Revolution not always solution

We often fail to zero in on the difference between necessary and sufficient conditions. We say that oxygen is necessary for fire, but it is not sufficient. What is needed is the spark.

When we talk about the causes of terrorism, we often cite poverty and unemployment as the conducive environment, or the incubator. Yet not all the poor and unemployed are readily enlisted in terrorist organisations.

Some analysts attribute terrorism to marginalisation. Not all marginalised people can be duped into committing heinous crimes. They need someone to brainwash them and transform their potential into a destruction capacity.

An analogy can be made to economic development. We devise a plan, create the necessary committees, charge responsibilities, chart a roadmap for implementation, but not much comes out of this process in terms of deliverables.

Is it because we overemphasise input and efforts, and relegate results to oblivion So, the diagnosis then is that secret magic term, i.e., “management by results”.

Or is it because in our ardent change for good leaders and managers, we promote the second in command to the top, or to their levels of incompetence?

There is an inertia somewhere, an entropy, as physicists would say, which inhibits the order of things and scatters the efforts.

In the game tug of war, a group of lighter people could outrank and defeat an equal number of heavier people. The reason is that the lighter group is coordinated, which adds extra energy to their total.

The less coordinated heavy weights would lose a part of their energy. Thus, the strength of the lighter side is higher than that of their counterparts.

To remedy the situation, we have one of two options. We can either go through an adjustment process or implement a big-push structural undertaking. We probably need both.

In Jordan, special committees assembled to come up with a reform plan often end up with an almost revolutionary structural approach.

The unsettled mood of the people cannot see much beauty in the existing scheme of things. Thus, they all talk about the need for revolutionary change.

Such 2 mode of thinking pops up when we address education, awqaf, investment, governance, health services, tourism, agriculture, etc.

That explains to some degree the poor presence of precision and specificity in our analyses and recommendations.

We end up with the same conclusions and recommendations for all sectors and all problems.

The vintage wisdom is summarised in the sweeping adage “a revolution in this sector is needed”.

One of India’s ministers of planning under the late Rajiv Gandhi, whose name was Athar Hussein, wrote a forward to a report on the reform of industrial research organisations in India.

He said in that preface: “One of the paradoxes of our developing countries is that we are fond of revolutions and hateful of change.”

He may have been cynical in that respect, but I believe he was right.

His Majesty King Abdullah often tells Jordanians that reform is gradual, incremental, especially if it is structural.

What if the problem we are grappling with can be fixed by fine-tuning  policies or streamlining efforts?

Can we really afford to kill a fly on a sleeping person’s nose with a sledgehammer?

The writer, a former Royal Court chief and deputy prime minister, is a member of Senate. He contributed this article to The Jordan Times.