That is … until you see them return to the lands and vegetation we have encroached into, when we settled in their habitat.
When elephants leave their habitats for their watering holes, for however long, it does not mean they have resettled.
And so, it becomes hard for us to imagine the way a child intuitively understands these gentle giants. Instead, …
When we think of elephants, we conjure up images of majesty and aggression!
ARTICLE OUTLINE:
Introduction
Basic Facts about elephants
The impact elephants have on the ecology
Historical reasons for the demise of elephants
FAQS ABOUT HUNTING:
What is fuelling human’s obsession for hunting?
Why men trophy hunt?
FAQs ABOUT POACHING:
About the elephants
About the tusk
About the poachers and the trade
About the end consumer
Beijing master ivory carvers cling to their trade
Who is the silent voice and what does it say?
Population. At the turn of the 20th century, there were a few million African elephants and about 100,000 Asian elephants. Today, there are an estimated 450,000 – 700,000 African elephants and between 35,000 – 40,000 wild Asian elephants. Most captives are endangered Asian elephants; African bush elephants and African forest elephants are less amenable to training. Animal rights organizations estimate there are 15,000 to 20,000 elephants in captivity worldwide. That brings the total number of elephants today to about 500,000. Half a million.
The real question is, what would you do if it had been the global human population that has been decimated by up to three quarters of its numbers by another species? And you are left with a quarter of you!
INTRODUCTION
Elephants are among the most intelligent of the creatures with whom we share the planet, with complex consciousnesses that are capable of strong emotions. Across Africa they have inspired respect from the people that share the landscape with them, giving them a strong cultural significance. As icons of the continent elephants are tourism magnets, attracting funding that helps protect wilderness areas. They are also keystone species, playing an important role in maintaining the biodiversity of the ecosystems in which they live.
Symbolic Elephant Meaning. … Symbolic elephant meaning deals primarily with strength, honor, stability and tenacity, among other attributes. To the Hindu way of thought, the elephant is found in the form of Ganesha who is the god of luck, fortune, protection and is a blessing upon all new projects.
What does elephant symbolize?
Many African cultures revere the African Elephant as a symbol of strength and power. It is also praised for its size, longevity, stamina, mental faculties, cooperative spirit, and loyalty. South Africa, uses elephant tusks in their coat of arms to represent wisdom, strength, moderation and eternity.
Elephants generally do not have predators (animals that eat them) due to their massive size. Newborn elephants are however vulnerable to attacks from lions,tigers, and hyenas. The biggest danger to elephants are humans; elephants have been hunted for their tusks to near extinction in some cases.Oct 8, 2015
Yet, today they stand at the brink on its way of being wiped out. Paving the way for the last man standing. The man.
Yet, did you know that ….
What elephants are afraid of?
But the elephant’s fear has more to do with the element of surprise than the mouse itself. Theories abound that elephants are afraid of mice because the tiny creatures nibble on their feet or can climb up into their trunks.Jun 1, 2016
Are elephants really scared of bees?
Elephants are the largest beasts alive on land today. Yet, these goliaths are afraid of bees, researchers have discovered. The giants flee when they hear the buzz of a beeswarm. Their fear could be used to help protect them.
SURPRISED?
And so the images we had conjured in our minds of their undisputed majesty and world domination (and possible aggression), true?
So, be calm. Love an elephant and learn to live among the gentle giants if, that is, you still want to live on their lands.
“Because he (the human) just comes for the money, he does not have any compassion or love for the elephant. And so he does not want to be involved in taking care of the elephant. So the elephant will get poorer and poorer in condition.”
“I look into their eyes and I can see they have suffered. They can’t speak.”
“They never knew that elephants can show happiness. That they have humor and can smile.”
“They accept her into her herd as a kindred spirit after suffering so many years of abuse. Perhaps they are relieved and surprised to find such human kindness still exists.”
Blog Author’s Note:
As you read the article, notice the elephant (what we know about them: the facts, the emotions, the money trail, the larger-than-life images this animal conjures in our minds) that this majestic animal has brought into the room … and then, notice what is the “elephant that is not in the room”?
What do you think that is? There right there, is our leverage.
BASIC FACTS ABOUT ELEPHANTS
Habitat loss is one of the key threats facing elephants. Many climate change projections indicate that key portions of elephants’ habitat will become significantly hotter and drier, resulting in poorer foraging conditions and threatening calf survival. Increasing conflict with human populations taking over more and more elephant habitat and poaching for ivory are additional threats that are placing the elephant’s future at risk.
Of the two species, African elephants are divided into two subspecies (savannah and forest), while the Asian elephant is divided into four subspecies (Sri Lankan, Indian, Sumatran and Borneo). Asian elephants have been very important to Asian culture for thousands of years – they have been domesticated and are used for religious festivals, transportation and to move heavy objects.
Diet
Staples: Grasses, leaves, bamboo, bark, roots. Elephants are also known to eat crops like banana and sugarcane which are grown by farmers. Adult elephants eat 300-400 lbs of food per day.
Population
At the turn of the 20th century, there were a few million African elephants and about 100,000 Asian elephants. Today, there are an estimated 450,000 – 700,000 African elephants and between 35,000 – 40,000 wild Asian elephants.
Range
African savannah elephants are found in savannah zones in 37 countries south of the Sahara Desert. African forest elephants inhabit the dense rainforests of west and central Africa. The Asian elephant is found in India, Sri Lanka, China and much of Southeast Asia.
Behaviour
Elephants form deep family bonds and live in tight matriarchal family groups of related females called a herd. The herd is led by the oldest and often largest female in the herd, called a matriarch. Herds consist of 8-100 individuals depending on terrain and family size. When a calf is born, it is raised and protected by the whole matriarchal herd. Males leave the family unit between the ages of 12-15 and may lead solitary lives or live temporarily with other males.
Elephants are extremely intelligent animals and have memories that span many years. It is this memory that serves matriarchs well during dry seasons when they need to guide their herds, sometimes for tens of miles, to watering holes that they remember from the past. They also display signs of grief, joy, anger and play.
Recent discoveries have shown that elephants can communicate over long distances by producing a sub-sonic rumble that can travel over the ground faster than sound through air. Other elephants receive the messages through the sensitive skin on their feet and trunks. It is believed that this is how potential mates and social groups communicate.
Reproduction
Mating Season: Mostly during the rainy season.
Gestation: 22 months. Litter size: 1 calf (twins rare). Calves weigh between 200-250 lbs at birth. At birth, a calf’s trunk has no muscle tone, therefore it will suckle through its mouth. It takes several months for a calf to gain full control of its trunk.
Elephants are the keystone species of their habitat.
The planet earth is inhabited by diverse array of living organisms such as microorganisms, plants, animals and human beings which collectively constitute the biodiversity. Each and every element of the living component of the system has its own role, either positive or negative, to play as a system component. So preservation and conservation of living organisms, whether they are tiny or large, become immense important in playing beneficial role in maintaining biodiversity.
Mega-herbivorous animal such as elephant has major impact on the terrestrial ecosystems in which they live and thus on the animals that depend on these habitats. Elephant can be referred as “keystone species” because it facilitates:
Feeding by other herbivores that disperse seeds and supports large assemblages of invertebrates, such as dung beetles, and
Lower plants such as algae and fungi apart from enriching soil nutrients through dung piles.
These algae and fungi are preferred nutrient plants for some reptiles such as monitor lizard and star tortoise in the semiarid tropical forests.
Dung beetle accumulation attracts many insectivorous birds.
Dung deposition into water holes is being benefited to the Pisces and amphibians.
Wherever they live, elephants leave dung that is full of seeds from the many plants they eat. When this dung is deposited the seeds are sown and grow into new grasses, bushes and trees, boosting the health of the savannah ecosystem.
Seed dispersal through alimentary canal induces germination and survival capacity of the seedlings to maintain the forest heterogeneity; some species rely entirely upon elephants for seed dispersal.
Elephant also does some of the silvicultural practices such as
Creation of paths in dense forest. When forest elephants eat, they create gaps in the vegetation. These gaps allow new plants to grow and create pathways for other smaller animals to use.
On the savannahs, elephants feeding on tree sprouts and shrubs help to keep the plains open and able to support the plains game that inhabit these ecosystems.
Maintenance of grazing lawns and height of the trees and thinning in thick vegetation cover to keep the sustainable utility of the forest.
Identification of subsoil water and natural salt licks through elephants’ strong sense is also shared by the other animals especially the herbivores for which intake of minerals from the natural soil is most important for many physiological activities.
During the dry season, elephants use their tusks to dig for water. This not only allows the elephants to survive in dry environments and when droughts strike, but also provides water for other animals that share harsh habitats.
The pachyderm (a very large mammal with thick skin, especially an elephant, rhinoceros, or hippopotamus) is under severe threat due to various conservation problems such as loss of habitat (see example below that of forest cover in Sumatra), habitat quality and corridors, reduction of home range, population increase, impact of developmental activities, human-elephant conflict issues and poaching for ivory. Among the factors, some of them may be responsible for major proportions, and some of them involve less proportion. But these are the reasons listed as conservation problems for the long-run conservation of elephants.
Historically, trade and capture are responsible for elephants’ demise
Since the Proboscidea originated 60 million years ago, the order has included some 10 families, 45 genera and 185 species and subspecies, in a spectacular diversity of forms. The African (Loxodonta africana and Loxodonta cyclotis) and Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) existing today are the sole remnants of that remarkable evolutionary radiation. Representing a tiny fraction of their former numbers, the living elephants survive in only small pockets of the land they once roamed. In many areas elephant populations have already gone extinct or are highly endangered.
Over centuries legal and illegal hunting (“poaching”) for the commercial ivory trade and, in Asia, the capture of elephants for human use, have been largely responsible for the elephant’s demise. The number of wild Asian elephants now comprise less than a tenth of all remaining elephants, and continue to decline in shrinking habitat. In Africa, elephants once inhabited the entire continent, from the Mediterranean down to its southern tip, but the ivory trade coupled with human expansion caused a continental decline in their numbers. By circa 1600 North Africa was devoid of elephants. In modern Africa, poaching for ivory has been fuelled by poverty, political instability and civil unrest coupled with the easy availability of arms. In recent history, between 1979 and 1989, Africa’s elephants underwent a dramatic and devastating decline, falling from approximately 1.3 million animals to an estimated 609,000. Human greed and rising prices of ivory were responsible for the appalling slaughter.
African elephants (Loxodonta africana) are imperiled by poaching and habitat loss. Despite global attention to the plight of elephants, their population sizes and trends are uncertain or unknown over much of Africa. To conserve this iconic species, conservationists need timely, accurate data on elephant populations.
There is an estimated population of 352,271 savannah elephants on study sites in 18 countries, representing approximately 93% of all savannah elephants in those countries. Elephant populations in survey areas with historical data show it has decreased by an estimated 144,000 from 2007 to 2014, and populations are currently shrinking by 8% per year continent-wide, primarily due to poaching. Though 84% of elephants occurred in protected areas, many protected areas had carcass ratios that indicated high levels of elephant mortality. Results of the GEC show the necessity of action to end the African elephants’ downward trajectory by preventing poaching and protecting habitat.
What is fuelling the obsession of trophy hunting poaching?
Why are savagery and violence so omnipresent among humans?
We suggest that hunting behaviour is fascinating and attractive, a desire that makes temporary deprivation from physical needs, pain, sweat, blood, and ultimately the willingness to kill tolerable and even appetitive.
Evolutionary development into the “perversion” of the urge to hunt humans, that is to say the transfer of this hunt to members of one’s own species, has been nurtured by the resultant advantage of personal and social power and dominance. While breakdown of the inhibition towards intra-specific killing would endanger any animal species, controlled inhibition was enabled in humans in that higher regulatory systems, such as frontal lobe-based executive functions, prevent the involuntary derailment of hunting behaviour.
If this control – such as in child soldiers for example – is not learnt, the brutality towards humans remains fascinating and appealing. Blood must flow in order to kill. It is hence an appetitive cue as is the struggling of the victim.
Hunting for men, more rarely for women, is fascinating and emotionally arousing with the parallel release of testosterone, serotonin and endorphins, which can produce feelings of euphoria and alleviate pain. Bonding and social rites (e.g. initiation) set up the contraints for both hunting and violent disputes. Children learn which conditions legitimate aggressive behaviour and which not. Big game hunting as well as attack of other communities is more successful in groups – men also perceive it as more pleasurable. This may explain the fascination with gladiatorial combat, violent computer games but also ritualized forms like football.
(Blog Author’s Note: And as such conjures notions such as the “last man standing” must necessarily therefore mean someone is more strong or witty than the rest who did not stay around to remain standing as he could. Therefore, as such (in conclusion) no one, not his mother or his wife say he is ‘therefore not man enough’ for her.)
WHY MEN TROPHY HUNT: SHOWING OFF AND THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SHAME
Prominent evolutionary anthropologists (Brian Codding and Kristen Hawkes from the University of Utah) have studied hunter-gatherer populations for decades.
Interestingly, analyses of the types of animals hunter-gatherer men target are very similar in that they are often the largest animals in the landscape. Importantly, they are also animals with high ‘failure rates’. That is, men are likely to come home empty handed from hunting. This is very different from women hunters, who target smaller animals that they are more assured to acquire and bring home as food.
On that hunt, on a lake outside Tampa, I met Jay, a hugely successful New York photographer and author, who said, “I watched Romancing The Stone as a kid. In the movie, Michael Douglas kills a crocodile and turns it into a pair of cowboy boots. That’s what I’m here. I want to wear a pair of cowboy boots and to be able to say to my friends, ‘I killed these’”.
And kill them he did, from a flat-bottomed boat after he first harpooned it with a buoy tied to a rope so it couldn’t swim away, making Jay holler “this is like something out of Jaws!”
Men who target these large, difficult-to-acquire animals, therefore, signal to others that they can absorb the costs of an inefficient behaviour. It signals that they have high-quality underlying mental and physical characteristics to be able to absorb such costs.
This ‘costly signalling’ to which it’s referred in the evolutionary literature, provides a way for men to accrue status. And status is universally important for men to ward off competition and attract mates. (I’ll note here that hunter-gatherer populations consume the animals they kill, unlike most trophy hunters. In no way do I advocate any opposition to the ways in which Indigenous peoples earn their livelihood).
What are your major messages?
We believe this ‘costly signalling’ model applies equally well to trophy hunters from the developed world. By paying big bucks to trophy hunt, or even forgoing smaller individuals within populations to wait for chances at the very biggest, imposes costs on trophy hunters. And it’s prestigious to signal that you can absorb these costs. In other words, trophy hunters, whether they realize it or not, are likely hunting for status. It’s like driving a luxury car, though in this case the lives of animals are taken.
How do your findings extend and differ from what others have written about trophy hunting?
People, including me, were confused as to why men do this. Are they sick in the head? Bloodthirsty? Some believe that these are appropriate terms. For me, this evolutionary explanation goes deeper and asked, why did this behaviour evolve? We think we offer a good explanation.
Some might argue, ‘Well, if this is natural behaviour, then it’s justified’. I believe this is a dangerous argument referred to as the naturalistic fallacy. My colleague and mentor, Dr. Paul Paquet of the Raincoast Conservation Foundation, makes this abundantly clear by reminding us, “Trophy hunting can neither be justified for being natural nor as an aid to help populations, given the enormous costs paid by individual animals – their lives.”
How might one apply what you found to put a stop to this reprehensible practice that some claim they do “in the name of conservation”?
One interesting observation post-Cecil (the lion’s death by trophy hunting) is that demand for lion hunting has declined owing to prohibitions on transporting the remains on planes, etc. If hunters cannot bring the trophies home to boast with, then they have no costly signal.
How many elephants are killed by poachers every year?
100 Elephants are killed per day. The U.N. says up to 100 elephants are being slaughtered a day in Africa by poachers taking part in the illegal ivory trade. Mar 19, 2015.
How many wild elephants are left in the world?
Population at the turn of the 20th century, there were a few million African elephants and about 100,000 Asian elephants. Today, there are an estimated 450,000 – 700,000 African elephants and between 35,000 – 40,000 wild Asian elephants. That is a third or less than a third or even by as much as a quarter of the population of elephants that existed at the turn of the last century. Three-quarters of them have disappeared effectively.
Endangered Asian elephants
Asian elephants are even more endangered than African elephants — but the threat isn’t poaching so much as human encroachment. The Asian species is smaller than the African, and none of the females and only some of the males have tusks. While some are hunted for ivory or meat, most of the Asian elephants taken from the wild are not killed, but domesticated for zoos, safari tourism, or timber hauling. There are only about 30,000 remaining wild Asian elephants, while 15,000 live in captivity. The wild herds in India, Sri Lanka, and Thailand are dwindling, too, as human development shrinks their habitat. Many populations are now cut off from migration routes and forced to inbreed.
An elephant’s tusk is a tooth. It’s an elongated incisor, one-third of which is embedded into the elephant’s skull. The tusk is made up of nerve endings and pulp matter, and removal is deadly.
Elephants use their tusks in a variety of ways. They are used to protect themselves and their herd from predators, and elephants can even use their tusks for digging water holes. However, elephants are also anintegral part of the environment. They are sometimes referred to as “mega gardeners,” and without them, hundreds of animal and plant species would cease to exist as well.
Why are Elephants Killed for Their Tusks?
Up to 70 percent of ivory poached goes to China, where half a kilogram of it can sell for as much as 1,000 U.S. dollars. This increase in demand has been fueled by the growth of a middle class in China. People can now afford the material that they have grown up believing is better than diamonds.
Tusks are specialized teeth and elephants have only one set that continue growing throughout the elephant’s life. They are sometimes broken off as a result of natural movements, such as digging and sparring with other elephants. If a tusk is not broken off at its root, then yes- the tusk will continue to grow.Feb 2, 2010
Can you cut off an Elephant’s Tusks without killing it?
A tusk can be removed without killing the elephant. … But poachers use darts, poison and high-powered automatic rifles with night scopes to take elephants down and, while they are dying, the tusks are gouged out of from the livingelephant’s skull. Jul 30, 2014
The Poacher & The Trade
How much is a pound of Ivory worth?
Ivory fetched prices as much as $1,500 per pound due to demand in Asia, where elephant tusks are ornately carved into art.Jun 2, 2016
Poachers kill elephants for their valuable tusks — a single pound of ivory can sell for $1,500, and tusks can weigh 250 pounds. That is USD375,000 (or just over a 1/3 million dollars) per tusk! Nov 7, 2016
How extensive is the poaching?
Poachers are now slaughtering up to 35,000 of the estimated 500,000 African elephants every year for their tusks. A single male elephant’s two tusks can weigh more than 250 pounds, with a pound of ivory fetching as much as $1,500 on the black market. The ivory is so valuable because all across Asia — particularly in China — ivory figurines are given as traditional gifts, and ivory chopsticks, hair ornaments, and jewelry are highly prized luxuries. “China regards ivory as a cultural heritage; they are not going to ban it,” said Grace Gabriel of the International Fund for Animal Welfare. Many Chinese consumers don’t realize that elephants must be killed for their ivory; in one survey, more than two thirds of Chinese respondents said they thought tusks grew back like fingernails.
What impact has the slaughter had on the elephants?
Elephants are highly intelligent, social creatures that live in matriarchal groups, and poaching has ravaged much of their social structure. The biggest tusks are found on the largest breeding males and on the oldest females, who lead the elephant troops. Where these animals are targeted and killed, elephant populations are reduced to leaderless groups of traumatized orphans huddling together. In the past year, even they are being wiped out, as some poachers have started dumping cyanide into watering holes, killing every animal that drinks there. Last year, poachers killed an estimated 300 elephants in Zimbabwe’s largest park, Hwange, by lacing watering holes and salt licks with cyanide. To read more about the impact poaching of elephants have had on Botswana, more here.
Who are the poachers?
Since the industry is illegal, those who run it largely come from criminal syndicates or terrorist organizations. Al-Shabab, the Somalia-based wing of al Qaida, raises $600,000 a month from poaching to fund its activities. Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army, the rebel group notorious for enslaving children, also raises money through poaching. “Poaching has become one of the most profitable criminal activities there is,” says Peter Seligmann, the CEO of Conservation International. Chinese mafia organizations mostly do the purchasing and distribution of ivory after it’s been obtained, selling it mostly in China and Southeast Asia but sometimes to markets in the U.S.
Why is the price so high?
When ivory became contraband, the supply got scarcer, but demand remained strong. In 1989, the international community passed a global ban on the trade in new ivory to stop the killing of elephants. Only ivory that had been harvested before 1989 could be sold, so the ivory carving industry in China crumbled, and with it the demand for tusks. Elephant populations rebounded — so much so that in 1999 the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), a global organization, decided to allow a “one-off” sale of pre-ban, stockpiled ivory to Japan (what did we not say here?).
Then in 2008 it authorized another “one-off”sale, this time to Japanese and Chinesemarkets. The Chinese carving industry roared back to life, as the Chinese government licensed dozens of carving factories and retail outlets. Since there’s no way to distinguish between pre-ban and new ivory, the illegal ivory trade has accelerated to meet the demand, and poaching is now worse than before the global ban.
(REUTERS/James Akena)
What steps are being taken to stop poaching?
Under pressure from some member nations, CITES refuses to institute a complete ban on the ivory trade. But the U.S. is taking its own measures. The U.S. is the second-biggest ivory market, after China. In a symbolic gesture last fall, U.S. officials smashed 6 tons of contraband ivory, including tusks and carvings, that had been seized from smugglers or confiscated from unwitting tourists. And in February, the Obama administration announced it would change regulations to ban interstate sales of all ivory except certified antiques, limit elephant trophy imports to two per hunter, and end commercial imports of antique ivory.
Is China cooperating?
Following the U.S.’s ivory crush, the Chinese government destroyed 6 tons this January, and Hong Kong authorities say they will destroy their 30-ton stockpile, one of the largest in the world. Chinese environmentalists have also begun educating the public about the dire consequences of buying ivory. But it’s a tough sell in a country where ivory has long symbolized wisdom and nobility. “With more disposable income in mainland China, many people are flaunting their wealth, and ivory is seen as a luxury product that confers status,” says Tom Milliken of the Wildlife Trade Monitoring Network.
Why is the ban so hard to enforce?
There is no reliable way to tell pre-ban from post-ban ivory, or a real antique from a fake — in any country. “It’s not like you walk into a store and find someone selling cocaine, which is illegal on its face,” said Edward Grace, deputy assistant director for law enforcement at the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. In Chinese and U.S. shops alike, consumers simply assume that ivory trinkets are legal, and there is no way for law enforcement to prove that any particular item was made after 1989. Mary Rice, executive director of the Environmental Investigation Agency, says there’s only one real solution: “We need to learn from history and permanently shut down all ivory trade — international and domestic.“
The End Consumer
Why is Ivory so popular in China?
Ivory is often used to make elaborate and expensive ornaments in China.
In China and Hong Kong, ivory is seen as precious material and is used in ornaments and jewelry. It’s also sometimes used in traditional Chinese medicine.
Some rich Chinese people think that owning ivory makes them look more successful. Others think that ivory will bring them good luck.
China has the biggest ivory trade in the world and wildlife experts believe that around 70 per cent of the world’s ivory ends up there.
It is said that buyers of ivory don’t understand they have blood on their hands. That notion is startling given where we are in the timeline of civilization and the increasingly global dissemination of knowledge. Conservation efforts have never reached so far and wide through media as they do today. So how can people not know about the tragedy behind their white gold trinkets? Accountability for this gross misconception seems to lie with the Chinese government.
But from uncovering this bizarre ignorance, change has been set into motion. A variety of conservation campaigns have been aimed at educating the middle class — those most likely to purchase ivory. People who have seen these campaigns, such as posters depicting how an elephant’s life is sacrificed to harvest their tusks, are far less likely to purchase ivory products. Japan was previously the largest demander of ivory, before organizations and celebrities raised awareness and reduced the consumption by 99 percent.
Beijing’s master ivory carvers cling to a controversial art
Beijing (CNN)When Li Chunke started carving ivory in 1964, the number of elephants in Africa was still on the rise. Demand for ivory in China was practically non-existent and tusks could be bought for under $7 a kilogram.
Today, this figure is closer to $1,100 — according to research by Save the Elephants.
But while this marks a significant increase over the course of Li’s career, the price of coveted xiangya (elephant teeth) has almost halved over the last 18 months.
An endangered art form?
Conservationists have welcomed the recent drop in demand, attributing it to awareness campaigns and President Xi Jinping’s commitment to abolish the ivory trade in China.
But for 65-year-old Li, these changing attitudes threaten an ancient art form and the livelihoods of many carvers. “Ivory carving represents Chinese traditional culture” he says, sipping green tea in his small apartment in Beijing. “Chinese people love it because it is an ancient skill — it’s a practice that belongs to the imperial arts.”
At the state-owned factory where he spent his five-decade career, Li would sculpt everything from small trinkets to full-length tusks adorned with classical scenes.
Legal restrictions mean that he is rarely able to keep raw ivory at his home. Nonetheless, on the far side of his living room I find a small workshop besieged by chisels, drill bits and tools. Some are electronic, but the majority are simple hand tools — the sort he trained with. From the clutter, Li picks out figurines carved from a variety of different materials.
Ivory’s rare combination of density and smoothness makes it ideal for intricate carving, but there are alternatives. Hippo, narwhal and walrus tusks possess similar qualities. “When we don’t have ivory, we also use beeswax and agarwood,” he explains.
Li shows me a small horse statuette and an ancient goddess fashioned from a piece of mammoth tusk — an ivory substitute excavated from the Siberian permafrost.
“When we made carvings for export [in the 1960s] the products had to represent Chinese traditional culture — it was merchandise,” he recalls. “Now I can carve on any theme, including religion and modern life.”
Since retiring from the factory in 2013, Li estimates he makes fewer than 10 carvings a year, and can spend as long as two months on a single item. He appears despondent about elephant poaching and the black market that are now associated with his industry. “We are legal ivory-carving professionals,” he says. “The ivory we used was from natural deaths. We ought to protect wildlife. I like animals and I’ve kept a puppy as a pet. I find it shocking that elephants are killed by men.”
With the worldwide ban on ivory in 1989, factories like Li’s were able to stay open, as China still permitted domestic trade. A licensing system allowed the continued import of tusks sourced from natural elephant deaths and police seizures.
But the distinction between legal and illegal trade is becoming blurred, say conservationists. A 2011 investigation by the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) found that almost 60% of licensed vendors and carving factories in China were involved in black market trade.
A high-profile campaign featuring former basketball star Yao Ming argues that all ivory consumption — even the licensed trade — feeds the cycle of killing. “Yao Ming’s ‘no buying, no killing’ is only partly right — we still have to think about the inheritance of traditional Chinese culture,” Li says. “Of course, the raw material can be replaced by alternatives, which is why my students also use woods and jade. But some of the nuances of carving — ones that can only be reflected in ivory — are at risk.”
Carvers are turning to ivory substitutes including beeswax, agarwood and even mammoth tusk dug up from Siberian permafrost.
Rise in demand for mammoth tusks
On the other side of central Beijing, one of Li’s students, Li Jiulong (no relation), leads me into his small, dusty workshop. The 26-year-old shares the space with four other apprentices. A fellow carver sits practicing her technique on a small block of wood, her engravings guided by ink markings.
Work surfaces are arranged in a square, each littered with hand tools for breaking down large chunks of tusk and more accurate electronic ones for finer details. While his master is old enough to ignore the diminishing demand for ivory, the younger Li must keep his options open.
In addition to his apprenticeship he is also undertaking a master’s degree which sees him working with lacquer — a traditional colored finish applied to wood. He can obtain ivory through “the proper channels,” but Li spends much of his time carving other materials, including mammoth tusks.
“These tusks have been buried underground for a long time, which can cause cracks and change their color,” he explains, sketching out their differing patterns of grain on a piece of paper. “They would [originally have been] white like the elephant tusks, but they’re also more compact than normal ivory.”
Imports of mammoth tusks from Hong Kong (the main route bringing them in from Russia) has more than tripled since 2000. But the young apprentice retains some hope for traditional ivory carving, despite the recent drop in demand.
“It’s true that ivory won’t be huge business in the future but it won’t vanish. It is part of our cultural heritage,” he says. “It will survive and keep its place,” he argues.
In its 2015 survey of African workers, South Africa’s Rand Merchant Bank found Batswana to be the laziest on the continent. The problem is actually more acute than that.
In the 2017-2018 Global Competitiveness Report, Botswana scores the worst among the 137 countries that are tracked by the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Index (GCI) on 12 pillars of economic competitiveness. From a list of 16 factors, respondents to the World Economic Forum’s Executive Opinion Survey were asked to select the five most problematic factors for doing business in their country and to rank them between 1 (most problematic) and 5. The results were then tabulated and weighted according to the ranking assigned by respondents. One of those factors is “Poor work ethic in national labour force.”
With a score of 19, Botswana’s national workforce (which would include those in the public and private sector as well as NGOs) emerge as standard bearers of the poorest work ethic in the world survey. Also doing poorly are Trinidad & Tobago (15.9), Brunei (14.4), Sri Lanka (11.1), Liberia (10.8), Bhutan (10.5), Seychelles (10.1), Malta (9.8), Georgia (9.7), Mauritius and Vietnam (9.5), Namibia (9.3), Bahrain (9.0), Kuwait (8.7) and United Arab Emirates and Jamaica (8.6).
WEF’s interest in labour productivity has to do with the fact that it impacts on business. A University of Botswana study by Professor John Makgala and Dr. Phenyo Thebe (“There is no Hurry in Botswana”: Scholarship and Stereotypes on “African time” Syndrome in Botswana, 1895-2011”) found that this lack of productivity has frustrated effort to attract foreign direct investment. Interestingly, there was a time when, according to literature that the authors quote, Botswana’s civil service “was generally believed to be the most efficient in the whole of the African continent.”
On a past trip to Singapore, former and late President Sir Ketumile Masire gained an appreciation on the efficiency of the country’s workers. Where a Motswana factory worker would produce one shirt within a given period of time, a Singaporean counterpart would produce six within the same period.
“This was productivity not in theory but in demonstrable terms. When we say we are not productive, this is what we meant,” Masire recalled to Sunday Standard in 2015 of this experience which would lead to Botswana benchmarking with Singapore and delegations from the two countries travelling back and forth.
As one of the Four Asian Tigers, Singapore would provide one quarter of the inspiration to establish the Botswana National Productivity Centre (BNPC). The tigers are Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan. Along the way, however, the late president appears to have given up on ever inculcating the right work ethic in Batswana. On assessing the apparent resistance, he determined that Batswana’s poor work ethic was a result of their pastoralism.
“If you look at the life of pastoralists, they don’t have a good work ethic,” he had said. The example he had cited was that beyond sinking a borehole for their livestock, letting out cattle to pasture and doing some other undemanding work, most of the time pastoralists are just lazing about as their cattle graze untended in the bush. By Masire’s analysis, this is the work ethic that has been bequeathed to modern-day Botswana.
As a University of Botswana study shows, not one productivity intervention scheme by the government has produced the desired results. In his 2015/16 budget speech, the Minister of Finance and Economic Development, Kenneth Matambo, lamented the low levels of labour productivity in Botswana. The best performers in terms of work ethic in the national labor force are from Zimbabwe and Venezuela underpinned by a perfect score.
Table 1: Comparison of Botswana with 2017’s Best Global Labour Productivity Data
DID YOU KNOW? THE AVERAGE PER CAPITA PRODUCTIVITY IN BOTSWANA
LAGS THE WORLD’S PRODUCTIVE COUNTRY BY 30-40 TIMES?
TALKING POINTS (FOR NOW):
COUNTRY’S GENERAL ECONOMIC PRACTICE:
An economic system defines the mechanism of production, distribution and allocation of goods, services and resources in a society/country with defined rules and policies about ownership and administration.
The most commonly followed economic system is modern-day capitalism. It was based on a framework to secure supply of the key elements required for industry – land, machinery and labor. A disruption in any of these would lead to increased risk and loss for the venture.
THE COUNTRY’S GENERAL ECONOMIC PRACTICE, ON THE OTHER HAND:
Socialists viewed this commoditization of labor as an inhuman practice. I am of the view, that those words are distinctively that of the female voice possibly lending itself from Marx’s known instances of showing great sympathy for peasants, and especially women, as important forces for change within Marx’s theory (and quite possibly marks the genesis of a matriarchal society – even so where women leads quietly from behind the scenes often as a response to survive in the face of absent males who have needed to travel long distances to work in the agriculture and mining industries – and so have become increasingly ‘masculinized’).
These, I believe, led to the birth of Karl Marx’s idealism on socialism and socialist economies across a few countries.
How does a socialist economy work?
The starting point to this form of economy is three-fold typically:
The country has substantial access to wealth generated by mining underground mineral and fossil fuel resources and which is demanded by other world economies and is traded in exchange for income;
Or it has traditionally enjoyed a monarchy and/or a pastoral economy and access to substantive land spaces that allows it to multiply livestock and warm crops (that does not require as much attention compared to cold crops) at rates faster than the rate at which the human population multiples with relative ease. The monarchy supports its people when they ask for help and assist in distributing the wealth in the form of shared resources (such as land) or meat and food as needed.
Either ways, the population therefore, has a tradition and work ethics unlike that of the farmers in parts of Asia, such as southern China where rice cultivation can be an intricate, laborious, multi-seasonal in a year and since the majority of whom have limited resources, they have learned to improve the returns on their labor by “becoming smarter, being collaborative, by being better managers of their own time, and by making better choices.” In other words, more than simply working hard, they worked intelligently and strategically. Cultures “shaped by the tradition of wet-rice agriculture and meaningful work” tend to produce students with the fortitude to “sit still long enough” to find solutions to time-consuming and complex math problems, for instance. As such hard work given this context, can easily be perceived as more difficult than usual and therefore quite possibly regarded as inhumane.
Source: “Rice Paddies and Math Tests,” Malcolm Gladwell
There are three prominent characteristics of the socialist economy:
That the goods and services are produced based on usage value or for their usefulness (subject to the needs of the society, and so preventing under-production and over-production). Therefore, it eliminates the need for a demand-based market for products to be sold at a profit. This is completely different from the common capitalist economic system, where goods and services are produced by economies of scale to generate profit and capital accumulation. In this way, it discourages accumulation, which is assumed to be the root cause of wealth imbalance across the society.
It is a financial system based on the public or cooperative ownership of production. Socialism, similar to communism, advocates that the means of production be owned by the people, either through a state-controlled agency or worker cooperative; or else property/capital might be commonly owned by the society as a whole, with delegation to representatives. Socialist economies discourage private ownership. For example, this includes having a mostly state-run economy, subsistence farming on lands purposed for shared or communal use, a national health-care program, government- paid (i.e. free) education at all levels, subsidized housing, utilities, entertainment and even subsidized food programs. These subsidies compensate for the low salaries of workers, making them better off than their international counterparts in many other countries.
Socialism also believes that wealth and income should be shared more equally among people. Therefore, perceiving the receipt of income as an entitlement rather than merit is acceptable within all levels of society. “If you have it, then I should have it too.” Taken to an extreme, that would not bode well for productivity, would it? It therefore becomes a misnomer to say that socialism and free market economies can realistically co-exist. However, the main goal of socialism is to narrow, but not totally remove, the gap between the rich and the poor. The government, through its agencies and policies, takes the responsibility to redistribute production and wealth, making the society fairer and leveled.
The consequences of the above, are as follows:
The economy relies on sectors whose productive practices are not apparent to the masses or there is heavy reliance on machinery and technology such as in mineral extraction and processing, real-estate and passive income business practices such as multi-level marketing. The social environment makes it difficult for the general masses to imbibe productive work ethics and practices, to a point of shunning and even dismissing those who may display such practices;
The dominant trade offered by the masses to foreigners and professional include domestic maid services and guard duty security services. Neither of these services train the individual learn to generate income but rather protect and consume resources that are already there. The element of hard work is for the most part, removed.
Significant masses of citizens make purchases primarily do so, not to support entrepreneurial growth but to ensure redistribution of wealth, i.e. flows from professionals, foreign investors or expatriates operating within the system to the citizens;
The system works on ‘forces’ that facilitate the flow of money from those who have to those who do not and who are then, in turn, amply rewarded, even if with kind words. The following are used intentionally or otherwise, to draw special notice to it to facilitate the flow to:
The informal business sector with standard essential products the masses use such as airtime, sweets, fat cakes, essential foods such as vegetables, meat and milk, drinks, cigarettes, drugs and alcohol. A significant part of the income from the sector is used with a view to make ends meet rather than necessarily to grow an enterprise. Growing large enterprises is shunned unintentionally or perceived as too difficult and would cause the ‘flow’ within the system to slow down to accumulate or even stop. Most therefore stay as self-employees for life which makes for ‘things’ to be easier.
Citizen businesses rotate two monthly to allow more to gain access to government purchase schemes (catering, uniforms, supplies, etc.) before relinquishing the turn to the next ‘business’ in the queue. We shame or shun who otherwise overstay their dues or are engaged in sales (who are too active and over the top and are perceived as being impatient and rude to wait their turn and is therefore callous and uncultured) or even make claims they are engaged in corrupt ways.
Young women who have young children often present subtle pressures as to one is more deserving than others to receive help and to come to one’s aid by virtue of the number of children one has mothered or the shanty standards of living one has unfortunately fallen into.
Women who are open to offering sexual favours in return
The youth or the orphaned child
The disabled
The disenfranchised or the ostracized
The man who has fathered large numbers of children and is unemployed or is a self-employee.
The royalty and therefore are naturally privileged to entitlements
When left untreated, these creates the perfect conditions for the growth of beggary as an acceptable occupation on the streets during the day and crime by night.
THE RESULTANT REALITY OF THE ECONOMIC PRACTICE:
Botswana’s real labour productivity per capita (when measuring the employed population’s output excluding value added by mining and real-estate sectors, against the total population of the country for a truer reflection of real per capita income of the country) is USD 2.2 per hour or USD 18 per day, and that is, before deducting costs of operations. Luxembourg sets the pace as the global labour productivity leader at USD 93.4 per hour or USD 747 per day (or USD 16,437 per month). At this rate, Botswana’s productivity (and therefore wealth) lags (falls behind by) at 30-40x behind that of Luxembourg.
It makes one wonder, that in our efforts to avoid capitalism, apparent inhuman labour practices, wealth accumulation, and for that perfect equality in the distribution of income, at what cost have we done so? Will our efforts to transform the manufacturing and industrialization sectors OR efforts to diversify the economy (from the tried and tested) gain traction without understanding the underlying forces that detract us from such efforts?
The Question Is.
Would we rather continue this way as business as usual and dragging a burgeoning burden on the state in the process?
Would citizens know how big that burden is or what that would become of and cause to the state?
Would it help citizens of the country, see and learn what these distinctions stand for and what that would mean for them?
Gaining such understanding in our mind would mean gaining the power in our hands. If you can imagine it, then you can create it.
STEPS GOING FORWARD:
However, this would deter organizations from worlds that practice capitalism, wanting to be a part of such an economic system. These are organizations that grew their wealth by virtue of merits of their performance, have withstood the test of time being measured by defined standards and rates of growth of income and wealth and believed in reducing costs of production to accumulate business wealth so as to grow the economy.
Interestingly, no pure socialist, pure capitalist or pure communist economy exists in the world today. All economic system changes were introduced with a big bang approach and had to make “adjustments” to allow appropriate modifications as the situation developed.
Eventually most state-run subsidies without high productivity standards, become insufficient to support the numerous social programs. Despite perhaps, enormous aid received from outside itself, high poverty levels continues to persist, widening the gap of rich and poor, and becoming a massive burden on social programs.
A reform will often aim to shift towards a mixed economy that would allow free-market mechanisms, remove government control of small businesses, lay off unnecessary state workers and make self-employment easier allowing up to 40% of the government workforce to move into the private sector, enabling the inception of income tax payment, which in turn will lead to more self-reliance.
In the short-run, to relieve the income pressures of the economy, policies may be aimed at bringing in higher foreign investment. Tax-free special development zones are introduced for foreign companies to conduct business freely and allow transfer of tariff-free profits abroad, among other benefits. This may cause a significant change from the central “socialist” planning. However, this cannot act as a substitute for it.
Socialist economies across the globe have existed and continue to progress. However, there may not be any standard pure socialist economy remaining. Timely, fundamental shifts in programs and policies have allowed such economies to thrive and flourish – China being the world leader among them. The ones taking a rigid stand are facing severe problems or developing parallel markets.
“Without learning, education will fail to deliver on its promise to eliminate extreme poverty and create shared opportunity and prosperity for all.“
World Development Report 2018 calls for greater measurement, action on evidence
WASHINGTON, September 26, 2017 – Millions of young students in low and middle-income countries face the prospect of lost opportunity and lower wages in later life because their primary and secondary schools are failing to educate them to succeed in life. Warning of ‘a learning crisis’ in global education, a new Bank report said schooling without learning was not just a wasted development opportunity, but also a great injustice to children and young people worldwide.
The World Development Report 2018: ‘Learning to Realize Education’s Promise’ argues that without learning, education will fail to deliver on its promise to eliminate extreme poverty and create shared opportunity and prosperity for all. Even after several years in school, millions of children cannot read, write or do basic math. This learning crisis is widening social gaps instead of narrowing them. Young students who are already disadvantaged by poverty, conflict, gender or disability reach young adulthood without even the most basic life skills.
“This learning crisis is a moral and economic crisis,”World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim said. “When delivered well, education promises young people employment, better earnings, good health, and a life without poverty. For communities, education spurs innovation, strengthens institutions, and fosters social cohesion. But these benefits depend on learning, and schooling without learning is a wasted opportunity. More than that, it’s a great injustice: the children whom societies fail the most are the ones who are most in need of a good education to succeed in life.”
The report recommends concrete policy steps to help developing countries resolve this dire learning crisis in the areas of stronger learning assessments, using evidence of what works and what doesn’t to guide education decision-making; and mobilizing a strong social movement to push for education changes that champion ‘learning for all.’
According to the report, when third grade students in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda were asked recently to read a sentence such as “The name of the dog is Puppy” in English or Kiswahili, three-quarters did not understand what it said. In rural India, nearly three-quarters of students in grade 3 could not solve a two-digit subtraction such as “46 – 17”—and by grade 5, half still could not do so. Although the skills of Brazilian 15-year-olds have improved, at their current rate of improvement they will not reach the rich-country average score in math for 75 years. In reading, it will take 263 years.
These statistics do not account for 260 million children who, for reasons of conflict, discrimination, disability, and other obstacles, are not enrolled in primary or secondary school.
While not all developing countries suffer from such extreme learning gaps, many fall far short of levels they aspire to. Leading international assessments on literacy and numeracy show that the average student in poor countries performs worse than 95 percent of the students in high-income countries—meaning such a student would be singled out for remedial attention in a class in those countries. Many high-performing students in middle-income countries—young men and women who achieve in the top quarter of their groups—would rank in the bottom quarter in a wealthier country.
The report, written by a team directed by World Bank Lead Economists, Deon Filmer and Halsey Rogers, identifies what drives these learning shortfalls—not only the ways in which teaching and learning breaks down in too many schools, but also the deeper political forces that cause these problems to persist.
To not assume that if there is education, there will be learning.
Learning is not the same as teaching. Learning happens when the learner makes the action of learning the primary responsibility of the learner, just as teaching is the primary responsibility of the teacher.
You can have teaching and no learning as the article above here illustrates. We need to accept that is possible.
Yet one could have learning in the absence of teaching.
Learning takes the student much farther along, with less resources, than any amount of teaching can do for the the learner. School and principals and student grades improve at the rate the learner seeks out learning. Infrastructure is not the primary driver of learning. Curiosity and the willingness to learn is.
In the world of learning, we stop using the word ‘student’ and switches its reference to ‘the learner’.
The student goes much farther in their journey of learning when they have piqued their curiosity about what they are learning. That is an almost mesmerized attention to learning. They are learning because they want to rather than they have to.
All children have this innate capacity to be curious. Often it goes unnoticed by the parent as it typically happens in their absence and not in their presence or is picked up when the child does something ‘wrong’. And so as adults, most of us miss seeing it as it happens. We have all gone through it ourselves but we abandoned the notion of what it is, when we got what we had wanted as a result of that process or were punished for exercising it.
What is the true nature of a child’s mind that piques their interest and become mesmerized (be they clean (or unclean) interests) to want to learn? Totto-Chan is a book written in modern times set within the context of World War II in Japan, that explores classic ideals such as curiosity, innocence, shyness, inquisitiveness, confusion, happiness and sorrow that represent some of these traits (all of which are emotional, and less mental, spiritual and physical) in nature) that promotes the mind of the child to want to learn.
A learner then soon discovers that being on the journey of discovering and learning is far more exciting to be on than arriving at their destination (having learned and scored grades). The learner then can’t wait to get on to the next big journey and it did not matter to him whether his scored grades or he did not. That is not relevant to the learner.
Once a learner discovers the joys of learning for its own sake (as opposed to ‘not wanting to fail’ or not making the grades for advancing to the next stage), the systems begins to realize it is becoming difficult for it to keep up with the pace at which learning is happening for the learner. The learner will keep exceeding the expectations that the teachers have set for them. The learner reaches his grades only by as far as he or she is willing to learn. Anyone else who believes that the effort to improve grades lies elsewhere, or with the teacher, is sorely mistaken and does so at the expense of incurring huge costs to the state (as highlighted by the article above here).
Now, the question is: Where would a child imbibe the values of learning? Or, where could the child lose such values? What would allow or encourage the mind of the child to become mesmerized by learning? True childhood means the curiosity that piques a child’s interest for learning. Would that be at the school or be at the home?
REQUIRED RESEARCH ANALYSIS
FOR DETAILS OF DATA REQUIRED FOR RESEARCH ANALYSIS FOR THIS SUBJECT, CLICK HERE.
As it appeared in the Botswana Sunday Standard July 28, 2013, edition, Systemic Thinking Column
When a couple are in conflict, often times we are expecting that our partner to think, act and be like ourselves and meet our needs in the same way we think we should meet theirs. That’s where we can get this wrong.
The column is currently exploring the link between the state of emotional fidelity that exists between couples and the state of HIV/AIDS prevalence that exists as a nation. To do so, the article explores the ways how men and women think and feel emotions differently.
When we are aware of the differences, we “are freed from the tendency to change our partners at those times we are not getting what we want. With a greater level of acceptance and understanding, love flourishes and we get what we want from our relationships,” says the author of “Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus”, Dr John Gray.
The freedom from the tendency to change partners or retain a “variety of them” now becomes a critical key to seeing the prevalence of HIV/AIDS decline.
This week we continue to explore more of the twelve kinds of emotional love that can exist between a man and woman in love. Physically, we probably have rather similar needs, the need to appease hunger and thirst, the need to stay warm and for shelter, and so on.
But that’s where the similarities end for the “opposite” genders. Emotionally, we are like from different planets, so says, Dr John Gray, “Men are from Mars” and “Women are from Venus” and then we met on earth without realizing how we come from two different planets! Go figure! And we did not come with a handbook to navigate us through this emotional maze.
Here’s one example of this difference.
A man wants his favourite woman to trust that he can handle whatever is bothering him. That he can handle his problems is important for his honour, pride and self-esteem. However for the woman, not worrying about him is difficult for her. Worrying for others is one way women express their love and caring. It is a way of showing love. Go figure but it is true.
For a woman, being happy when the person you love is upset just doesn’t seem right.
Ironically, men show their love by not worrying.
He does not want her to be happy because he is upset, but he does want her to be happy. It helps him to feel loved by her. “How can you worry about someone whom you admire and trust?”, a man questions.
But for a woman, she wants him to worry for her when she was upset. Sometimes, it takes years for a man to figure this distinction. Without understanding this distinction and if a man minimizes the importance of her concerns, this would make the woman more upset. Again something that does not make sense from a man’s perspective, but it is true. Ask your man and woman friends (this can make very interesting conversation over a pint of beer!)
The best comes out in a man when his six primary (yes, there are six of them) love needs are fulfilled. But when a woman doesn’t know what he primarily needs and give a caring love rather than a trusting love, she may unknowingly worsen their relationship. Here is a story in point.
The knight in Shining Armour
(Extracted from “Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus”).
This is a powerful metaphor to help us remember a man’s primary needs. Too much caring and assistance will lessen his confidence or turn him off.
Deep inside every man there is a hero or a knight in shining armour. More than anything, he wants to succeed in serving and protecting the woman he loves. When he feels trusted, he is able to tap into his noble part of himself. He becomes more caring. When he doesn’t feel trusted, he loses some of his aliveness and energy and after a while he can stop caring.
Imagine a knight in shining armour travelling through the countryside. Suddenly he hears a woman crying out in distress, In an instant, he comes alive. Urging his horse to gallop, he races to her castle, where she trapped by a dragon. The noble knight pulls out his sword and slays the dragon. As a result, he is lovingly received the by the princess.
As the gate open he is welcomed and celebrated by the family of the princess and the townspeople. He is invited to live in the town and is acknowledged as a hero. He and the princess fall in love.
A month later as the noble knight returns from another trip, he hears his beloved princess crying out for help. Another dragon has attacked the castle. When the knight arrives he pulls out his sword to slay the dragon. Before he swings, the princess cries, “Don’t use the sword, use this noose. It will work better.”
She throws him the noose and motions to him instructions about how to use it. He hesitantly follows her instructions. He wraps it around the dragon’s neck and then pulls hard. The dragon dies and everyone rejoices.
At the celebration dinner, the knight feels he didn’t really do anything. Somehow, because he used her noose and didn’t use his sword, he doesn’t feel worthy of the town’s trust and admiration. And the even he is slightly depressed and forgets to shine his armor.
A month later he goes on yet another trip. As he leaves with his sord, the princess reminds him to be careful and tells him to take the noose. On his way home, he sees yet another dragon attacking the castle. This time he rushes forward with his sword but hesitates, thinking maybe he should use the noose. In that moment of hesitation, the dragon breathes fire and burns his right arm. In confusion, he looks and sees his princess waving from the castle window.
“Use the poison,” she yells. “The noose doesn’t work.”
She throws him the poison, which he pours into the dragon’s mouth and the dragon dies. Everyone rejoices and celebrates, but the knight feels ashamed.
A month later, he goes on another trip. As he leaves with his sword, the princess reminds him to be careful, and to bring the noose and the poison. He is annoyed by her suggestions but brings them just in case.
This time on his journey he hears another woman in distress. As he rushes to her call, his depression is lifted and he feels confident and alive. But as he draws his sword to slay the dragon, he again hesitates. He wonders, should I use my sword, the noose or the poison? What would the princess say?
For a moment, he is confused. But then he remembers how he had felt before he knew the princess, back in the days when he only carried a sword. With a burst of renewed confidence, he throws off the noose and poison and charges the dragon with his trusted sword. He slays the dragon and the townspeople rejoice.
The knight in shining armour never returned to his princess. He stayed in this new village, married the princess and lived happily ever after.
As the couple learns to meet these differences it prepares the couple to move to the next deeper level of emotional intimacy between them. Respect. And Appreciation. This will be the subject of next week’s column.
In what way does not knowing these differences that exist between a couple have an impact on the prevalence of HIV/AIDS as a nation?
Would this series of causality be different for countries beyond Botswana in instances where the epidemic has become resistant to our effort to intervene it? Strange as this question may sound, whose mandate is it to understand and “manage” these distinctions? The medical sector? The United Nations? The government? Who would that be? What do you think? What do your friends think?
Ms Sheila Damodaran works as a Systemic Strategy Development consultant currently developing her practice with national planning commissions in southern Africa. She welcomes comments and queries for her programmes at https://www.facebook.com/SystemicThinkingColumnist or call DID: 3931518 or email sheila@loatwork.com.
As it appeared in the Botswana Sunday Standard July 21, 2013, edition, Systemic Thinking Column
When women talk, it means it is a good sign! They are actually de-stressing.
Some of the male readers of the column shared they were surprised from the previous week’s column that the act of making social contact (such as talking and seeking to be heard or nurturing activities) for a woman is to a woman what withdrawing or becoming aggressive does to relieve stress for the man.
They had no idea!!!
When a man is stressed, he goes to his cave! He will withdraw into the cave of his mind and focus on solving a problem. He generally picks the most urgent problem or the most difficult. He becomes so focussed on solving this one problem that he for a while loses awareness of everything else. Other problems and responsibilities fade into the background. If he can find a solution, instantly he will feel much better and come out of his cave and suddenly he is available for being in a relationship again.
Women handle stress very differently.
She does not know how to go to the cave of her mind. She talks. Or she finds activities in which she is taking care of or connecting emotionally with others. This also stimulates the production of oxytocin for her.
“An understanding of oxytocin-producing behaviours can completely change the way a man interprets a woman’s behaviour. For example, when a woman complains she is not getting enough support or feels the need to talk about the problems in her life, it does not mean she does not appreciate what her partner does. Instead, her behaviour is an indication that she is attempting to cope with stress by increasing her oxytocin levels”
— John Gray, Author of Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus
Generating oxytocin in the work world outside the home does not happen easily as it can be disrupted by the demands of having to make decisions, and set priorities based on bottom line instead of the need of others, and behaving in a professional manner. These are testosterone producing situations. Though there is nothing wrong with stimulating testosterone, it does nothing to lower a woman’s stress levels.’
Finding relief through talking.
When women talk about problems, men usually resist. A man assumes she is talking to him about her problems, because she is holding him responsible. The more problems, the more he feels blamed. He does not realize that she is talking to feel better.
She would usually not open up to a man, if she had not felt “safe to do so” with him. It is a sign of intimacy she is extending to him on her part. So, if a woman does talk to you, it is a good sign for the relationship. He will also eventually learn that that she will appreciate him if he just listens.
Men talk about problems for only two reasons: they are blaming someone or they are seeking advice. Therefore when a woman is really upset, a man assumes she is blaming him. Then he draws his sword to protect himself from attack. If he offers solutions to her problems, she just continues talking about more problems. He finds his solutions have been rejected and he feels unappreciated. In both cases, he soon finds it difficult to listen.
He does not realize that explanations are not what she needs. She needs him to understand her feelings and let her move on to talk about more problems. If he is wise and just listens, then a few moments after she is complaining about him, she will change the subject and talk about other problems as well.
The degree to which a man does not understand a woman is the degree to which he will resist her when she is talking about problems. As a man learns more how to fulfil a woman and provide her emotional support he discovers that listening is not so difficult.
Men and women learn to live together in peace because they were able to respect their emotional differences. The men learned to respect that women need to talk to feel better. Even if he didn’t have much to say, he learned that by listening he could be very supportive of her.
The women learned to respect that unlike themselves, men when they are stressed, needed to withdraw to cope with stress. The place where he retires to distress was no longer a great mystery or cause for alarm.
Emotionally, the needs of the two genders are opposite. Yet, that’s exactly what it takes a couple to come together. As opposite genders, we do not meet in our similarities. But in our differences.
When a couple are in conflict, often times it happens because we are attempting to meet the needs for them from our respective perspectives. We think they are the same as ours. That’s where we get this wrong.
As the couple learns to meet these differences it prepares the couple to move to the next deeper level of emotional intimacy between them. Respect. And Appreciation. This will be the subject of next week’s column.
In what ways does not knowing these differences that exist between a couple have an impact on the prevalence of HIV/AIDS as a nation? Would this series of causality be different beyond Botswana particularly in instances where the epidemic has become resistant to our effort to intervene it? What do you think? What do your friends think? What do you agree on? What do you disagree on?
Ms Sheila Damodaran works as a Systemic Strategy Development consultant currently developing her practice with national planning commissions in southern Africa. She welcomes comments and queries for her programmes at https://www.facebook.com/SystemicThinkingColumnist or call DID: 3931518 or email sheila@loatwork.com.
As it appeared in the Botswana Sunday Standard on June 30, 2013, Systemic Thinking Column
The column is currently exploring the link between the states of level of emotional fidelity that exists between couples and HIV/AIDS prevalence rates that exists as a nation.
It is difficult to imagine that something that prevails by as much as at a personal level can have an impact at a national level. Yet, when we observe the phenomena of emotional (rather than of sexual) fidelity that exists from person to person, family to family, district to district, region to region, it is really not all that difficult to imagine or ignore the significance of the influence on the level of the epidemic as a nation. Viruses are not transmitted in the open. Just because I do not see they are happening openly, it does not mean the transmissions are not happening.
Source: Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, Dr John Gray
Yet, what is emotional fidelity and what influences it?
In the past weeks we saw that this begins when the couple works at meeting and fulfilling the emotional needs of one’s partner.
And then we discovered that the emotional needs of one’s partner (of the opposite gender) are typically different from that of one’s own.
In fact there are twelve kinds of emotional needs or as we say twelve kinds of love that can exist between a couple.
The figure here illustrates what these look like. We will start from the top.
When a woman meets and fulfils a man’s need to see his woman trust him, it allows him to grow his sense of belief in himself (when a woman believes in her man, it makes it easier for a man to believe in himself). This act grows feelings of masculinity that fosters a need within him to provide, protect and care for his woman.
As he cares for his woman in each step of the way; the act releases oxytocin in her body, a powerful hormone that plays a huge role in pair bonding for the woman. When we hug or kiss a loved one, oxytocin levels drive up for the person. This allows her to grow her feelings of feminity that allow her to behave truer to her gender as a woman for her man. This then allows her to grow feelings of trust in her man.
The more that a man cares for his woman, the more she trusts him!
While the couple helps to meet and build the emotional needs of their partner, the cycle behaves in a self-seeking way that reinforces their ability to receive and meet their partners’ needs. The couple bonds in this way.
This type of relationship does not require moral, physical or monetary obligations to tie it together so as to make it work.
Couples, who learn this subtle shift in difference in the way they see their partner early on in their relationship, are often on their way to realizing greater levels of fulfilment between them. Making relationships work becomes ‘cheap’.
As the man and the woman enjoy the first of these levels of emotional intimacy between them, they become ready to move on to the next steps in the bonding process.
This is the capacity of the man to understand the woman by listening to the views she expresses from her side of the world.
For the woman, this also means her ability to accept the man for who he is rather than who she wants to be.
Whenever a man changes his ways, be they his views or his actions, it would be on his own terms. This is not an act of defiance. It is what defines a man and separates him from the feelings of being a boy or a child.
It is important for a man that he sees his woman accepts him for who he is and not who he needs to be for her. The more the man feels he is allowed to change on his terms, and sees the woman trusts him to change on his own accord, the more he feels that his woman meets his need to accept him.
So rather, than say, “Why don’t you take the trashcan out? It is your trash too!” she instead requests of him to “Would you take the trash out? It would really make a difference to how the house would feel.” And when he does take the trash out, she then makes a big deal of his action. Whenever a man does something for his woman, he assumes there is a risk involved as he is not sure if his actions would be wholly accepted by his woman.
When he sees that she accepts whatever he has given to her, it makes him happy. This happiness is key to him becoming open to requests on her part in the future for things she would like to see happen for herself.
And this is now his capacity to listen to and understand his woman.
It is not an uncommon remark by men amongst men how “women do not stop talking”. It is really not all that difficult to see this at checkout counters or at restaurants or at government service counters to see service delivery is delayed, because the women staffs are choosing to chat up to a point that it becomes incessant for each other. It is now placing a dent on the economy.
Women fulfil that need for each other quite easily. They are programmed to know how to ‘listen to another woman that fulfils this need for her. Men however are not programmed to listen for the sake of listening. He is designed to listen so as to take an action. He is Mr Fix It. So how would a woman “programme” her man, so that he becomes ready to offer the listening ear she needs to feel she has been understood by her man?
Think about it and we will explore it here in our next column and the impact of meeting these emotional needs on each other as well as for the economy. We will explore this and more of the remaining twelve kinds of love then.
How true have these experiences been for you? As a man? And as a woman? How would you tell these distinctions exist for each other? Happy discussing these with your spouse or your girlfriend and discovering from each other!
Ms Sheila Damodaran works as a Systemic Strategy Development consultant currently developing her practice with national planning commissions in southern Africa. She welcomes comments and queries for her programmes at https://www.facebook.com/SystemicThinkingColumnist or call DID: 3931518.
As it appeared in the Botswana Sunday Standard on June 9, 2013, Systemic Thinking Column
“She’s not my type” or “He is not my type”
Yet, that’s exactly what it takes a couple to come together. As opposite genders, we do not meet in our similarities. But in our differences. Emotionally.
When a couple are in conflict, often times it happens because we are attempting to meet the needs for them from our respective perspectives. We think they are the same as ours. That’s where we can get this wrong.
In the past few weeks, we explored while a woman accords trust and accepts her man for who he is, her need is met for her when she sees the man care for her.
The column is currently exploring the link between the state of emotional fidelity that exists between couples and the state of HIV/AIDS prevalence that exists as a nation.
This week we continue to explore more of the twelve kinds of love that can exist between a man and woman in love.
First however, a sharing of interesting reactions by readers of the column. In the course of the week, I received reactions particularly by women readers who share the extent to which they had placed trust on the man they love and how they accepted him for who is, yet, did not see their relationship last.
In many such instances, we also see the couple enter into sexual relationships very early on in their relationship. Each story is heartfelt yet interestingly the story line repeats in much the same way across relationships. In most instances sexual intimacy acted as a substitute for the emotional intimacy that can happen between a couple. We thought the two types of intimacies are the same. They are not.
There is a however a trick to helping build emotional intimacies between a couple. Interestingly however, it is found in the first of the ABCs as advocated by government in their efforts to prevent HIV/AIDs transmission. And that is abstinence. This “tool” serves a double-edged sword. It could prevent transmissions of the virus. It also becomes key to building the emotional intimacies between couples.
When the couple is sexually intimate very early on in the relationship, and yet emotional fidelity has not built up between the two, the latter is less likely to happen for the couple. It can also mean it does not happen for life afterwards for the individual even with other partners.
So it is harder to say ‘we trust or accept someone’ because we have become sexually intimate with that person or for reasons other than for reasons attributed for that individual. Building a level of emotional intimacy can take months to happen. It does not survive short spans (over night or weeks) of time.
For emotional fidelity to grow, it needs to happen in a space where the couple have not become sexually intimate as yet. In instances where the couple are successful in doing so, one would usually find they have taken the time to instead to build emotional intimacy between them.
This would seem harder than it is. It is more so when reflected against a backdrop of seeming need African men have to be engaged sexually and women’s fear that should they not give in, one would “lose the man” to the next person.
There is an emotional distinction in the sexual activity intended to build an intimacy with one’s partner and one that helps a man regain his sense of manhood or masculinity. Can you tell the difference? In one instance it would feel that the man regained or received his sense of masculinity while the other is where the woman feels she received affection rather than having given in to the man.
The man received and the woman gave. There is a misfit here.
Women sense of joy comes foremost when they “receive” from their man. A woman who finds herself giving or giving in to others, will usually find herself falling into depression. The need to give is now running against her inherent nature as a feminine woman.
A man’s deepest sense of joy comes from giving. When a man is at the receiving end (as when a woman pays for him financially), he may be happy in receiving the money, but not at the expense of he questioning his sense of manhood even so privately. He may not present this emotional discomfort in front of the lady. But it could lead him having the need to seek out more sexual conquests with other women as a means to compensate for declining notions of his manhood.
On the other hand, where women learn to build her partner’s emotional sense of masculinity by meeting his emotional needs (trust and acceptance), she would find that over time , this leads to his need for sustained sexual conquests to decline. This now allows him to open up to build relationships with his partner emotionally.
And this includes now his capacity to listen to and fulfil a need for his woman that her man “understands” her. This need is ultimately defined by her when it is met for her.
It is not an uncommon remark amongst men to share with each other how much “women do not stop talking”. It is really not all that difficult to see this evident at checkout counters or at government service counters or to see service delivery delayed because of the women staffs’ need to talk with each other so as to be heard. This can sometimes come across as incessant chatting.
It is now beginning to place a dent on the economy. It is a sign that the man in their lives have not yet fulfilled this need for his woman.
Women easily fulfil this need for each other amongst themselves. They are programmed to know how to ‘listen to another woman”. Notice the ways when women talk to each other, how they would listen to the woman and respond by taking what they have heard and relating it to their personal experiences and sharing their reactions to the woman or just showing interest in hearing more of what’s been said.
Men however are not programmed to listen for the sake of listening. He is designed to listen so as to take an action. He is Mr Fix It.
So how then would a woman “programme” her man, so that he becomes ready to offer the listening ear she needs to feel she has been understood?
All she would need to start with is a request to her man: “Sweetheart, will you offer me a listening ear? I do not need you to fix anything. I had a difficult day at work, and it will mean a lot to me if you’d do just listen.”
A woman would not need to say such to another woman. But she needs to remember to say that to her man. We forget this subtle point with the opposite gender. Now he knows exactly what to DO. The “fix “for him is to listen. He relaxes, downs his tools and prepares to listen to his woman.
Most men hesitate to take this step because when he sees that his woman is unhappy he believes the reason for her unhappiness has something to do with him. And he is not sure what is causing it. It is a risk for him.
But if she prepares him to listen, and he listens, he will soon discover that all she needed was a sounding board.
When a woman is allowed to express what she hopes her man would hear, two things happen for her. She begins to calm down as when she sees someone listening to her, it allows her to complete her trains of thoughts that lead her to become clearer of what she needs to do next. This de-stresses her immediately. This becomes key to ready her to meet another need for her man. And that is to appreciate him for what he does for her. Her attention now turns away from herself (and therefore she stops talking) to her partner.
Don’t forget to appreciate the man for listening to you. The gesture prepares him to better listen to his woman the next time.
The best gift a man can give to his woman is to offer a listening ear to her.
And the couple learns to meet these differences it prepares the couple to move to the next deeper level of emotional intimacy between them.
Are these how you see these or do you see these differently?
Ms Sheila Damodaran works as a Systemic Strategy Development consultant currently developing her practice with national planning commissions in southern Africa. She welcomes comments and queries for her programmes at https://www.facebook.com/SystemicThinkingColumnist or call DID: 3931518 or email sheila@loatwork.com.
As it appeared in the Botswana Sunday Standard on June 30, 2013, Systemic Thinking Column
The column is currently exploring the link between the states of level of emotional fidelity that exists between couples and HIV/AIDS prevalence rates that exists as a nation.
It is difficult to imagine that something that prevails by as much as at a personal level can have an impact at a national level. Yet, when we observe the phenomena of emotional (rather than of sexual) fidelity that exists from person to person, family to family, district to district, region to region, it is really not all that difficult to imagine or ignore the significance of the influence on the level of the epidemic as a nation. Viruses are not transmitted in the open. Just because I do not see they are happening openly, it does not mean the transmissions are not happening.
Source: Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, Dr John Gray
Yet, what is emotional fidelity and what influences it?
In the past weeks we saw that this begins when the couple works at meeting and fulfilling the emotional needs of one’s partner.
And then we discovered that the emotional needs of one’s partner (of the opposite gender) are typically different from that of one’s own.
In fact there are twelve kinds of emotional needs or as we say twelve kinds of love that can exist between a couple.
The figure here illustrates what these look like. We will start from the top.
When a woman meets and fulfils a man’s need to see his woman trust him, it allows him to grow his sense of belief in himself (when a woman believes in her man, it makes it easier for a man to believe in himself). This act grows feelings of masculinity that fosters a need within him to provide, protect and care for his woman.
As he cares for his woman in each step of the way; the act releases oxytocin in her body, a powerful hormone that plays a huge role in pair bonding for the woman. When we hug or kiss a loved one, oxytocin levels drive up for the person. This allows her to grow her feelings of feminity that allow her to behave truer to her gender as a woman for her man. This then allows her to grow feelings of trust in her man.
The more that a man cares for his woman, the more she trusts him!
While the couple helps to meet and build the emotional needs of their partner, the cycle behaves in a self-seeking way that reinforces their ability to receive and meet their partners’ needs. The couple bonds in this way.
This type of relationship does not require moral, physical or monetary obligations to tie it together so as to make it work.
Couples, who learn this subtle shift in difference in the way they see their partner early on in their relationship, are often on their way to realizing greater levels of fulfilment between them. Making relationships work becomes ‘cheap’.
As the man and the woman enjoy the first of these levels of emotional intimacy between them, they become ready to move on to the next steps in the bonding process.
This is the capacity of the man to understand the woman by listening to the views she expresses from her side of the world.
For the woman, this also means her ability to accept the man for who he is rather than who she wants to be.
Whenever a man changes his ways, be they his views or his actions, it would be on his own terms. This is not an act of defiance. It is what defines a man and separates him from the feelings of being a boy or a child.
It is important for a man that he sees his woman accepts him for who he is and not who he needs to be for her. The more the man feels he is allowed to change on his terms, and sees the woman trusts him to change on his own accord, the more he feels that his woman meets his need to accept him.
So rather, than say, “Why don’t you take the trashcan out? It is your trash too!” she instead requests of him to “Would you take the trash out? It would really make a difference to how the house would feel.” And when he does take the trash out, she then makes a big deal of his action. Whenever a man does something for his woman, he assumes there is a risk involved as he is not sure if his actions would be wholly accepted by his woman.
When he sees that she accepts whatever he has given to her, it makes him happy. This happiness is key to him becoming open to requests on her part in the future for things she would like to see happen for herself.
And this is now his capacity to listen to and understand his woman.
It is not an uncommon remark by men amongst men how “women do not stop talking”. It is really not all that difficult to see this at checkout counters or at restaurants or at government service counters to see service delivery is delayed, because the women staffs are choosing to chat up to a point that it becomes incessant for each other. It is now placing a dent on the economy.
Women fulfil that need for each other quite easily. They are programmed to know how to ‘listen to another woman that fulfils this need for her. Men however are not programmed to listen for the sake of listening. He is designed to listen so as to take an action. He is Mr Fix It. So how would a woman “programme” her man, so that he becomes ready to offer the listening ear she needs to feel she has been understood by her man?
Think about it and we will explore it here in our next column and the impact of meeting these emotional needs on each other as well as for the economy. We will explore this and more of the remaining twelve kinds of love then.
How true have these experiences been for you? As a man? And as a woman? How would you tell these distinctions exist for each other? Happy discussing these with your spouse or your girlfriend and discovering from each other!
Ms Sheila Damodaran works as a Systemic Strategy Development consultant currently developing her practice with national planning commissions in southern Africa. She welcomes comments and queries for her programmes at https://www.facebook.com/SystemicThinkingColumnist or call DID: 3931518.
As it appeared in the Botswana Sunday Standard on June 9, 2013, Systemic Thinking Column
In the previous segment of this column, we concluded it was not as easy for someone to be sexually fidel till one learns to build and enjoy “emotional fidelity” with one’s partner.
It can be easy to miss this point.
Yet it becomes significant when we explore the link between the state of emotional fidelity between couples and the state of HIV/AIDS prevalence as a nation.
How are they inter-related, you ask?
It can be difficult to imagine that something that exists at a personal level can have an impact on a national level. Yet, when we see the phenomena happen across families, communities, districts to the region, it is not difficult to see that they can and do have a significant and growing influence on the level of the epidemic as a nation.
Our medical caregivers then give their all to fight it for the nation. It is really admirable how they do so, even when we know we have not made it easy for them.
Last week, we explored that developing emotional fidelity is the exclusive work of the couple. No one can do that for them. The parents and the community around a couple may encourage marriage and the ability to stay in one. But, not much more. And certainly not foster emotional fidelity.
This aspect therefore, is now beyond “the control” of SADC, or as the national planning commissions or the government or the Ministry of Health, the caregivers, or even as an NGO. We control what we can. But till we as couples learn to reach this, leaving the work of beating the epidemic to an outside organization, will not assure us of success in this issue as a nation!
Yet, what is emotional fidelity and what influences it?
We saw that this state begins when the couple works at meeting and fulfilling the emotional needs of one’s partner.
And then we discovered that the emotional needs of one’s partner (of the opposite gender) are typically different from that of one’s own.
For example, when a man sees his woman trust him, it meets an emotional need for the male partner. And seeing the man give care to his woman meets an emotional need for the female partner.
Both genders need both emotions. Just not to the same extent. To feel fulfilled as their gender in the relationship each as a unique emotional need.
When a woman meets and fulfils a man’s need to see his woman trusts him, it allows him to feel more so like a man. Even when we think, he is not worthy of the trust, the more the man sees the woman learns to see ‘the good side’ of him and trusts him, the more he moves to a state of feeling fulfilled. This stage is important for his feelings of masculinity to grow for him which in turn fosters a need within him to provide, protect and care for his woman.
While a man can trust his woman, it matters even more so to her, when she sees he cares for her. The more he cares for his woman; it allows her to feel true to her gender as a woman. And the more that allows her to grow feminine feelings as a woman; it allows her to grow and give trust to her man.
Wait!
Did we see a cycle of causality that exists between the two genders, in meeting their respective emotional needs?
The more that a man cares for his woman, the more she trusts him!
Period. This is where the trick lies in bringing a couple together. It is growing the cycle of meeting their respective but different emotional needs.
The bottom-line is they are not meant to be self-fulfilling nor meant to fulfil in ways that one thinks it should be for the partner from one’s point of view. But from the view of one’s partner. No other relationship quite teaches us to learn this point.
We often say relationships are not straightforward. That statement is truer than we believe.
It is not meant to be. Otherwise separation and divorces become the only ways out back to our straightforward lives.
The relationships between couples are meant to be cyclical.
The more the woman trusts her man, the more he cares for her. The more the man cares for his woman, the more she trusts him.
Couples, who learn this subtle shift in difference in their relationship in the way they relate to their partner, often realize greater levels of fulfilment between them.
I then left you with two further questions.
How would we know that these indeed are the respective needs of the two genders? And who should start first?
Notice when a man or a woman is in a heated discussion with each other, what would the man or woman typically say to the other? Would the man usually say “just trust me” or would he say, “you do not care for me!”? Whose voice do you typically hear say these words? What did you hear in your own relationship?
It is more common for us to hear a woman say, “you do not care for me”, while a man often asks of the woman ‘to just trust him’. We do leave clues in our relationships about our needs for our partners. We just need to find them. When a woman tries to reach her man, it is not because she does not trust him by as much as for her to feel the experience of his assurance of care for her. This is not a formula. It is a natural emotional need that exists separately for the two genders.
Who should start first? Do I wait for my partner to fulfil my emotional needs first before I try to meet his? Of course, that becomes self-defeating since, by doing so, we have already come from a place of the self rather than for the other.
However, this depends on the extent such needs have been met for the individual from their past relationships. The less it has been met, the more it becomes important for the partner to meet those needs for his or her partner first.
For example, the first man a woman learned to trust was her father. However, if she did not enjoy a trusting relationship with her father, it now becomes important that her boyfriend or husband learns to fulfil and meet that need for his woman before he may expect her to learn to trust him. In time, she will. One would have to learn to be patient till one reaches that stage.
And then there are five other types of emotional needs that are different for men andwomen. Have you found out what they are?
Here, I will leave you with two more each for each gender and they will become the subject of the column’s discussion for next week while you continue to figure what the other remaining three emotional needs are for the respective genders (there are twelve types of love or emotional needs in total …. no one said it was going to be that easy, did they?).
How true are they for you? How would you tell these distinctions?
Happy discussing these with your spouse and discovering these needs from each other!
Ms Sheila Damodaran works as a Systemic Strategy Development consultant currently developing her practice with national planning commissions in southern Africa. She welcomes comments and queries for her programmes at https://www.facebook.com/SystemicThinkingColumnist or call DID: 3931518.
As it appeared in the Botswana Sunday Standard on June 2, 2013
“A relationship does not need the “baggage” we bring to it from our respective pasts. Yet it serves to remind us they are there, if we are still carrying them. Leverage the relationship to work at unloading our baggage together.
The act of doing so clears misunderstandings and brings the two even closer. Every time.
Conflicts in a relationship are not bad. 90% of the time they are the result of reasons from our pasts.”
In last week’s segment of this column, we concluded it was not as easy for one to enjoy sexual fidelity for oneself till one learns to enjoy “emotional fidelity” with one’s partner. It is easy to miss this point in the “heat of the moments” but it is hard to ignore this inter-relationship over time.
When emotional fidelity or intimacy is missing between couples, it brings all relationships to an eventual standstill. It’s usually not just sexual infidelity that causes relationships to crack up. That’s just the tip of the iceberg.
What is emotional fidelity or intimacy and what does it look like? What allows a couple to grow it between the two? Does it happen by accident or is it open to nurturing? Or does it happen because it is propped up by obligations as a result of the physical relationships that exist between and around them?
Emotional fidelity happens for its own sake and requires effort exclusively on the part of the couple. Nobody (a child, parents, or wealth) can help do that step for them. Fortunately or unfortunately.
When I do arrive at this stage of my sessions with participants in understanding the interrelationships between fidelity and prevalence of HIV/AIDS, and I present the question, “What is emotional fidelity or itimacy?”, I get the following responses, each time, without fail:
Trust (that I expect my partner trusts me, or I should be able to trust him)
Care (that my partner cares for me)
Loyalty (that my partner is loyal to me)
Compassion (that my partner shows compassion to me)
Sexual pleasures (that my partner allows me to reach that pleasure for me)
Passion, lust (that I must enjoy these)
Respect (that my partner should respect me)
Love (that my partner should love me) … we should love each other, but that I’d love him when he shows his love me.
Listens (that my partner listens to me)
…. And so on, more or less in that order.
Interestingly, while the list appears seemingly innocent, take a closer look at it when we include the words that appear in parenthesis. These are usually not voiced in the first instances. What do you notice?
We had hoped these emotions would happen for oneself rather than for our partner. So it would be not be a case by as much of compassion that I present to my partner as much as compassion that I expect my partner shows me. It is not by as much the respect I accord to my partner, by as much as what I expect my partner to accord to me. If they do it for me, then I shall do it for them. Then it becomes mutual. Otherwise. No!
Yet, relationships thrive, when the attention is on meeting the emotional needs of my partner rather than of myself (and, don’t read this part alone aloud to your partner! (smile). Read the whole article together, if that is possible).
What are the emotional needs of my partner? Would they be the same as mine?
Let me present two words here. “Care” and “Trust”. Both words describe emotions. But which word describes best an emotion that when that need is met for her, helps her feel even more so like a woman. And a man a man. Both emotions are needed, but which one stands apart for each gender?
Would that emotion be care or trust for a woman? Most can agree and men are quite clear of it each time, that a woman feels most like a woman is when she sees “her man cares for her”. Yes, mothers ‘take care of their sons and daughters’. But when the daughter grows up and she has her own children, and may take “care of her son”, she is happiest when she receives care from her husband or boyfriend.
And a man feels at his best, when he sees that his woman “trusts him”. Sometimes, as women we do to others what we expect them to do for us. And so, she may end up ‘taking care of him’, thinking should the more she ‘cares for him’ that more he would ‘take care of her’.
But a man does not need care from his woman. Otherwise he sees his mother in his woman. He needs our trust which would allow him to grow and feel more so like a man. The less he enjoys the trust from his woman, the less he learns to feel like a man. And therefore “stays as a ‘boy’ to be taken care of”. This stunts his emotional development as a man.
How can we be sure these are indeed what best describes the emotional needs of the respective genders? How do we tell? Think what we notice happen in our own relationships?
Also men and women keep different scoring systems. When a man does an act of ‘giving’ to his woman, the score he accords for his act depends on the size of the gift. If say the man takes his woman for a vacation, in his books he has scored a lot of points.
But the woman keeps a different scoring system. Be it the gift is big or small, she accords one point. So, if the man brings her 24 roses or 1 rose, to her she accords 1 point for that act of giving he made to her.
So here’s the trick. Instead of giving her 24 roses (and his book he records 24 points) at one time, bring her one rose but do it 24 times over a period of time. That will be 24 points in her book. What does this mean? What is more important to her is not the size of the gift but rather the consistency in the act of giving.
She could sometimes come across as being ‘expensive’ but all she is trying to do is ‘to make up for the acts of giving that were not done in the past. Hard as it seems, women can be easy. We would need to understand the other genders’ emotional needs first for a more cordial relationship.
The physical needs of the two genders may be similar. We all need warmth, food and shelter. But when we attempt to cross the relationship into the emotional realm, and attempt to meet the emotional needs of the opposite gender, we meet in the differences, and not in the similarities.
So it is easy to get away by saying “he is not my type” or “she is not my type”. It is actually truer than we believe it to be.
“Women mistakenly expect men to react and behave the
way women do, while men continue to misunderstand
what women really need.” Dr Gray
– Author of “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus”
So who would need to start meeting the needs of the other gender first? Would it be that the woman shows trust in her man first, before he begins to accord care to her. Or would it be vice-versa?
And then there are five other types of emotional needs that are different for men and women. What do you think they are?
What do you see is the impact of couples who are able to meet and build emotional intimacy with each other on the prevalence of HIV/AIDS in the country? What would prevent them from building such levels of intimacies?
These will be the subject of the column’s discussion for next week. Happy discussing and discovering with your family and friends!
Ms Sheila Damodaran works as a systemic strategy development consultant currently developing her practice with national planning commissions in southern Africa. She welcomes comments and queries for her programmes at https://www.facebook.com/SystemicThinkingColumnist or call DID: 3931518.
As it appeared in the Botswana Sunday Standard on May 26, 2013
Nevertheless, a question that has crossed millions of minds and tons of conversations around the globe. In sports clubs, in tea-gardens, at pubs, at market places and at bus-stations. Between girlfriends and among boys and men. Regardless of gender.
And we have thrashed this question in and out on various media at various stages of our lives. As teenagers, as young adults, as married persons, as elders, even as institutions. Sometimes, we would choose not to go there, because, we believe that it is either too difficult to get there or evokes difficult emotions or we see things that are difficult “to change” when we do get there. Regardless of our professions.
And when we think we have got it, despite past experiences, it escapes us. Once again. Regardless of age.
But to be honest with each other, we really do not ask what causes fidelity!
We typically focus on why infidelity happens (happened to us). Not fidelity.
We get what we want. Knowing what we do not want, does not help us learn to build what we want or yearn for.
We may be ready to ‘tackle the consequences’ but as long as we keep creating the causes, we will have to continue to tackle the consequences.
This question, what causes fidelity, began to be important to us last week. This was, when after exploring and uncovering what causes the prevalence of HIV/AIDS to rise, we recognised that fidelity inspite of non-abstinence or of not applying condoms; it had a sure-fire (guaranteed) way of bringing prevalence figures down.
I shared a discussion I would usually have in my workshop programmes when we tackle this topic, that, “Should two individuals, both HIV positive stay sexually fidel to each other, would that lead to increased levels of transmission of the HIV virus to individuals outside of the couple’s relationship. That is, in spite of unsafe sexual practices with each other?
And the answer would be quite simply …. No!
For all. Regardless of age, professsion or gender. Immediately! Except for the pair, there would be zero transmissions beyond them. Something, a lot of nations and individuals easily aspires to and wishes it could happen for them but thinks it is difficult to reach. Yet, it really isn’t that difficult to figure this one out.
This work is relentless in wanting to understand what influences such actions. It is easier to dismiss it off and ‘say we require a change in behaviours’. But if it stays on easier to say it than to do it, then we have not yet put a finger on to it to understand what would make a sufficient difference. It was too simple! Which is why we are led back in (to the problem).
I also shared that from a systemic perspective, the causality of HIV/AIDs as a phenomenon will be no different from that of one country to another! Be it that the phenomenon is happening in India or Europe or China or here in Botswana, South Africa or Russia or the Americas. Despite races or nationalities.
Why did I say that?
These circles of causality occur naturally and they prevail despite what we as individuals may appear to look like ‘on the outside’. The ways we think and emote within, despite the boundaries we draw across the globe are not that very different. Be it the hatred or joys we see as happening in China or Zimbabwe or Venezeula or the Artic or even between individuals as partners may manifest outwardly as looking differently. But the emotions, and therefore the thinking and the behaviours stay true to the same.
The circles of causality are a presentation of how these aspects (namely emotions, behaviours and actions) interrelate within us and across each other. Once these reinforce or feed themselves, or as we say locks themselves in, be they positively or negatively, the reasons or causes that appear in the cycle stay the same.
This takes us beyond the unequivocal blame we square on the ubiquitous influence of ‘truck drivers’. And yet, ‘this’ could be anyone. Some-ones from “outside but who was driving through” or we might say, being sexually indiscriminate or infidel with each other.
Yet, when it happen, it does not happen without a reason. It is whether we see it (the reason) or we don’t. When we do understand the reason, it now becomes easier for change to happen. Hard as it may be, to accept the reason.
And so, the question is, “what causes sexual fidelity”? What encourages its growth? What discourages it? Where does that begin?
Couples anywhere, enjoy a type of intimacy that does not quite match up in the same way in relationships as we have with someone outside it or when we keep more than one intimate relation. It is the only relationship that enjoys the following characteristics:
The relationship is ‘not given’. It needs to be learnt. My relationship with my brother is given. But my relationship with my husband is not given. I did not “grow up” with him. It has to be learnt. I invest effort to learn about him;
It enjoys an intimacy that goes beyond physical relations as we could with our parents and siblings, and especially beyond the obvious sexual one. It is the only relationship that enjoys intimacy with another human being that spans, sexual intimacy to emotional (learning of our respective pasts) to mental (ways of our thoughts) to spiritual (that is not religious). All of them with the same person at the same time. Sometimes, the experience is referred to as being almost celestial or heavenly. Sexual experiences become more enjoyable then. Couples who do not ‘graduate beyond’ sexual activities rarely reach such a stage or enjoy it. It takes time;
It is the only relationship that helps us learn to open our ways of thinking to include that of another. Family relations reinforce current or familiar ways of thinking within the box. Intimate relations are the only relationship of its kind that helps us learn to ‘step out of our boxes’. No other relationship can help us do that. The more we do so, the more we learn to do that with relations outside of the family. This becomes key to organizational and economic and international growths;
It is the only relationship that helps preserve and grow our feminine and masculine emotional qualities to their ultimate peaks. The woman feels (and not just looks) most like a woman and the man as a man.
It is a relationship that starts small and grows over time, over a lifetime. For the reasons above. Not because our wealth has become inextricably tied up.
What allows a couple to reach such stages that goes beyond sexual fidelity to emotional fidelity? What does emotional fidelity look like?
Sometimes we say, it is not easy for couples to enjoy sexual fidelity till they learn to enjoy emotional intimacy together. Without emotional fidelity, do not expect sexual fidelity to happen that easily! It does not.
So does emotional fidelity happen by accident or can it be learnt?
This will be the subject of the column’s discussion for next week. Happy discussing and discovering!
Ms Sheila Damodaran works as a systemic strategy development consultant currently developing her practice with national planning commissions in southern Africa. She welcomes comments and queries for her programmes at https://www.facebook.com/SystemicThinkingColumnist or call DID: 3931518.
As it appeared in the Sunday Standard, Botswana May 19, 2013, edition.
From a systemic perspective, the causality of HIV/AIDs as a phenomenon will be no different from that of one country to another! Be it that it is happening in India or Europe or China or here in Botswana, South Africa or Namibia. Despite races or nationalities or professions.
The circle of causality reinforces or feeds itself, negatively, perhaps at different rates (some slower, others faster), but the reasons or causes that appear in the cycle will be the same.
The reason for transmission of the virus however, for an individual may differ from one person to another. That’s from the perspective of a medical doctor. That’s what he sees. But the systemic causality of the phenomenon will be the same across all them.
Systemic thinking is not interested in the former. It’s focus and attention is on the latter.
And what would you say this means from a systemic perspective for nations that show low levels of the epidemic numbers? This would mean that the circle of causality is reinforcing positively rather than negatively or we say virtuously in their instances. It is the same cycle, just reinforcing positively.
Each time the circle of causality reinforces or as we say the causes feed themselves as a cycle, the community or the country experiences increasingly negligent levels of infections despite the levels other nations may be experiencing around the globe. And most importantly, they achieve those results with little or no effort (and certainly no resources) on their part.
Whether it is good news or bad news, the cycle of causality will be the same.
This series of articles that we have just begun here, seeks to uncover what is the circle of causality in the case of HIV/AIDs as a systemic or national phenomenon.
Please note however, the doctor, needs to continue to treat or advice the patient, nevertheless. However, treating a patient will not treat (or reverse the effects of this phenomenon) as a nation. The cycle will continue to run its course until we treat the cycle with a systemic solution.
That’s not a medical perspective. It requires the perspective of the nation. The latter cannot absolve itself from being a part of the solution here.
In last week’s article, we explored and uncovered the following:
Prevalence Levels ß New Infections (identified or otherwise) Levels ßLevels of Transmissions ß ?
And then I left you with the question,” what causes the levels of transmissions to go up?” Notice again, I did not ask, what caused a transmission. Instead, the question seeks to understand what causes its relentless upward trend.
And then I clarified the question further by asking which one of the above did you (and your circle of family and friends) think was the MAIN REASON? … the 20% that contributes 80% of the causes!
And I offered five options: Was it unsafe sexual practices? Would it be mother-to-child transmissions? Would it be unsafe use of tainted needles? Or is it accidents and wounds? Or was there another reason?
I have posed this question each time with various groups for possibly over thousands of participants. And there is resounded one unequivocal answer. I am sure you have guessed it too!
Most, quite easily vouch that the answer is, sexual intercourse. And should we take you the readers of this newspaper and continue to make that count, we are quite sure that we will arrive at the same answer.
Now, to see that ‘sexual intercourse’ as the “main river” that adds to the “ocean of HIV/AIDs prevalence”, was important. Here’s why.
When I do this activity with a group of medical practitioners who are tasked to advance the prevention of transmission of the disease from mother to child, it begins to dawn on them that while they work hard at preventing the transmission of the virus to the child from its mother, yet that child when it grows up, it did not have a way to control the transmission of the virus to itself through its own sexual practices. The child (and that is all of us) has not learned to save itself from the virus. It just happens. Sometimes, before we reach our teens! This clarity floors these organizations every time.
What is the implication of understanding this on resources and effort? It literally means money down the drain for them.
Why do we do that?
While it was a necessary correction, it was still an easier and costlier route. We would choose this way, because, trying to curb transmission through sexual practices, was a more difficult process, and in our minds, and almost impossible task.
Yes, it is impossible. That is, if we see all solutions as about controls and monitoring others.
When we are faced with such a systemic situation, it requires learning to work with levers that lead to individuals taking actions for themselves. This way of thinking is perhaps new for us.
In short, it means, we need to learn how the individual would make those decisions. Whatever, the reason that leads one to take a decision, when the reason is “not there” it would lead one to decide to take a different course of action. For oneself!
It is more difficult process to get there. No doubt.
Unfortunately, however, it is the reality.
When we face that reality, we also learn to face solutions that work. And when, we get there, it becomes very simple.
So shall we carry on uncovering the reason in the cycle?
So, the next question is what causes transmissions by sexual practices to go up?
Let me frame this differently. In my workshops, I would typically ask a question, “Should two individuals, both HIV positive stay sexually fidel to each other, would that lead to increased levels of transmissions to individuals outside of the couple’s relationship. That is, in spite of unsafe sexual practices with each other?
And the answer would be quite simply …. No! Yes, you are right!
Except for the pair, there would be zero transmissions beyond them. Something, a lot of nations easily aspires for it to happen but thinks it is difficult to reach. Yet, it really isn’t that difficult to figure this one out.
Taking this reasoning beyond the obvious reason, lies in asking the question, what causes or encourages the behaviour of discriminate sexual relation by a couple with each other?
Perhaps you may ask, what is that? It would be the act of engaging in sexual relationship with one person that lasts beyond evenings to a lifetime of days. Hard as it may sound, we would otherwise refer to as fidelity.
So the next question is, “what causes sexual fidelity”? Would it need controls? What encourages its growth? What discourages it?
We all seem to know what causes infidelity.
But what causes fidelity? Where does that begin? What do you think? What does your wife (or girlfriend) think?
This will be the subject of the column’s discussion for next week. Happy discovering!
Does it really matter that we know all of the causes of the viralness or we need to figure the ONE? Yes, it matters that we figure the “main river”.
It makes all the difference between working hard and working smart.
Ms Sheila Damodaran works as a systemic strategy development consultant currently developing her practice with national planning commissions in southern Africa. She welcomes comments and queries for her articles and programmes at https://www.facebook.com/SystemicThinkingColumnist or call DID: 3931518.
As it appeared on The Sunday Standard May 12, 2013 edition.
It has been a while. As the articles grew, we took the time to consider an appropriate site for the column. That search is on-going. However, for now, the column and I is here and we are glad we are back with you!
The column showcases a work that leads by learning to understand persistent issues of systemic or national concern and develop strategies to mitigate them. These strategies are typically not run-of-the-mill solutions because had they worked in the past, we would not be facing these issues today globally. When a problem is ‘solved’, it will work not to come back. Period.
And when it does come back, it is a sign we have yet to understand what’s causing the problem. It is an indication that the search is not over as yet.
We will use this thought to begin to understand the viral nature of HIV/AIDs that has caused epidemic proportions in its behaviour and consequences around the globe.
How did it grow the way it had done so far? Both with and without our control? What is the ‘gaspipe, outside of the medical domain’ that keeps bringing more of these cases back on into the health sector? And why does it continue to resist our efforts to control it despite works by multi-sectoral efforts. It seems to behave, almost ubiquitously as in “till deaths, do us part”?
The story today has gone way beyond sex workers or truck drivers, because infections happen regardless. Had such “acts” not persisted beyond these two sectors, the mere non-action would slow down or even stop the infection in its track. However, we know this is not the case. Infections have now gone from beyond one area and one country, to countries across lands and inspite oceans. It has transcended boundaries, including age, gender, professions, and so on.
Interestingly, this story now also holds keys to learning to grow any kind of phenomenon. Even how as nations we may learn to grow our economies and businesses. Why do I say that? Read on.
While the unintended consequences of HIV/AIDs are not desirable, it is nevertheless exhibiting the nature of growth behaviour ‘at its best’. Think viruses that started off as one, in very small numbers, and yet today the number has grown to billions in the millions of us. It has grown to an extent that the question today is no longer, ‘when would we turn the tide around’ but rather ‘can we turn the tide’? It is no longer a trickle, a brook or a river. It is turning into an ocean.
And we have tried turning it around by all means possible. Genuinely. For decades.
We have poured and continue to do so billions of dollars around the globe to ‘fight the war’ of HIV. And that trend has grown relentlessly year on year as organizations around the world jump on the bandwagon to save the numbers of lives increasingly affected by it.
Tongue-in-cheek, it even feels the more money we pour in to fight it, the more we seem to be sucked in by it both as those who are infected and those who need to react to the infected either as medical and research personnel, medical service providers or fund coordinators and not forgetting the rest who are caregivers in the family.
These are the hands and feet that would otherwise have worked hard at growing the country’s economic productivity and sit on the revenue side of the equation of an economy.
Today, rather these resources sit on the side of the cost equation. And this adds up to the cost (hidden and worse blind ones) sometimes more than just of the investments we make. They would need to be added in.
Yet the prevalence (of old + new infections) is not abating downwards at the rate investments are scaling — upwards. The catching up game does not appear to stop.
Is it a stubborn problem? Yes, it is! Is there a vicious cycle causing the persistence? You bet there is!
If the problem has not turned around consistent with the effort we have applied to it, then it is an indication that we have not quite understood what is causing its vicious nature. Understanding this causality is the first step to solving the problem.
We know that when a virus transmits from one individual to another, it can cause an (new) infection.
That’s a medical side of the story of the disease. In systemic thinking, however, we want to understand what is causing the recurrence of the transmission that is pushing prevalence upwards, despite differences in time, location and people? And inspite of different programmes, initiatives and endeavours.
We also want to know the consequences of such prevalence rates and importantly to understand ways they (re-)feed(-back) or reinforce the cycle. These questions are keys to developing strategies that help turn stubborn issues around. For good.
Yes, we know it is sex (-ual) transmission. Yet, not all sexual activities lead to a transmission of the virus. Yes? (More later. Food for thought for now.)
So we have for now explored the topic around a few issues, let’s begin to answer the question. What causes the relentless persistence of HIV/AIDs as a phenomena that feeds (grows) the prevalence figures of nations?
So, let’s start with the question, what causes the prevalence to go up?
The first answer I usually get, hands down, is “sex”! Well, it’s true. We will get there but let’s stay with the question. Prevalence is caused by new infections. When numbers of new infections go up, prevalence goes up. When infections go down, prevalence goes down too.
The next question is, ‘what causes infections to go up’? Again, I get the response, well, the answer is obvious! “Sex”! Smile. It’s true. But as I would say, stay with the question. Infections are caused by transmission. If there are no transmissions, there are no new infections. But when numbers of instances of transmissions go up, so does infection.
The next question? You know it, now. What causes transmissions to go up? Notice, I did not ask, what caused a transmission. Well, stepping back, we might say, well there are many ways these may happen. It can be sexual behaviour (such as unsafe sexual practices), mother-to-child transmissions, unsafe use of tainted needles, accidents and wounds, and there could be more.
Here’s a tip.
In a stubborn or a recurring problem, we do not include all of them as causalities. And here’s why.
By the time, circle of causality becomes vicious 0r recurring, one of these factors have become the reason for its persistence. It is that ‘main river’ that brings the cycle back and reinforces itself continuing to push the upward tide with each cycle of causality. We say it is now exists as a self-seeking (helps itself) cycle of growth. It is not a cause with multiple factors.
So which one of the above do you think is the MAIN REASON? … the 20% that contributes 80% of the causes!
I am sure you know which one it is. Still, do feel free to check out the question with your family and friends. What do they think?
Would it be unsafe sexual practices? Would it be mother-to-child transmissions? Would it be unsafe use with tainted needles? Or is it accidents and wounds? Or is there another reason?
This will be the subject of the column’s discussion for next week. Happy discovering!
Ms Sheila Damodaran works as a national strategy development consultant currently focussed on working with national planning commissions in southern Africa. She welcomes comments and queries for her programmes at DID: 3931518 or at sheila@loatwork.com.
As it appeared in the Sunday Standard, Botswana on Sunday Nov 4, 2012 edition.
Labour is a cost
It can assist to generate revenue but it is firstly, a cost. When we add them up, it can rack up into billions of dollars. Easily.
Hence a situation of ‘that we have labour’, will not be enough reason why ‘jobs will be created’. The jobs need to be paid. When the money dries up, including borrowings, so does the job. This will happen in the same way for any country.
The supply of labour however remains unchanged. They are either more who are employed or more who are unemployed.
Next, think bottleneck.
When the supply of labour exceeds the demand for it, the demand becomes the ‘neck’ of the bottle. It narrows the uptake of the supply. Competition and waiting for jobs are the inevitable consequences of the bottleneck. As we release the bottleneck competition disappears. And so would unemployment.
We would therefore require solutions on both sides of the ‘neck’ to solve the problem of persistent unemployment.
In the past two week’s editions of this column, we introduced two factors that influence persistent unemployment. Should we create new jobs (i.e. there is demand for labour), unemployment goes down. Should however, the numbers of births and immigration (i.e. the supply of labour) go up over time, so does unemployment.
We also discussed that the ability of sectors to create jobs is influenced by the health of profit margins of three interrelated industries, i.e. the primary, secondary and tertiary industries. We discussed when the primary industry grows; they help to grow the secondary industries which in in turn help to grow the tertiary industries.
At this point, unemployment becomes resolved. Hard as it may sound, it is a solution we cannot ignore. The easy way out, would lead us back in, one way. Back to the problem.
In today’s edition of the column, we explore the story of the supply side of unemployment and its solution.
This becomes important to help us see solutions that are digging us in deeper into the problem. It will be ironical that what we had hoped will help the situation could actually be making them worse. Things become better before they become worse. At that point, we would have a situation spiralling out of hand.
A case in point is, if there are more of us than there are jobs available, skilling people without creating jobs will not make unemployment go away. I know we do not like to hear this. And neither do I.
Jobs do not stay vacant. They are going to others. And yes, while the best man may win, there is another man (or woman) out there. That is the point.
If the problem does not budge despite resources, then it is a sign that all what we have done was to apply a solution to the consequence of the problem but not to its cause. To deal with the cause, we would need to pull ourselves away from the fire to notice where the gas pipe is coming from. A fireman cannot help us at this stage.
Supply of Labour
What causes the increase in the supply of labour?
One might say, well that’s easy. It is caused by migration. Well, that is certainly true. For the short term. Migration is just that. Sometimes they are in. And sometime they are out.
Sustained long-term increase in the supply of labour is caused by the rates at which locals add births to the population numbers within the country. This impact is pre-determined. It cannot be changed, its effects are not felt immediately but they were set into motion twenty years ago. They are felt twenty years later when the babies have grown into young adults and are about to join the employment pool of the country.
We therefore do not connect the problem to the cause since they are both distant in time and space from each other. And when we do not see this relation, we disregard the cause and take the easier way out. We look at immigration. This happens for any country.
And so, if unemployment is persistent today, then this is an indication that numbers of those born twenty to thirty years ago and have now joined the labour pool, had been pushing up slowly but steadily. Yesterday, we rejoiced each birth in our families. Of course, we were not watching their total consequences on the nation for tomorrow. Well, not yet.
As a nation, how many persons have we added to the pool of supply in the past forty years? Yes, it may feel late to ask such a question. It is meant as a way to face reality.
Let us say, should we produce 5,000 children per month, and that makes it 60,000 babies born in a year, then we can reasonably expect that twenty years from now (and 1.2 million people later), when they grow up, we would need to be preparing for an additional 60,000 jobs (given gender equality) for that cohort.
This is in addition to those already employed prior to them. If we are seeing 30,000 retirees, we are still looking at creating an additional 30,000 or more new jobs for the cohort. And do not forget these 60,000 do not stay at producing another 60,000. Yes? How many will they produce in ten to fifteen years from now? That will become tomorrow’s reality.
How much would an additional 30,000 jobs (for that year) cost us? Don’t forget the other years and other employees.
Who created the children? You are right. We did!
Who will create the jobs for them?
Creating Jobs
In a recent project on unemployment in a country, we saw the population of 35 year olds and younger, ballooned six folds in a thirty-year period. On the other hand, job creation had not risen by anywhere near as much. The population had disregarded these economic factors. Of course, we can say, economic and bedroom choices do not always mix.
At rates of six-fold increases, just that layer of the population would quite easily add over another 1/3 million persons by the next generation. These are figures before immigration.
So what is happening?
In short, we are now attempting to “fight” the problem somewhat oblivious to these realities. We saw the fire. But not what caused it! We had hoped that the supply of labour could influence the demand for labour. But that is just not economics.
Still, I wonder if, as citizens, we can totally absolve ourselves from not understanding these figures and how they play up in our everyday lives. What do you think?
At some point we would no longer be able to shut our eyes to this. The reality would soon wake us up, as as we see our children stay unemployed.
Have we come back full circle here? Who designed this circle of causality? Is this unique for one country?
What should we do today?
As citizens should we know what these numbers look like for the country?
Understanding this trends, profoundly changes the game plan in many ways. Firstly, it allows the problem to be solved where it started (the community), not where it ended (government). There is leverage here, as it allows the greatest changes to happen with the least amount of effort.
I have tended to believe that should citizens understand these numbers, they would become clearer at steering the country out of this problem. Even by themselves. These may include making choices such as coming up to speed in ways to create jobs rather than wait for jobs to be created. Or consider seeking employment outside the country. It is the go-getter attitude by such individuals that will eventually help draw revenue to any country and themselves.
That’s for today. How may we better prepare ourselves for tomorrow?
Families are key
We could actually become better at matching birth with job creation rates. Knowing these trends, may free us as families, to consider channelling resources to the building of the primary industries of the economy. This is a strong system of production of raw materials for all levels of the economy. Farmers, and growers of raw materials, who see this impact beyond putting food on their table for their family, are beginning to pay attention to this systemic reality. Production is now greater than consumption in the country.
When they do so, the family is now taking a step towards ensuring that jobs are more likely to be created at other levels of the economy, for the children we produce. We may find that as more resources are allocated to primary industry production (and less to child production) we become better at learning to manage our population numbers more in line with the capacity of the country to produce jobs for our children. There is an order in which causality happens.
Unemployment, at that point, stops becoming a problem.
How do you see this issue? Given the above, do we need to understand the picture that is happening for the country today? What’s stopping families allocating resources to primary industries?
Go forward another twenty years from now. What trends would you like to see? For our families? The economy? And our country? For employment?
Hope this inspires discussion amongst your family and friends for ways you see us resolve this issue.
English: US Whig poster showing unemployment in 1837 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
As it appeared in the Sunday Standard, Botswana on Sunday Oct 21, 2012 edition (maiden print).
This is the 1st of a three part series of this article. Each part will build on the earlier article to an eventual conclusion. We invite you to participate in the column as well as do your ‘own homework’ – searching and discussing to build your own conclusions.
When unemployment persists (hard as it is to admit it is happening)
Persistent unemployment, in any country is a consequence of two factors.
The rate of increase of supply of labour (birth rates from twenty years ago) relative to the rate of increase in the demand for labour (job creation rates of today). In jest, it is a mismatch of rates of child creation of the past vs. rates of job creation today.
Should the rate of demand for labour exceed supply year on year; we would have full employment of the locals and perhaps be able to employ foreigners as well. However, should supply of labour persistently outgrow demand; we would now have a classic case of persistent unemployment.
When we, as citizens, learn to watch these two behaviours of change as a nation over time then we should expect to resolve the issue of unemployment. For good.
When we don’t, and we are oblivious to the reason, all we can expect to do is to play a catching-up game but not solve the problem. It stays on the charts as a stubborn problem, usually on the President’s table, worsening over time. This is, despite efforts from all quarters to run ahead of the problem or get to the root of the issue. Not to say, we hear persistent disgruntlement amongst the locals about the lack of employment opportunities for the youth or for those employed the lack of pay rises and we harbour fears of jobs being taken away by foreigners.
So,
Sustained Growth of Supply of Labour > Sustained Growth of Demand for Labour
= Sustained Unemployment
[Insert graphic here]
These two factors are not directly related to each other, but they each
influence unemployment, separate as they may be.
But what led things to get this far?
What causes the demand for labour to decline relative to the supply of labour? And what causes the supply of labour to increase relative to the demand for it?
First let’s explore the supply side.
Here’s a case in example. In the ten years to 2010, Vietnam saw its population numbers grow from 80 to 89 million. Growth of population numbers and more typically birth and migration numbers influence the supply side of this equation. Job creation on the other hand, did not see such levels of growth. The result is, we see runaway unemployment in the country.
Closer to home, while, population numbers in the country do not compare anywhere close to those we see in Vietnam, still when we look beyond the overall numbers, there are interesting data that we cannot ignore.
We know the overall population numbers have grown somewhat from 1.5 to 2 million levels over a decade. Given however, the concerns of mortality rates one may conclude that our population numbers have not really changed all that much to warrant the unemployment levels we see in the country.
But realistically … has the supply of labour declined over time?
Births rates from twenty years ago, leads to the supply of labour and therefore the unemployment numbers we see today.
When we remove population and mortality figures and see our fertility rates, we may notice that these numbers have not been all that low. In fact, typically in most populations, each generation outnumbers the previous one. Think of population pyramid, where the numbers of young born are in numbers greater than older persons in the population. But also see population pyramids for more recent decades assuming wider bases than those in previous ones.
Such trends are not apparent when we gloss over overall population data. Yes, there is migration data. But we cannot shut our eyes to these sheer levels of increase.
Do we know by how much such numbers have grown? In the country? In the region?
A separate question is, when should we start noticing such increases? Would it be when the young turn 20 years old and are now looking for a job and they complain they cannot find one?
That will be too late!
We would now instead be dealing with “a fire” in our hands. Youth unemployment rather than employment. Yet it really is a problem that had its embers simmering for the past 20 years. Quietly but surely. But we were not watching it, till the embers had blown over and we now have a fire in our hands. At this point, we say, we have a problem. A burning platform. But the signs were long there. If we push this now, the system will push back.
Ok it has not. And … has the demand for labour increased by such levels during this period?
If it has, we should not see sustained unemployment. This is indicative that the demand for labour has not matched such levels.
How much has it increased by? Perhaps more importantly, how much would it need to increase by? Two-folds? Six-folds? What do you see are the answers? What is making it difficult to get there?
Interestingly, should we think carefully about both sides of the equation, that is, the jobs and the children we create are influenced by the same segment of the population. The Adults.
While perhaps we may argue that these’ activities are carried out’ by different sub-segments of the adult population, it is still the sole prerogative of this group. The problem may not belong to any one part of this group, i.e. government or private sector or families. That sounds like the bad news. That it was our fault (in any generation). But the good news is if we created the problem, then we also have the ‘power’ in our hands and in our hearts to turn it around (yes, even as a citizen) for the nation. Together.
So is unemployment, still the real problem? How do you see this issue? Go forward another twenty years from now. What would these trends look like then?
Yes, you are right given this, the reality looks painful for our children too. But I also know, if anyone can turn this around, it is us!
The 2nd and 3rd articles in this three part series will appear in the next edition of this column. It will seek to explore the story of the demand and supply sides of labour respectively more deeply and what causes them to either grow or decline over time.
END
#998
While this is her maiden newspaper column, Ms Sheila Damodaran is an avid writer on her blogs and website. An international consultant in the use of systemic thinking for regional or sectoral strategy development, she welcomes feedback on her column as well as requests for types of persistent issues you wish to see discussed in her column at sheila@loatwork.com. For more information, refer to www.loatwork.com.
Most countries think supply of labour should drive demand. We forget then (or choose not to admit to ourselves) that it is demand that drives supply in any situation. Not the other way around. It is just not realistic to believe that because we have so many ‘young ones’ here, that there should be jobs out there for them. But we do. The two however are not related in reality. But we ‘force that relationship in our minds’.
When we dug for data over time, to our surprise we were noticing that unlike what the country thought, its population was not declining. Yes, it’s overall population numbers may be dropping to attrition due to deaths (in part speeded up along by HIV/AIDs) and migration. However, its fertility rate on the other hand had been quite high and continues to grow.
English: Total Fertility Rate vs GDP per capita (2009, USD). Only countries with over 5 Million population were plotted to reduce outliers. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
So what was causing its fertility rates to increase?
This was in part driven by a few reasons.
The first, and the least inconspicuous of the three was a hidden matriarchal system (the mothers and women here wield more power than it thought). This was fuelled by fears of security they held on to as young women themselves as they watched their husbands leave them for long-term employment in mines in neighbouring countries and had to learn to cope to fend for themselves and their children very quickly. Over time, this evolved to driving their children to produce more children in the belief that the more there are children within one’s own family, the more potential the family had in eventually bringing in income from their lands and the economy. It was a long-term retirement plan for the women. (Need for Security on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs)
Diagram of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Men on the other hand, played a hand in this too, each trying to outdo the other in producing children. The more children he had, the better a man he was going to be in the eyes of the persons around him. It was an immediate gratification or ego trip for the men (Need for Ego / Belonging on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs)
These children in turn grew up over time, seeing a world where they knew who were their friends and who were their enemies and this line was drawn up by who is within their core family and who was outside it (to a point it sometimes included the fathers who bore them). This often meant that as they grew up they were learning not to ‘let go of the families they were born into’ enough to build long-term relationships with their spouses (someone who is ‘outside’ their families) and their in-laws to help build core family systems (husband, wife and their children) for themselves. It was the need for maintaining or finding sense of belonging for the child or security in the familiarity or long-term childhoodness which sometimes perpetuated in older age as girlfriendhood or boyfriendhood syndrome and the need in not having to assume responsibilities for the consequences of one’s actions. (Need for Security on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs)
The core Brodie family (L-R: Adeeb, Leyla, Conor, Michael, Nicole) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Hence this meant the demise of the core family system and the growth and existence of the extended family as a support system for the individuals. Today, these numbers are rising up to 70% levels. Less than 30% levels of the population stay married and these numbers continue to decline.
However, when core families do not develop within the system, the system (particularly the males) does not learn a key lesson of life which is “what it takes to hold, build and share perspectives outside its comfort zones needed for a more “collaborative, extended and systemic organizations and industrial relations” and therefore the birth and growth of corporations (by the locals).
This would lead locals themselves particularly as the males to learn to build (not just participate) the economy. For men to do so, it is in part as a result of the type of relation he enjoys with his spouse (but not his mother). The more intimate the couple is emotionally (not just physically), the greater is his sense of resilience and motivation he is able to gain to meet and overcome the challenges he would face in the world of businesses and the economy.
Sir Robert Hotung, with his 3 generations of extended family (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
And so, when the economy does not grow, it is unable to create more jobs within the economy (as revenues are declining as much as costs may be rising) and therefore, unemployment continues to exist and worsens in the face of growing population numbers (fertility) which means the family in turn finds more of its people are not participating in the economy and therefore able to bring in resources into it. When this part of a man’s life is not growing, he becomes more conservative and reserved and succumbs to addictions, substance abuses and violence and a general disregard for respect for themselves and others. The signals a death knell for the economy. The organized economy suffers. The subsistence economy takes over.
Gradually, this in turn leads women to bear children outside of marital relations (most children born in this country are born to women who are not married and that trend is rising).
In the mind of the woman, bearing a child to a man (particularly if he has the means to support relative to herself) would ensure a somewhat steady source of income for their family through their children (sometimes to the point of coercing the father of the child to continue to bear expenses for it and the family) or it stops the existing male persons within the extended family to build relations outside his family in order to support the needs of the family (to children and sisters who are not married).
Have we come full circle yet? Do you see the vicious circle?
How would we treat this vicious problem?
Can the government realistically solve this problem?
Do not expect to learn to solve the problem, if one did not create the problem!
Despite our efforts to set up judiciary courts to preside over cases involving employers and employees embroiled in disputes with each other as well as educate ‘people’ on ways to avoid disputes with each other, why do relations between employers and employees continue to sour and such disputes tend to soar year after year? Surely, it should have made a dent to the trend by now. If not, why so? As this forces us to allocate even further public resources to it the following year!
Think how much money we have poured (country after country) to ‘douse the flames and put out the smoke’ after thirty, forty, fifty years of working at our industrial relation efforts. Has that been little amount of money?
So why do things not change?
Will it get better? Or can it get worse?
Why do things happen that way? Why are such trends resisting our efforts to control it (for the sake of up-liftment of our economies, we would argue)?
But what causes fidelity? Whatever that causes fidelity, when it is not there, causes infidelity!
So, what causes fidelity?
A couple goes through different stages or types of intimacy during their times together and experience one or more stages in their lifetime. To the extent the couple moves through the different stages would depend on the time and attention they place on their relationship. These include with no specific order or preference i.e. being:
Sexually intimate with each other (be it where the couple experiences sexual intimacy either regularly, or on an ad-hoc basis)
Physically intimate (where the couple moves to live in the same space together)
Emotionally intimate (where the couple enjoys a relationship where each helps the other meet their needs emotionally; here the couple has learned to understand each others’ pasts as well as learnt to share and value unique moments together such as dinners, holidays, family events, and so on.)
Mentally intimate (where the couple has learned to see the view of the partner not from one’s own perspective but that of the partner’s and in doing so learns to bring their minds together so that they may plan their lives together from the past, present and into the future and not meet their future as contingent (“let’s cross the bridge when we get there”. i.e, there is child born to them and so they need to meet its living and educational expenses, and so on)
Spiritually intimate (where each regard the other as their soul-mate and enjoy a celestial or soul mate experience together)
Where do you think sexual fidelity begins to happen for the couple? Would it be at sexual intimacy or at physical intimacy or when the couple has learned to experience emotional intimacy?
What does sexual fidelity look like? It includes among other things, a willingness by each person in the relationship to regard his or her partner as:
The only sexual partner for life;
Where the relationship is not given (as in blood relations), but the couple has chosen to learn to want to be together;
The relationship has grown beyond physical intimacy to include (or aspires to include) all or other forms of intimacy between the two and not limited to one or two out of the five;
The couple is in the relationship because they ‘want to’ and not because they ‘had to’ (it is an obligation or transaction or choices made by parents or forced to) be in it;
The couple regards each’s relationship with the other emotionally (as opposed to physically, materially, mentally) as equals and not assumes either as superior (head of the household) or inferior (submissive) to the other.
Did you say, the above (particularly sexual fidelity) happens when the couple learns to build emotional intimacy? Yes, you are right! We know couple who have reached the first two stages in the relationship and have even chosen to marry each other, yet, do not necessarily enjoy sexual fidelity with each other.
So how does emotional intimacy happen? Does it happen magically or it requires hard work on both sides? How would they need to work with each other so that they meet the other’s needs emotionally?
The following is something I have found useful as a I work with Dr Gray’s work. It helps appreciate the level of intimacy that may happen for a couple.
What do you notice happening between the two (notice the threads in red)?
Does it happen one way or would it need to happen two-ways?
Are the needs of the two genders the same?
So who starts first?
Do these steps happen overnight or do they take time?
Do they happen by accident or it helps that both sides of the couple first really appreciate what really ticks the other in (or off)?
How would such learning happen? It is easier if one sees one’s parents do it? However, should that not be the case, what are the implications for society, the couple and the future? What could happen differently?
NEEDS OF THE TWO GENDERS AND THE ORDER THESE NEEDS GROW / REINFORCE OVER TIME TO CREATE SUSTAINABLE RELATIONSHIPS IN A COUPLE: BY DR JOHN GRAY, AUTHOR OF “MEN ARE FROM MARS, WOMEN ARE FROM VENUS”
She Needs
He Needs
Caring– When he shows interest in a woman’s feelings and heartfelt concern for her well-being, she begins to trust him more
Trust– When she believes in her man’s abilities and intentions that he is doing his best and that he wants the best for his partner, he is more caring and attentive to her feelings and needs
Understanding– When he listens without judgment but with empathy, the easier it is for her to give her man the acceptance he needs
Acceptance– When she receives a man without trying to change him, he listens and gives her the understanding she needs
Respect– When he acknowledges her rights, wishes, and needs, she feels respected. It is easier for her to give her man the appreciation he deserves
Appreciation– When she acknowledges having received personal benefit and value from a man’s effort and behaviour, he feels appreciated. He knows his effort is not wasted and is thus encouraged to give more and he respects his partner more.
Devotion– When he gives priority to a woman’s needs and proudly commits himself to supporting and fulfilling her, the woman thrives and feels adored. When she feels number one in his life, she admires him.
Admiration– When she admires him with wonder, delight and pleased approval, he feels secure enough to devote himself to his woman and adore her.
Validation– When he does not object to a woman’s feelings and instead accepts their validity, she truly feels loved and gives the approval the man needs.
Approval– When she sees her man as her knight in shining armour and recognizes the good reasons what he does, she signals that he has passed her tests and this becomes easier for him to confirm her feelings.
Reassurance– When he repeatedly shows that he cares and devotes himself to his partner (the woman should come to expect sexual fidelity and that the man provides and protects her exclusively), tells a woman that she is continually loved. He must remember to reassure her again and again. This moves her to encourage him to be a man bigger than himself.
Encouragement– A man primarily needs to be encouraged, understood and if need to see the woman sympathize and he sees her stands by him. Her encouraging attitude gives hope and courage to a man by expressing confidence in his abilities and character. When her attitude expresses trust, acceptance, appreciation, admiration and approval, it encourages a man to be all that he can be. This motivates him to give her the loving reassurance she needs.
Curing the disease when it is already transmitted (attack the problem that we can see)? or
Preventing the disease from being transmitted (defend ourselves from the problem?) or
‘Cure’ ‘the reason that causes the disease to be transmitted (what causes the problem)?
Let’s take this situation. Suppose there is a couple, both of whom are HIV positive and both are sexually fidel to each other. Given so, would the two increase the prevalence of the disease ‘out there’ in society? No, you say? You are right!
So when does the disease increase its prevalence?
It (only) happens when one or both partners choose the act of infidelity with each other. Should partners choose fidelity with each other, transmission of the disease is likely to plunge immediately across society. And plunge faster than any interventions by government or organizations will make it possible.
And it is (way) cheaper. There is the price we pay for not dealing with the causality. And the price tag is US$27 billion! and that is just by one country – USA. That is money that could have been somebody’s salary increase. However, I suppose when we do not figure these out, we probably do not deserve those salary increases! Otherwise, it can easily be there for our takings.
Now, this was interesting for the Department of HIV/AIDs because a big part of its efforts and budgets placed to curb the epidemic was to ‘prevent the disease being transmitted between mother to child’. However when they recognized that 80% or so transmissions are because of indiscretions by couples in their sexual behaviour (and the primary causality of the disease), they began to realize that whilst they worked hard to stop the disease being transmitted from mother to child and hospitals therefore saved the child from its mother but when the child grows up, and becomes an adult, it is possible that the child may not be able to save from itself should it engage in sexually indiscriminate practices itself! The money it had used to save the child, ‘literally was now become money that it had poured down the drain’!
But it is harder to ‘work on the fidelity between the couple’ in the bedroom. It is easier to manage the transmission at the hospital between the mother and the child. So we ignore it, choosing easier ways out such as resorting to dispensing condoms, or encouraging practices of circumcision among men or extolling the vices of maintaining sexual networks or encourage total abstinence. They work somewhat, but not realistically enough to make sure the country will meet its target of zero infection rates. Yet, we are not talking as yet for us to learn what it takes for couples to learn to want to be together and afterwards it learns to also exercise sexual fidelity between each other. Till we get there, can we expect to solve this problem? No. You can deal a blow, but not solve it.
So, what causes sexual fidelity? Or have you too given up that the idea is possible?
Notice most sexual indiscretions happen away from the glare of the ‘day’ and under the cover of the night and in spots that are deliberately designed to keep ‘the authorities out’ (see pages 3-5) and apparent ‘disorder in’? What are we hiding from? Who are we running from and then afterwards who are we running into? There lies the answer to our questions on fidelity!
So what would lead a couple to become fidel with each other?
UNEMPLOYMENT = SUPPLY OF LABOUR > DEMAND FOR LABOUR
In a country, where levels of unemployment stay persistent over time, then it is a sign that the rates of growth of the supply of labour (population numbers -” child creation”) each year is growing at rates faster than the rate of growth of the demand for labor (job creation). And we as a nation are not noticing these two trends. Period.
When the supply consistently outstrips demand over time, we have persistent unemployment. It is an unhealthy situation (as we would have with when supply of manufactured goods exceeds their demand we would have a drop in prices, when supply of rainfall exceeds demand for water, we have rising water levels, when supply of migrant influx exceeds rate of city planning we have slums, and so on). Unemployment is a function of how these two variables are behaving relative to each other. Period.
And should the problem be led by the supply of labour, we need to be realistic to expect that the demand for labour (be they by job vacancies by the private (employment) or the government sectors (education, employment) will grow fast enough to overtake and get rid of the state unemployment in the country. Seeing scenes of citizens walking the streets looking for jobs is here to stay. Period. Again.
What influences the supply of labor?
The rate of supply of labour is influenced by the rate of the population’s growth (i.e. procreation). The only issue is the supply we see today of twenty and thirty-year olds in the labour market, was set into motion twenty or thirty years ago. By the population. The children born then have today become the youth and labour of today …. and therefore today’s unemployment.
In most cases, the populace do not see the relationship of the birth-rates of yesteryears (well pretty much like what happens between the sheets and the timing of births) and much less so their impacts on the labor supply for tomorrow. It is and is likely to stay “unrelated” in our minds for as long as these inter-relationships are not raised and discussed by all. Instead, our mind replaces that (“vacuüm in our) thought by fears of our survival or security for our future should “if “the one, two or three” dies or moves away tomorrow?” (this is the voice of the grandmother in the lesser developed countries). So, we multiply … mindlessly.
But there is a misconception and it is unfortunate!
Supply does not drive the demand for labour. This means, that ‘should there be excess labour’, it is not to say that the demand for labour should go up. It could go up for compassionate reasons but not on economic grounds. We forget that in reality, it is the demand for labour that drives its supply. Period.
What influences the demand for labour?
I sometimes joke, it is often easier to “create children” than it is to “create jobs”. But in both cases, the “jobs” are done by the “same person” – Adults. So well, how is it then that we do not see how we are attempting to solve a problem we have created by our own volition?
Also the mind that ‘looks for a job’ for oneself to feed my children, is not the mind that learns to ‘create jobs’ for others, including for our children.
So it is the fault of the ‘bosses’ for not creating jobs, or the ‘fault of the rest of us’ for not thinking about creating jobs for others (while we are busy trying to find one for ourselves)?
What influences our ability to create jobs?
It is dependent on the propensity by the same adults of the country to grow the economy, i.e. the private sector. It includes us defining the ability of the country (and sector / industries) to see :
Capital, flow into the economy (and not the family only)
Increase of the economy’s revenue and
Reduction in the costs of running the economy
Diversification of the economy (systemic growth)
As the margin between the two widens, so to does the country’s / industry’s capacity to see:
Creation of further posts for existing employees to progress into
With progression of existing employees in moving to higher level jobs, it leaves the posts vacant for younger entrants (youths) to more easily enter the labour market
More likelihood of higher wages increase across the board for all
This is dependent on the systemic development (what diversification could look like) of the economy, e.g. the story of the dairy milk production.
So, is this just a case of “not enough jobs”? Yes? Given what? We would need to complete the sentence … for everyone!
What should we be doing today to solve the problem of unemployment? Who is the ‘we’? The government? The private sector? The public sector? The citizens? The male or the man (the demand for labour?)? The female or the woman (the supply of labour?)?
What, in your view, would citizens need to understand about these realities before they begin ‘discussions about unemployment’ in the country and to figure their own ways to turn the situation around?
When should we be thinking about the solution to the problem? When we create the problem or when the problem leads us to another problem?
Thompson then tied his victim to a chair and subjected him to a 20-minute ordeal that left Mr Grady suffering depression and post-traumatic stress. He remains off work five months later.
The court heard the worker (Thomson) told his boss: “This is the only way people will listen to me. I told them I was dangerous.“
It is painful to be the victim. So we go after the criminal.
Yet there is no criminal until there is an act of crime.
But, who or what is the cause of the act of crime?
Do our Penal Codes deal with the reasons for the act or the acts themselves?
But if we wish to bring crime down, would it suffice to focus on the acts?
Do you think ‘crime’ and ‘the quality of our listening to each other’ are inter-related?
So can crime necessarily be linked by race, nationality or tribal or is there something deeper veiled by those words that we are not watching (or listening to)? What is that?
Are the ways we listen to men (or boys), the same as it would be as listening to women (girls)?
By the way, does anyone have data on the overall budget we spend globally to fight crime?
Should we map the budget spent (including for the judicial systems and then incarcerations) against the crime rates over time (see below for a sample), what would the behaviour suggest to us?
Are we winning?
Do you think it is a battle we can win from the police stations? Then if not, where?
Focussing on how one teaches or how one learns? Can one exclude the other? Which would lead the other within the school system?
When a student shows he has understood (by his grades) what the teacher has taught him, would that mean he is learning?
Would that mean should the teacher stop teaching (such as when the child leaves school), what would happen to its learning?
Should the student or the child lead the learning instead i.e. when the child seeks it out or is curious to learn (even before the teachers teaches), what would we call that? Do we have a name for that? Often we usually do not even go there, because we say we are straying away from the syllabus (the point, the agenda, the plan, the meeting). Sounds familiar?
Image via Wikipedia
It has fascinated me to watch, that should I google for the word “curiosity”, there are two (well three) images that would typically return from the search.
The first is it shows images of cats and their curiosity almost leading the foregone proverb, ‘Curiosity killed the cat’. I am not sure which one we see more of. The image or the proverb in our head.
The other often shows pictures of children looking cheekily up the skirt of a woman. I am not sure whether to frown or to smile with this one.
And the third shows rows of children standing in a straight line within buildings that houses institutions of learning, I mean education.
But I could not easily find any other image to illustrate that word. Try it out yourself. Do let us know what you see.
But images and suggestions aside, what would inspire a child to want to be curious to learn?
Because should the child be curious to learn (anything), is there anything that could stop the education decline?
I say inspires because this is different from feeling desperation, meaning should I not learn, the school and eventually the society would leave me behind. But I do not want to be left behind. So, I’ll do anything to be number one. Even if it means having to study under the lights of the street!
We sometimes carry such thoughts into the workplaces, often leading to corruption, underhanded work tactics becoming a way of life and these in turn create a general sense of lethargy and impasse among workmates (because no one wants to be left behind)! So the consequences of that desperation would often show up as a stalemate.
So what today is killing the willingness of the child to want to be curious to learn? Where did it start? The child or the home?
What would encourage it to turn it around for the child? Is it the child or the adult?
What if what we thought was right is wrong? Then again, learning is not about arriving at the destination (concluding something is right or wrong) but being willing to be part of a journey.
I have found these two resources inspiring in trying to understand the answers to this question.
One is a quaint little book on Toto Chan. One of the few books in my adult years that I could not put down until I had finished it. It is touted as a must-read for all educators.Totto Chan: The Little Girl At The Window is a memoir by Tetsuko Kuroyanagi about her childhood, mostly about her days as a student at a unique school called Tomoe Gakuen. Tomoe is a school for ‘special children’, and Tomoe was taken there by her mother because she was expelled from her first school in the first grade itself, for being a distraction to the rest of the class. Her mother realizes that what Totto-chan needs is a school where more freedom of expression is permitted. So she takes Totto-chan to meet the headmaster of the new school, Mr. Kobayashi. From that moment a friendship is formed between master and pupil.Totto Chan, the name by which Tetsuko was fondly called, took to Tomoe instantly. Which child would not – when the classrooms are made of old railroad cars that are no longer in use? Tomoe is run by an exceptional headmaster, Mr. Kobayashi, who had extensively studied the imparting of ‘knowledge’ to children, rather than the imparting of ‘education’.The book goes on to describe the times that Totto-chan has, the friends she makes, the lessons she learns, and the vibrant atmosphere that she imbibes. All of these are presented to the reader through the eyes of a child. Thus the reader sees how the normal world is transformed into a beautiful, exciting place full of joy and enthusiasm. The reader also sees in their role as adults, how Mr. Kobayashi introduces new activities to interest the pupils. One sees in Mr. Kobayashi a man who understands children and strives to develop their qualities of mind, body and heart. His concern for the physically handicapped and his emphasis on the equality of all children are remarkable. In the school, the children lead happy lives, unaware of the things going on in the world. World War 2 has started, yet in this school, no signs of it are seen. But one day, the school is bombed, and was never rebuilt, even though the headmaster claimed that he looked forward to building an even better school the next time round. It was never done and this ends Totto-chan’s years as a pupil at Tomoe Gakuen.Tomoe was criticised by many for not being a conventional kind of school. Children were encouraged to study whatever subjects they liked first, they were taken to ‘field kitchens’ and ‘farming lessons’ to learn the practical aspects of cooking food and farming, first hand. The headmaster personally saw to it that the meals of all the kids was nutritious and balanced. The headmaster knew the children in and out, and the children were so comfortable with him that they fought with each other for a chance to get on to his lap and climb on his back! The headmaster personally saw to it that no child developed complexes, and no child felt any different from the rest. This and much more was special at Tomoe. If you are always one for practical education, you would like this book, which is all about ’free teaching” and ‘practical learning’?It was Tomoe that brought out the best in Totto Chan, as it did in a lot of other children. It was Tomoe that made Totto Chan what she bacame – an eminent TV personality in Japan. Tomoe was indeed a special school, and Mr. Kobayashi was indeed a gifted headmaster.
Sounds impossible? It might, but it was not. Such a school actually existed in Japan before it met a rather sad end. The famous TV personality of Japan, Tetsuko Kuroyanagi, actually studied in Tomoe. The epitome of kindnes, love for children – Mr. Kobayashi – was really the headmsater of Tomoe.
The other must be this. It is a publication by Dr Sandra Seagal called Human Dynamics: A New Framework for Understanding people and Realizing the Potential on Our Organizations presents a new body of work that identifies fundamental distinctions in people’s functioning — including distinctions in how people communicate, learn, problem-solving, exercise leadership, function on teams, become stressed, maintain wellness, and develop, personal, interpersonal and trans-personal. The insights and tools that the book offers for enhancing the quality and efficiency of organizations are equally applicable in the context of family life. The book also indicates the significance of this new body for the fields of education, health care, and cross-cultural bridge-building. The short of it. She basically says that our personality distinctions (and our learning styles) are hard-wired at birth centred as either as physical, emotional or mental functioning. In total there are nine distinct types of which five are dominant across the world. Three in the western hemisphere an up to parts of Central Asia and two in the eastern hemisphere (and including Africa). These distinctions play out differently in the ways we learn from and / or teach to others.
Love to hear your reactions to these publications!
Because one foot really cannot make a difference to the game till the team is willing to work as a team but more importantly works to defend for its nation. Yet we all relish that one foot that kicks “the dream goal” to reality! It is what glues us all to the set and the field, is it not? It is what inspires the “next Pele”. It is because of that special moment that football clubs around the world hope to attract millions of dollar to its doors: http://www.flickr.com/photos/the_missing_graph/4606501458/lightbox/
Heads of States are no exceptions either. They play into the notion too. They load promises of pomp and glory to the boys that bring the cup back home or scores the most hits into the opponent’s net. We even have special awards just for the best player. More often than not, it goes to the striker! For that magic foot – ball.
Yet football cannot be won by strikers alone. This is especially so when the defence is weak. And it is not difficult to see that the quality of the defence can bring the best striker and even the team down.
Image via Wikipedia
What makes a team strong in its defence? Is it the promise of rewards of winning? That’s for the striker! It is easy for a striker to connect a reward with a strike into the net. The more strikes that are in the more are the rewards. That’s easy to figure.
But what about the defence? The defence does not strike in. It defends or strikes a ball out! What moves one to fight for that? What do you think?
What stops the defence from leaving the defence wide open? Without a strategy? We can’t use rewards to motivate something we do not want.
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