world needs today is a club that would be modeled after Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.). It would be called Developing Countries Anonymous (D.C.A.). And just as at the first A.A. meeting you attend you have to stand up and say, “My name is Thomas Friedman and I'm an alcoholic,” so at Developing Countries Anonymous, countries would have to stand up at their first meeting and say, “My name is Syria and I'm underdeveloped.” Or “My name is Argentina and I'm underachieving. I have not lived up to my potential.”
Every country needs “the ability to make your own introspection,” since “no country develops without going through an X-ray of where you are and where your limits are,” said Luis de la Calle, one of Mexico's chief NAFTA negotiators. Countries that fall off the development wagon are a bit like drunks; to get back on they have to learn to see themselves as they really are. Development is a voluntary process. You need a positive decision to make the right steps, but it starts with introspection.
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