A Muslim Solution (Friedman)

If It's a Muslim Problem, It Needs a Muslim Solution

July 8, 2005

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Yesterday's bombings in downtown London are profoundly disturbing. In part, that is because a bombing in our mother country and closest ally, England, is almost like a bombing in our own country. In part, it's because one assault may have involved a suicide bomber, bringing this terrible jihadist weapon into the heart of a major Western capital. That would be deeply troubling because open societies depend on trust - on trusting that the person sitting next to you on the bus or subway is not wearing dynamite.

The attacks are also deeply disturbing because when jihadist bombers take their madness into the heart of our open societies, our societies are never again quite as open. Indeed, we all just lost a little freedom yesterday.

But maybe the most important aspect of the London bombings is this: When jihadist-style bombings happen in Riyadh, that is a Muslim-Muslim problem. That is a police problem for Saudi Arabia. But when Al-Qaeda-like bombings come to the London Underground, that becomes a civilizational problem. Every Muslim living in a Western society suddenly becomes a suspect, becomes a potential walking bomb. And when that happens, it means Western countries are going to be tempted to crack down even harder on their own Muslim populations.

That, too, is deeply troubling. The more Western societies - particularly the big European societies, which have much larger Muslim populations than America - look on their own Muslims with suspicion, the more internal tensions this creates, and the more alienated their already alienated Muslim youth become. This is exactly what Osama bin Laden dreamed of with 9/11: to create a great gulf between the Muslim world and the globalizing West.

So this is a critical moment. We must do all we can to limit the civilizational fallout from this bombing. But this is not going to be easy. Why? Because unlike after 9/11, there is no obvious, easy target to retaliate against for bombings like those in London. There are no obvious terrorist headquarters and training camps in Afghanistan that we can hit with cruise missiles. The Al Qaeda threat has metastasized and become franchised. It is no longer vertical, something that we can punch in the face. It is now horizontal, flat and widely distributed, operating through the Internet and tiny cells.

Because there is no obvious target to retaliate against, and because there are not enough police to police every opening in an open society, either the Muslim world begins to really restrain, inhibit and denounce its own extremists - if it turns out that they are behind the London bombings - or the West is going to do it for them. And the West will do it in a rough, crude way - by simply shutting them out, denying them visas and making every Muslim in its midst guilty until proven innocent.

And because I think that would be a disaster, it is essential that the Muslim world wake up to the fact that it has a jihadist death cult in its midst. If it does not fight that death cult, that cancer, within its own body politic, it is going to infect Muslim-Western relations everywhere. Only the Muslim world can root out that death cult. It takes a village.

What do I mean? I mean that the greatest restraint on human behavior is never a policeman or a border guard. The greatest restraint on human behavior is what a culture and a religion deem shameful. It is what the village and its religious and political elders say is wrong or not allowed. Many people said Palestinian suicide bombing was the spontaneous reaction of frustrated Palestinian youth. But when Palestinians decided that it was in their interest to have a cease-fire with Israel, those bombings stopped cold. The village said enough was enough.

The Muslim village has been derelict in condemning the madness of jihadist attacks. When Salman Rushdie wrote a controversial novel involving the prophet Muhammad, he was sentenced to death by the leader of Iran. To this day - to this day - no major Muslim cleric or religious body has ever issued a fatwa condemning Osama bin Laden.

Some Muslim leaders have taken up this challenge. This past week in Jordan, King Abdullah II hosted an impressive conference in Amman for moderate Muslim thinkers and clerics who want to take back their faith from those who have tried to hijack it. But this has to go further and wider.

The double-decker buses of London and the subways of Paris, as well as the covered markets of Riyadh, Bali and Cairo, will never be secure as long as the Muslim village and elders do not take on, delegitimize, condemn and isolate the extremists in their midst.

Blog & Contribute (NYT)

This is an interesting piece I found on NY Times. Some writers have blogs for massive brainstorming, or to get help from the masses while writing their books.

July 4, 2005

Dear Blog: Today I Worked on My Book

By TANIA RALLI

When he has writer's block, John Battelle, author of the forthcoming book "The Search: The Inside Story of How Google and Its Rivals Changed Everything," keeps on writing. But not his book manuscript. Instead, he goes straight to his blog (battellemedia.com).

Mr. Battelle, a founder of Wired and The Industry Standard magazines, sometimes makes quick notes on the blog about a topic related to his book, and other times posts longer essays. "Writing for the blog is more like having a conversation," Mr. Battelle said.

For years, book authors have used the Internet to publicize their work and to keep in touch with readers. Several, like Mr. Battelle, are now experimenting with maintaining blogs while still in the act of writing their books.

"It is very satisfying to write something and get an immediate response to it," said Mr. Battelle, who calculated that last year he wrote 74,000 words for his book, and 125,000 words on his blog. "It is less satisfying to write a chapter and let it sit on the shelf for six months."

Instead of simply being a relief from writerly solitude, these blogs have turned into part of the process. Mr. Battelle said that he was surprised by the number of people who read his journal and offered feedback, correcting mistakes, making suggestions of people to interview or articles to read and contributing ideas that are finding their way into his finished manuscript.

"It has provided such a wealth of sources," he said. "The readers pointed me to things I might not have paid much attention to."

Authors' blogs also change the solitary mission of writing into something more closely resembling open-source software. Mistakes are corrected before they are eternalized in printed pages, and readers can take satisfaction that they contributed to a book's creation. The blogs can also confer some authority: Aside from drawing on the collective intelligence of its readers, Mr. Battelle's site has become a compendium of Google- and search-related issues.

Authors who have experimented with blogging in this way - and there are still only a handful - say they hope to create a sense of community around their work and to keep fans informed when a new book is percolating. The novelist Aaron Hamburger used his blog to write about research techniques he employed to set his coming book in Berlin (www.aaronhamburger.com). Poppy Z. Brite, another novelist, has written about her characters on her blog as though they have a life of their own, not just the one springing from her imagination (www.livejournal.com/users/docbrite).

Despite the encouragement some authors receive from their online readers, the steady stream of feedback can be paralyzing. For some, the open process invites criticism and self-doubt when there is research to be done.

David Weinberger, the author of "Small Pieces Loosely Joined," a nonfiction book about the Internet, posted his daily progress online while writing that book. But as he frequently rewrote each section, Mr. Weinberger found it was not the best way to capture readers' advice. For his new book - "Everything Is Miscellaneous," about how information is organized in daily life - he is posting chapters only when they are complete, rather than in fragments (www.hyperorg.com). "And then I will beg for comments," he said.

Chris Anderson, who is writing "The Long Tail," a nonfiction book to be published next year by Hyperion, freely posts his ideas on his blog to solicit responses (longtail.typepad.com). His book grew out of an influential article he wrote - by the same title - last year for Wired magazine, where he is editor in chief.

"The Long Tail" examines the shift from mass markets to niche markets. Taking a cue from Mr. Battelle, Mr. Anderson has made his blog a source for anything related to the topic, whether written by him or someone else. The blog charts new applications for Mr. Anderson's theory since the publication of his article, and helps him collect ideas for the book.

"The conversation is happening whether you like it or not," he said. "To hope that it will pause for 18 months is unrealistic."

By introducing new ideas through his blog and inviting responses, Mr. Anderson is operating on the notion that if you give something away, you will get more in return. "I very much want people to take the ideas and improve on them," he said.

The question for these authors is this: By feeding and engaging their readers' curiosity, are they destroying the market for the books that they, after all, are paid to write?

"Blogs are a way to listen in and find out what people find funny and respond to," said Marion Maneker, editorial director at HarperCollins's HarperBusiness unit, who said it was too early to determine whether blogs would affect sales.

Michael Cader, who is the editor of two industry publications, Publishers Marketplace and Publishers Lunch, said he believed that, based on the limited examples, authors could build a much bigger audience for their work through blogging. While there is no evidence yet that blogs affect books sales, Mr. Cader said, anything an author could do to create a readership was beneficial.

Since the publication of their book "Freakonomics," an economic lens onto human behavior, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner have fielded questions about the book with their blog (www.freakonomics.com/blog.php), debated topics with readers (anything baseball-related strikes a nerve), and contemplated readers' suggestions (one reader suggested that fluoride in the water may be the root of all evil).

While saying that he was impressed by the depth and complexity of readers' responses, Mr. Levitt added that it was unlikely he would float his book ideas for mass consideration on the blog.

"The concern we have is about having our stuff sound fresh," he said. In addition to the conversation it engenders, the blog is mostly a receptacle for the ideas not spun into magazine articles.

Steven Johnson has used his blog (www.stevenberlinjohnson.com) to keep readers informed of his appearances and readings of "Everything Bad Is Good for You," his thesis on how pop culture strengthens, not erodes, intellect nonfiction. He has also rebutted his critics, chronicled his book tour, and responded to reader feedback. Mr. Johnson decided not to blog about the book while writing it, however,

Mr. Johnson said that many people who seek out the blog have read his earlier books and are interested in reading about, or commenting on, how his work has evolved. The readers get a behind-the-scenes look at the author's thoughts on the book's reception and other topics.

"There is only so much you can get out of a book signing," he said. "I feel like people don't really go to promotional book sites. They want the live feeling of the author who's out there fending off the critics and confessing his sins."

Blog & Buy (NYT)

July 4, 2005

E-COMMERCE REPORT

Blogging While Browsing, but Not Buying

By BOB TEDESCHI

NEXT on board the blogging bandwagon: e-tailer.

Online merchants are starting to test Web logs, which are akin to online diaries, in hopes of giving their stores more personality and giving customers a reason to return even when they're not in the mood to buy. But for companies like Bluefly.com, eHobbies, Ice.com and others, blogs are so far afield from typical retail functions that they will take time to master.

Take eHobbies. The site, which sells remote-controlled helicopters and other toys for grown-ups, added a blog in May, where it posts photos from trade shows and shots of employees. The captions range from boosterish to boring; many of the links on the blog lead to an eHobbies product page.

"There's a lot of good stuff in doing the blog, and some not-so-good stuff," said Seth Greenberg, chief executive of the company, which is based in La Mirada, Calif.

Mr. Greenberg said the blog allowed eHobbies to project the homespun image that sometimes eluded even small companies like his, which has only 25 employees. "It lets us pull back the curtain and show how we're a company of hobbyists who love participating in the things they're buyers for," he said. "It humanizes us."

In addition to featuring the link to the blog at the top of the eHobbies home page, the company will soon begin promoting the blog in e-mail messages to customers, and hiding coupon codes in the blog to give people incentives to visit, Mr. Greenberg said.

"Hobbyists are a little strange," Mr. Greenberg said. "They'll like things like that."

The blog's visuals will also improve markedly from the current collection, which are pictures taken with Mr. Greenberg's cameraphone. In the coming months, it will feature audio and video clips of hobbyists and their toys.

So far, at least, Mr. Greenberg said he had not encountered any significant disadvantages in blogging, aside from the occasional difficulty of posting pictures to the site. But analysts see pitfalls in these retail narratives.

If sites do not closely track and edit visitor comments, they may expose themselves to backlash from readers who see inappropriate language, or they could lose prospective customers who read scorching reviews, said Kenneth Cassar, an analyst with the Internet consultancy Nielsen//NetRatings. He noted, though, that vigilant editing could prevent such mishaps.

More importantly, Mr. Cassar said, sites must figure out how to keep customers from straying from the store to the blog without ever returning to shop. Because typical blogs feature links to articles elsewhere on the Web, they can represent a one-way ticket away from the site.

Such is the dilemma faced by executives of Ice.com, an online jeweler based in Montreal. Ice.com has created three blogs in the last six months: a celebrity jewelry site (SparkleLikeTheStars.com), a question-and-answer site (JustAskLeslie.com) and a company news site (blog.ice.com).

Shmuel Gniwisch, Ice.com's chief executive, said the company was "having an internal struggle" about whether to put links to its blogs on Ice.com itself. Currently, people reach them through search engines and links from other blogs.

"Our blog people want the links on our site, but our brand people say it'll take people off the site," Mr. Gniwisch said. "We'll probably test it and see what it does."

Within the blogs, of course, Ice.com could merely delete links that lead anywhere but the store. "But then it's not a blog," Mr. Gniwisch said. "This is about community, and giving people enough information to make a better decision."

Mr. Gniwisch said the blogs attracted "thousands of visitors" a week, but the effect on sales was unclear. "Technically, this is a very soft sell," he said. "We're intending to build awareness of our product, so if sales come, great. If not, it's also good."

Executives at Bluefly.com, the discount apparel e-tailer, credit their blog (Flypaper.bluefly.com) with bringing in new customers. Flypaper, which was introduced in April and features postings - sometimes more than one a day - on anything fashion-related, "is bringing some very positive things," said Melissa Payner, the chief executive.

Among other things, Ms. Payner said, Flypaper visitors who click to Bluefly have been more likely to make a purchase than those who visit Bluefly directly.

Ms. Payner said Flypaper reflected the company's firmer resolve to cater to women who cared about what was currently fashionable, instead of selling discounted clothes that might or might not still be in vogue. Ms. Payner, who spearheaded that shift when she took the chief executive's job last year, sought to craft the blog in the image of the company's merchants, whom she characterized as "obsessed with fashion."

And so, in the course of a given day, Flypaper might feature pictures of the singer Lauryn Hill's new hairdo, runway models in the latest Milan show or full-length shots of random, fashionable pedestrians, accompanied by snappy commentary. As with other e-commerce blogs, Flypaper is written by employees in their free time - a task Ms. Payner said her staff welcomed.

Blogging software, meanwhile, is available free, or, for more sophisticated versions, at prices in the range of $15 monthly. Those economics are attractive in an industry that is trying to curb spending.

Among e-commerce companies that have spawned blogs, that of GoDaddy.com, the Internet domain sales and hosting company, is perhaps the most controversial. Written by the chief executive and owner of GoDaddy, Bob Parsons, the blog attracts between 4,000 and 10,000 daily visitors, Mr. Parsons said. A link to it is featured at the top of the GoDaddy.com home page.

In the blog, Mr. Parsons muses on topics ranging from Guantanamo Bay to the company's Super Bowl commercial. In his Guantanamo Bay posting earlier this month, Mr. Parsons defended the government's interrogation techniques - a position he adjusted after many reader complaints.

"People said they'd never do business with me again, and tell their friends, neighbors and pets to do the same," Mr. Parsons said. "It also worked in the opposite direction. But you know what? It defines my company for people, so they can understand why we do things the way we do them."

He added, "I feel good that for a lot of people, when they're doing business with me - it's not just some name with a URL on the Internet."

The End of the Rainbow (Friedman)

June 29, 2005

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Dublin

Here's something you probably didn't know: Ireland today is the richest country in the European Union after Luxembourg.

Yes, the country that for hundreds of years was best known for emigration, tragic poets, famines, civil wars and leprechauns today has a per capita G.D.P. higher than that of Germany, France and Britain. How Ireland went from the sick man of Europe to the rich man in less than a generation is an amazing story. It tells you a lot about Europe today: all the innovation is happening on the periphery by those countries embracing globalization in their own ways - Ireland, Britain, Scandinavia and Eastern Europe - while those following the French-German social model are suffering high unemployment and low growth.

Ireland's turnaround began in the late 1960's when the government made secondary education free, enabling a lot more working-class kids to get a high school or technical degree. As a result, when Ireland joined the E.U. in 1973, it was able to draw on a much more educated work force.

By the mid-1980's, though, Ireland had reaped the initial benefits of E.U. membership - subsidies to build better infrastructure and a big market to sell into. But it still did not have enough competitive products to sell, because of years of protectionism and fiscal mismanagement. The country was going broke, and most college grads were emigrating.

"We went on a borrowing, spending and taxing spree, and that nearly drove us under," said Deputy Prime Minister Mary Harney. "It was because we nearly went under that we got the courage to change."

And change Ireland did. In a quite unusual development, the government, the main trade unions, farmers and industrialists came together and agreed on a program of fiscal austerity, slashing corporate taxes to 12.5 percent, far below the rest of Europe, moderating wages and prices, and aggressively courting foreign investment. In 1996, Ireland made college education basically free, creating an even more educated work force.

The results have been phenomenal. Today, 9 out of 10 of the world's top pharmaceutical companies have operations here, as do 16 of the top 20 medical device companies and 7 out of the top 10 software designers. Last year, Ireland got more foreign direct investment from America than from China. And overall government tax receipts are way up.

"We set up in Ireland in 1990," Michael Dell, founder of Dell Computer, explained to me via e-mail. "What attracted us? [A] well-educated work force - and good universities close by. [Also,] Ireland has an industrial and tax policy which is consistently very supportive of businesses, independent of which political party is in power. I believe this is because there are enough people who remember the very bad times to de-politicize economic development. [Ireland also has] very good transportation and logistics and a good location - easy to move products to major markets in Europe quickly."

Finally, added Mr. Dell, "they're competitive, want to succeed, hungry and know how to win. ... Our factory is in Limerick, but we also have several thousand sales and technical people outside of Dublin. The talent in Ireland has proven to be a wonderful resource for us. ... Fun fact: We are Ireland's largest exporter."

Intel opened its first chip factory in Ireland in 1993. James Jarrett, an Intel vice president, said Intel was attracted by Ireland's large pool of young educated men and women, low corporate taxes and other incentives that saved Intel roughly a billion dollars over 10 years. National health care didn't hurt, either. "We have 4,700 employees there now in four factories, and we are even doing some high-end chip designing in Shannon with Irish engineers," he said.

In 1990, Ireland's total work force was 1.1 million. This year it will hit two million, with no unemployment and 200,000 foreign workers (including 50,000 Chinese). Others are taking notes. Prime Minister Bertie Ahern said: "I've met the premier of China five times in the last two years."

Ireland's advice is very simple: Make high school and college education free; make your corporate taxes low, simple and transparent; actively seek out global companies; open your economy to competition; speak English; keep your fiscal house in order; and build a consensus around the whole package with labor and management - then hang in there, because there will be bumps in the road - and you, too, can become one of the richest countries in Europe.

"It wasn't a miracle, we didn't find gold," said Mary Harney. "It was the right domestic policies and embracing globalization."

Follow the Leapin' Leprechaun (Friedman)

July 1, 2005

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Dublin

There is a huge debate roiling in Europe today over which economic model to follow: the Franco-German shorter-workweek-six-weeks'-vacation-never-fire-anyone-but-high-unemployment social model or the less protected but more innovative, high-employment Anglo-Saxon model preferred by Britain, Ireland and Eastern Europe. It is obvious to me that the Irish-British model is the way of the future, and the only question is when Germany and France will face reality: either they become Ireland or they become museums. That is their real choice over the next few years - it's either the leprechaun way or the Louvre.

Because I am convinced of that, I am also convinced that the German and French political systems will experience real shocks in the coming years as both nations are asked to work harder and embrace either more outsourcing or more young Muslim and Eastern European immigrants to remain competitive.

As an Irish public relations executive in Dublin remarked to me: "How would you like to be the French leader who tells the French people they have to follow Ireland?" Or even worse, Tony Blair!

Just how ugly things could get was demonstrated the other day when Mr. Blair told his E.U. colleagues at the European Parliament that they had to modernize or perish.

"Pro-Chirac French [parliamentarians] skulked at the back of the hall," The Times of London reported. But Jean Quatremer, the veteran Brussels correspondent for the French left-wing newspaper Libération, was quoted by The Times as saying: "For a long time we have been talking about the French social model, as opposed to the horrible Anglo-Saxon model, but we now see that it is our model that is a horror."

Given that Ireland received more foreign direct investment from the U.S. in 2003 than China received from the U.S., the Germans and French may want to take a few tips from the Celtic Tiger. One of the first reforms Ireland instituted was to make it easier to fire people, without having to pay years of severance. Sounds brutal, I know. But the easier it is to fire people, the more willing companies are to hire people.

Harry Kraemer Jr., the former C.E.O. of Baxter International, a medical equipment maker that has made several investments in Ireland, explained that "the energy level, the work ethic, the tax optimization and the flexibility of the labor supply" all made Ireland infinitely more attractive to invest in than France or Germany, where it was enormously costly to let go even one worker. The Irish, he added, had the self-confidence that if they kept their labor laws flexible some jobs would go, but new jobs would keep coming - and that is exactly what has happened.

Ireland is "playing offense," Mr. Kraemer said, while Germany and France are "playing defense," and the more they try to protect every old job, the fewer new ones they attract.

But Ireland has started to play offense in a lot of other ways as well. It initially focused on attracting investments from U.S. high-tech companies by offering them a flexible, educated work force and low corporate taxes. But now, explained Ireland's minister of education, Mary Hanafin, the country has started a campaign to double the number of Ph.D.'s it graduates in science and engineering by 2010, and it has set up various funds to get global companies, and just brainy people, to come to Ireland to do research. Ireland is now actively recruiting Chinese scientists in particular.

"It is good for our own quality students to be mixing with quality students from abroad," Ms. Hanafin said. "Industry will go where the major research goes."

The goal, added the minister for enterprise and trade, Micheal Martin, is to generate more homegrown Irish companies and not just work for others. His ministry recently set up an Enterprise Ireland fund to identify "high-potential Irish start-up companies and give them mentoring and support," and to also nurture mid-size Irish companies into multinationals.

And by the way, because of all the tax revenue and employment the global companies are generating in Ireland, Dublin has been able to increase spending on health care, schools and infrastructure. "You can only do this if you have the income to do it," Deputy Prime Minister Mary Harney said. "You can't have social inclusion without economic success. ... This is how you create the real social Europe."

Germany and France are trying to protect their welfare capitalism with defense. Ireland is generating its own sustainable model of social capitalism by playing offense. I'll bet on the offense.