I grew up in a region of the world - the Middle East- that nations are more inclined to destructive crises: revolutions, political chaos, economic calamities due to corruption, sanctions and mismanagement, long civil wars, natural disasters, pandemics, etc. to only name the few. Just look at Syria, Yemen, Iran, Venezuela, Afghanistan, Congo, and countless other countries that we hear about in headline news.
Crises are complicated and mostly multifaceted. Crises also happen in more prosperous countries, like European countries and the United States. Just look at Britan, as they struggle with Brexit. Or in Spain, there are open-ended frictions for Catalonia's independence. Don't' forget that the global financial crisis that engulfed the world happened just a decade ago. Even here in America, it seems that we are stumbling over a threat to our long-lasting democratic values. In his recent book "Upheaval: Turning Points for Nations in Crisis" Jared Dimond, does a beautiful job of showing us that national crises are very much like personal ones. I adore how the book goes to great lengths to show that, despite the tremendous differences between individuals and countries, his approach can be usefully utilized to diagnose and even solve national crises. We all had the personal experience that in moments of crisis like the death of a loved one or a personal disaster pose a fundamental question about who we are and how we want to live, while others work their way through the process and end up better off. If you ask crisis therapists, they tell you in details why many people often do (or don't) navigate the crisis successfully. I have especially noticed friends that acknowledge they have a problem and take responsibility for dealing with it, the separate core values that won't change from bad habits that need to change and they seek help from those who have dealt with similar difficulties. In the book, Jared Dimond boils down these insights into twelve factors. The author also adapts them and applies them to build a series of fascinating case studies about how countries (Finland, Chile, German, Australia, Indonesia, and Japan) have managed these existential difficulties like a foreign invasion, civil war or general despair. I found the book's approach a bit unique; to borrow from a model of people's emotional turbulence to explain the progression of entire societies. It is, in fact, very revealing. The book looks at may comparative examples. But I found the Finland case and how it coped with sharing a 1000-mile-longboarder with the former Soviet Union very engaging. Soviet Union attacked Finland during World War II, but, as a student of history, it never occurred to me to ask the question before, why is Finland like Scandanavia somewhat of being like Eastern Europe - let's say Poland that has also been invaded by the Soviet Union? The book spends a great deal going through the twelve factors one by one in the case of Finland and every other case study. In the case of Finland; the country has a powerful spirit of its uniqueness and stood firm on maintaining its independence. If you want to learn about Finnish national identity jut take a look at the notably challenging Finnish language. The book takes you on an entertaining journey of Finnish language. Although Finland was super proud, it was also pragmatic. The country understood that if the Russians felt like taking over, they would do so in no time. So, rather than ignoring the Russian presence, which was what it had done before the second World War. , Finland chose to influence the Soviet that they would gain nothing by occupying the country. Pretty clever! Finnish political leaders even entered into trade deals with the Soviets. Their residents even had to drive around in tacky Soviet cars like Lada, but they also had access to Russian oil when the rest of the world was experiencing oil shortages. Finland realized that to stay in the Russian's good blessings required sacrifices, to the extent that their newspapers were mostly quiet on violations to avoid giving offense. Diplomats coined the term "Finlandization" to mean weaker countries are pandering unnecessarily to stronger ones, but the book points out that the countries these diplomats represented never came to Finland's assistant when it was frantically trying to hold off invading Soviet troops during the war. Astonishingly, by taking this approach, Finland not only kept its status as an independent democracy: it further made itself essential to the Soviet as a source of Western technology and innovation and the gates to the West. Ultimately, Finland was much more valuable to the Soviets as a friend that it would have been as just another puppet state. There are many examples in the book that are truly fascinating. However, at the end of the book, the author switches from looking back to looking forward and into the future. He describes some of the most critical challenges confronting our world at this moment - from climate change to political polarization and considers how we might lead the 12 factors to come out better in the end. I am an optimist and believe in a better collective future. In Upheaval, Jared Dimond reminds us that some countries have creatively solved their most significant problems. It is hard to go as far as to predict that we will successfully address in terms of our most pressing challenges, but Upheaval shows that there's a path through the crisis and that we can decide to take it.
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AuthorRoozbeh, born in Tehran - Iran (March 1984) Archives
April 2024
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