The intriguing thing about a conference chock full of present and former officers from the Army Corps of Engineers is that you get all the data you need, but you have to connect the dots yourself. At sessions focused on Hurricane Katrina during the Ecumenical Patriarch’s Eighth Religion, Science and the Environment Symposium, Army Corps scientists and engineers, including Chief of Engineers Lt. General Robert Van Antwerp, gave the audience in New Orleans some sobering facts:

1. During the spring peak, the Mississippi River at New Orleans can handle only 1 million of the 3 million cubic feet/second of the water that comes down the river. At peak, two-thirds of the river finds another outlet to the Gulf.

2. 50 percent of the wetland-creating silt that once flowed down the river is today clogging up federal dams like Ft. Peck on the Upper Missouri. Not only is it eliminating more than half of the value of those dams as hydroelectric projects it is also making it virtually impossible for wetlands restoration to compensate for the gradual rise of sea level in south Louisiana.

3. During spring floods two years ago, if levees on the Upper Mississippi had not broken, the river would have crested at St. Louis — more than 10 feet above the levee at the Gateway Arch — and a second major American city would have been lost to flooding.

4. To protect the entire Gulf Coast from even routine hurricane damage is not possible. Nor is it possible to secure New Orleans against a worst-case storm.

What the Corps didn’t (or wasn’t allowed) to say, was what these facts mean:

1. The Mississippi River is seeking a shorter path to the sea, and New Orleans is no longer where the Big Muddy wants to end up. Effectively, the Atchafalaya to the west is where the river tries to go every spring. Eventually it will get there.

2. We need to manage the Upper Missouri dams to get the sediment out of them and back into the river. If we don’t,  we will soon have neither usable dams nor a defensible Southern Louisiana.

3. The entire levee system has given the Mississippi a case of atherosclerosis that causes it to flood now in even relatively ordinary water years. The engineers need to back off and dramatically expand the unleveed floodplain. Low-lying human habitations need to be moved to higher ground except in the biggest cities. Otherwise, if the levees protecting soybean fields hold, St. Louis dies. If cotton doesn’t get flooded, New Orleans does.

4. The Gulf Coast needs a three-tiered system of protection, in which restored barrier islands protect coastal wetlands and cypress forests, coastal wetlands and cypress forests protect levees, and levees protect communities. Nothing else will work — and this means that the Corps, the shipping community and the oil and gas industry all need to get out of the nature-destruction business and into the habitat-restoration business. Oil and gas operators, for instance, could do most of their work with hovercraft designed and manufactured in Louisiana but, because they aren’t required to, they  instead keep dredging channels that destroy wetlands and funnel storm surge right into New Orleans and other coastal communities like Houma.

You can imagine that if these were the unstated conclusions that flowed from the presentations made by the Army Corps of Engineers, then the papers delivered by scientists, who can be blunter about harsh realities of low-lying coastal areas in a global-warming world, were much harsher. We saw complex computer models that showed that, as we build up levees around New Orleans, unless we restore wetlands, all those levies do is shift the storm surge and flooding north into Mississippi.

Katrina was widely described as a “man-made disaster, not a natural one.” And the voices of the religious leaders at the symposium were powerful — but not powerful enough. Four years after Katrina, with a new Administration, things are better. But the necessary sea change in the way we protect the communities of the Gulf Coast still hasn’t happened.

As General Van Antwerp said, it’s not like we don’t understand: “The river’s going to do what the river’s going to do.” We ought to work with it, not against it. But changing our habits still comes too hard. When will we accept that only by protecting nature can we protect ourselves?

Before investing, you likely research the rating the financial product holds from one of the major credit rating agencies. But how would you feel if you discovered that a highly-rated bond received its grade, not because the company is strong, but because the rating agency:

1. assumed the government would bail the company out;
2. was most concerned with the “confidence sensitivity” of the market, so didn’t tell investors that the company could soon collapse?

If you’re like me, that would tick you off. Especially when you find out that those responsible for the shoddy analysis weren’t disciplined but, instead, engaged in some “thoughtful soul-searching.”

That is exactly what I was told, at a recent hearing of the House Financial Services Committee, by executives of the largest credit rating agencies – Moody’s, Fitch and Standard & Poor’s.

Credit-rating agencies were established in the 1920s as a safeguard for investors, who paid the agencies to evaluate bonds and provide unbiased ratings. In the 1970s, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) turned the model on its head by requiring that bonds receive a rating prior to being sold. This meant corporations – not investors – were now paying the credit raters and turned the agencies’ role from that of impartial consumer watchdogs into corporate marketing tools.

At a March hearing of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, the agency executives asserted that consumers are still protected because the companies’ reputations – and those of individual analysts – are on the line with each rating. So, having the opportunity to question them again, I asked Raymond McDaniel, Chairman and CEO of Moody’s; Deven Sharma, President of Standard & Poor’s; and Stephen Joynt, President and COO of Fitch; what repercussions befell those responsible for giving AIG and Lehman Brothers stellar ratings just days before they collapsed?

Here are some excerpts:

Me: After [AIG and Lehman failed] did you take any action against the analysts who had rated them? Did you fire them, suspend them? Did you take any action against those who had put that kind of remarkable grade on products that were junk?

McDaniel (Moody’s): No, we did not fire any of the analysts involved in either AIG or Lehman.

Why?

McDaniel: An important part of our analysis was based on a review of governmental support that had been applied to Bear Stearns earlier in the year. Frankly, an important part of our analysis was that a line had been drawn under the number five firm in the market, and number four would likely be supported as well.

The same question was put to Mr. Sharma.

Sharma (Standard & Poor’s): No, we did not fire anybody.

Me: No one got fired? No one got their hand slapped?

Sharma: Financial institutions are very confidence-sensitive. In Lehman’s case, not only were they trying to raise capital, they were about to raise capital, and on the weekend they declared bankruptcy. And once there’s a run on an institution, it’s very hard to manage….

Then Mr. Joynt weighed in.

Joynt (Fitch): No, no analysts were fired. I would say that our lead analysts from those cases were disappointed, surprised, and went back and reflected on how [they reached their] conclusions. I think we’ve done a lot of thoughtful soul-searching…

State and local governments across the country lost billions of taxpayer dollars when their highly-rated Lehman Brothers bonds – part of safe and conservative investment strategies – became virtually worthless overnight. San Mateo County, California, lost more than $155 million to a fund that included school districts, cities and emergency services agencies. I doubt that the laid-off teachers and EMTs are overly impressed by Fitch’s soul-searching.

So, who is to blame? The SEC has authority over credit rating agencies but, by all accounts, they’ve been asleep at the wheel. That is why, this week, the Financial Services Committee will consider legislation to restore confidence in our financial system and reassure American investors by strengthening and reforming the regulation of credit rating agencies. These reforms must:

• prohibit credit rating agencies from advising the companies they are paid to rate;
• require disclosure of all ratings a security receives so companies can’t shop around for the highest grade;
• require the SEC to review how ratings are devised;
• require ratings agencies to disclose all information used in a rating, monitor its performance, and inform investors when a rating or assumption changes;
• hold rating agencies liable when they knowingly or recklessly fail to reasonably investigate a rated security.

We think nothing of protecting consumers from faulty toasters or unsafe cars. Is it unreasonable to suggest that investors are entitled to information they can trust before investing their hard-earned money?

I don’t think it’s unreasonable at all.

More on Regulation

I few weeks ago spent a few nights up at Sea Ranch on the Northern California shoreline. I had heard of pioneering landscape architect Lawrence Halprin when I moved to the Bay Area and when the local design community spoke of him, it was as a true living legend. It wasn’t until I walked the grounds of Sea Ranch that I truly understood his impact on the California landscape. Breathtaking is an understatement. Yesterday, at the grand age of 93, he passed.

Beyond Sea Ranch, Lawrence was best known for the FDR Memorial in Washington DC, the approach to Yosemite Falls and in SFs’ Ghirardelli Square, United Nations Plaza, Levi Plaza and Stern Grove. Winner of many medals and awards Halprin kept working well into his 90’s.

He is survived by his wife, dancer and choreographer Anna Halprinand daughters Daria Halprin-Khalighi and Rana Halprin. Anna said of her husband “He believed that the most important thing about designing is to generate creativity in others and to be inclusive”

He authored least eight books and produced a documentary on Salvador Dali. However it will be his impact on the land that will be his lasting legacy as moderisms’ Olmsted.

interesting find — Halprin talks about the movie Dark City and why we walked out

*‘Modernism’s Olmsted’ coined by @svrdesign via twitter (thanks!)

Over the weekend I read Startup Nation, the new book about why Israel has emerged as an unlikely global leader in high-tech. Even if its authors Dan Senor and Saul Singer were not my friends and, in the case of Saul, my editor at the post I would still say that it’s the best advertisement for Israel to come out in recent memory. Foregoing the usual discussion of Israel as an embattled nation whom everyone hates and seeks to destroy, it focuses instead on the ingenuity and invincibility of the Israeli people and their vast technological contribution to the global economy. Where the Israeli army is discussed its focus is not on soldiers chasing down terrorists but on how the Israeli military serves as a future commercial networking tool for soldiers who served in the same unit. You can see why the book both informs and inspires.

Am I the only one is just plain tired of only hearing bad news about Jews and Israel? Remember the old joke of the Jewish guy who loves reading anti-Semitic magazines. When asked why he says, “When I read Jewish newspapers all I come across is that we’re hated and attacked. When I read the anti-Semitic alternatives they tell me we run the world and have all the money.”

Israel is not a victim. Less so is it a tragic nation. Rather, as Startup Nation makes clear Israel today is one of the most highly educated and technologically-advanced nations on earth with one of its fastest growing economies. And it’s time that Jewish newspapers and periodicals stopped the sad, tired, worn story that Israel is about to draw its last breath.

True, Israel has implacable, terrorist enemies that surround it, and yes, Iran is building a bomb which is an existential threat to the Jewish state. That’s all mighty serious stuff. These threats should and must be discussed, confronted, and ultimately neutralized, by force if necessary. But is that all there is to the modern Jewish story? Is there not also a story of tremendous success? Just imagine what a downer it is for the rest of the world to hear that the Jews only see themselves as perennial victims who are about to be murdered. And propagating only that bad news means that people learn to tune Israel out. Whenever they see the country coming up on the news – which is all the time – they naturally assume it’s some tragic, depressing story. So they either turn the channel or worse, they watch it and conclude that Israel is a place of guns, bombs, and bullets. If only they could hear about Israeli universities ranking in the top ten worldwide, of the growing number of Nobel Prize winners, of Andy Grove, Warren Buffet, and Bill Gates rushing to invest in Israel, and how a crazy percentage of all the world’s computer chips are manufactured in the Jewish state.

The time has come for world Jewry to no longer look at the Jewish state only as the refuge for a persecuted people and instead focus on Israel as the place where the limitless potential of the Jewish people is finally being manifest. All we needed was for people to get out of our way, to rid ourselves of countries that shoved us into ghettoes or gave quotas as to how many Jews could attend University, and just look at how much we now thrive. And we prosper not as a self-absorbed nation but as a people who make vast contributions to the welfare of all mankind.

It is time for Israel to begin seriously considering forgoing American economic aid. I understand the military aid. Israel has an insane number of crazies who wish to attack and destroy it. But the economic aid creates an unnecessary dependency, undermines the perception of Israel as a prosperous country, and gives the United States undo influence over Israeli policy. And surely we all believe that decisions governing Israel’s right to defend itself should be taken by the Israeli Prime Minister rather than the American President.

There is more.

Many a Jew has wondered aloud why the Arabs got all the oil and Israel got none. What could G-d have been thinking in making despots and dictators like the Saudis and Kaddafi so insanely rich while Israel has to struggle for every shekel it earns. Only now to do we see the truth. Oil is the greatest curse ever to befall the Arabs. By digging a hole and having money flow from the ground, the Arab states had little incentive to build world-class Universities and a thriving high-tech industry. And when the day finally comes — and it will come — when the world is wise enough to finally find an alternative energy source to oil, these despotic regimes will completely collapse.

This isn’t rocket science. All of us, I’m sure, know at least one rich friend whose kids had to work for very little and who consequently became spoiled and indolent. Israel has had to work for every thing it has. No country in world history has ever been more unjustly reviled or more ferociously and continuously attacked. Conversely, no country better inspires the world to ponder the infinite capacity of humans to rise from the ashes — and in the case of the holocaust, quite literally — and build a shining state on a hill.

Israel still has a lot of problems and a lot of enemies who seek to destroy it. It must be hyper vigilant and forever strong. But it is time for the other side of the story to be highlighted as well. And I hope that more books like Start Up Nation will begin to focus on Israel’s colossal achievements rather than merely its insurmountable threats.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, founder of This World: The Values Network, has just published ‘The Blessing of Enough’ and ‘The Michael Jackson Tapes.’ www.shmuley.com.

More on Israel

The health care debate — with its leaks, mixed signals and close-to-the-vest dealing — has reform supporters losing their cool while Obama, infuriatingly, maintains his. The uncertainty has strained the tenuous loyalties of a fickle American left. How much talk about “triggers” is real, how much is process, and how much is rope-a-dope?

David Dayen defines the problem for Firedoglake:

Is the White House “insisting” on triggers to take the heat off of Harry Reid, who is having trouble finding the last votes for cloture? Are they drawing fire away from Senate moderates? Are they doing it to keep Snowe thinking the White House is on her side? Do they want to pull a switcheroo in conference committee? Do they actually think that the public option will need some time to get right, so a trigger might help to aid that delay? Are these the words of one rogue faction in the White House that can’t stand the public option and the “left of the left”?

Reports about Thursday night’s White House meeting between Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and President Barack Obama suggest that Obama is not prepared to twist the arms of remaining Senate holdouts to secure a bill with a public option (sans “triggers”), even though that goal now seems within reach:

“Everybody knows we’re close enough that these guys could be rolled. They just don’t want to do it because it makes the politics harder,” said a senior Democratic source, saying that Obama is worried about the political fate of Blue Dogs and conservative Senate Democrats if the bill isn’t seen as bipartisan. “These last couple folks, they could get them if Obama leaned on them.”

Meanwhile, Obama’s political arm, “Organizing for America” (OFA), found its legs on October 20th, generating 315,000 phone calls to Capitol Hill in support of health care reform. While the approved script called for supporting the “the President’s plan for health reform” — whatever that is — many OFA volunteers support a “robust public option.” OFA’s back channel exhortations for supporters to increase the pressure and “win this thing” tell a very different story from the media narrative about a reluctant, unengaged president.

After eight years of Bush-Cheney, the left was primed for the change Obama promised — and thoroughly distrustful of Washington politics, including his. The mixed signals have Obama’s base clinging to the hope that their leader is playing rope-a-dope with opponents, while other progressives are already declaring Obama a conservative.

If it makes them dig in and fight harder, fine.

But Thomas P.M. Barnett’s warning to the Pentagon is one to which progressives should pay heed: “we field a first-half team in a league that keeps score until the end of the game.” Progressives have to maintain focus and momentum if they hope to punch through the insurance industry’s goal-line defense. “Allies” in Congress won’t manage that on their own. One year after November 2008, will voters again rise to the occasion or remain on the sidelines with an ‘Obama hangover‘?”

A society accustomed to sitting on the couch and being passively entertained is one more accustomed to being governed rather than to governing. Once the vote-counting is over, many citizens tune out again until the next election. A colleague echoing the familiar FDR “make me do it” anecdote, noted that few realize just how hard it is for even their favorite leaders to change things themselves without being pushed hard by supporters.

Anna Quindlen argues in Newsweek that the founding fathers engineered our system to resist radical changes of direction, that Obama is a process-oriented centrist more than the populist firebrand progressives thought they were electing, and that health reform therefore may be more incremental than sweeping.

Perhaps. But that very system did not inhibit the Bush administration from taking the country in a radical direction overnight, nor did it stop a population alarmed by those radicals from firing them overnight. Obama didn’t do that. We did.

Quindlen concludes by reminding readers that if Americans want change, they had best not sit back and expect someone else to do it for them, because

“… if the American people want the president to be more like the Barack Obama they elected, maybe they should start acting more like the voters who elected him, who forcibly and undeniably moved the political establishment to where it didn’t want to go.”

OFA got a taste again of what that’s like on October 20th. If the rest of America really believes that the health reform it needs is not just a public option, but a public necessity, more Americans will have to get up off the couch and go get it. Neither Obama nor the Democrats will deliver it to their doorstep like a pizza.

(Cross-posted from Campaign for America’s Future.)

More on Health Care

On Wednesday, October 21, President Barack Obama announced plans to convene a conference of “regulators, congressional leaders, lenders and small businesses to determine what additional steps we can take to get credit flowing to small businesses that want to expand and create more jobs.”

Small business groups like the American Small Business League (ASBL) are concerned the real agenda of the upcoming Obama administration small business conference will be to adopt legislation and policy that will change the definition of a small business and divert federal small business contracts to wealthy venture capitalists.

The Small Business Act requires that a small business be “independently owned.” Firms that are owned and controlled by venture capitalists are not considered small businesses in federal small business contracting and grant programs.

The venture capital industry, led by the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) has spent millions of dollars lobbying members of Congress to change the current definition of a small business to allow even billionaire venture capitalists to participate in federal small business contracting programs.

During his 2003 race for a seat in the U.S. Senate, President Obama developed deep ties within the venture capital industry. Since then, President Obama has received http://maplight.org/map/us/interest/F2500″>significant contributions from the NVCA and its members.

Both the House and Senate small business committees have attempted to pass legislation that could destroy millions of legitimate small businesses by diverting billions of dollars in federal small business contracts to wealthy venture capitalists that have contributed millions of dollars to key democratic leaders in Congress.

House Small Business Committee Chair Nydia M. Velázquez (D – NY) introduced H.R. 3567, Small Business Investment Expansion Act of 2007, which would have changed the definition of a small business for all federal programs to include firms owned and controlled by venture capitalists. In a story titled, “Velázquez Champions VC Firms at Small Business Expense,” by Keith Girard, AllBusiness.com, Velázquez was accused of “quarterbacking the venture capital industry’s efforts.”

“I predict that President Obama will try to cheat legitimate small businesses by diverting billions of dollars in federal small business contracts to his wealthy venture capitalist contributors under the guise of ‘increasing access to capital for small businesses,’ ” ASBL President Lloyd Chapman said.

More on Barack Obama

I had been called to Disney to talk with one of their executives about helping them with some organizational development programs. It seemed like a great opportunity. The lobby of their Burbank facility, with pictures of cartoon characters on the walls, was perfect. Creating “The Happiest Place on Earth” was Walt Disney’s dream, but at this time, it seemed the place was not as happy as he had envisioned.

Perhaps I could help, or at least that is what one of the coaching brokers in LA thought. I waited in the lobby for the “meet and greet.” We were greeted and sent upstairs to meet with one of their executives. We sat down at a round table in his office and introduced each other.

The questioning to determine if I fit into the profile began with, “Which instruments do you use to set a baseline?” I explained that I have been coaching and consulting with senior executives for 25 years and so I prefer using my knowledge of human nature. The Coaching Broker kicked me under the table, and then I added that I am familiar with most instruments. Clearly I had gone off script.

Then the fatal moment occurred. I noticed a copy of Jack Welch’s first book in the center of the table. I was hoping it was an accidental placement.

I thought to myself about the many companies who had adopted someone else’s framework and how I had to work to bring the organization back to life. Hmmm … this could be a great consulting opportunity. But surely Disney was not adopting Jack Welch’s framework. I decided to bring the book into the conversation so I said, “I notice Jack Welch’s book.”

Then it happened, he reached over and put his hand on the book and asked, “Have you read this book?” “Yes,” I replied. He explained that this is their Bible.

Frameworks That Work For One Company Fail Others

Okay, I have been trained in sales techniques and knew I should not explain that a framework that works for one company could not work for another. I said to myself, “Wait,” but my mind rolled on: Frameworks for a company are like thoughts, beliefs, ideas and other cognitive forms that are only an approximation of reality. Not reality itself. We have experiences that cause insight into reality, and then we form cognitive frameworks to describe and categorize those experiences. There is no way that a description of an experience can duplicate the full reality. Unfortunately, many navigate the business world as though the thoughts and beliefs recorded in their memory banks are real. This false understanding leads to loss of market share, incorrect business strategies and the loss of billions of dollars.

Thought Is a Blessing and A Curse

I knew I should not say that now, but what about explaining that: Thought precedes manifestation and is, therefore, a key tool for a businessperson. It is the greatest gift to mankind, but has also proven dangerous. It is clear that human thought is one of the sources of creation. Some say that thought has the power to create reality. There is plenty of evidence to support this view. All architecture, businesses like GE, art, and civilizations are all created by thought.

But, just as thoughts create beautiful realities; they also create horrible distortions. For example, an anorexic person will look in the mirror and see fat, even though there is none. They may be starving themselves to death, but their thoughts tell them they need to lose weight in order to be accepted. This is called a cognitive distortion. Of course, this is an extreme example. But all of us experience some kind of distortion. Old business frameworks are cognitive distortions. They do not describe the reality that created them, yet many companies blindly follow them.

The Difference Between GE and Disney Should Be Obvious

Jack Welch’s frameworks solved effectiveness problems he was trying to overcome at GE. They worked brilliantly because Jack had unleashed his genius and the wisdom of his team to create them. However, the genius that Jack Welch unleashed in the moment to solve complex problems at GE could not possibly work at Disney. I said to myself, “No, don’t say that yet!”

Then finally I decided to use questions, but I was leading the witness. I said, “What was the key driver of GE’s manufacturing companies?” He replied, “Efficiency and productivity.” Then I asked, “What is the key driver of success at Disney?” He replied correctly again, “Creativity.” Now I thought I had won a great victory, but I had forgotten the key principle I had drummed into my consultant’s heads years ago. “Don’t ask questions you already know the answer to.”

Then it happened. I said, “How can a framework developed for a manufacturing company possibly work for a creative company?” I got this glassy stare and some polite conversation, but no real answer. They found another consultant. But later I consoled myself on being right as I watched Disney lose creative allies and their Chairman and CEO.

As I gave that advice I remembered what one of my mentors had said to me years ago, “Do you want to be right, or win.” My thought sounded like Jack Welch, “I want both.”

I don’t know about you, but I have developed a case of chronic whiplash from following the about turns of our 44th president during the health care negotiations.

To think that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid feels that he is within striking distance of the 60 votes necessary for a national public option with an opt-out provision — while the President, rather than pushing for one without opt-out, is favoring the industry darling, the “trigger”.

First it was the deal with Big Pharma, followed by the exceedingly generous giveaway to the insurance industry, in exchange for their support for reform and an advertising budget.

As a basketball enthusiast, he may be faking to right to move to the left. But maybe not. I just can’t believe he cut class in Negotiating 101 the day they covered ‘never start where you want to end up’. Half the time I am not sure whether we are witnessing a master in the art of politics or a president without the skill, experience or simply “cojones” to finish what he started.

One might argue that Obama is being pragmatic and believes Reid is being too optimistic with his count. Perhaps he should be worrying less about Reid’s arithmetic and more about losing some progressive senators who may not pass a plan that includes the trigger provision. And maybe, just maybe, pragmatic politician that he may or may not be should also worry about truly cutting costs which is only achieved with a public option as well as representing the vast majority of Americans who did not vote for a wee bit of change they might be able to believe in if it is watered down enough.

More on Health Care

This year due to a coincidence of the lunar calendar, Eid-ul-Fitr and Durga Puja, two major religious festivals of India, were celebrated within a week of each other in late September. After twenty-two years, I was able to witness both in my birth city of Kolkata (Calcutta, India). One common thread between the Pujas and Eids is the propensity amongst the faithful to shop for new clothes and gifts with the same fervor and joy as Christmas shoppers in my adopted homeland of United States. The area colloquially called New Market is the nexus of this buying spree in Kolkata. I had a few things to shop for my family and quite naturally gravitated towards where all Kolkata roads seemed to meet.

Fighting the heat and humidity of a late September afternoon and amidst the crushing crowds, I could not help but notice that the overwhelming majority of the signs strewn across the myriad of shops were Puja greetings, well-wishing those celebrating Durgautsov. Conspicuous in their absence were well wishes to the Muslim community on the occasion of their Eid. Muslims who make up over twenty percent of the population in Kolkata, have become its invisible minority, increasingly squeezed out of the public square in Kolkata and beyond.

In 1947, after India’s bloody and tragic partition, many Muslims, particularly the elites, migrated to Pakistan leaving behind a political and social vacuum. Those who chose to remain Indian outnumbered those who opted for Pakistan. Yet Indian Muslims have been stigmatized as India’s fifth column. The subsequent rise of the Hindu political identity marked by the Hinduvta movement, the lack of creative ideas in the Muslim community towards self-empowerment, the post-independence educational curriculum depicting Muslims as outsiders, Islamophobia, and violence in the name of Islam; all have contributed to marginalize India’s Muslims.

Writing a book review in The Hindu, A.G. Noorani commented, “It (the Muslim problem) must be treated urgently and seriously as one of the national problems. Discrimination against Muslims has been a blot on India’s record as a democracy. That blot must be erased with determination and speed by all Indians who cherish the Great Indian Ideal.” Thus, the idea behind empowering Muslims in India should not be viewed as either appeasement to a voting block or solely an altruistic program to uplift one of India’s most downtrodden socio-religious communities.

Persistent religious discrimination and recurring communal violence have marred India’s ideals and values. It has diminished India’s narrative of a secular state where multi-ethnic and multi-religious communities can safely and freely reside. The erosion of the constitutionally protected fundamental rights has been especially disillusioning for India’s Muslim youth. The repeated failure of governments, both local and national, to take appropriate measures to protect the rights of minority citizens has prompted the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom to put India on its 2009 Watch List.

Despite the obvious need to correct the problem, religious fanatics and fundamentalists have espoused the notion that Muslim empowerment is a zero-sum game. In particular the Hinduvta movement has cultivated a mistaken notion that any gain to the Muslim community is a loss for the Hindus. But in today’s globalized society, power resides not so much in unilateralism (shown to be glaringly ineffective by George W. Bush) but rather in effective mutuality and sharing between all who have a stake in a nation’s future. Thus, the issue of Muslim empowerment should be as much a Hindu concern as it is a Muslim aspiration.

Empowering Muslims in India requires a three pronged effort with all of the parts working together in a holistic manner to convert today’s challenge into tomorrow’s opportunities. The first prong undoubtedly lies on the shoulders of India’s Muslim community. Instead of succumbing to the political rhetoric being espoused by self-appointed leaders, Muslims must leave aside their cynicism and engage in the Indian political, social and cultural life with vigor and positivity. The Civil Rights movement in America can serve as an inspirational model. Integration will be more effective if Indian Muslims harmonize their Islamic identity with their Indian one.

Such integrative steps can happen only if India’s state, local and central governments come forward with bold new proposals to correct the glaring deficiencies pointed out by the Sachar Committee Report. Although much of the grievances in the report were well known to Muslims, the Sachar Report is an eye opener to those who assumed away the Muslim problem or blamed it on some foreign conspiracy. The Sachar Report is poignant in its pathos that the disempowerment of India’s Muslims is an Indian problem created by decades of neglect and abuse, which hangs as an albatross on India’s otherwise vibrant democracy. Quite ironically, states like West Bengal and Kerala that boasted the most liberal governments were just as culpable in their lack of attention to Muslim empowerment as regions that hosted more religiocentric governments, like Gujarat. I was shocked to learn that in my birth state of West Bengal, Muslim representation in state public sector undertakings is exactly zero percent!

Other statistics are equally grim — less than 4 percent Muslims graduate from school; 1 in 25 undergraduate students and 1 in 50 post graduate students in premier university and colleges are Muslims; although Muslims are nearly 14 percent of India’s population their share in government employment is 4.9 percent; in India’s security agencies, Muslim representation is 3.2 percent; only 2.1 percent of Muslim farmers own tractors; just 1 percent own hand pumps for irrigation; if Muslims do outnumber majority Hindus in anywhere, it is predictably as a proportion of the prison population (much like Blacks in America).

It will be a mistake to leave the task of Muslim empowerment to the goodwill of governments alone. As India transforms itself into a market economy, it is the private sector that will play a bigger role in both the economic and social transformation of India. India’s big-business community can, if they choose to, play a positive role in empowering India’s Muslim minority. One mechanism for creating an Indian corporate workforce that is reflective of India’s socio-religious communities is through the voluntary adoption of the UN Global Compact. Launched in the year 2000 the Global Compact is an effort by the United Nations to usher-in a more sustainable, just and inclusive global economy.

To achieve this goal, the Global Compact outlined ten principles broadly classified in the areas of human rights, labor, the environment and anti-corruption. If the business community takes the necessary steps to apply these principles, it will inevitably lead to not only preserving the profit margins for the businesses but to a general well being of the society. By ending all overt and covert discriminations in labor practices, businesses can assist in empowering India’s minorities. By adhering to higher environmental standards businesses can also help the poor (including but not limited to Muslims) who are usually the disproportionate victims of environmental degradation.

The issue of Muslim empowerment is not so much about the Muslim community as it is about India’s future. A more educated Muslim community will constitute a more enlightened Indian work force leading to better business opportunity and a more sustainable growth for India’s economy. The next step in India’s economic evolution will likely not come on the backs of call centers and outsourcing. Rather it will come as result of higher paying service oriented jobs that require a large educated work force. An empowered Muslim community will also mean fewer security headaches and lesser social tension.

The Sachar commission recommends that 15 percent of all government funds be allocated to Muslim welfare and development. While this may work in the short run, in the long run Muslims need equal opportunities not quotas or handouts. This can come about via the establishment of “Equal Opportunities Commission” much like the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in the United States. Such a commission, armed with judicial powers, can greatly aid in empowering India’s Muslim much like the EEOC continues to do for America’s minority communities. These suggestions, among the many made by the Sachar report, are not difficult to implement provided governments and citizens alike make a commitment to change their mindset that for too long has regarded the issue of Muslim empowerment as a zero-sum game relegating them to become India’s invisible minority.

Parvez Ahmed, Ph.D. is currently a U.S. Fulbright Scholar visiting Bangladesh. He is associate professor of finance at the University of North Florida. He is also a frequent commentator on Islam and the American Muslim experience. To read his articles visit, http://drparvezahmed.blogspot.com

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Harry Reid stood up for America today.

He put a public health insurance option in the Senate bill, the merged version of the two health care bills passed out of committee that will now go to the Senate floor for debate, amendments, and passage.

This is a huge victory. Putting the public health insurance option in the Senate bill that goes to the floor makes it much harder to remove later. Opponents will need 60 votes to amend the Senate bill, meaning a high bar will have to be cleared to take out or change the public health insurance option.

Why did Senator Reid do it? As he said:

I believe that a public option can achieve the goal of bringing meaningful reform to our broken system. It will protect consumers, keep insurers honest and ensure competition and that’s why we intend to include it on the bill that will be submitted to the Senate for consideration.

For these reasons, the public option is what America wants. In poll after poll, in rally after rally, month after month, the American public has spoken. We want a public health insurance option to keep the insurance industry honest, to increase competition, and to give us somewhere to go if we don’t want to be at the mercy of the private insurance industry any longer.

Click here to sign the petition thanking Senator Reid.

When the Washington Post – harbingers of cautious beltway conventional wisdom – has their polls showing 57% of Americans support a public health insurance option, you can be sure that this is a mainstream position.

Senator Reid deserves our thanks today for leading America forward. The fight is far from over, and to be sure, there is plenty in the Senate bill that needs to be fixed. We need:

• To make sure health care is truly affordable to everyone
• Ensure employers are responsible for helping to provide good health benefits to their employees
• Fairly finance reform rather than taxing higher-cost plans

However, Senator Reid stood up for America and he should be encouraged to keep fighting. Sign the petition below to pledge to keep fighting for a public health insurance option and quality, affordable health care for all.

Click here to sign the petition thanking Senator Reid and telling him that as he fights for us, we’ll stand with him.

(also posted at the NOW! blog)

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