Friedman a foot soldier for globalization

Mehru Jaffer, Contributor, Jakarta

It is not important to agree or disagree with Thomas Friedman, but it is important to listen to him, simply because he seems to go out of his way to listen to others.

Ever since the Sept. 11 attack on America, the 48-year-old international affairs columnist for the New York Times is one of few Americans to continuously travel all over the Muslim world to find out why his country is so hated. Friedman, who was in Jakarta last week for the launch of the Indonesian translation of his best-seller The Lexus and the Olive Tree, keeps a diary and will soon publish another book of his travels.

He realizes that a cowboy comment like either the world is with America in its war against terrorism or is not has put all moderate Muslims in a quandary. The vast majority of Muslims dislike the Taliban but also disagree with the American government's view of the world that is suspected of being saturated by self-interest.

Even Friedman's tireless talk of peace and democracy makes many wonder if his vision is not limited to creating a social order around the world where free market capitalism is allowed to have a field day without thought of the fate of the farmer in the bowels of the countryside.

"The driving idea behind globalization is free market capitalism, the more you let market forces rule and the more you open the economy to free trade and competition, the more efficient and flourishing your economy will be. Globalization means the spread of free-market capitalism to every country in the world," Friedman writes in The Lexus and the Olive Tree, a work on how globalization has come to shape virtually everyone's domestic politics and international relations.

The book is as much a celebration of the end of the Cold War years and system as a guidebook to the new era of globalization.

Asked to pinpoint any negative aspects of globalization, he says that rapid economic development has to beware of devastating the environment. Individual identities are threatened and cultural homogenization happens.

The most important lesson that Friedman has learned after Sept. 11 is that new technologies have connected societies like never before but the lack of understanding between cultures is colossal.

"The closer we get the less we seem to understand each other," Friedman worries, comparing the world to a big family where everyone, including the crazy aunt, has the right to have her say. He constantly talks of building a future together instead of destroying it. The question is how can this be done without driving sections of the world population to desperation?

Friedman is all ears even when he is told that some of his theories especially on globalization are too naive. He waits for you to have your say but then counter questions whether you have an alternative.

And while you talk he notes it all down on his personal computer that is probably never unplugged. A cameraman accompanying Friedman is recording his odyssey for American viewers to eventually see what people around the world think of them and expect of them as the sole remaining Superpower.

Friedman regrets that people with differences seem to pierce the eardrums and refuse to listen to each other. The result is that wars continue endlessly and differences remain unresolved, he said at the Freedom Institute.

"It is still not clear to me what alternative the anti- globalization lobby has in mind. What is clear now is not whether we globalize but how we globalize."

The institute's director, Rizal Mallarangeng, later moderated a discussion between members of the Indonesian intelligentsia, like Goenawan Mohamad, and Friedman.

Friedman has said in the past that all the intellectual and creative energies in the Arab-Muslim world that are as bountiful as in any other region can never reach their full potential under repressive regimes. The last century has been so stagnant for the region not because of America, but because authoritarian governments strike bargains with religious leaders who often indulge in antimodernist religious education that produces poverty.

This is one of his many trips to Indonesia and he is excited at watching the largest Muslim country in the world reform its institutions and reach out to the world. The ideas of religious freedom, individual liberty and responsibility are not incompatible with Islam but he is full of regret that much of the Muslim world has turned its back on the classical liberal tradition practiced by Muslim societies in the past.

He is quick to remind that the Muslim world reached the zenith of its influence in the Middle Ages when it preserved the best of classical Greek and Roman teachings and inspired breakthroughs in mathematics, science, medicine and philosophy. That is also when Islam was at its most open to the world when it enriched and was enriched by the Christian, Greek and Jewish communities in its midst and when it was actively trading with all corners of the world.

Apart from dreaming of making globalization work what preoccupies him is also the future of US-Muslim relations. He is most interested in finding out what the reaction of a cross section of Indonesians is to September 11 and their opinion of America. During his travels he has found an iron wall of misunderstanding between America and the Muslim world.

"Just go anywhere Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and you'll hit your head against this wall," he says adding that it has taken many hands to build this wall, blaming American officials for failing to speak out against Israeli settlements in the occupied territories and depriving Palestinians of any potential homeland.

America's Muslim allies also helped to erect this wall. Their leaders have encouraged the press to print the worst lies about America as easy excuses for why they never have to look at themselves.

And for lending a ear to everyone Friedman has built up quite a following of foes as well as friends, making his wife and two daughters proud of the three times Pulitzer Prize winner but also worried about his constant wanderings around the world.