The situation in Pakistan shows how complex South Asia really is

Whether it is Bangladesh, India, Pakistan or Afghanistan, understanding history and culture is critical to being able to foresee possible outcomes. The assassination of Benazir Bhutto was always a foreseeable possibility, yet it seems to have caught most by surprise. Did leaders, diplomats and journalists simply not want to believe it because of the potential catastrophic consequences? Why is Pakistan, with such superficially similar roots to India taking such a different path? Did the character of Jinnah, so different and yet so similar to Nehru result in such different results? How did Subhas Chandra Bose impact Bengal, even to this day? What is the history of Afghans and Western invaders?

History often makes us feel good - but is it truthful?

The purpose of history as taught in schools, shown in movies and mentioned in the press is ofter to reassure us that we have a proud heritage, are on the side of truth and justice as well as to reinforce civic lessons. In order to succeed at this, liberties with the truth are often taken. One way to see this is to read history as in the text books of two neighboring countries, such as Canada and the United States, or Germany and France. While it serves an apparently noble purpose, it can also separate neighbors who have more in common than the history books show, and often fails to let us really understand the real differences which do exist. This has created many conflicts, in Africa, South Asia, Eastern Europe and even Western Europe.

Why do so many in authority withhold information when questioned?

We see that it is an instinct in so many managers and politicians to withhold information when under pressure. Perhaps they really believe that they can keep the secret, but it is rarely true and then they suffer from the exposure. Openness is always the better policy, whether it is when the flight will really leave or tampering with product.

The Microsoft dominance is going - fast!

When a company the size of Microsoft can leave thousands of customers in distress and not resolve the issues, then it has the seeds of failure within it. Recently, many users of its "Office Live Small Business," which provides website hosting and email to thousands of small businesses stopped working correctly. Thousands of users were unable to access their email and contact database. This has continues for over a week now, and Microsoft has not only been unable to fix it, but continues to give totally unhelpful replies to customers who contact customer support. Even a small ISP would do better than this. No one in senior management seems to care at all either.

The need for Nuance

Most people feel so uncomfortable with uncertainty that they will sacrifice accuracy for comfort. As a result, they are not prepared to consider nuances in situations. We force-fit new situations into the solutions to old ones. We over-simplify analyses. We make generalizations about people and things.

In so doing, we do ourselves a disservice. Many situations are complex and need to be examined as such. People are not uni-dimensional. When we compress a complex situation into a 30 second sound-bite, we short-change ourselves.

So GM is building a hybrid research center in China?

I do not understand how any company does not understand that any technology passed to China will be used against it. Carrying out research in China which uses US knowhow inevitably leads to it being passed to China. Some people are slow to learn this.