A writer once said, “I love deadlines; especially that whooshing sound as they go by!” Well, the deadline of 2012 has snuck by us all without a murmur, without a whoosh. Despite the thousands of people making predictions (and the millions following those predictions) about all sorts of mind-shifts, natural disasters, magnetic gymnastics and spiritual hoopla sometime in 2012 – some say July, some say December – a massive shift has already occurred and we’ve missed it … a whooshless shift that fooled us all.
Let me explain with two business examples and an educational one:
Jamsetji Tata was denied entry to a grand English-owned hotel in his hometown of Bombay, because he was an Indian. So incensed, he determined to build his own hotel, better than the English one, and he did – the Taj Mahal Hotel in Bombay, which opened for business in 1903 and which is far grander than the one he was ousted from. Today, his legacy includes, among other massive institutions, Tata Motors Ltd which is now the world’s largest automobile manufacturer. The company is also the world's fourth largest truck manufacturer, the world's second largest bus manufacturer, and employs 24,000 workers. The English were the ruling class for a time but other nations have eclipsed that domination … many people have not noticed the change.
Many massive, global companies like Ibis Hotels (which are currently opening seven hotels a week) and Travelodge have stopped any new investments in the no-growth areas of Europe and America while they pour billions into new projects in the expanding economies of China, India and Africa. China, the wealthiest nation in the world, is currently pouring billions a day into Africa, the fastest growing market in the world.
I currently teach in an Iranian university, based in Oxfordshire, England. My students – Indians, Bangladeshis and Pakistanis – already have bachelors and masters degrees. They are already well qualified but the status of an “Oxford Education” brings them here. They arrive with high hopes of an education and an establishment so much more glorious than the one they left. Their hopes are soon dashed as they are forced to study in an old, cold building that, in any civilized country, would have been pulled down long ago. The English education system, so attached to its former glory and unable to embrace a new millennium, is a huge disappointment for these hope-filled people who have come from the massive, progressive universities of their homelands.
You see, over the past 1,000 years the West has held sway. The Romans ruled 1,000 years ago, the Italians in the 1300’s, The Spanish in the 1500’s, the French in the 1600’s, The English in the 1800’s, the Americans in the 1900’s and now … well, right now, our necks have been so kinked, looking back at America, that we haven’t noticed the shift right in front of us … the shift to Africa and Asia.
Once we recognize and accept the shift in the area of world domination, we’ll start to recognize other whooshless shifts that have already happened while we weren’t looking – shifts in our minds, our emotions, our finances, our communities. So, if you feel a bit shifty, just know that a silent whoosh just passed you by. Smile and enjoy it.
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