Success in the 21st Century – Ten Questions for Lebanon 2020

This week I was asked to speak at USEK, on ‘How Does Lebanon Succeed in the 21^st Century?”. Tough audience, tough subject. Especially on the first day back, and after a night of epic storms (during which my sons had taken it in turns to wake me to tell me how frightened they were).

In any case, I’m always a bit wary of this kind of question. Lebanon needs, as I’ve argued here, fewer outsiders telling it what to do – it is a bad habit we all need to break.

Lebanon is famously easy to swallow but hard to digest. And success in the 21^st century is influenced by factors outside the country’s control: whether Israel and Palestine can be pressed – with more vigour than previously – to find a durable and just peace; whether regional sectarianism gets worse; whether Iran and Israel go to war. Etc.

Nevertheless, I wanted to share the ten themes I hear most from the Lebanese. Find the right answers to these questions, and you have a Lebanese Renaissance. The first four are in fact negatives that could become positives, requiring a change of mindset rather than change of policy.

1. Location. In a turbulent 21st century, Lebanon’s position will remain at the nexus of international interests and influences, a vector for regional instability. But as power shifts East and South, Lebanon will find itself  at the hinge between Europe and Asia, with an ability to operate in both worlds. How do you make it a hub for innovation and trade?
2. The brain drain. The talented quit, especially the young. But how do use this extraordinary, perhaps unique, diaspora – doing business well on every continent – in a world increasingly run by networks?
3. Confessionalism. A brake, I frequently hear. But diversity in fact gives Lebanon far greater understanding and global reach. How do you articulate a national definition and sense of collective interest, to turn differences to your advantage
4.  Experience. Memory of civil war and conflict builds anxiety, but also resilience and muscle memory. How do you lead a deeper process of reconciliation and understanding, including a shared, more settled, understanding of the past?
5. Lack of infrastructure. How do you skip a technology generation? Traffic lights, the internet and electricity are great British inventions. Put them in, and the rest will follow.
6. Vision. Find the vision, get people to believe in it, and then put in the painstaking hours to deliver it. How do you re-define politics as about Lebanon’s interests, not through the prism of Syria or other outsiders.
7. Resource. You have the human capital already, and you will have lots of gas, with the potential for a generation of prosperity. How do you deliver transparency in the energy sector, robust public oversight, and wise distribution of profits? And how do you ensure that you don’t concrete over or blow up what remains of your remarkable natural inheritance?
8. Rule of law. One of Niall Fergusson’s key ‘killer apps’. How do you establish credible systems of justice and legality to underpin strong economic growth, and use assertive anti-corruption initiatives to hold public servants to account?
9. Security. Every year that goes by, the army becomes more coherent, better trained and more effective. How do you ensure that it has the vision, support and resource it needs to become Lebanon’s key defence against internal and external threats?
10. Education. Surely a no-brainer. As part of this, and I’m biased of course, English is the language of the 21st century. The only language that opens up every continent. The language of cyberspace. How do you ensure the next generation of traders, creators and dreamers all have it, without losing the essence of what it means to be Lebanese?

Elections this year should be an opportunity to hold leaders to account, and to demand delivery on the issues that matter to all Lebanese, not to any individual faction or confession. This is the first smartphone election in Lebanon – a massive opportunity for positive change.

As part of our contribution, we want to help ask the challenging questions, and to create the neutral space for you to discuss Lebanon 2020, with 20/20 vision. Of course it is true that the main priority for the coming months must be to hold together hard to preserve stability. But it is also true that if we are to get through the tunnel, we must be able to see a light at the end of it.

We think that new groups, often disenfranchised, should be central to this conversation: business, civil society, youth. We’ll try new ways of engagement – google+, Twitter, Facebook. And some old ones too.

If we get a positive response, we’ll publicise what you tell us, and I’ll put it directly to leaders. I strongly believe that we will find that the forces which hold Lebanon together are stronger than the forces pulling it apart.

For me, Lebanon 2020 is an extraordinary, talented, resilient, hopeful, diverse, beautiful, bewildering and enchanting place – an idea worth fighting for, not fighting over. It can channel the promise and dynamism of a country between continents, and become once again a talisman for the region.

The front-line in the battle for coexistence. A hub for ideas, people and trade between East and West. Open, outward looking, intellectually and culturally precocious. As I said here, I’m buying shares in it.

Why is this our business? Because a more stable and prosperous Lebanon is in the UK’s interests. We have a stake in your success. And we can help by holding up a mirror. By pointing out that you have much more going for you than you realise, and that the challenges you face are not insurmountable. By holding out a hand of partnership and solidarity, in good times and bad times.

When I asked Twitter for help with the USEK speech, the ten words I heard back most persistently were transparency, rights, opportunity, youth, innovation, hope, bravery, adaptability, determination, vision. Let’s talk about those ten words. Let’s talk about how to give people what they want: security, justice and opportunity.

Mandela said that the times of the worst storms are often the moment for progress. Let’s talk about #Leb2020.