Maelle Gavet Quotes
I do not like the idea that a Russian company cannot be successful without Western experience. I think that, at the end of the day, it is a question of bringing benchmarks from other countries. So far, the golden benchmark has been the West.
Gavet, Maelle. Interview by Rachel Morarjee. The Moscow Times, 24 Oct. 2011.
The Jews and Arabs for years shared Palestine. But the Jews spread out over the world, becoming modern and Westernized in the process. When the Jews returned to Palestine as a part of the Zionist movement, they were more modern, Westernized, and culturally at odds with their old Arab cousins, whose cultures had atrophied. The Arabs resented the Westernized culture that was being introduced into the Middle East. One point of view is that had Israel not tried to introduce moderism and Western ideas into the Middle East, the Jewish State might have been more accepted. However, not only did they bring a foreign perspective (democracy), education and techmology and capitalism to the area, but they far outpassed the Arab nations in agriculture, industry, science, medicine and general standard of living. The Arab dictators and monarchs had always had the excuse for poverty that the land was so poor that it simply could not be developed, but Israel developed the worst of the land in the area with no oil or natural resources. Every day of Israeli prosperity and scientific achievement was an embarassment for the rest of the Middle East where even the rich oil countries were not improving the lot of the average citizen.
Pandita Indrani Rampersad. She is the first Hindu woman who ever became a pundit—a religious expert who guides Hindus. She is also a professor in the United States.
“Young Chinese” referred to members of a Chinese political party—Young China—consisting mainly of Western-Educated young Chinese who were a strong force for change, but did not have the experience, money, or power connections to unify the country or operate the government. The Japanese watched Chinese politics very carefully as China was seen as a potential rival or a teritory of conquest.
The National Chamber of Commerce claims that the represent American business and indeed many business men and women join their local Chamber of Commerce, never realizing that the National Chamber of Commerce is controlled by partisan political ideologues who mainly represent the largest of corporations. The leaders have extreme egos and spend millions of dollars from the local chambers to put themselves on television with their own TV studios and ignoring the interest of most small businesses. When Hollings made this quotation, he felt that many large companies were moving their manufacturing and packaging to China. This not only exported the jobs of American workers, but hurt small businesses who could no longer sell the large companies packaging material, printing, sub assembly of even supply parts. The nut and bolt manufacturer in Peoria no longer sells the nuts and bolts to an American Manufacturer as the Chinese make their own nuts and bolts. Even small training companies had few workers to train. But the National Chamber of Commerce took the money from small business as they lobbied hard for the expansion of business with China. The National Chamber, never puts its policies to a vote of its member companies or the small companies would out vote the larger ones and the monopolies whom the Chamber national executives mainly serve.
Buleihi is one of the few Arab intellectuals who are not totally negative about Western colonialism and interference in the affairs of other countries who he believes benefit from the Western influence and have developed such an insularity that they will not be changed or modernized otherwise.
10 centuries ago was a time when the Arabs were far more advanced and modern than other cultures including the Christian West that was in the Dark Ages. However, in the 12th century there was a “closing”—a narrowing of allowable Islamic thinking, and since then, Islamic people have had great difficulty with change or modernity. Not all Muslim nations are equally rigid but the Arabs are at the extreme among Islamic counties.
Most Muslims in the world prefer a Western modern lifestyle to their traditional culture. The Islamic fundamentalist leaders however see evil and the dissolution of their traditions in this process of modernization and try and polarize their communities to intimidate the modernists. The same thing happened in Christianity over the last centuries and the modernists prevailed, but even in America there are still religious fundamentalists (Christians and Jews) who reject and oppose modernism. The difference is that in America, the anti-modernists are relatively few and not nationally influential on public officials while in many Islamic nations, they are numerous and very influential on public officials. The American religious fundamentalists have already lost in trying to stave off modernity; in many Islamic nations the contest is still in doubt.
While this type of modernization had been a theme of her reign, it was particularly fascinating at this time when China had been invaded by Japan and 7 Western Countries, she still argued that the only way for China to thrive and attain true independence was to reform and adopt many Western Ways. Chinese leader after her gave lip service to doing this but never wanted to implement the reforms lest the lose power. Ironically, it was under Communist leader Deng Xiaoping, 1904-1993, that Cixi’s notion of adopting modern Western economic and technological models and approaches was finally implemented and then China made the greatest improvement of any large society ever in a relatively short term. However, Deng stopped short of adopting Western notions of political freedom.
Maëlle Gavet is a French businesswoman, author, and entrepreneur.
