American Studies Center
at the University of Bahrain
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 10, 2007
New York Times Foreign Affairs Columnist Thomas Friedman
Thomas Friedman, the top foreign affairs columnist for The New York Times participated in a roundtable discussion with students at the University of Bahrain’s American Studies Center, Sunday evening, December 9th, from 16:00 to 17:30.
Friedman’s comments focused primarily on the arguments laid out in his most recent book, The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century (2005). The flattening of the world is produced by the forces of globalization by which he argues is the convergence of the personal computer with fiber-optic cable and the rise of work flow software. This convergence, Friedman says, gives advantage to those with creativity and imagination, to knowledge workers who can utilize the flat-world platform to reach a global audience.
Students pointed out the disparity in income and wealth which capitalist globalization is producing and queried why he is promoting it? Mr. Friedman replied that he writes both about the positive aspects of globalization as well as the backlash against it. “Socialism,” said Mr. Friedman, “was a great system for making people equally poor. Capitalism makes people unequally rich.”
Mr. Friedman went on to argue that “technology really rewards knowledge and education.” Thus, “when the world is flat, if you’re a knowledge worker, and suddenly you can sell in every market simultaneously, then internationally there are going to be huge disparities between people of a global market, with their goods and services, and people who just have a local market. And the reward for knowledge is much larger.” People who can put their products online, that is, on the internet, will benefit from this new knowledge economy, he stated.
With globalization, argued Mr. Friedman, more people have come out of poverty because their economies have opened up to the world. Friedman cited the figure of more than three hundred million people who have risen out of poverty in just India and China in the last twenty years, and this is because their economies have opened up to the world and they are connected. “I think that’s a really good thing.”
What actually is going on in the world, he argued, “is that the floor is coming up, but the gap between the poor and the rich is getting wider.” So, with globalization two things are happening simultaneously: 1) more people come out of poverty because the floor is coming up, but 2) the gap between them and Bill Gates is big. “In this flatter world,” which is the globalized economy, “Bill Gates can sell his goods and services almost everywhere.”
Students cited statistics indicating that only one in five Americans can elevate themselves out of the class into which they are born, but Mr. Friedman disagreed with such statistics and argued that if this were true, then the US would be dealing with much more unstable political situation than currently exists, and the US would have much more revolutionary politics than it presently has.
Friedman said that it is unrealistic to argue that we have an engine now that has produced more wealth than ever and that the world has gotten wealthier and faster in the last twenty years than ever before in the history of the planet, but it is doing so at a very unequal rate. “What would you rather have: A North Korean system that will keep everybody equal or one that generates enormous wealth and then we worry about how to redistribute it?”
The roundtable discussion focused on other issues including the Arab peace plan put forward by Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah in 2002, which Mr. Friedman said originated from one of his newspaper columns, to the present US war in Iraq, which Mr. Friedman, who was at the beginning in 2003 a very strong advocate of, now says he opposes.
In addition to UOB American Studies students and UOB professors and staff, also present were US Ambassador Adam Ereli, personnel from the US Embassy, and other guests.
Mr. Friedman was in Bahrain covering the Manama Dialogue security conference held at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel over the past two days and hosted by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies. The American Studies Center gladly accepted the offer from the US Embassy to have Mr. Friedman come to the University to participate in a roundtable discussion with students.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
A three-time Pulitzer Prize winner, Thomas L. Friedman has earned notoriety with the publication of several works of non-fiction including From Beirut to Jerusalem (1989), The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization (1999), Longitudes and Attitudes: Exploring the World After September 11 (2002), and, most recently, The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century (2005). His books, translated into many different languages, have earned him the National Book Award, the Overseas Press Club Award, the Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award, and he was named one of America’s Best Leaders by U.S. News & World Report.
A columnist for The New York Times since 1981, Friedman has traveled extensively around the world, and his twice-weekly column in The Times is syndicated to hundreds of newspapers worldwide.
Friedman has reported several times about Bahrain with positive articles about Bahrain’s elections in 2002 (See “There Is Hope”, October 27, 2002, and “The Democracy Thing”, October 30, 2002) and about Bahrain’s elections in 2006 (See “The Energy Wall”, November 30, 2006).
Frequently quoted and quite influential in US policy circles, Friedman made headlines in a March 28, 1999 article for The New York Times Magazine when he wrote: “For globalization to work, America can’t be afraid to act like the almighty superpower that it is.” Managing globalization “is a role from which America dare not shrink,” he stated. On the cover of the magazine was a full-page picture of a fist painted with red, white, and blue stars and stripes of the US flag. Calling for a global enforcer, Friedman went on to argue: “The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist—McDonald’s cannot flourish without McDonald-Douglas, the builder of the F-15. And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley’s technologies is called the United States Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps” (Friedman, March 28, 1999, pp. 84, 96). He repeated this quote in his book The Lexus and the Olive Tree with slight modification (Friedman, p. 464).
He was also an early advocate of the US War in Iraq, although in an August 4, 2006 column, Friedman changed his mind and argued that “’staying the course’ is pointless” and that the US should not “throw more good lives after good lives.”
A graduate of Brandeis University with a degree in Mediterranean Studies, Friedman went on to complete a master’s degree in Modern Middle Eastern Studies from Oxford University.
Photos are attached for publication. Additional photos from the event can be seen online at the ASC website: http://userspages.uob.edu.bh/asc/Thomas%20L.%20Friedman_12_9_07.htm
For further information, contact Dr. Colin S. Cavell at 17438775 or cscpo@arts.uob.bh
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The American Studies Center
University of Bahrain
Sakhir Campus
<http://userspages.uob.edu.bh/asc/>
Contact the American Studies Center
(973) 17438746
