Haki Yetu!

I am taking a class in International Financial Markets for my MBA this semester and on the introductory class, the lecturer mentioned a book that had profoundly changed his thinking about current affairs and that he encouraged us to read.

Being the book magnet that I am, I needed no further encouragement and come Saturday morning, I had the perfect excuse to roam the bookshops looking for the title – it certainly helped that it was strange: “The World is Flat – Thomas L. Friedman”

You must be wondering. . . as I was when the lecturer spoke briefly about the contents of the book in class. It is sub-titled “The Globalized World in the Twenty-First Century” and it has some startling discoveries especially for a Kenyan who has grown used to hearing the masses cry out “Haki Yetu!”, backed by very caring and ‘voter-conscious’ politicians.

The first chapter begins by tackling the issue of how “out-sourcing” and “off-shoring” changed the face of jobs in the United States, India and other countries in the East that have in the last few years become hubs for cheap labor for most European operations and effectively made some jobs completely redundant in Western countries.

The portion that got me thinking about our African masses and their ‘entitlement mentality’ is an excerpt of a memo that the Reuters Managing Editor sent to the editorial staff, portions of which I have highlighted below:

“. . .Jobs went; jobs were created. Skills went out of use; new skills were required. The region changed; people changed.. . . .Change is hard. Change is hardest on those caught by surprise. Change is hardest on those who have difficulty changing too. But change is natural; change is not new; change is important.. . . . Work gets done where it can be done most effectively and efficiently. . . It helps because it frees up people and capital to do different, more sophisticated work, and it helps because it gives an opportunity to produce the end product more cheaply, benefiting customers even as it helps the corporation. It’s certainly difficult for individuals to think about ‘their’ work going away, being done thousands of miles away by someone earning thousands of dollars less per year. But it’s time to think about the opportunity as well as the pain,. . . Every person, just as every corporation, must tend to his or her own economic destiny, just as our parents and grandparents . . . . did.”

Ouch! Imagine that being the pep talk that your CEO gives to explain why your job is no longer being done in Kenya – and has instead been out-sourced to a firm in Bangalore India which will be doing it for a fraction of the price – while you sleep (due to the time differences) no less! And to make matters worse, all the competitors have done the same so the job does not exist in your part of the world anymore – you cannot send your CV to the rival company and get the same job, not in your country any more!

That is globalization first-hand, and the West felt it long ago, as far back as the year 2000. 11 years down the line, we are still chanting “haki yetu!” and expecting things to remain the same for us as they were for our grandparents and as they will be for our children’s children. Fat chance!

Question is, are you prepared for massive redundancy? Are you comfortable with change? Do you keep a  step ahead of the changes or are you a social activist in waiting?

Get the book, read it and wake up. As Joseph Stiglitz of the New York Times comments, “it makes you see things in a new way.”