June 30, 2010By A. Gaffar Peang-Meth
PACIFIC DAILY NEWS (Guam)
As blue jays and cardinals compete for sunflower seeds in the feeders, and butterflies dart from flower to flower in my garden in my sleepy town in America's south, I dust off Malcolm Gladwell's "The Tipping Point, How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference."
"The Tipping Point" is the biography of an idea: "Ideas and products and messages and behaviors spread just like viruses do." It refers to "that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire."
The book takes readers through the fascinating world of stories -- from Baltimore's syphilis epidemic, to children's shows "Sesame Street" and "Blue's Clues," to a high-tech company in Delaware in order to "answer two simple questions that lie at the heart of what we would like to accomplish as educators, parents, marketers, business people and policymakers."
He wrote: "Why is it that some ideas or behaviors or products start epidemics and others don't? And what can we do to deliberately start and control positive epidemics of our own?"
Gladwell cited three characteristics: contagiousness; little causes that have big effects; and change happening at one dramatic moment. Gladwell presented three rules: the law of the few; the stickiness factor; and the power context.
As much as we would like it to, the world "does not accord with our intuition," Gladwell wrote. We must reframe the way we think about it. Successful people who create social epidemics "do not just do what they think is right. They deliberately test their intuitions."
He posited that "the most ingrained assumptions" we hold about ourselves and about each other are that we are "autonomous and inner-directed," and that we are who we are and how we act is determined by genes and temperament. But this isn't so, he wrote. "We are actually powerfully influenced by our surroundings, our immediate context, and the personalities of those around us."
In the end, "What must underlie successful epidemics ... is a bedrock belief that change is possible, that people can radically transform their behavior or beliefs in the face of the right kind of impetus," he said.
"Look at the world around you. It may seem like an immovable, implacable place. It is not. With the slightest push -- in just the right place -- it can be tipped."
Last week, on The Washington Post's front page, Rajiv Chandrasekaran wrote about an Afghan shopkeeper, Lalay, who organized a successful uprising of villagers, first with 15 angry men. The group grew to 300, who conducted foot patrols and manned checkpoints in Gizab, some 100 miles north of Afghanistan's Kandahar, an area NATO troops ignored and considered insignificant. Gizab connects Pakistan's lawless tribal regions to the Afghan south, and has been a rest-and-resupply area for Taliban fighters moving to battlegrounds in Kandahar and Helmand.
In 2007, Taliban commanders moved into Gizab. Villagers were acquiescent. Unemployed young men were eager to be fighters. The Taliban thought it "untouchable." The Taliban "used to be nice to people, but then they changed," a farmer said. They commandeered the health clinic, destroyed the school, seized trucks along the road, stole cargo and levied taxes. Their roadside bombs killed villagers.
In mid-April, the Kabul government gave Lalay $24,000 to distribute to relatives of those killed -- including members of his extended family. A Taliban commander demanded the money. Lalay refused. Lalay's brother, and then Lalay's father, the village tribal leader, were arrested.
Before the arrests, Lalay and some men contacted members of the U.S. Special Forces detachment in the two towns north, where young Afghans were organized into local defense groups and development projects funded. The Americans said they would do the same for Gizab.
But the angry villagers didn't wait: They set up a roadblock, captured two Taliban insurgents, and sent a messenger north to ask for the Americans' help. Flood delayed the latter's arrival, but an Australian special forces team arrived by helicopter to see Lalay and his men in a firefight with the Taliban. The Americans soon arrived. But it was the few hundred Afghan villagers who joined Lalay who sent the Taliban fleeing.
The uprising spread to 14 neighboring villages. The U.S. Special Forces detachment has moved to Gizab.
The course of the war in Afghanistan isn't going to change because of Gizab, but the shopkeeper's action brought this once-ignored area to the attention of the Americans, who study villagers' revolt for patterns to replicate.
This story takes me to the U.S.-based Cambodian Action Committee for Justice and Equality, an alliance of Cambodians abroad led by Serey Ratha Sourn, a grassroots activist. He's guided by the principles of "One Mission, One Message, and one Multitude." He views elections in Cambodia as legitimizing autocratic rule; believes only "people power," which is possible in Cambodia, will bring change.
Recently he organized representatives of land-grabbing victims from 24 provincial capitals to hand a petition to U.N. Special Rapporteur Subedi in Phnom Penh.
Sourn's goal is to set up people power network in 1,621 communes in Cambodia. His activities have caught Cambodian Premier Sen's attention.
Former British Primier Winston Churchill said: "Success is not final, failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts." That applies to Sourn.
And Italian statesman Niccolo Machiavelli said, "One change leaves the way open for the introduction of others."
A. Gaffar Peang-Meth, Ph.D., is retired from the University of Guam, where he taught political science for 13 years. Write him at peangmeth@yahoo.com.
"The Tipping Point" is the biography of an idea: "Ideas and products and messages and behaviors spread just like viruses do." It refers to "that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire."
The book takes readers through the fascinating world of stories -- from Baltimore's syphilis epidemic, to children's shows "Sesame Street" and "Blue's Clues," to a high-tech company in Delaware in order to "answer two simple questions that lie at the heart of what we would like to accomplish as educators, parents, marketers, business people and policymakers."
He wrote: "Why is it that some ideas or behaviors or products start epidemics and others don't? And what can we do to deliberately start and control positive epidemics of our own?"
Gladwell cited three characteristics: contagiousness; little causes that have big effects; and change happening at one dramatic moment. Gladwell presented three rules: the law of the few; the stickiness factor; and the power context.
As much as we would like it to, the world "does not accord with our intuition," Gladwell wrote. We must reframe the way we think about it. Successful people who create social epidemics "do not just do what they think is right. They deliberately test their intuitions."
He posited that "the most ingrained assumptions" we hold about ourselves and about each other are that we are "autonomous and inner-directed," and that we are who we are and how we act is determined by genes and temperament. But this isn't so, he wrote. "We are actually powerfully influenced by our surroundings, our immediate context, and the personalities of those around us."
In the end, "What must underlie successful epidemics ... is a bedrock belief that change is possible, that people can radically transform their behavior or beliefs in the face of the right kind of impetus," he said.
"Look at the world around you. It may seem like an immovable, implacable place. It is not. With the slightest push -- in just the right place -- it can be tipped."
Last week, on The Washington Post's front page, Rajiv Chandrasekaran wrote about an Afghan shopkeeper, Lalay, who organized a successful uprising of villagers, first with 15 angry men. The group grew to 300, who conducted foot patrols and manned checkpoints in Gizab, some 100 miles north of Afghanistan's Kandahar, an area NATO troops ignored and considered insignificant. Gizab connects Pakistan's lawless tribal regions to the Afghan south, and has been a rest-and-resupply area for Taliban fighters moving to battlegrounds in Kandahar and Helmand.
In 2007, Taliban commanders moved into Gizab. Villagers were acquiescent. Unemployed young men were eager to be fighters. The Taliban thought it "untouchable." The Taliban "used to be nice to people, but then they changed," a farmer said. They commandeered the health clinic, destroyed the school, seized trucks along the road, stole cargo and levied taxes. Their roadside bombs killed villagers.
In mid-April, the Kabul government gave Lalay $24,000 to distribute to relatives of those killed -- including members of his extended family. A Taliban commander demanded the money. Lalay refused. Lalay's brother, and then Lalay's father, the village tribal leader, were arrested.
Before the arrests, Lalay and some men contacted members of the U.S. Special Forces detachment in the two towns north, where young Afghans were organized into local defense groups and development projects funded. The Americans said they would do the same for Gizab.
But the angry villagers didn't wait: They set up a roadblock, captured two Taliban insurgents, and sent a messenger north to ask for the Americans' help. Flood delayed the latter's arrival, but an Australian special forces team arrived by helicopter to see Lalay and his men in a firefight with the Taliban. The Americans soon arrived. But it was the few hundred Afghan villagers who joined Lalay who sent the Taliban fleeing.
The uprising spread to 14 neighboring villages. The U.S. Special Forces detachment has moved to Gizab.
The course of the war in Afghanistan isn't going to change because of Gizab, but the shopkeeper's action brought this once-ignored area to the attention of the Americans, who study villagers' revolt for patterns to replicate.
This story takes me to the U.S.-based Cambodian Action Committee for Justice and Equality, an alliance of Cambodians abroad led by Serey Ratha Sourn, a grassroots activist. He's guided by the principles of "One Mission, One Message, and one Multitude." He views elections in Cambodia as legitimizing autocratic rule; believes only "people power," which is possible in Cambodia, will bring change.
Recently he organized representatives of land-grabbing victims from 24 provincial capitals to hand a petition to U.N. Special Rapporteur Subedi in Phnom Penh.
Sourn's goal is to set up people power network in 1,621 communes in Cambodia. His activities have caught Cambodian Premier Sen's attention.
Former British Primier Winston Churchill said: "Success is not final, failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts." That applies to Sourn.
And Italian statesman Niccolo Machiavelli said, "One change leaves the way open for the introduction of others."
A. Gaffar Peang-Meth, Ph.D., is retired from the University of Guam, where he taught political science for 13 years. Write him at peangmeth@yahoo.com.
4 comments:
True, that was why the PM refused to meet with UN envoy Surya Subed by having an excuse of sickness. Now we will see the case of Mr. Mu and the PM.
We have had the great opportunity to live in a real democracy place outside our country Cambodia.
But some of us are still not understanding well, how to build or rebuild the freedom, peace and real democracy, because most of them are lacking of experiences and responsibilities.
In dealing with any dictator, Action of One Can Lead to Change requires one patriotic assassin.
And who can be that one patriotic assassin?
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